'TWIXT LOVE AND DUTY
FOR an hour Barbara Harding paced the veranda of the ranchhouse, pride and love battling for the ascendency within her breast.She could not let him die, that she knew; but how might she save him?
The strains of music and the laughter from the bunkhouse had ceased.The ranch slept.Over the brow of the low bluff upon the opposite side of the river a little party of silent horsemen filed downward to the ford.At the bluff's foot a barbed-wire fence marked the eastern boundary of the ranch's enclosed fields.The foremost horseman dismounted and cut the strands of wire, carrying them to one side from the path of the feet of the horses which now passed through the opening he had made.
Down into the river they rode following the ford even in the darkness with an assurance which indicated long familiarity.
Then through a fringe of willows out across a meadow toward the ranch buildings the riders made their way.The manner of their approach, their utter silence, the hour, all contributed toward the sinister.
Upon the veranda of the ranchhouse Barbara Harding came to a sudden halt.Her entire manner indicated final decision, and determination.A moment she stood in thought and then ran quickly down the steps and in the direction of the office.Here she found Eddie dozing at his post.She did not disturb him.A glance through the window satisfied her that he was alone with the prisoner.From the office building Barbara passed on to the corral.A few horses stood within the enclosure, their heads drooping dejectedly.As she entered they raised their muzzles and sniffed suspiciously, ears a-cock, and as the girl approached closer to them they moved warily away, snorting, and passed around her to the opposite side of the corral.As they moved by her she scrutinized them and her heart dropped, for Brazos was not among them.He must have been turned out into the pasture.
She passed over to the bars that closed the opening from the corral into the pasture and wormed her way between two of them.A hackamore with a piece of halter rope attached to it hung across the upper bar.Taking it down she moved off across the pasture in the direction the saddle horses most often took when liberated from the corral.
If they had not crossed the river she felt that she might find and catch Brazos, for lumps of sugar and bits of bread had inspired in his equine soul a wondrous attachment for his temporary mistress.
Down the beaten trail the animals had made to the river the girl hurried, her eyes penetrating the darkness ahead and to either hand for the looming bulks that would be the horses she sought, and among which she might hope to discover the gentle little Brazos.
The nearer she came to the river the lower dropped her spirits, for as yet no sign of the animals was to be seen.To have attempted to place a hackamore upon any of the wild creatures in the corral would have been the height of foolishness--only a well-sped riata in the hands of a strong man could have captured one of these.
Closer and closer to the fringe of willows along the river she came, until, at their very edge, there broke upon her already taut nerves the hideous and uncanny scream of a wildcat.The girl stopped short in her tracks.She felt the chill of fear creep through her skin, and a twitching at the roots of her hair evidenced to her the extremity of her terror.Should she turn back? The horses might be between her and the river, but judgment told her that they had crossed.Should she brave the nervous fright of a passage through that dark, forbidding labyrinth of gloom when she knew that she should not find the horses within reach beyond?
She turned to retrace her steps.She must find another way!
But was there another way? And "Tomorrow they will shoot him!" She shuddered, bit her lower lip in an effort to command her courage, and then, wheeling, plunged into the thicket.
Again the cat screamed--close by--but the girl never hesitated in her advance, and a few moments later she broke through the willows a dozen paces from the river bank.Her eyes strained through the night; but no horses were to be seen.
The trail, cut by the hoofs of many animals, ran deep and straight down into the swirling water.Upon the opposite side Brazos must be feeding or resting, just beyond reach.
Barbara dug her nails into her palms in the bitterness of her disappointment.She followed down to the very edge of the water.It was black and forbidding.Even in the daytime she would not have been confident of following the ford--by night it would be madness to attempt it.
She choked down a sob.Her shoulders drooped.Her head bent forward.She was the picture of disappointment and despair.
"What can I do?" she moaned."Tomorrow they will shoot him!"The thought seemed to electrify her.
"They shall not shoot him!" she cried aloud."They shall not shoot him while I live to prevent it!"Again her head was up and her shoulders squared.Tying the hackamore about her waist, she took a single deep breath of reassurance and stepped out into the river.For a dozen paces she found no difficulty in following the ford.It was broad and straight; but toward the center of the river, as she felt her way along a step at a time, she came to a place where directly before her the ledge upon which she crossed shelved off into deep water.She turned upward, trying to locate the direction of the new turn; but here too there was no footing.
Down river she felt solid rock beneath her feet.Ah! this was the way, and boldly she stepped out, the water already above her knees.Two, three steps she took, and with each one her confidence and hope arose, and then the fourth step--and there was no footing.She felt herself lunging into the stream, and tried to draw back and regain the ledge; but the force of the current was too much for her, and, so suddenly it seemed that she had thrown herself in, she was in the channel swimming for her life.
