Chapter XXIII

Men stood around and watched the outbuildings burn to the ground. There was nothing they could do beyond making sure that the fires did not spread, an unlikely thing at this time of year after the first rains and snow flurries. Jim Torrance, staring frowningly at the devastating flames, suddenly awoke to the fact that he was standing slightly apart from the rest of the men but that he was not alone. At his side was Sally Dawn Cannon, and for a little while she didn’t seem to realize any more than he did that they were holding hands.

But this inactivity was of the shortest duration. Men scouted around to check up on the results of the battle in loss of lives and injuries to combatants on both sides. Dave Drennen, clutching a bleeding shoulder on his way to the house and first aid, said in passing Torrance,

“They say Bordereau’s gang was thirteen strong tonight in Sundown. Three of them got shot down at the Stag Horn. The boys have picked up five more out here, dead or as good as dead. That’s not counting Bordereau. Murdo was along; he’s dead out by the barn, shot through the head.”

“Better go get that shoulder fixed up, Dave,” said Torrance. And to young Pardee, passing close, he called: “Will you streak for a doctor? Or be sure someone else goes?”

Just then a newcomer rode up, swung a pair of saddlebags down into Pardee’s hands and dismounted.

“I thought there’d be a job for me,” he said. “So I followed on just as soon as I heard there was apt to be a scrimmage tonight.” It was Dr. Frank, the new man who had settled in Sundown recently, after the taking off of Doc Taylor.

“There’s something else that’s got to be done right away,” said Torrance to the several men who began to gather where he was. “Catch up all the Bordereau horses; see how many are missing. Remember, he was on his way out of here; there’s every chance he was carrying a lot of money with him down to the border. And there happens to be a sizable amount of gold that belongs to Sally Dawn Cannon. If the stuff is missing, if some of the men got away on horseback, we’ve got to run ’em down while the trail’s hot.”

They scattered on the run, and the round-up began.

Curly Redmond was carried into the house with three bullet holes in him; Dr. Frank immediately set to work, and Sally Dawn, though pale and shaken, aided him so ably that he grinned at her and patted her on the curly head and said, “Good kid.”

One of Bordereau’s men, badly wounded, was brought to where Torrance was. It was Joe Tortillas. Questioned, he was sullenly stubborn until a rope was mentioned; then, in exchange for a promise not to hang him, he answered. Yes, Steve had all the moneys with him; they were always on his saddle. He rode the same horse he nearly always rode, a big bay with white forefeet and a white nose. The horse had been left with the other horses, two men guarding them; Joe didn’t know what had happened to any of them, but thought they had stampeded when the shooting began.

Bill Yarbo came swaggering up. He had a lot to tell. You would have thought--if you didn’t know him!--that he had just about cleaned up on the whole gang single-handed. He himself had killed Clark Murdo; he had shot Joe Tortillas; he had clubbed a couple of other jaspers over the heads with his gun, saving ammunition--

“Here’s Bordereau’s horse!” someone sang out.

And here indeed came Bordereau’s horse from somewhere in the semi-dark on the side of the house farthest from the fires. A man was riding it, a little man looking all the littler from being established so high up on such a big animal.

“Here she is, Jim,” the little man called down, and only then they recognized Sam Pepper. “I grabbed Bordereau’s cayuse soon’s I seen it, thinking most likely Steve would have Sally Dawn’s gold with him. Got it, too.”

A man laughed and said: “Why, old Sam’s got more sense than all the rest of us put together! He kept his mind on what counted.”

“Hell,” snorted Lying Bill Yarbo. “What Sam did was see a chance to grab a horse and run for it! And it just happened to be Bordereau’s horse!”

“The way I found the horse,” said Sam Pepper waspishly, “was that I made out Clark Murdo running to grab it and skip out. I reckoned it would be like him to grab all the loot, give him a chance.” He looked down on Lying Bill, took a long, deep breath and rapped out, “So, me, I shot Clark Murdo down, shot him through the head and--”

“You damn little liar!” roared Bill Yarbo. “You must of been eavesdropping just now and heard me--”

A shout of laughter went up, drowning his voice.

* * * * *

“Seems to me,” said Jim Torrance, formerly marshal of Sundown, now just an enthusiastic young rancher to whom the country looked for big things, “that we’ve got a bully good chance--Steve Bordereau gave it to us!--to save ourselves a lot of money right at the jump.”

Maybe Sally Dawn guessed what was coming, for she smiled at him and made a brave endeavor to stifle her smile, and her cheeks grew a bit pinker. It was a glorious winter morning. There had been rain and hail and a light snowfall during the night, but now the skies were blue and the sun was bright, and there was just enough snappy cold in the air to make breathing a delight and to send one’s blood along dancingly.

“So we’re going to save some money,” she said, “when I feel so rich so all of a sudden, and so unexpectedly?”

They rode on through the pines. She said, “Where do you think we are going?” quite as though she didn’t know perfectly well.

On top of the gentle oak-and-pine-studded knoll where once he had said something about one day building a home--not just a house, but a home--they stopped. He said:

“I got a letter yesterday from three old friends of yours up in Canyon City, sheriff, banker and medico. The banker suggested that someday I might be able to use some additional funds, developing here; he said, ‘Come and get it; the bank’s yours.’ And the two other old boys wrote together, ‘Let us know, so we can dance at the wedding, for we’re the two damn best dancers either side the Rockies.’”

“Wedding?” said Sally Dawn. “What wedding?”

Jim Torrance eased himself sideways in the saddle and started rolling a cigarette that never got rolled to completion.

“I was thinking,” he said. “My place is pretty well burned down, thanks to Bordereau. So’s yours. Now, if we tore all the fences down between us, and if we made us a place right here--”

“Duck pond, and everything?” said Sally Dawn.

It was then that he threw his cigarette away.

END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

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