Book: Bar 20 Days

C >> Clarence E. Mulford >> Bar 20 Days




"Cloud-burst!" he yelled. "Run, Tex! Run for yore life! Cloud-burst up
the valley! Run, you fool; _Run_!"

Tex's sarcastic retort was cut short as he instinctively glanced north,
and his agonized curse lashed Hopalong forward. "Can't run--knee cap's
busted! Can't swim, can't do--ah, hell--!"

Hopalong saw him torn from his shelter and whisked down the raging
torrent like an arrow from a bow. The Bar-20 puncher leaped from the
bank, shot under the yellow flood and arose, gasping and choking many
yards downstream, fighting madly to get the muddy water out of his
throat and eyes. As he struck out with all his strength down the
current, he caught sight of Tex being torn from a jutting tree limb, and
he shouted encouragement and swam all the harder, if such a thing
were possible. Tex's course was checked for a moment by a boiling
back-current and as he again felt the pull of the rushing stream
Hopalong's hand gripped his collar and the fight for safety began.
Whirled against logs and stumps, drawn down by the weight of his clothes
and the frantic efforts of Tex to grasp him--fighting the water and
the man he was trying to save at the same time, his head under water
as often as it was out of it, and Tex's vise-like fingers threatening
him--he headed for the west shore against powerful cross-currents that
made his efforts seem useless. He seemed to get the worst of every
break. Once, when caught by a friendly current, they were swung under
an overhanging branch, but as Hopalong's hand shot up to grasp it
a submerged bush caught his feet and pulled him under, and Tex's
steel-like arms around his throat almost suffocated him before he
managed to beat the other into insensibility and break the hold.

"I'll let you go!" he threatened; but his hand grasped the other's
collar all the tighter and his fighting jaw was set with greater
determination than ever.

They shot out into the main stream, where the U-bend channel joined the
short-cut, and it looked miles wide to the exhausted puncher. He was
fighting only on his will now. He would not give up, though he scarce
could lift an arm, and his lungs seemed on fire. He did not know whether
Tex was dead or alive, but he would get the body ashore with him, or
go down trying. He bumped into a log and instinctively grasped it. It
turned, and when he came up again it was bobbing five feet ahead of him.
Ages seemed to pass before he flung his numb arm over it and floated
with it. He was not alone in the flood; a coyote was pushing steadily
across his path towards the nearer bank, and on a gliding tree trunk
crouched a frightened cougar, its ears flattened and its sharp claws
dug solidly through the bark. Here and there were cattle and a snake
wriggled smoothly past him, apparently as much at home in the water as
out of it. The log turned again and he just managed to catch hold of it
as he came up for the second time.

Things were growing black before his eyes and strange, weird ideas and
images floated through his brain. When he regained some part of his
senses he saw ahead of him a long, curling crest of yellow water and
foam, and he knew, vaguely, that it was pouring over a bar. The next
instant his feet struck bottom and he fought his way blindly and slowly,
with the stubborn determination of his kind, towards the brush-covered
point twenty feet away.

When he opened his eyes and looked around he became conscious of
excruciating pains and he closed them again to rest. His outflung hand
struck something that made him look around again, and he saw Tex Ewalt,
face down at his side. He released his grasp on the other's collar and
slowly the whole thing came to him, and then the necessity for action,
unless he wished to lose what he had fought so hard to save.

Anything short of the iron man Tex had become would have been dead
before this or have been finished by the mauling he now got from
Hopalong. But Tex groaned, gurgled a curse, and finally opened his eyes
upon his rescuer, who sank back with a grunt of satisfaction. Slowly his
intelligence returned as he looked steadily into Hopalong's eyes, and
with it came the realization of a strange truth: he did not hate this
man at all. Months of right living, days and nights of honest labor
shoulder to shoulder with men who respected him for his ability and
accepted him as one of themselves, had made a new man of him, although
the legacy of hatred from the old Tex had disguised him from himself
until now; but the new Tex, battered, shot-up, nearly drowned, looked at
his old enemy and saw him for the man he really was. He smiled faintly
and reached out his hand.

"Cassidy, yo're the boss," he said. "Shake."

They shook.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.