The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1914-11-26

N in which he had been riding for
the last half hour and spurred
his horse up to the top Of a rocky
little ridge. There he refined in and
listened.
At first he heard nothing but the
heavy painting Of the animal be-
meath him and the hoarse braying
Of a jackass out on the desert some
where. After a moment, though, a
breath of a breeze drifted up and
brought to his ears the faint clump,
'clurnp of a ~galloping horse.
This sound made him grind his
teeth together and curse between
them. Zeigler was gaining on him!
This was the first time he'd been
able to hear the Sheriff. Once, some
two hours before the sun had gone
down, he had seen the other, a dark
little ant creeping along back there
on the trail. Then a good three
miles had separated them. Now
Zeigler couldn't be more than half
that far behind, If Kirby could
judge distance by southland he
certainly could.
Fifteen miles ahead was Eagle
Pass. Just through Eagle Pass was
the Mexican border-and safety. Fiji
teen miles! 1t might as we'll have
been fifty; for Kirby's horse was
spent. The animal was breathing in
great, spasmodic gasps, and with
that peculiar rasping sound that tells
when a horse has given almost the
last of its strength. For the last
two hours the best speed the horse
had been able to get up had been
a none too brisk trot. A trot-and
the Sheriff following at a gallop.
Kirby glanced around at the
broken, Jagged surface of the ridge,
and then back up the sand wash,
For a moment he was tempted to
tie his horse down in the mesquites
and wait in the shadow of the rocks
for the Sheriff. When the latter
came around that bend in the wash
abount a hundred yards back the
moonlight would show him up a
clearly as a spotlight could. A pal
sled old woman could pot him then.
But the temptation passed. Kirby
wasn't a killer. He was bad enough
as bad as they make them, in
some ways. But he wasn't a killer.
That very morning he had killed
the first man he had ever killed in
his life; that was why Zeigler was
after him now. And he had no de-
sire to double the horror that killing
had instilled in him; the horror that
was eating into him as a worm eats
into a log and %bothering him more
than the man following him. No,
he couldn't kill Zeigler-not until
that was the only way out of it, any
how.
He twisted his ponderous bulk
about in the saddle and glanced
keenly around at the surrounding
country. The moon was fairly flood
ing the desert with light; Kirby
might easily have read a newspaper
by that light.
"Too dawn bright" he muttered,
"Nobody'd light a fire on a night
Like this-'less they was cooking.
Then I couldn't see it,"
The clump, clump Of Zeigler's ga
looping horse was growing plainer
and palmer. Something had to be
done, and mighty soon at that.
"This's good cow country" thought
Kirby. "Ther oughta be punchers
around. II l could only see EN-
If that doggone moon'd only 90 out!
If"
And just then, as il in answer to
his wish, a thin cloud drifted across
the face Of the moon. The desert
darkened incredibly. A few min
utes before, Kirby had made out a
cow on a rise Of ground a mile
away. Now he couldn't tell a mes
quite from a ,catsclaw at a distance
OF a hundred yards.
"That oughta help" he muttered;
and again glanced around at the
country about him.
At first the result was the same
as before. Then, far away to the
right, he caught a faint flicker of
x,a11nw 1iob%