There was the danger that some one of
the men knew the finger-talk, so she told me this in signs mixed up with
other sentences.
"Good! There was now but one thing--for me to get away. So I said,
laughing, to one of the men. 'Come, and we will look after the horses,
and the others can search the place with Hilton.' So we went out to
where the horses were tied to the railing, and led them away to the
corral.
"Of course you will understand how I did it. I clapped a hand on his
mouth, put a pistol at his head, and gagged and tied him. Then I got my
Tophet, and away I went to the spring. The girl was waiting. There were
few words. I gripped her hand, gave her another pistol, and then we got
away on a fine moonlit trail. We had not gone a mile when I heard a
faint yell far behind. My game had been found out. There was nothing to
do but to ride for it now, and maybe to fight. But fighting was not
good; for I might be killed, and then the girl would be caught just the
same. We rode on--such a ride, the horses neck and neck, their hoofs
pounding the prairie like drills, rawbone to rawbone, a hell-to-split
gait. I knew they were after us, though I saw them but once on the crest
of a Divide about three miles behind. Hour after hour like that, with
ten minutes' rest now and then at a spring or to stretch our legs. We
hardly spoke to each other; but, nom de Dieu! my heart was warm to this
girl who had rode a hundred and fifty miles in twenty-four hours.
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