The Trap
He had already covered a good ten miles, and a large part of that through extremely rough going, but the black ran with his head as high as the moment he pulled out of Rickett that morning, and there was only enough sweat to make his slender neck and greyhound flanks flash in the sun.Back he winged toward Rickett, running as freely as the wild leader of a herd, sometimes turning his fine head to one side to look back at the master or gaze over the hills, sometimes slackening to a trot up a sharper ascent or lengthening into a fuller gallop on an easy down-slope.There seemed no purpose in the reins which were kept just taut enough to give the rider the feel of his mount, and the left hand which held them was never still for a moment, but played back and forth slightly with the motion of the head.
Except in times of crisis those reins were not for the transmission of orders, it seemed, but they served as the wires through which the mind of the man and the mind of the horse kept in telegraphic touch.
In the meantime Black Bart loafed behind, lingering on the crest of each rise to look back, and then racing to catch up, but halfway back to Rickett he came up beside the master, whining, and leaping as high as Barry's knee.
"You seen something?" queried Barry."Are they comin' on the trail again?"He swayed a bit to one side and diverted Satan out of his course so as to climb one of the more commanding swells.From this point he glanced back and saw a dust cloud, much like that which a small whirlwind picks up, rolling down the nearest slope of the Morgan Hills.At that distance the posse looked hardly larger than one unit, and certainly they could not see the single horseman they followed; however, they could follow the trail easily across this ground.Satan had turned to look back.
"Shall we go back and play around 'em, boy?" asked Barry.
Black Bart had run on ahead, and now he turned with a short howl.
"The partner says 'no,'" continued the master."Of all the dogs I ever see, Bart plays the most careful game, but out on the trail, Satan"--here he sent the stallion into the sweeping lope--"Bart knows more'n you an' me put together, so we'll do what he says."For answer, Satan lengthened a little into his stride.As for the wolf-dog, he went off like a black bolt into the eye of the wind, streaking it west to hunt out the easiest course.A wolf--and surely there was more of wolf than of dog in Black Bart--has a finer sense for the lay of ground than anything on four feet.He knows how to come down the wind on his quarry keeping to the depressions and ravines so that not a taint of his presence is blown to the prey; and he will skulk across an open plain, stealing from hollow to hollow and stalking from bush to bush, so that the wariest are taken by surprise.As for Black Bart, he knew the kind of going which the stallion liked as well, almost, as he knew his own preferences, and he picked out a course which a surveyor with line and spirit-level could hardly have bettered.He wove across the country in loosely thrown semicircles, and came back in view of the master at the proper point.There was hardly much point in such industry in a country as smooth as this, not much more difference, say, than the saving of distance which the horse makes who hugs the fence on the turn and on account of that sticks his head under the finish wire a nose in front; and Bart clung to his work with scrupulous care.
Sometimes he ran back with lolling, red tongue, when the course lay clear even to the duller sense of a human, and frisked under the nose of Satan until a word from Barry sent him scurrying away like a pleased child.His duties comprehended not only the selection of the course but also an eagle vigilance before and behind, so that when he came again with a peculiar whine, Barry leaned a little from the saddle and spoke to him anxiously.
"D'you mean to say that they been gainin' ground on us old boy?"Black Bart leaped sidewise, keeping his head toward the master, and he howled in troubled fashion.
"Whereaway are they now?" muttered Barry, and looked back again.
A great distance behind, hardly distinguishable now, the dust of the posse was blending into the landscape and losing itself against a gray background.
"If they's nothin' wrong behind, what's bitin' you, Bart.You gettin'
hungry, maybe? Want to hurry home?"
Another howl, still louder, answered him.
"Go on, then, and show me where they's trouble."Black Bart whirled and darted off almost straight ahead, but bearing up a hill slightly south of their course.Toward the top of this eminence he changed his lope for a skulking trot that brought his belly fur trailing on the ground.
"They's somethin' ahead of us, Satan!" cried the master softly."What could that be? It's men, by the way Bart sneaks up to look at 'em.They's nothin'
else that he'd do that way for.Easy, boy, and go soft!"The stallion cut his gallop into a slinking trot, his head lowered, even his ears flat back, and glided up the hillside.Barry swung to the ground and crawled to the top of the hill.What he saw was a dozen mounted men swinging down into the low, broad scoop of ground beyond the hill.They raced with their hatbrims standing stiff up in the wind.
"They've been watchin' us with glasses!" whispered Dan to Bart, and the wolf-dog snarled savagely, his neck-fur ruffling up.
