threw up her head in that characteristic trick of hers, and
simultaneously Dave saw a figure rise out of the grass at his left with
rifle leveled. The Ranger remembered afterward the odd foreshortening
of the weapon and the crooked twist of the face behind it. With the
first jerk of his horse's head his own gun had leaped to his
shoulder--he was not conscious of having willed it to do so--and even
as he pressed the trigger he beheld a jet of smoke spurt from the
muzzle aimed at him. With the kick of his carbine he felt Bessie Belle
give way--it seemed to Dave that he shot while she was sinking. The
next instant his feet, still in the stirrups, were on the ground and
his horse lay between them, motionless. That nervous fling of her head
had saved Dave's life, for the rustler's bullet had shattered her skull
in its flight, and she lay prone, with scarcely a muscular twitch, so
sudden had been her end. The breath escaped slowly from her lungs; it
was as if she heaved a lingering sigh; one leg contracted and then
relaxed.

For a moment the Ranger was dazed. He stood staring down at his pet;
then the truth engulfed him. He realized that he had ridden her to her
death, and at the thought he became like a woman bereft of her child,
like a lover who had seen his sweetheart slain.

A shout--it was a hoarse, inarticulate cry; a swift, maddened scrutiny
that searched the sodden scene of the ambush; then he was down beside
the mare, calling her name heartbrokenly, his arms around her neck, his
face against her warm, wet, velvet hide.

Law knew that two men had entered the thicket, and therefore one still
remained to be reckoned with, but he gave no thought to that. Nor did
he rise to look after the grotesquely huddled figure that had been a
cattle thief only a moment before--both he and his assailant had been
too close to miss. From the corner of his eye he could see a pair of
boot-soles staring at him out of the grass, and they told him there was
no need for investigation. Near the body he heard a calf stirring, but
he let it struggle.

Bessie Belle's bright eyes were glazing; she did not hear her lover's
voice. Her muzzle, softer than any satin, was loose, her lips would
never twitch with that clumsy, quivering caress which pleased her
master so. One front hoof, washed as clean as agate, was awkwardly bent
under her, the other had plowed a furrow in the soft earth as she sank,
and against this leg her head lay tipped.

Don