"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went on down the line.
On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed them up--but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect action at any moment,--the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they sought,--for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.
And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come to a full stop. At last the end had arrived--at last; and the rancher turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.
It took him but a minute to cover the distance--a minute until, almost by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance. Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard simultaneously a sound he knew so well,--the dull spattering impact of a bullet,--realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing passage of a rifle-ball.
Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story. Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying before them the mingled ice patches and open running water of the low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their affair was not with such, but with the quick.