N OBSERVER might have said that it was cruelty to animals to drive a team at high speed over such roads. Perhaps the two men, sitting on the seat of the swaying lumber-wagon, might have replied that it was cruelty to human beings for a team to act in that hurried manner. There was no question but what the team of pinto horses had taken the matter into their own hands—or rather feet—and the two men had nothing to say about it.
The equipage swept around the curving grade, skidding and bouncing, while the two men clung to the sides of the seat, staring straight ahead.
Suddenly they whirled around another curve, the wheels of the lumber-wagon spinning dangerously near to the outer end of the grade, and just ahead of them, blocking the road, stood a stage-coach and four horses, headed in the same direction as the runaway. The sharpness of the curve and a strong wind blowing down the canon had effectively masked the approach of the runaway, and there was no time for either man to jump nor for any of the people at the stage to get out of the road.
At the side of the coach stood a woman. Just beyond her stood a masked man, rifle in hand. The driver was humped on his seat, lines held between his knees, while another masked man stood on the hub of a front wheel tugging at a heavy iron box which was partly wedged under the seat. The two men saw all this in a flash, and then the runaway team crashed into the rear of the stage.
The force of the impact drove the tongue of the wagon into the flimsy body of the stage, whirling it half-around and turning it off the grade; the four horses rearing and plunging as they whirled off the road and went down the sharp embankment.
The pinto team was flung sidewise, jack-knifing with the stage; the wagon, going sidewise, caught in the deep rut and turned completely over, following the wrecked stage off the grade.
The two men were thrown from the wagon-seat; one of them turning a complete somersault and landing on his hands and knees against the upper bank, while the other sprawled in the road, turned over several times and finally stopped in a sitting position with his legs dangling over the edge of the grade.
The one at the side of the bank blinked his eyes several times and then ran his hand through his mop of brick-red hair. Then he got painfully to his feet, walked to the edge of the grade and looked around.
The other, a giant of a man at least six feet six inches tall, with a long, crooked nose and a wide, humorous mouth, retained his position, except that he took a red-silk handkerchief from his hip pocket and blew his nose violently. Then he said—
"Brick, old Lafe is goin' to be real put out about them there pintos and that wagon, y'betcha."
The red-head nodded sadly. Then he turned and spat out some sand.
There was nothing heroic-looking about "Brick" Davidson. His hair was the color of new-baked bricks, and his thin, sensitive nose was plentifully besprinkled with freckles. His eyes were very blue and very ready to search out the humorous things in life. He looked below medium size, comparing him to the bulk of "Silent" Slade, but Brick was not a small man. He spat out some more sand and looked at Silent.
"Whatcha drop them lines for?"
"You argued with me, didn't yuh?"
The big man's tone was querulous.
"Yuh always argue with me, Brick Davidson, and you know danged well I've gotta gesture."
"Gesture!"
Brick Davidson spat again contemptuously.
"Gotta, eh? Why didn't yuh go to a school where they teaches yuh to talk with your mouth? Write me a note next time, Silent. Floppin' your arms like a he-buzzard gittin' ready to fly don't convey no thoughts to my mind."
Silent Slade got slowly to his feet and peered down the hill. The stage had stopped in a clump of jack-pines, and the four stage horses, almost stripped of harness, had tangled with the limbs of a fallen pine.
One of the pintos stood near the wrecked wagon, front feet tangled in lines and neck-yoke, kicking viciously at a dangling tug. The other pinto was unfortunately past kicking at tugs, unless ghost horses wear harness.
"Brick!" exclaimed Silent. "Brick, I didn't see much before the ca-tas-trophy, but somehow I gets the fool idea that there was a woman beside the stage."
"Whatcha tryin' to do-o-o! Whatcha tryin' to do-o-o!"
A long, lean face—a face that was scratched and dirty, with a long lock of grizzled hair sticking straight up like an interrogation point, suddenly appeared from behind a mesquite-bush at the edge of the grade as its owner scrambled slowly back to the road level.
