The Master

: Bar-20 Days

It was noon by the sun when Hopalong and Red shook hands south of the

old ford and the former turned to enter the brush. Hopalong was cool

and ominously calm while his companion was the opposite. Red was frankly

suspicious of the whole affair and nursed the private opinion that Mr.

Elkins would lay in ambush and shoot his enemy down like a dog. And Red

had promised himself a dozen times that he would study the signs around
/> the scene of action if Hopalong should not come back, and take a keen

delight, if warranted, in shooting Mr. Elkins full of holes with no

regard for an even break. He was thinking the matter over as his friend

breasted the first line of brush and could not refrain from giving a

slight warning. "Get him, Hoppy," he called, earnestly; "get him good.

Let him do some of the moving about. I'll be here waiting for you."



Hopalong smiled in reply and sprang forward, the leaves and branches

quickly shutting him from Red's sight. He had worked out his plan of

action the night before when he was alone and the world was still, and

as soon as he had it to his satisfaction he had dropped off to sleep as

easily as a child--it took more than gun-play to disturb his nerves.

He glanced about him to make sure of his bearings and then struck on a

curving line for the river. The first hundred yards were covered with

speed and then he began to move more slowly and with greater regard for

caution, keeping close to the earth and showing a marked preference for

low ground. Sky-lines were all right in times of peace, but under the

present conditions they promised to become unhealthy. His eyes and ears

told him nothing for a quarter of an hour, and then he suddenly stopped

short and crouched as he saw the plain trail of a man crossing his own

direction at a right angle. From the bottom of one of the heel prints

a crushed leaf was slowly rising back towards its original position,

telling him how new the trail was; and as if this were not enough for

his trained mind he heard a twig snap sharply as he glanced along the

line of prints. It sounded very close, and he dropped instantly to one

knee and thought quickly. Why had the other left so plain a trail, why

had he reached up and broken twigs that projected above his head as he

passed? Why had he kicked aside a small stone, leaving a patch of moist,

bleached grass to tell where it had lain? Elkins had stumbled here, but

there were no toe marks to tell of it. Hopalong would not track, for he

was no assassin; but he knew that he would do if he were, and careless.

The answer leaped to his suspicious mind like a flash, and he did not

care to waste any time in trying to determine whether or not Elkins was

capable of such a trick. He acted on the presumption that the trail

had been made plain for a good reason, and that not far ahead at some

suitable place,--and there were any number of such within a hundred

yards,--the maker of the plain trail lay in wait. Smiling savagely

he worked backward and turning, struck off in a circle. He had no

compunctions whatever now about shooting the other player of the game.

It was not long before he came upon the same trail again and he started

another circle. A bullet zipped past his ear and cut a twig not two

inches from his head. He fired at the smoke as he dropped, and then

wriggled rapidly backward, keeping as flat to the earth as he could.

Elkins had taken up his position in a thicket which stood in the centre

of a level patch of sand in the old bed of the river,--the bed it had

used five years before and forsaken at the time of the big flood when it

cut itself a new channel and made the U-bend which now surrounded this

piece of land on three sides. Even now, during the rainy season,

the thicket which sheltered Mr. Elkins was frequently an island in a

sluggish, shallow overflow.



"Hole up, blast you!" jeered Hopalong, hugging the ground. The second

bullet from Mr. Elkins' gun cut another twig, this one just over his

head, and he laughed insolently. "I ain't ascared to do the moving,

even if you are. Judging from the way you keep out o' sight the canned

oysters are in the can again. I never did no ambushing, you coyote."



"You can't make remarks like that an' get away with 'em--I've knowed you

too long," retorted Elkins, shifting quickly, and none too soon. "You

went an' got Slim afore he was wide awake. I know you, all right."



Hopalong's surprise was but momentary, and his mind raced back over the

years. Who was this man Elkins, that he knew Slim Travennes? "Yo're a

liar, Elkins, an' so was the man who told you that!"



"Call me Ewalt," jeered the other, nastily. "Nobody'll hear it, an'

you'll not live to tell it. Ewalt, Tex Ewalt; call me that."



"So you've come back after all this time to make me get you, have you?

Well, I ain't a-going to shoot no buttons off you this time. I allus

reckoned you learned something at Muddy Wells--but you'll learn it

here," Hopalong rejoined, sliding into a depression, and working with

great caution towards the dry river bed, where fallen trees and hillocks

of sand provided good cover in plenty. Everything was clear now and

despite the seriousness of the situation he could not repress a smile

as he remembered vividly that day at the carnival when Tex Ewalt came to

town with the determination to kill him and show him up as an imitation.

His grievance against Elkins was petty when compared to that against

Ewalt, and he began to force the issue. As he peered over a stranded

log he caught sight of his enemy disappearing into another part of the

thicket, and two of his three shots went home. Elkins groaned with pain

and fear as he realized that his right knee-cap was broken and would

make him slow in his movements. He was lamed for life, even if he did

come out of the duel alive; lamed in the same way that Hopalong was--the

affliction he had made cruel sport of had come to him. But he had plenty

of courage and he returned the fire with remarkable quickness, his two

shots sounding almost as one.



Hopalong wiped the blood from his cheek and wormed his way to a

new place; when half way there he called out again, "How's yore

health--Tex?" in mock sympathy.



