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diff --git a/30485-0.txt b/30485-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1bb32aa --- /dev/null +++ b/30485-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9636 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30485 *** + +[Illustration: "Ride Low--They're Coming!"] + + + + +THE RUSTLER OF WIND RIVER + +By G. W. OGDEN + +WITH FRONTISPIECE + +By FRANK E. SCHOONOVER + +A. L. BURT COMPANY + +Publishers--New York + +Published by Arrangement with A. C. McClurg & Company + + + + +Copyright + +A. C. McClurg & Co. + +1917 + +Published March, 1917 + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I Strange Bargainings 1 + II Beef Day 11 + III The Ranchhouse by the River 28 + IV The Man in the Plaid 41 + V If He was a Gentleman 55 + VI A Bold Civilian 66 + VII Throwing the Scare 81 + VIII Afoot and Alone 89 + IX Business, not Company 102 + X "Hell's a-goin' to Pop" 119 + XI The Señor Boss Comes Riding 131 + XII "The Rustlers!" 147 + XIII The Trail at Dawn 160 + XIV When Friends Part 182 + XV One Road 196 + XVI Danger and Dignity 215 + XVII Boots and Saddles 227 + XVIII The Trail of the Coffee 240 + XIX "I Beat Him to It" 252 + XX Love and Death 268 + XXI The Man in the Door 280 + XXII Paid 298 + XXIII Tears in the Night 303 + XXIV Banjo Faces Into the West 312 + XXV "Hasta Luego" 322 + + + + +THE RUSTLER OF WIND RIVER + + +CHAPTER I + +STRANGE BARGAININGS + + +When a man came down out of the mountains looking dusty and gaunt as +the stranger did, there was no marvel in the matter of his eating five +cans of cove oysters. The one unaccountable thing about it was that +Saul Chadron, president of the Drovers' Association, should sit there +at the table and urge the lank, lean starveling to go his limit. + +Usually Saul Chadron was a man who picked his companions, and was a +particular hand at the choosing. He could afford to do that, being of +the earth's exalted in the Northwest, where people came to him and put +down their tribute at his feet. + +This stranger, whom Chadron treated like a long-wandering friend, had +come down the mountain trail that morning, and had been hanging about +the hotel all day. Buck Snellin, the proprietor--duly licensed for a +matter of thirty years past by the United States government to conduct +his hostelry in the corner of the Indian reservation, up against the +door of the army post--did not know him. That threw him among +strangers in that land, indeed, for Buck knew everybody within a +hundred miles on every side. + +The stranger was a tall, smoky man, hollow-faced, grim; adorned with a +large brown mustache which drooped over his thin mouth; a bony man +with sharp shoulders, and a stoop which began in the region of the +stomach, as if induced by drawing in upon himself in times of poignant +hunger, which he must have felt frequently in his day to wear him down +to that state of bones; with the under lid of his left eye caught at a +point and drawn down until it showed red, as if held by a fishhook to +drain it of unimaginable tears. + +There was a furtive look in his restless, wild-animal eyes, smoky like +the rest of him, and a surliness about his long, high-ridged nose +which came down over his mustache like a beak. He wore a cloth cap +with ear flaps, and they were down, although the heat of summer still +made the September air lively enough for one with blood beneath his +skin. He regaled himself with fierce defiance, like a captive eagle, +and had no word in return for the generous importunities of the man +who was host to him in what evidently was a long-deferred meal. + +Chadron paid the bill when the man at last finished packing his +internal cavities, and they went together into the hotel office which +adjoined the dining-room. + +The office of this log hotel was a large, gaunt room, containing a few +chairs along the walls, a small, round table under the window with the +register upon it, a pen in a potato, and a bottle of ink with trickled +and encrusted sides. The broad fireplace was bleak and black, +blank-staring as a blind eye, and the sun reached through the window +in a white streak across the mottled floor. + +There was the smell of old pipes, old furs, old guns, in the place, +and all of them were present to account for themselves and dispel any +shadow of mystery whatever--the guns on their pegs set in auger-holes +in the logs of the walls, the furs of wild beasts dangling from like +supports in profusion everywhere, and the pipes lying on the mantel +with stems hospitably extended to