WANG! The six-foot bow bent nearly double with the masterful fifty-pound pull on its leathern string. The arrow, long, slender, and tipped with razor-edged steel cruelly barbed, launched itself straight upward into the eye of the midday sun, the polished head flashing like a streak of fire.
Chombo el Arquero, half-breed horse trader by profession and master bowman in his hours of leisure, lowered the bow and stepped backward to lean against one of the four-by-fours supporting the roof of his hay shed. The shaft he had sped sunward was lost to sight, and Chombo’s interest was now in the target—a six-inch square of brown paper marked with a bull’s-eye and spread flat on the ground a dozen feet from where he stood.
Ordinary shots of seventy-five or a hundred yards at an elevated target were child’s play for him, and he held them in contempt; but to lose an arrow in the sky, and then to have it return and pierce a target not twelve feet from the spot where the bow was bent—that was a feat par excellence, the very chef-d’œuvre of a prince of archers.
So many things entered into the matter, so much depended on the sure judgment, the perfect execution. The aim zenithward must be deflected by just the hair’s breadth that, in the course of a long flight, would cover exactly the few feet to the target; the arrow had to be perfect in hang and balance and, above all, there was allowance to be made for the slightest cat’s-paw of wind.
Chombo was cunning and certain at all these calculations. He was a half-blood, peon Mexican and Yaqui; and it was the Yaqui strain in him that gave him his love for the bow and arrow.
He made his own bows and went questing into the high sierras for a certain springy evergreen that more than matched the English yew. His arrows were works of art, slim and strong, the haft feathered with eagle’s plumage, deftly trimmed, and the point worked from steel, polished and ground to a hair-splitting edge.
Chombo lived alone at his ranch, a few miles off the Quinlan Trail to Tres Alamos. No man ever came to him except for horses or burros; he had no love for company and but little more for customers. He had all grades of harness, saddle, and pack stock herded in his round corrals by night and scattered abroad in his wide grass valley by day. Three half-breeds like himself were his herdsmen.
His target range was the wide space between the rear of his adobe house and his hay shed. He was well-to-do, and while his men cared for his stock, he played , brewed tiswin from the flowers of the saguaro cactus, smoked cornhusk cigarros, and amused himself with the long bow.
The arrow was gone a long time, as arrow flights are counted, and Chombo lighted a cigarro as he leaned against the hay-shed post. Then, at last, it came rushing earthward, the barbed tip glowing like a falling star. Plump! Chombo heaved a grunt of satisfaction. Once more he had accomplished the seemingly impossible, for the shaft had buried itself in the earth by half its length—exactly in the center of the bull’s-eye.
“Bravo, Chombo!” exclaimed a voice.
The half-breed whirled in his tracks. A woman had stepped out from behind a corner of the adobe house—a slender woman who walked with a quick, sure step, wore divided skirts and a mannish sombrero. The sombrero was skewered to her brownish hair by a hatpin that showed on both sides of the crown the blade-tip and hilt of a small dagger. The brim of the hat was upturned in front, and over it and the woman’s face was a gray veil.
“Huh!” muttered Chombo, scowling. “Who you? What you want, eh? Caballos?”
A short laugh came from behind the veil. “Are we alone here?” the woman asked.
“Me, I am always alone—daytimes. Why?”
A gloved right hand with a quirt dangling from the wrist arose to lift the veil. The ordinarily impassive face of the half-breed showed just a flicker of surprise.
“Lola Sanger! Huh! It is said around you have left the country.”
The veil dropped. “Leave the country while my brother’s score is unsettled?” There was a tigerish hunching of the slender shoulders, a clenching of the gloved hands. “You knew Dirk, Chombo; and I thought you knew me.”
“How settle?” demanded Chombo, showing interest. “Seward caught the two of you and put you in jail. Me, I came by night and passed you files and a hacksaw. You cut the window bars and make escape on two horses I have waiting. Dirk goes loco, makes fool of himself. He kills, robs, and tries to get Seward. What happens, eh? Seward get him over at old Esmeralda. Now Dirk Sanger is back in cell, in double irons. You want me to help him escape? Mañana.” Chombo shook his head. “It is too much.”