CHAPTER XI.

JESSE JAMES' DESPERATE LEAP.

Not a man moved.

Every rifle was turned on the prostrate man.

The captain peered suspiciously at the form of the great desperado for a moment, then nodded his satisfaction.

"Cease firing!" he commanded.

Placing a whistle to his lips the officer blew a short, shrill blast. Two troopers in response, came dashing up on their ponies, saluted and sat at attention awaiting their leader's commands.

"Boys, we have got him at last," he said, addressing the two troopers. "That's Jesse James over there on his back. Sorry we had to kill him. But it's my opinion he's safer that way. I knew we should get him in time. Outlaws may fool posses indefinitely, but when it comes to beating the United States Cavalry, that's different. Young man," he continued, "let this be an object lesson to you in persistance. Four times within the past twenty-four hours I am free to confess we have been outwitted by the world's greatest desperado, but each time we came back stronger than ever and as full of fight. You see the result. We have done our full duty."

"Yes, but what shall we do with the body, bury it or roll it into the gully somewhere hereabouts?" asked the Lieutenant, stepping over toward the body of the outlaw, then turning back.

"Neither. Have some saplings cut and make a litter between two ponies. We must get him to the fort immediately before it is too late. No one would ever believe we had killed the world's greatest bandit unless we had something better to show for it than our mere word. It is not that they would doubt our word, but the rub is they know Jesse James," he grinned. "And so do we," he added grimly.

"Make haste now. We'll surely have the redskins down on us after all this racket, and we've made a lot of it, I reckon."

"I'll attend to it at once, sir," responded the Lieutenant.

"Throw out pickets!" ordered the commander. "We are in a dangerous strategical position here."

"But what about the rest of the gang--do we go after them?" asked the Lieutenant after executing his superior officer's commands.

"Yes, we might as well clean house thoroughly while we are about it. Let two men ride in with the body. They should reach the fort by daybreak. We will remain here with the rest of the troop and finish up the job. It should be easy to at least disperse the gang, now that their leader has turned up his toes for the last time. It has been a good job, Lieutenant, eh?"

The young officer nodded and smiled, for his share in the great achievement had been no small one and in all probability would bring him much nearer to having a command of his own at no distant day.

With the others, the army officer's words were accepted as final. Meantime the troopers had constructed a litter and were now engaged in dragging it to the spot where Jesse lay face up on the rocks, the moonbeams lighting up his face with a ghastly pallor, to the strained imagination of the soldiers.

At a motion from the Lieutenant, the two mounted men rode their ponies to the scene and sprang from their saddles to lift the inanimate form of the fallen desperado to the litter to be conveyed to the fort some thirty miles away.

The men's Winchesters reposed safely in their saddle holsters, and the ponies, unmindful of the tragic scene before them, calmly began browsing on the tender underbrush.

The two troopers bent over to lift the body to the litter that the others were bringing up.

At that instant a strange and unexpected thing happened.

The supposed dead man moved.

Both arms shot out and the moon beams caught and reflected a steely glint in each hand.

With lightning-like quickness the bandit's hands shot into the shadows formed by the bodies of the two troopers. The movement was so slight as to have been almost indistinguishable two paces away.

The soldiers with a groan settled down in a heap.

Yet nothing of the tragedy being enacted before their very eyes, conveyed itself to the troopers just beyond, and the Captain was calling out some order to the men that the bandit had laid low. They did not know that two of their companions lay dying there, their life blood staining the virgin rocks.

"Hey, what is going on over there?" shouted the Captain, his keen eyes noting something unusual in the attitude of his men.

There was no response.

"Lieutenant, you had better straighten out those men."

With one movement, the great bandit had driven his bowies straight into the hearts of the unsuspecting soldiers. In bending over him to raise his body to the litter, they had presented a mark that the veriest novice at man-killing, could not have missed by any chance.

Their blood in crimson stream spurted into the face and eyes of the blood-thirsty desperado, but the only emotion it stirred in him was to arouse him to deepest anger.

Not a bullet of the death-dealing volley had reached Jesse. With that marvelous instinct that had saved his life on so many occasions in the past, the outlaw had sensed the danger that confronted him, he knew that the eyes of enemies were upon him, but whether of white men or redskins, he did not know.

Instantly his quick mind evolved a plan. He knew that death yawned in the shadows there, which one false move would precipitate upon him. With Jesse James, to think was to act.

He dropped at the instant when twenty Winchesters hurled their death missiles at him. But the leaden pellets sped harmlessly over his head.

Instead of leaping to his feet and making a desperate dash for liberty, as a less experienced man in the art of guerilla warfare might have done, the great bandit stiffened out and lay motionless in well-feigned emulation of death.

His ruse was successful.

But now the moment for action had arrived. Yet he did not move a muscle and respiration seemed to have ceased utterly.

One of the ponies moved a step forward, having sighted a fresh bit of tender verdure. Its body was thus projected between the main arm of the troop and the prostrate outlaw, hiding his movements from them.

With a blood-curdling yell that sent terror to the hearts of the soldiers for an instant, Jesse leaped to the startled pony's back. He seemed to spring from the ground as if impelled by some giant spring.

