Brick Willock,galloping toward the Southeast,frequently looked back.He saw the desperadoes leap upon their horses,wheel about in short circles that brought the animals upright,then spring forward in pursuit.He heard the shouting which,though far away,sounded the unmistakable accent of ungovernable fury.In the glaring moonlight,he distinguished plainly the cloud of dust and sand raised by the horses,which the wind lifted in white shapes against the deep blue of the sky.And looking beyond his pursuers toward the rude cabin where the highwaymen had so long held their rendezvous,he knew,because no animate forms appeared against the horizon,that the Kimball brothers lay where he had stretched them--one,senseless from the crashing blow on his head,the other,lifeless from the bullet in his breast.
The little girl and her stepfather had vanished from the smooth open page of the Texas Panhandle--and Brick Willock rejoiced,with a joy new to him,that these escaped prisoners had not been pursued.It was himself that the band meant to subject to their savage vengeance,and himself alone.The murder of the child was abhorrent to their hearts which had not attained the hardened insensibility of their leader's conscience,and they were willing for the supposed spy to escape,since it spared them the embarrassment of disposing of the little girl.
But Brick Willock had been one of them and he had killed their leader,and their leader's brother,or at least had brought them to the verge of death.If Red Kimball revived,he would doubtless right his own wrongs,should Willock live to be punished.In the meantime,it was for them to treat with the traitor--this giant of a Texan,huge-whiskered,slow of speech,who had ever been first to throw himself into the thick of danger but who had always hung back from deeds of cruelty.He had plundered coaches and wagon-trains with them,he had fought with them against strong bodies of emigrants,he had killed and burned--in the eyes of the world his deeds made him one of them,and his aspect marked him as the most dangerous of the band.But they had always felt the difference--and now they meant to kill him not only because he had overpowered their leader but because of this difference.