第35章 WAR(2)

It might be a bird.But he waited.Again there was an agitation of the bushes, and then, so suddenly that it almost startled a cry from him, the bushes parted and a face peered out.It was a face covered with several weeks' growth of ginger-colored beard.The eyes were blue and wide apart, with laughter-wrinkles in the comers that showed despite the tired and anxious expression of the whole face.

All this he could see with microscopic clearness, for the distance was no more than twenty feet.And all this he saw in such brief time, that he saw it as he lifted his carbine to his shoulder.He glanced along the sights, and knew that he was gazing upon a man who was as good as dead.It was impossible to miss at such point blank range.

But he did not shoot.Slowly he lowered the carbine and watched.A hand, clutching a water-bottle, became visible and the ginger beard bent downward to fill the bottle.He could hear the gurgle of the water.Then arm and bottle and ginger beard disappeared behind the closing bushes.A long time he waited, when, with thirst unslaked, he crept back to his horse, rode slowly across the sun-washed clearing, and passed into the shelter of the woods beyond.

II

Another day, hot and breathless.A deserted farmhouse, large, with many outbuildings and an orchard, standing in a clearing.

From the Woods, on a roan horse, carbine across pommel, rode the young man with the quick black eyes.He breathed with relief as he gained the house.That a fight had taken place here earlier in the season was evident.Clips and empty cartridges, tarnished with verdigris, lay on the ground, which, while wet, had been torn up by the hoofs of horses.Hard by the kitchen garden were graves, tagged and numbered.From the oak tree by the kitchen door, in tattered, weatherbeaten garments, hung the bodies of two men.The faces, shriveled and defaced, bore no likeness to the faces of men.The roan horse snorted beneath them, and the rider caressed and soothed it and tied it farther away.

Entering the house, he found the interior a wreck.He trod on empty cartridges as he walked from room to room to reconnoiter from the windows.Men had camped and slept everywhere, and on the floor of one room he came upon stains unmistakable where the wounded had been laid down.

Again outside, he led the horse around behind the barn and invaded the orchard.A dozen trees were burdened with ripe apples.He filled his pockets, eating while he picked.Then a thought came to him, and he glanced at the sun, calculating the time of his return to camp.He pulled off his shirt, tying the sleeves and making a bag.This he proceeded to fill with apples.

As he was about to mount his horse, the animal suddenly pricked up its ears.The man, too, listened, and heard, faintly, the thud of hoofs on soft earth.He crept to the corner of the barn and peered out.A dozen mounted men, strung out loosely, approaching from the opposite side of the clearing, were only a matter of a hundred yards or so away.They rode on to the house.Some dismounted, while others remained in the saddle as an earnest that their stay would be short.They seemed to be holding a council, for he could hear them talking excitedly in the detested tongue of the alien invader.The time passed, but they seemed unable to reach a decision.He put the carbine away in its boot, mounted, and waited impatiently, balancing the shirt of apples on the pommel.

He heard footsteps approaching, and drove his spurs so fiercely into the roan as to force a surprised groan from the animal as it leaped forward.At the comer of the barn he saw the intruder, a mere boy of nineteen or twenty for all of his uniform jump back to escape being run down.At the same moment the roan swerved and its rider caught a glimpse of the aroused men by the house.Some were springing from their horses, and he could see the rifles going to their shoulders.He passed the kitchen door and the dried corpses swinging in the shade, compelling his foes to run around the front of the house.Arifle cracked, and a second, but he was going fast, leaning forward, low in the saddle, one hand clutching the shirt of apples, the other guiding the horse.

The top bar of the fence was four feet high, but he knew his roan and leaped it at full career to the accompaniment of several scattered shots.Eight hundred yards straight away were the woods, and the roan was covering the distance with mighty strides.Every man was now firing.pumping their guns so rapidly that he no longer heard individual shots.A bullet went through his hat, but he was unaware, though he did know when another tore through the apples on the pommel.And he winced and ducked even lower when a third bullet, fired low, struck a stone between his horse's legs and ricochetted off through the air, buzzing and humming like some incredible insect.

The shots died down as the magazines were emptied, until, quickly, there was no more shooting.The young man was elated.

Through that astonishing fusillade he had come unscathed.He glanced back.Yes, they had emptied their magazines.He could see several reloading.Others were running back behind the house for their horses.As he looked, two already mounted, came back into view around the comer, riding hard.And at the same moment, he saw the man with the unmistakable ginger beard kneel down on the ground, level his gun, and coolly take his time for the long shot.

The young man threw his spurs into the horse, crouched very low, and swerved in his flight in order to distract the other's aim.And still the shot did not come.With each jump of the horse, the woods sprang nearer.They were only two hundred yards away and still the shot was delayed.

And then he heard it, the last thing he was to hear, for he was dead ere he hit the ground in the long crashing fall from the saddle.And they, watching at the house, saw him fall, saw his body bounce when it struck the earth, and saw the burst of red-cheeked apples that rolled about him.They laughed at the unexpected eruption of apples, and clapped their hands in applause of the long shot by the man with the ginger beard.