"Quit your hide-out and pull for the mouth of the gorge. Quick! I'll be
there."
"What the hell's up now!" Piegan muttered. "Well, I guess we'll have t'
take a chance. If they don't wing us before we get across this bald
place, we'll be all right. Run like yuh was plumb scairt t' death,
Flood."
We sprinted like a pair of quarter-horses across the thirty yards of
bare ground that spread in front of the rock, a narrow enough space, to
be sure, but barren of cover for a jack-rabbit, much less two
decent-sized men. My heart was pumping double-quick when we threw
ourselves headlong in the welcome sage-brush--they had done their level
best to stop us, and some of those forty-four caliber humming-birds
buzzed their leaden monotone perilously close to our heads. That is one
kind of music for which I have a profound respect.
From there to the creek-channel we crawled on all fours, as MacRae had
done. Stooping, lest our heads furnish a target, we splashed along in
the shallow water till we reached the mouth of the canyon. There we
slipped carefully to higher ground. MacRae was scrambling and sliding
down from above, barely distinguishable against the bank. Far up the
gorge dense clouds of black smoke swooped down from the benchland.
Already the patch of brush in which lay the renegade Policemen was
hidden in the smudge, shut away from our sight.
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