It was a neat plan, and one that would have been fairly sure of success but for one unforeseen contingency--the approach of Yeager's posse a half hour too soon. Healy heard them coming, knew he was trapped, and attempted to force an escape through the narrows in front of Point o' Rocks.
The milling cattle had jammed the gateway. Keller, shooting down one or two of them, blocked the exit still more. Healy and his confederates could not get through, and turned to try the defile just as the first of the posse came flying down the Pass.
Young Sanderson was in the van, a hundred yards in front of Yeager, dashing over the uneven ground in a reckless haste that Jim's slower horse could not match. Loose shale was flying from his pony's hoofs as it pounded forward. The outlaws just beat him to the mouth of the intersecting gulch. Dragging his broncho to a slithering halt, he fired twice at the retreating men. He had taken no time to aim, and his bullets went wild.
Brill laughed in mockery, covered him deliberately with his rifle, and just as deliberately raised the barrel and fired into the air. The distance was scarce a hundred yards. Phil could not doubt that his former friend had purposely spared his life. The boy's rifle dropped from his shoulder.
"Brill wouldn't shoot at me! I couldn't kill him!" he shouted to Weaver, as the latter rode up.
Buck nodded. "Let me have him!" And he plunged into the gorge after the men that had disappeared.
Twice Keller's rifle spat at Healy and his companion as they plowed forward across the boulder bed, but the difficulty of shooting from far above at moving figures almost directly below saved the rustlers. They reached a thick growth of aspens and disappeared. Healy parted company with his ally at the place where the trail to the summit of Point o' Rocks led up.
"Break south when you get out of the gulch, Sam. In half an hour it will be night, and you'll be safe. So-long."
"Where you going, Brill?"
"I'm going to settle accounts with that dashed spy!" answered Healy, with an epithet. "Inside of half an hour either Keller or I will be down and out!"
The outlaw took the stiff incline leisurely, for he knew Keller could come down only this way, and he had no mind to let himself get so breathed as to disturb the sureness of his aim. The aspen grove ran like a forked tongue up the ridge for a couple of hundred yards. As Healy emerged from it he saw a rider just disappearing over the shoulder of the hill in front of him. For an instant he had an amazed impression that the figure was that of a woman, but he dismissed this as absurd. He went the more cautiously, for he now knew that there would be two for him to deal with on the Point instead of one--unless Brad reached the scene in time to assist him.