all unprovided guests. Some of them +had been smoked by the guests who had come and gone for a generation +of men. + +The stranger stood at the manteltree and tried the pipes' capacity +with his thick-ended thumb, finding one at last to his requirements. +Tall as Saul Chadron stood on his own proper legs, the stranger at his +shoulder was a head above him. Seven feet he must have towered, his +crown within a few inches of the smoked beams across the ceiling, and +marvelously thin in the running up. It seemed that the wind must break +him some blustering day at that place in his long body where hunger, +or pain, or mischance had doubled him over in the past, and left him +creased. The strong light of the room found pepperings of gray in his +thick and long black hair. + +Chadron himself was a gray man, with a mustache and beard like a +cavalier. His shrewd eyes were sharp and bright under heavy brows, his +brown face was toughened by days in the saddle through all seasons of +weather and wind. His shoulders were broad and heavy, and even now, +although not dressed for the saddle, there was an up-creeping in the +legs of his trousers, and a gathering at the knees of them, for they +were drawn down over his tall boots. + +That was Chadron's way of doing the nice thing when he went abroad in +his buckboard. He had saddle manners and buckboard manners, and even +office manners when he met the cattle barons in Cheyenne. No matter +what manners he chanced to be wearing, one remembered Saul Chadron +after meeting him, and carried the recollection of him to the sundown +of his day. + +"We can talk here," said Chadron, giving the other a cigar. + +The tall man broke the cigar and ground part of it in his palm, +looking with frowning thoughtfulness into the empty fireplace as the +tobacco crushed in his hard hand. He filled the pipe that he had +chosen, and sat with his long legs stretched out toward the +chimney-mouth. + +"Well, go on and talk," said he. + +His voice came smothered and hoarse, as if it lay beneath all the +oysters which he had rammed into his unseen hollow. It was a voice in +strange harmony with the man, such a sound as one would have expected +to come out of that surly, dark-lipped, thin mouth. There was nothing +committal about it, nothing exactly identifying; an impersonal voice, +rather, and cold; a voice with no conscience behind it, scarcely a +soul. + +"You're a business man, Mark--" + +"Huh!" said Mark, grunting a little cloud of smoke from the bowl of +his pipe in his sarcastic vehemence. + +"And so am I," continued Chadron, unmoved. "Words between us would be +a waste of time." + +"You're right; money talks," said Mark. + +"It's a man's job, or I wouldn't have called you out of your hole to +do it," said Chadron, watching the man slyly for the effect. + +"Pay me in money," suggested Mark, unwarmed by the compliment. "Is it +nesters ag'in?" + +"Nesters," nodded the cattleman, drawing his great brows in a frown. +"They're crowdin' in so thick right around me that I can't breathe +comfortable any more; the smell of 'em's in the wind. They're runnin' +over three of the biggest ranches up here besides the Alamito, and the +Drovers' Association wants a little of your old-time holy scare +throwed into the cussed coyotes." + +Mark nodded in the pause which seemed to have been made for him to +nod, and Chadron went on. + +"We figger that if a dozen or two of 'em's cleaned out, quick and +mysterious, the rest'll tuck tail and sneak. It's happened that way in +other places more than once, as you and I know. Well, you're the man +that don't have to take lessons." + +"Money talks," repeated Mark, still looking into the chimney. + +"There's about twenty of them that counts, the rest's the kind you can +drive over a cliff with a whip. These fellers has strung their cussed +bob-wire fences crisscross and checkerboard all around there up the +river, and they're gittin' to be right troublesome. Of course they're +only a speck up there yet, but they'll multiply like fleas on a hot +dog if we let 'em go ahead. You know how it is." + +There was a conclusiveness in Chadron's tone as he said that. It spoke +of a large understanding between men of a kind. + +"Sure," grunted the man Mark, nodding his head at the chimney. "You +want a man to work from the willers, without no muss or gun-flashin', +or rough houses or loud talk." + +"Twenty of them, their names are here, and some scattered in between +that I haven't put down, to be picked up as they fall in handy, see?" + +"And you're aimin' to keep clear, and stand