So unexpected had been the move that the troops stood paralyzed--unable to move hand or foot. In fact, no comprehension of the real meaning of the scene--of the terrible tragedy that had taken place before their very eyes--had forced itself into their minds.

The outlaw's yell of defiance had accomplished the exact result that he had intended it should.

"It's James!" roared the Captain in a fearful rage.

"Take aim!

"Fire!"

Twenty Winchesters crashed, a dull flash of flame lighted up the scene and was instantly lost in a pall of suffocating smoke, the reverberations from the explosion, thundering from peak to peak of the surrounding mountains.

The command was repeated and again the guns of the troopers spoke hoarsely.

Coincident with the first volley the outlaw had thrown himself down on the horse's side, away from the attacking force, Indian fashion. He was a master of every trick known to savage warfare, learned in the school of Quantrell years before.

So suddenly had he gone down that at first they thought he had fallen. But the world's greatest outlaw was not thus easily to be disposed of.

"It's a trick," yelled the Captain.

He was goaded to desperation.

"Fire at will!" he commanded.

"Give it to him! Shoot low and fast!"

Still another heavy volley broke the stillness.

"Mount and pursue!" came the stern command.

Jesse rose in his saddle and swung the Winchester that he had drawn from the saddle holster, on his enemies.

Two soldiers bit the dust.

The troopers sprang to saddle. The death of their companions had filled them with mad lust for the blood of the desperado. Now they were yelling like a band of Indians who had discovered that their coveted prey was almost within their grasp.

The fleeing bandit made a sudden discovery. The opposite side of the circle of troops was drawing in on him. But instead of taking alarm, Jesse was quick to note the advantage that their manoeuvre gave him. The newcomers fired a volley into the air to warn the Captain of their location that he might not fire into the ranks of his own men.

Jesse shouted a jeer, and rising in his saddle again, pumped his Winchester first into the ranks of one body of troops and then into the other side, continuing to yell like a Comanche Indian on the warpath.

It was maddening. Not a shot was fired in answer by the enemy.

A blast of the bugle had commanded the troops to "cease firing."

"Charge!"

The notes of the command rippled musically from the bugler's horn and the troops, swinging to saddle as one man, swept down in pursuit.

They were moving in a half circle formation, now.

"We've got him this time, sure," exulted the Captain.

"Depends on whether our horses are faster than his, which I very much doubt," objected the Lieutenant.

"You've still got a few things to learn, young man," retorted his superior officer. "When you have been in the service longer you'll find out an officer has to use his eyes and every other sense that nature has given him, if he expects to save his hide, letting alone catching the enemy."

"I don't catch you," shouted the Lieutenant above the sound of the fleet-footed rushing ponies.

"He is headed for the canyon. That's what I mean."

"The canyon! Good God!" gasped the young officer.

"Surrender!" roared the Captain.

"It's sure death to go on."

The desperado rose in his stirrups. He again emptied his Winchester into the ranks of the pounding troop on his flanks.

The feel of the swift-moving little Indian pony beneath him, filled him with unholy joy. On a fleet-footed animal the great outlaw feared neither man nor beast, and in very truth, few of the wild men or savages of the turbulent west, were his equals in the saddle any more than they were when it came to quickness on the trigger.

Three ponies fell as the result of his deadly fire, and as many riders were hurled into the air, an instant later to fall with a sickening thud as they struck the hard ground.

But the outlaw did not turn to note the result of his fusilade. He had other momentous things to occupy his mind at that moment.

Casting his Winchester aside he threw his full weight on his toes in the stirrups and sat crouching like some wild animal about to spring upon its unsuspecting prey.

The desperado's eyes were fixed and staring.

Ahead of him yawned the black and awful abyss.

Driving in the rowels of his spurs until the pinto snorted with pain, Jesse fairly threw the hardy little Indian pony at the rocky canyon.

"My God, he is going over!" cried the Lieutenant, aghast at the awful leap the great bandit was about to take.

"He don't see it! He don't see it!

"Halt! The canyon!" roared the young officer in the stress of his excitement. For the moment he had forgotten that the man he was warning was he for whose death half a continent was clamoring.

"He knows it, you fool!" snarled the Captain. "Don't you see he's going to jump it?"

"But its certain death."

"So is this," gritted the commander of the troop. "It's death either way he takes it, back or front.

"Call the halt or we'll be going over with him, the whole pack and parcel of us."

The bugle sounded its warning short and sharp.

On the very brink of the precipice stood a giant spreading oak, and into it's broad shadow the world-famous desperado drove his mount, a veritable living projectile in its undeviating flight.

The notes of the bugle trilled again and the horses of the troopers slid to their haunches perilously near the brink.

"Fire!" rang the stern command.

Once more the heavy Winchesters crashed.

A wild yell greeted the volley.

But whether of pain or triumph they did not know.

With a scream of awful fright, the pony leaped high in the air and plunged far out and over the terrible precipice. They heard his body buffeted from rock to rock in its descent. And finally as they listened they caught the sound of the impact when it struck for the last time on the rocks far below.

Not a man spoke. They were too full of wonder and horror for speech.

A heavy silence had fallen over the scene of death.