The Asper

: The Seventh Man

Ninety miles of ground, at least, had been covered by the black stallion,

since he left Rickett that morning, yet when he galloped across the plain

in full sight of Wilsonville there were plenty of witnesses who vowed that

Satan ran like a colt frolicking over a pasture. Mark Retherton knew

better, and the posse to a man felt the end was near. They changed saddles

in a savage silence and went down the street out of town with a roar of

racing hoofs.



And Barry too, as he watched them whip around the corner of the last house

and streak across the fields, knew that the end of the ride was near.

Strength, wind and nerve were gone from Satan; his hoofs pounded the ground

with the stamp of a plowhorse; his breath came in wheezes with a rattle

toward the end; the tail no longer fluttered out straight behind. Yet when

the master leaned and called he found something in his great heart with

which to answer. A ghost of his old buoyancy came in his stride, the

drooping head rose, one ear quivered up, and he ran against the challenge

of those fresh ponies from Wilsonville. There were men who doubted it when

the tale was told, but Mark Retherton swore to the truth of it.



Even then that desperate effort was failing. Not all the generous will in

the heart of the stallion could give his legs the speed they needed; and he

fell back by inches, by feet, by yards, toward the posse. They disdained

their guns now, and kept them in the cases; for the game was theirs.



And then they noted an odd activity in the fugitive, who had slipped to one

side and was fumbling at his cinches. They could not understand for a time,

but presently the saddle came loose, the cinches flipped out, and the whole

apparatus crashed to the ground. Nor was this all. The rider leaned forward

and his hands worked on the head of his mount until the hackamore also came

free and was tossed aside. To that thing fifteen good men and true swore

the next day with strange oaths, and told how a man rode for his life on a

horse that wore neither saddle nor bridle but ran obediently to voice and

hand.



Every ounce counted, and there were other ounces to be spared. He was

leaning again, to this side and then to that, and presently the posse

rushed past the discarded riding-boots.



There lay the rifle in its case on the saddle far behind. And with the

rifle remained all the fugitive's chances of fighting at long range. Now,

following, came the heavy cartridge belt and the revolver with it. The very

sombrero was torn from his head and thrown away.



His horse was failing visibly; not even this lightening could keep it away

from the posse long; and yet the man threw away his sole chance of safety.

And the fifteen pursuers cursed solemnly as they saw the truth. He would

run his horse to death and then die with it empty handed rather than let

either of them fall a captive.



Unburdened by saddle or gun or trapping, the stallion gave himself in the

last effort. There ahead lay safety, if they could shake off this last

relay of the posse, and for a time he pulled away until Retherton grew

anxious, and once more the bullets went questing around the fugitive. But

it was a dying effort. They gained; they drew away; and then they were only

holding the posse even, and then once more, they fell back gradually toward

the pursuit. It was the end, and Barry sat bolt erect and looked around

him; that would be the last of him and the last scene he should see.



There came the posse, distant but running closer. With every stride Satan

staggered; with every stride his head drooped, and all the lilt of his

running was gone. Ten minutes, five minutes more and the fifteen would be

around him. He looked to the river which thundered there at his side.



It was the very swiftest portion of all the Asper between Tucker Creek and

Caswell City. Even at that moment, a few hundred yards away, a tall tree

which had been undermined, fell into the stream and dashed the spray high;

yet even that fall was silent in the general roar of the river. Checked by

the body and the branches of the tree for an instant before it should be

torn away from the bank and shot down stream, the waters boiled and left a

comparatively smooth, swift sliding current beyond the obstruction; and it

gave to Barry a chance or a ghost of a chance:



The central portion of the river bed was chopped with sharp rocks which

tore the stream into white rages of foam; but beyond these rocks, a little

past the middle, the tree like a dam smoothed out the current; it was still

swift but not torn with swirls or cross-currents, and in that triangle of

comparatively still water of which the base was the fallen tree, the apex

lay on a sand bar, jutting a few yards from the bank. And the forlorn hope

of Barry was to swing the stallion a little distance away from the banks,

run him with the last of his ebbing strength straight for the bank, and try

to clear the rocky portion of the river bed with a long leap that might, by

the grace of God, shoot him into the comparatively protected current. Even

then it would be a game only a tithe won, for the chances were ten to one

that before they could struggle close to the shore, the currents would

suck them out toward the center. They would never reach that shelving bit

of sand, but the sharp rocks of the stream would tear them a moment later

like teeth. Yet the dimmest chance was a good chance now.



He called Satan away from his course, and at the change of direction the

stallion staggered, but went on, turned at another call, and headed

straight for the stream. He was blind with running; he was numbed by the

long horror of that effort, no doubt, but there was enough strength left in

him to understand the master's mind. He tossed his head high, he flaunted

out his tail, and sped with a ghost of his old sweeping gallop toward the

bank.



"Bart!" shouted the master, and waved his arm.



And the wolf saw too. He seemed to cringe for a moment, and then, like some

old leader of a pack who knows he is about to die and defies his death, he

darted for the river and flung himself through the air.



An instant later Satan reared on the bank and shot into the air. Below him

the teeth of the rocks seemed to lift up in hunger, and the white foam

jumped to take him. The crest of the arc of his jump was passed; he shot

lower and grazing the last of the stones he plunged out of sight in the

swift water beyond. There were two falls, not one, for even while the black

was in the air Barry slipped from his back and struck the water clear of

Satan.



They came up again struggling in the last effort toward the shore. The

impetus of their leap had washed them well in toward the bank, but the

currents dragged them out again toward the center of the stream where the

rocks waited. Down river they went, and Black Bart alone had a ghost of a

chance for success. His leap had been farther and he skimmed the surface

when he struck so that by dint of fierce swimming he hugged close to the

shore, and then his claws bedded in the sand-bank.



As for Barry, the waters caught him and sent him spinning over and over,

like a log, whipping down stream, while the heavier body of Satan was

struggling whole yards above. There was no chance for the master to reach

the sand-bank, and even if he reached it he could not cling; but the

wolf-dog knew many things about water. In the times of famine long years

before the days of the master there had been ways of catching fish.



He edged forward until the water foamed about his shoulders. Down came Dan,

his arms tumbling as he whirled, and on the sleeve of one of those arms the

teeth of Bart closed. The cloth was stout, and yet it ripped as if it were

rotten veiling, and the tug nearly swept Bart from his place. Still, he

clung; his teeth shifted their hold with the speed of light and closed over

the arm of the master itself, slipped, sank deeper, drew blood, and held.

Barry swung around and a moment later stood with his feet buried firmly in

the bank.



He had not a moment to spare, for Satan, only his eyes and his nose

showing, rushed down the current, making his last fight. Barry thrust his

feet deeper in the sand, leaned, buried both hands in the mane of the

stallion. It was a far fiercer tug-of-war this time, for the ample body of

the horse gave the water a greater surface to grapple on, yet the strength

of the man sufficed. His back bowed; his shoulders ached with the strain;

and then the forefeet of Satan pawed the sand, and all three staggered up

the shelving bank, reeled among the trees, and collapsed in safety.



So great was the roar of the water that they heard neither shouts nor the

reports of the guns, but for several minutes the bullets of the posse

combed the shrubbery as high as the breast of a man.