CHAPTER VI.

THE RACE FOR LIFE.

In the light from the moon, which bathed the brush-grown plain and towering cliff in a flood of silver sheen, the figures of the troopers stood out clearly.

By common consent, without waiting for the command, the men with the world-famous desperado checked their ponies and watched the cavalrymen rise from the ravine.

Whether or not, the soldiers had caught sight of them they did not know. But shouts of delirious glee from behind told them that the pursuing Indians had discovered the troopers.

Of a verity, the little band of desperadoes were between two fires.

Apparently the liberty they had achieved by such ruthless slaughter of soldiers and redmen in the cave of the old witch was to count for naught.

And as this thought came to them, the companions of the notorious outlaw groaned inwardly.

Not so the notorious Jesse, however.

Save for the deepening of the lines about his mouth and the compression of his lips, he sat erect and rigid.

But his mind was working as it never had worked before.

Through many a desperate situation had he passed unscathed. Yet none of the ruses which had stood him in such good stead on those occasions could he use in his present predicament.

The brilliancy of the moonlight, the presence of foes in front and back, the treeless waste all about him prevented.

Should he make any move, it would be clearly discernable to troopers and Indians alike.

And, aware of his seeming helplessness, the bucks were already yelling in anticipation of his capture.

Their attention attracted by the howls of the savages, the cavalrymen quickly discovered the group of horsemen in the bracken.

Hoarse commands, the sounds of which alone reached the bandits, were spoken and, in a twinkling, those of the troopers who had mounted the level from the ravine, set their horses toward them.

Turning his head, the world-famous desperado looked toward the Indians.

All of half a mile away were they, though each minute lessened the distance.

"Its a chance, but we've got to take it," snapped Jesse, thinking aloud. "Quick, boys! Whirl your ponies. We'll ride back a way then make a dash for the ravine! Come on!"

Even as the words fell from their leader's lips, his men had turned their mounts and, as he gave the word, buried the rowels of their spurs in the flanks of the fleet footed Indian ponies.

Startled by the unwonted pain, the animals leaped away like stones from catapults.

The race for life was on.

Scarcely a minute had it been from the time the outlaws had caught sight of the cavalrymen till they were in full flight. Yet to them each second their chief had sat inactive had seemed an hour.

In amazement, the savages beheld the men they had been pursuing rush toward them.

"Kaw-Kaw's bewitched them! They've lost their minds! Her curses live to destroy the men who killed her!" shouted Great Bear in his native tongue, transported with joy. "At them! At them! Jesse James is the Navajos' prey. The paleface dogs must not get him first!"

Goaded to frenzy by the words of their chief, the bucks fell to lashing their ponies, riding like fiends in their effort to prevent the troopers from snatching their quarry from their very grasp.

But the cavalrymen viewed the course of the desperately pressed little band with different feelings.

"Jesse's in the bunch, all right. That move shows it," growled one of them, the stars and chevrons on whose uniform proclaimed him a captain. "No one but that murdering daredevil would have chosen to ride back toward that pack of howling savages rather than toward us.

"Curse the luck! Why couldn't we have struck the ravine half a mile farther east? Then we'd been right on top of him and could have shot him down."

"But the bucks 'll drop him," asserted a lieutenant who rode at his side. "So long as he's shot, I don't see what difference it makes whether we get him or they."

"_But they won't get him!_" bellowed the captain, his disappointment at losing his chance to capture the most famous desperado the world has ever known and anger at the ill-disguised rebuke of his subordinate getting the better of him.

"Won't get him?" repeated the lieutenant, as though he seemed to doubt his ears.

"_Yes, won't get him!_" returned the man in command of the troops. "You've got a lot to learn, young man, about hunting bad-men.

"But if you never learn any thing else, remember this--Indians, when they're howling and whooping and all excited, are the worst shots in the world.

"Jesse James knows it. And he'd rather take the chance of riding by the whole pack of 'em than to give the few of us a shot at him."

Such, indeed, was the reason that the world-famous desperado had chosen the course he did. Yet his decision had been strengthened by the further knowledge that the redmen feared him and his marvelous prowess with his shooting-irons.

All the while, the little group of outlaws and the two bodies of men bent on their death or capture, were drawing closer together.

Never was there stranger chase.

In full view of one another, each party was riding like mad to gain its own end.

Yet never a shot was fired.

The distance that separated them was too great.

Nearer and nearer drew the bandits and the Indians and farther and farther were the cavalrymen getting from the ravine.

Less than two hundred yards separated the former.

With eyes now in front, now turned behind, Jesse watched the approach of his enemies.

"Damme! I believe they're mad! Why don't they open fire?" snarled the captain.

To which of the two groups the words referred, the lieutenant did not know and his recent, caustic reprimand prevented him from asking.

His mind, however, was instantly diverted by his superior.

"Ha! What's that mean?" cried the latter, then added instantly "Jesse's turning. I see. He's making for the ravine. I've been fooled!"

Almost choking with rage at the thought that he had allowed himself to be out-generaled by the notorious cutthroat, the captain rose in his stirrups, jerked his sabre from its scabbard and, pointing toward the ravine, turned to his troopers, bellowing:

"Fours oblique _and ride like Hell_!"

Chuckling inwardly at the choler of their commander, the cavalrymen executed the orders.

