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  CHAPTER IX

  THE BATTLE AT THE RANCH

  When Wade and Santry approached the big pine, the waiting men came outfrom its shadow and rode forward, with the borrowed rifles across theirsaddle horns.

  "All right, boys?" the rancher asked, taking Trowbridge's new rifle, abeautiful weapon, which Lawson handed to him.

  "All right, sir," answered Tim Sullivan, adding the "sir" in extenuationof his befuddled condition the night before, while each man gave Santrya silent hand-shake to welcome him home.

  Grimly, silently, then, save for the dashing of their horses' hoofsagainst the loose stones, and an occasional muttered imprecation as arider lurched in his saddle, the seven men rode rapidly toward themountains. In numbers, their party was about evenly matched with theenemy, and Wade meant that the advantage of surprise, if possible,should rest with him in order to offset such advantage as Moran mightfind in the shelter of the house. But, however that might be, each manrealized that the die had been cast and that the fight, once begun,would go to a finish.

  "I only hope," Santry remarked, as a steep grade forced them to lessentheir speed, "I can get my two hands on that cussed tin-horn, Moran.Him and me has a misunderstandin' to settle, for sure."

  "You leave him to me, Bill." Wade spoke vindictively. "He's my meat."

  "Well, since you ask it, I'll try, boy. But there's goin' to be somefightin' sure as taxes, and when I get to fightin', I'm liable to goplumb, hog wild. Say, I hope you don't get into no trouble over thishere jail business o' mine. That 'ud make me feel bad, Gordon."

  "We'll not worry about that now, Bill."

  "That's right. Don't worry till you have to, and then shoot instead.That's been my motto all my born days, and it ain't such durn badphilosophy at that. I wonder"--the old man chuckled to himself--"Iwonder if the Sheruff et up most of that there gag before Bat let himloose?"

  Wade laughed out loud, and as though in response, an owl hootedsomewhere in the timber to their right.

  "There's a durned old hoot owl," growled Santry. "I never like to hearthem things--they most always mean bad luck."

  He rode to the head of the little column, and the rest of the way to theranch was passed in ominous silence. When they finally arrived at theedge of the clearing and cautiously dismounted, everything seemed fromthe exterior, at least, just as it should be. The night being far gone,the lights were out, and there was no sign of life about the place. Wadewondered if the posse had gone.

  "There ain't no use in speculatin'," declared Santry. "They may beasleep, and they may be layin' for us there in the dark. This will takea rise out of 'em anyhow."

  At sight of the old fellow, pistol in hand, Wade called to him to wait,but as he spoke Santry fired two quick shots into the air.

  There was an immediate commotion in the ranch house. A man inside washeard to curse loudly, while another showed his face for an instantwhere the moonlight fell across a window. He hastily ducked out ofsight, however, when a rifle bullet splintered the glass just above hishead. Presently a gun cracked inside the house and a splash on a rockbehind the attackers told them where the shot had struck.

  "Whoop-e-e-e-e!" Santry yelled, discharging the four remaining shots inhis revolver at the window. "We've got 'em guessin'. They don't know howmany we are."

  "They were probably asleep," said Wade a bit sharply. "We might havesneaked in and captured the whole crowd without firing a shot. That'swhat I meant to do before you cut loose."

  Santry shook his grizzled head as he loaded his revolver.

  "Well, now, that would have been just a mite risky, boy. The way thingsstand we've still got the advantage, an'...." He broke off to take asnapshot at a man who showed himself at the window for an instant in aneffort to get a glimpse of the attacking force. "One!" muttered the oldplainsman to himself.

  By this time Wade had thrown himself down on his stomach behind abowlder to Santry's left and was shooting methodically at the door ofthe house, directly in front of him. He knew that door. It was built ofinch lumber and was so located that a bullet, after passing through it,would rake the interior of the cabin from end to end. The only way theinmates could keep out of the line of his fire was by hugging the wallson either side, where they would be partially exposed to the leaden hailwhich Santry and the punchers were directing at the windows.

  There was a grim, baleful look on the young man's usually pleasant face,and his eyes held a pitiless gleam. He was shooting straight, shootingto kill, and taking a fierce delight in the act. The blood lust was uponhim, that primal, instinctive desire for combat in a righteous causethat lies hidden at the very bottom of every strong man's nature. Andthere came to his mind no possible question of the righteous nature ofhis cause. He was fighting to regain possession of his own home from themarauders who had invaded it. His enemies had crowded him to the wall,and now they were paying the penalty. Wade worked the lever of hisWinchester as though he had no other business in life. A streak ofyellow clay mingled with a bloody trickle from a bullet scratch on hischeek gave his set features a fairly ferocious expression.

