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Show ' THE MORMON._LION "What about-- Why, where are they?" she exclaimed. " Gone! "I groaned. "They have taken the back trail. I must have failed to tie them fast- ! was almost asleep. Gone! and those murderers- -!" "David! Davidl- do not despatr. I am strong now. We will go afoot. " " Afoot ? " I cried. " They're upon us already I down there-- No, keep low, keep low! They can't see us over the bend of the hill, with this dark background. If we can make them think we've gone on-- Quick! a bag of food and the canteens!" She crept to the food box. I snatched Waller's rifle from the front of the wagon, threw out the cartridge, and smashed the stock on a rock. Next I unscrewed the nuts from the axles and htd them under a flat stone. As I drew out my own rifle and revolver, Lucy handed me the canteens and a bag of food. I lifted her down and started off wtth her at a moderate walk. She was white with terror. " Hurry! oh, hurry! " she panted. " They'll see us-{:atch us I " "No," I replied. "We must not run. It's a still day-no wind to blur tracks in the dust. If we walk, they may think that we have been gone for hours. We must throw them off their guard." "But they may be here any moment!" "Never fear. They have ridden all that way from Las Vegas. Their mounts cannot gallop up so steep a rise, and they will come cautiously, for fear of an ambush. They must have caught our mules. No fear that they will hurry now. If we can make them think we went on this morning, there is a chance, a fair chance, dearest." She was partly reassured and no longer sought to rush on ahead of me. I held to the same moderate pace for two hundred yards or more. We came to a long stretch of hard, stony road, where even an Indian scarcely could have tracked a foot traveller. ...... ~ ........ - ' ' .... ~ ... THE MORMON LION 3I5 Here I swerved off at right angles, along a bare ledge of rock. For two or three hundred feet from the road we followed the ledge, until we came to a little gulley that was invisible a few yards away. I dropped the food bag and canteens down into it and thrust my Derringer into Lucy's hand. " Hide here," I ordered. "If they kill me, shoot yourself before they touch you." "I will. I know now," she said. She would have clung to me. I kissed her and tore myself away, to run back, parallel with the road, towards the spring. Confidently as I had spoken to Lucy, I was not certain that the pursuers had failed to see us in the wagon. I ran fast, with my rifle ready. About ftfty yards from the road and ninety from the spring I found a heap of rocks suited to my purpose. I crept in amongst them. After carefully examining the natural loopholes they offered, I unloaded and reloaded my rifle and placed fresh caps on the nipples of my revolver. There was then nothing I could do except wait. A quarter hour passed- the longest quarter hour in all my life-before I at last saw the crown of a hat bob up over the round of the hill. Peering out through a crevice between the rocks, I saw the hat rise higher until a face began to appear. It was the face of William Chilcott. I crouched down, overcome-terrorized. What could I hope to do against that man of blood? The remembrance of the murder of Mr. Senby and that still more awful murder in the garden set me to shuddering and sweating. The sight of his cold hard face appalled me. I cowered among the rocks, utterly unmanned. The thought of Lucy only added to my terror. She would fallmto the hands of the Beast I Hard as I fought against this panic fear, fully three minutes must have passed before I began to regain my self-control. |