As Jesse and his pals heard the frantic command, they yelled in defiance, waving mocking goodbyes at the discomfited troopers as, leaning forward along the necks of their ponies, they raced past the head of the column of cavalrymen.

Better than he had dared hope had the bandit-chieftain's ruse worked.

But the end of the race for life was not yet.

Though the world-famous desperado had held his course straight toward the whooping Indians, his mind and eyes had been almost entirely upon the troopers.

When he had caught sight of the first troopers rising from the ravine and realized the desperateness of the position of himself and his companions, with that instinct which had made him so valuable an asset to the old guerilla chieftain, Quantrell, in the days of the Civil War, he had realized that the one chance of escape open, lay in reaching the ravine.

Yet his eyes, calculating the distance nicely, told him that, should he make a dash for it, the troopers could head him off by riding along the edge of the gorge.

A moment he had been puzzled as to what to do. Then, in a flash, it had come to him that by retracing his course and riding straight at the howling savages he might be able to entice the soldiers to follow him, abandoning their strategic advantages of the position along the ravine.

With elation, he had seen the troopers fall into his snare.

This accomplished, he had kept watch of their pursuit, waiting for the instant when they should be so far away from the ravine that he could beat them to it.

At last the time came.

With a whispered command, he had bidden his pals wheel and rush for the gorge.

Skilled horsemen all, they had accomplished the turn which was so sudden that it would have unseated less expert riders.

But so absorbed were they in watching the troopers that they had not noticed five bucks who had broken away from their fellows and were bearing down upon them with the speed of whirlwinds.

Riding with marvelous ease and grace, the redmen closed upon them with incredible rapidity.

No whoop or yell did they utter.

Their success in getting near enough to the men who had killed their brother warriors and outraged their race by shooting their medicine woman lay in their silence.

Breathlessly the rest of the braves watched them.

As the echoes of the outlaws' derisive shouts, when they dashed past the head of the cavalry, died away, one of the bucks straightened and raised his arm.

Bang! went the pistol in his hand.

The report of the gun was the first intimation Jesse and his pals had of the proximity of the braves.

And as the bullet whistled over their heads, they whirled on the backs of their ponies to see who it was that had been able to get within shooting distance of them, undiscovered.

"Drop em! Drop 'em!" roared the world-famous desperado, adding a terrible oath.

Crash! went the dozen six shooters.

The six outlaws were firing with a gun in each hand.

But only one Indian toppled from his pony.

"Again!" bellowed Jesse. "Get 'em this time!"

Once more the twelve pistols barked.

And once more only one brave fell.

"What's the matter with you?" snarled the notorious outlaw. "_If we don't get them, they'll get us!_"

But the task imposed on the bandits was no easy one.

Keeping their seats on the backs of their madly galloping mounts only by the grips of their knees, the desperadoes were obliged to shoot with their bodies twisted round to face behind them.

And small wonder was it that their aim was bad.

But on the three remaining redskins rushed, firing frantically and behind them thundered the rest of the savages and the troopers, yelling encouragement.

No chance was there for the little band to throw off the pursuit when they reached the ravine unless the trio of braves was killed.

Cursing furiously as he saw the second volley had accomplished no more than the first, Jesse forebore to call for another.

Well he knew that it had been the bullets from the gun in his right hand that had toppled the two Indians from the horses and he made up his mind that upon him devolved the killing of the others.

With the marvelous rapidity that had won him his reputation, he snapped his trusty "Colts" in quick succession.

Two more of the savages pitched from their ponies.

Again his guns spoke.

Yet before he could see the result of his last attempt to drop the lone buck, Homely Harry shrieked:

"Watch out, boys! We're right on to the ravine!"

The warning came too late.

Even as the cry rang out, the bandits felt their ponies sink beneath them as the animals rushed over the edge of the gorge.

Never was such horsemanship as Jesse and his pals displayed.

To the average man, the plunge taken at the whirl-wind speed of the ponies would have meant death.

Turning the instant their pal's voice had sounded, the bandits steadied themselves by bracing their hands, still holding their revolvers, against the necks of their mounts, leaning back to offset the shock when the ponies should strike the brush-covered bottom of the ravine that yawned beneath them.

To any one in the gorge, they would have seemed like huge, ungainly birds sailing through the air.

For so terrific was the pace at which the animals had approached the ravine that their momentum carried them far out over the brush ere they began to drop.

"Be ready to slide when the pintos strikes!" yelled Comanche Tony, quickly realizing the danger. "If you tries to set your horses it will mean your death!"

Quickly his pals relaxed their muscles.

And well was it that the old Indian fighter had given the advice.

With feet braced stiff, the ponies struck the ground.

There was a snapping and cracking and the poor beasts sank down, their legs broken by the awful force of the impact.

Yet even as they fell, the outlaws, prepared by the warning of Comanche Tony, shot over their heads, landing in the bushes unscathed save for scratches and the jolting they received as they struck.

And as they picked themselves up, they heard the captain of the troopers roar:

"Find the horses! Jesse and the bunch'll be near 'em. No man could take that plunge and come out whole."

"That's where your wrong, old top," grinned the world-world famous desperado. "Quick boys! drop on your hands and knees! We'll work up the ravine a couple of rods from the ponies and then strike for the side from which they jumped. Careful, now, we won the race. But if the troopers or Injuns get their peepers on one of us, its death to the whole bunch!"