  Santry, glancing toward him, chuckled again, but without mirth. "Theboy's woke up at last," he muttered to himself. "They've drove him toit, durn 'em. I knew almighty well that this law an' order stuntcouldn't last forever. Wow!"

  The latter exclamation was caused by a bullet which ricocheted from arock near his head, driving a quantity of fine particles into his face.

  "Whoop-e-e-e-e!" he howled a moment later. "We got 'em goin'. It's acinch they can't stand this pace for more'n a week."

  Indeed, it was a marvel that the defenders kept on fighting as long asthey did. Already the door, beneath Wade's machine-like shooting, hadbeen completely riddled; the windows were almost bare of glass; andgreat splinters of wood had been torn from the log walls by the heavyrifle bullets on their way through to the interior. Soon the door saggedand crashed inward, and into the gaping hole thus made Wade continued toempty his rifle.

  At last, the fire of those within slackened and temporarily ceased. Didthis mean surrender? Wade asked himself and ordered his men to stopshooting and await developments. For some moments all was still, and theadvisability of rushing the house was being discussed when all at oncethe fire of the defenders began again. This time, however, there wassomething very odd about it. There was a loud banging of explodingcartridges, but only a few shots whistled around the heads of thecattlemen. Nevertheless, Wade told his men to resume shooting, and oncemore settled down to his own task.

  "What'n hell they tryin' to do?" Santry demanded. "Sounds like a Fourtho' July barbecue to me."

  "I don't know," Wade answered, charging the magazine of his rifle, "butwhatever it is they'll have to stop mighty soon."

  Then gradually, but none the less certainly, the fire from withinslackened until all was still. This seemed more like a visitation ofdeath, and again Wade ordered his men to stop shooting. They obeyedorders and lay still, keenly watching the house.

  "Do you surrender?" Wade shouted; but there was no reply.

  Santry sprang to his feet.

  "By the great horned toad!" he cried. "I'm a-goin' in there! Anybodythat wants to come along is welcome."

  Not a man in the party would be dared in that way, so, taking advantageof such cover as offered, they advanced upon the cabin, stealthily atfirst and then more rapidly, as they met with no resistance--no signwhatever of life. A final rush carried them through the doorway into thehouse, where they expected to find a shambles.

  Wade struck a light, and faced about with a start as a low groan camefrom a corner of the back room. A man lay at full length on the floor,tied hand and foot, and gagged. It was Ed Nelson, one of the DoubleArrow hands who had been surprised and captured by the posse, and alittle farther away in the shadow against the wall his two companionslay in a like condition. With his knife Wade was cutting them loose,and glancing about in a puzzled search for the wounded men he expectedto find in the house, when Santry shouted something from the kitch
en.

  "What is it, Bill?" the ranch owner demanded.

  Santry tramped back into the room, laughing in a shamefaced sort of way.

  "They done us, Gordon!" he burst out. "By the great horned toad, theydone us! They chucked a bunch of shells into the hot cook-stove, an'sneaked out the side door while we was shootin' into the front room. Bycracky, that beats...."

  "That's what they did," spoke up Nelson, as well as his cramped tonguewould permit, being now freed of the gag. "They gagged us first, so's wecouldn't sing out; then they filled up the stove an' beat it."

  What had promised to be a tragedy had proved a fiasco, and Wade smiled alittle foolishly.

  "The joke's on us, I guess, boys," he admitted. "But we've got the ranchback, at any rate. How are you feeling, Ed, pretty stiff and sore?"

  "My Gawd, yes--awful!"

  "Me, too," declared Tom Parrish, the second of the victims; and thethird man swore roundly that he would not regain the full use of hislegs before Christmas.

  "Well, you're lucky at that," was Santry's dry comment. "All that savedyou from gettin' shot up some in the fight was layin' low down in thatcorner where you was." He let his eyes travel around the littered,blood-spattered room. "From the looks o' this shebang we musta stungsome of 'em pretty deep; but nobody was killed, I reckon. I hope Moranwas the worst hurt, durn him!"

  "He'll keep," Wade said grimly. "We've not done with him yet, Bill.We've only just begun."