back in the shadder, like +you always have done," growled Mark. "Well, I ain't goin' to ram my +neck into no sheriff's loop for nobody's business but my own from now +on. I'm through with resks, just to be obligin'." + +"Who'll put a hand on you in this country unless we give the word?" +Chadron asked, severely. + +"How do I know who's runnin' the law in this dang country now? Maybe +you fellers is, maybe you ain't." + +"There's no law in this part of the country bigger than the Drovers' +Association," Chadron told him, frowning in rebuke of Mark's doubt of +security. "Well, maybe there's a little sheriff here and there, and a +few judges that we didn't put in, but they're down in the farmin' +country, and they don't cut no figger at all. If you _was_ fool enough +to let one of them fellers git a hold on you we wouldn't leave you in +jail over night. You know how it was up there in the north." + +"But I don't know how it is down here." Mark scowled in surly +unbelief, or surly simulation. + +"There's not a judge, federal or state, that could carry a bale of hay +anywhere in the cattle country, I tell you, Mark, that we don't draw +the chalk line for." + +"Then why don't you do the job yourselves, 'stead of callin' a +peaceable man away from his ranchin'?" + +"You're one kind of a gentleman, Mark, and I'm another, and there's +different jobs for different men. That ain't my line." + +"Oh hell!" said Mark, laying upon the words an eloquent stress. + +"All you've got to do is keep clear of the reservation; don't turn a +card here, no matter how easy it looks. We can't jerk you out of the +hands of the army if you git mixed up with it; that's one place where +we stop. The reservation's a middle ground where we meet the +nesters--rustlers, every muddy-bellied wolf of 'em, and we can prove +it--and pass 'em by. They come and go here like white men, and nothing +said. Keep clear of the reservation; that's all you've got to do to be +as safe as if you was layin' in bed on your ranch up in Jackson's +Hole." + +Chadron winked as he named that refuge of the hunted in the Northwest. +Mark appeared to be considering something weightily. + +"Oh, well, if they're rustlers--nobody ain't got no use for a +rustler," he said. + +"There's men in that bunch of twenty"--tapping the slip of paper with +his finger--"that started with two cows a couple of years ago that's +got fifty and sixty head of two-year-olds now," Chadron feelingly +declared. + +"How much're you willin' to go?" Mark put the question with a +suddenness which seemed to betray that he had been saving it to shoot +off that way, as a disagreeable point over which he expected a +quarrel. He squinted his draggled left eye at Chadron, as if he was +taking aim, while he waited for a reply. + +"Well, you have done it for fifty a head," Chadron said. + +"Things is higher now, and I'm older, and the resk's bigger," Mark +complained. "How fur apart do they lay?" + +"You ought to get around in a week or two." + +"But that ain't figgerin' the time a feller has to lay out in the +bresh waitin' and takin' rheumatiz in his j'ints. I couldn't touch the +job for the old figger; things is higher." + +"Look here, Mark"--Chadron opened the slip which he had wound round +his finger--"this one is worth ten, yes, all, the others. Make your +own price on him. But I want it _done_; no bungled job." + +Mark took the paper and laid his pipe aside while he studied it. + +"Macdonald?" + +"Alan Macdonald," nodded Chadron. "That feller's opened a ditch from +the river up there on my land and begun to _irrigate!_" + +"Irrigatin', huh?" said Mark, abstractedly, moving his finger down the +column of names. + +"He makes a blind of buyin' up cattle and fattenin' 'em on the hay and +alfalfer he's raisin' up there on my good land, but he's the king-pin +of the rustlers in this corner of the state. He'll be in here tomorrow +with cattle for the Indian agent--it's beef day--and you can size him +up. But you've got to keep your belly to the ground like a snake when +you start anything on that feller, and you've got to make sure you've +got him dead to rights. He's quick with a gun, and he's sure." + +"Five hundred?" suggested Mark, with a crafty sidelong look. + +"You've named it." + +"And something down for expenses; a feller's got to live, and livin's +high." + +Chadron drew out his wallet. Money passed into Mark's hand, and he put +it away in his pocket along with the list of names. + +"I'll see you in the old place in Cheyenne for the settlement, if you +make good," Chadron told him. + +Mark waved his hand in lofty depreciation of the hint that failure for +him was a possible contingency. He said no more. For a little while +Chadron stood looking down on him as he leaned with his pipe over the +dead ashes in the fireplace, his hand in the breast of his coat, where +he had stored his purse. Mark treated the mighty cattleman as if he +had become a stranger to him, along with the rest of the world in that +place, and Chadron turned and went his way. