Free The Black Rider by Max Brand Page A

preferred to make a close guard around Guadalmo and shout for help. So Taki paused to drop the rapier into a shallow bed of leaves. He snatched the black mask from his face.
    Just before him a body of six men broke in among the trees.
    “Who is there?” they shouted to him.
    “Taki,” he said. And he joined in the hunt.

X “Trapped”
    I t was a matter not to be mentioned in the presence of
Señor
Torreño. It was well enough if some rascally brigand dared to hold up passers-by upon the great highway. But when they ventured into his very presence and there committed their villainies, it was high time that an end were put to these proceedings.
Señor
Torreño ordered his entire household to mount. He left at the house a mere guard of half a dozen men. With the rest, he scoured the country. And, conspicuous among the foremost riders was Taki, the Navajo, who distinguishedhimself by being the only man of the party who thought he saw a fugitive vanishing among the hills. However, they could not trace the vision of Taki, and therefore they eventually turned back to the house, gloomy and disgruntled. The lips of Torreño flowed curses faster than a well gives forth water. He damned the entire world in general and the Black Rider in particular. He began again with the Black Rider and went backward, damning the entire world. He would burn the entire region of California to a crisp, but in the end he would have this reckless manhunter who ventured upon his kill in the very lair of the Torreño himself!
    The story of Guadalmo was simple and clear. He had been wakened from sleep by having a cord thrown around his body. Therefore, he awakened helpless. He was forced to dress in haste and climb down through the window, and so was taken to the hollow where he was eventually found. There he was about to be murdered, but he had managed to excite the pride of the Black Rider sufficiently to make the outlaw begin a single-handed duel in the course of which he was about to spit the Black Rider like a chicken, and so put an end to that sinister public plague, when they were broken in upon by fools who thought they were running to the rescue. It made no difference that the rescuers, according to what their eyes had told them, vowed that they did not notice any sword in the hand of Guadalmo. They were not believed to have seen what was before them. For, though it was conceivable that the great Guadalmo might be conquered in fight, it was notably ridiculous to conceive that he had been so overmastered that he was actually disarmed!
    Señor
Guadalmo, however, made light of the whole matter when they sat together to break their fast in the morning, after the futile manhunt had ended.
    “Now that I have seen this ghost face to face, and noted the color of his eyes,” said Guadalmo, “I assure you that there will soon be an end to him. Oh, fool, fool, fool that I was!”
    He struck his palm across his forehead and sighed.
    “What is wrong, Guadalmo?” asked his host.
    “When I think that I might have put this monster out of the world with a mere touch…and that I allowed him to live! Alas, Torreño, I am covered with shame and with fury.”
    “Tell us, Guadalmo.”
    “No, no! It sickens me to think of it! Fool, fool that I was!”
    “We must hear it,
señor.”
    “It was in this manner. We had closed. We were at hardly more than half sword distance. I threw him off balance with a strong parry and at the same instant I closed on him and took him by the throat. The dog lost heart at once. He dropped his sword and fell on his knees and babbled out a prayer for mercy! Mercy has ever been my besetting sin. I could not kill that wild beast even when I had him in that position.”
    Lady Anna d’Arquista fairly trembled with admiration. To think that at the same table with her sat a man who had been able to crush the famous Black Rider to his knees was enough to make her shudder. She said to her niece: “Did you ever see such a gallant and