Elkins lied manfully and when he looked to get in another shot his enemy

was on the farther bank, moving up to get behind him. He did not know

Hopalong's new position until he raised his head to glance down over the

dried river bed, and was informed by a bullet that nicked his ear. As

he ducked, another grazed his head, the third going wild. He hazarded a

return shot, and heard Hopalong's laugh ring out again.



"Like the story Lucas told, the best shot is going to win out this time,

too," the Bar-20 man remarked, grimly. "You thought a game like this

would give you some chance against a better shot, didn't you? You are a

fool."



"It ain't over yet, not by a damned sight!" came the retort.



"An' you thought you had a little the best of it if you stayed still an'

let me do the moving, didn't you? You'll learn something before I get

through with you: but it'll be too late to do you any good," Hopalong

called, crouched below a hillock of sand so the other could not take

advantage of the words and single him out for a shot.



"You can't learn me nothing, you assassin; I've got my eyes open, this

time." He knew that he had had them open before, and that Hopalong was

in no way an assassin; but if he could enrage his enemy and sting him

into some reflex carelessness he might have the last laugh.



Elkins' retort was wasted, for the sudden and unusual, although a

familiar sound, had caught Hopalong's ear and he was giving all his

attention to it. While he weighed it, his incredulity holding back

the decision his common sense was striving to give him, the noise grew

louder rapidly and common sense won out in a cry of warning an instant

before a five-foot wall of brown water burst upon his sight, sweeping

swiftly down the old, dry river bed; and behind it towered another and

greater wall. Tree trunks were dancing end over end in it as if they

were straws.



"Cloud-burst!" he yelled. "Run, Tex! Run for yore life! Cloud-burst up

the valley! Run, you fool; Run!"



Tex's sarcastic retort was cut short as he instinctively glanced north,

and his agonized curse lashed Hopalong forward. "Can't run--knee cap's

busted! Can't swim, can't do--ah, hell--!"



Hopalong saw him torn from his shelter and whisked down the raging

torrent like an arrow from a bow. The Bar-20 puncher leaped from the

bank, shot under the yellow flood and arose, gasping and choking many

yards downstream, fighting madly to get the muddy water out of his

throat and eyes. As he struck out with all his strength down the

current, he caught sight of Tex being torn from a jutting tree limb, and

he shouted encouragement and swam all the harder, if such a thing

were possible. Tex's course was checked for a moment by a boiling

back-current and as he again felt the pull of the rushing stream

Hopalong's hand gripped his collar and the fight for safety began.

Whirled against logs and stumps, drawn down by the weight of his clothes

and the frantic efforts of Tex to grasp him--fighting the water and

the man he was trying to save at the same time, his head under water

as often as it was out of it, and Tex's vise-like fingers threatening

him--he headed for the west shore against powerful cross-currents that

made his efforts seem useless. He seemed to get the worst of every

break. Once, when caught by a friendly current, they were swung under

an overhanging branch, but as Hopalong's hand shot up to grasp it

a submerged bush caught his feet and pulled him under, and Tex's

steel-like arms around his throat almost suffocated him before he

managed to beat the other into insensibility and break the hold.



"I'll let you go!" he threatened; but his hand grasped the other's

collar all the tighter and his fighting jaw was set with greater

determination than ever.



They shot out into the main stream, where the U-bend channel joined the

short-cut, and it looked miles wide to the exhausted puncher. He was

fighting only on his will now. He would not give up, though he scarce

could lift an arm, and his lungs seemed on fire. He did not know whether

Tex was dead or alive, but he would get the body ashore with him, or

go down trying. He bumped into a log and instinctively grasped it. It

turned, and when he came up again it was bobbing five feet ahead of him.

Ages seemed to pass before he flung his numb arm over it and floated

with it. He was not alone in the flood; a coyote was pushing steadily

across his path towards the nearer bank, and on a gliding tree trunk

crouched a frightened cougar, its ears flattened and its sharp claws

dug solidly through the bark. Here and there were cattle and a snake

wriggled smoothly past him, apparently as much at home in the water as

out of it. The log turned again and he just managed to catch hold of it

as he came up for the second time.



Things were growing black before his eyes and strange, weird ideas and

images floated through his brain. When he regained some part of his

senses he saw ahead of him a long, curling crest of yellow water and

foam, and he knew, vaguely, that it was pouring over a bar. The next

instant his feet struck bottom and he fought his way blindly and slowly,

with the stubborn determination of his kind, towards the brush-covered

point twenty feet away.



When he opened his eyes and looked around he became conscious of

excruciating pains and he closed them again to rest. His outflung hand

struck something that made him look around again, and he saw Tex Ewalt,

face down at his side. He released his grasp on the other's collar and

slowly the whole thing came to him, and then the necessity for action,

unless he wished to lose what he had fought so hard to save.



Anything short of the iron man Tex had become would have been dead

before this or have been finished by the mauling he now got from

Hopalong. But Tex groaned, gurgled a curse, and finally opened his eyes

upon his rescuer, who sank back with a grunt of satisfaction. Slowly his

intelligence returned as he looked steadily into Hopalong's eyes, and

with it came the realization of a strange truth: he did not hate this

man at all. Months of right living, days and nights of honest labor

shoulder to shoulder with men who respected him for his ability and

accepted him as one of themselves, had made a new man of him, although

the legacy of hatred from the old Tex had disguised him from himself

until now; but the new Tex, battered, shot-up, nearly drowned, looked at

his old enemy and saw him for the man he really was. He smiled faintly

and reached out his hand.



"Cassidy, yo're the boss," he said. "Shake."



They shook.



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