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +BEEF DAY + + +Fort Shakie was on its downhill way in those days, and almost at the +bottom of the decline. It was considered a post of penance by enlisted +men and officers alike, nested up there in the high plateau against +the mountains in its place of wild beauty and picturesque charm. + +But natural beauty and Indian picturesqueness do not fill the place in +the soldierly breast of fair civilian lady faces, nor torrential +streams of cold mountain water supply the music of the locomotive's +toot. Fort Shakie was being crept upon by civilization, true, but it +was coming all too slow for the booted troopers and belted officers +who must wear away the months in its lonely silences. + +Within the memory of officers not yet gray the post had been a hundred +and fifty miles from a railroad. Now it was but twenty; but even that +short leap drowned the voice of the locomotive, and the dot at the +rails' end held few of the endearments which make soldiering sweet. + +Soon the post must go, indeed, for the need of it had passed. The +Shoshones, Arapahoes, and Crows had forgotten their old animosities, +and were traveling with Buffalo Bill, going to college, and raising +alfalfa under the direction of a government farmer. The Indian police +were in training to do the soldiers' work there. Soon the post must +stand abandoned, a lonely monument to the days of hard riding, long +watches, and bleak years. Not a soldier in the service but prayed for +the hastening of the day. + +No, there was not much over at Meander, at the railroad's end, to +cheer a soldier's heart. It was an inspiring ride, in these autumn +days, to come to Meander, past the little brimming lakes, which seemed +to lie without banks in the green meadows where wild elk fed with the +shy Indian cattle; over the white hills where the earth gave under the +hoofs like new-fallen snow. But when one came to it through the +expanding, dusty miles, the reward of his long ride was not in keeping +with his effort. + +Certainly, privates and subalterns could get drunk there, as speedily +as in the centers of refinement, but there were no gentlemanly +diversions at which an officer could dispel the gloom of his sour days +in garrison. + +The rough-cheeked girls of that high-wind country were well enough for +cowboys to swing in their wild dances; just a rung above the squaws on +the reservation in the matter of loquacity and of gum. Hardly the sort +for a man who had the memory of white gloves and gleaming shoulders, +and the traditions of the service to maintain. + +Of course there was the exception of Nola Chadron, but she was not of +Meander and the railroad's end, and she came only in flashes of summer +brightness, like a swift, gay bird. But when Nola was at the +ranchhouse on the river the gloom lifted over the post, and the sour +leaven in the hearts of unmarried officers became as sweet as manna in +the cheer of the unusual social outlet thus provided. + +Nola kept the big house in a blaze of joy while she nested there +through the summer days. The sixteen miles which stretched between it +and the post ran out like a silver band before those who rode into the +smile of her welcome, and when she flitted away to Cheyenne, +champagne, and silk hats in the autumn, a grayness hovered again over +the military post in the corner of the reservation. + +Later than usual Nola had lingered on this fall, and the social outlet +had remained open, like a navigable river over which the threat of ice +hung but had not yet fallen. There were not lacking those who held +that the lodestone which kept her there at the ranchhouse, when the +gaieties of the season beckoned elsewhere, was in the breast of Major +Cuvier King. Fatal infatuation, said the married ladies at the post, +knowing, as everybody knew in the service, that Major King was +betrothed to Frances Landcraft, the colonel's daughter. + +No matter for any complications which might come of it, Nola had +remained on, and the major had smiled on her, and ridden with her, and +cut high capers in the dance, all pending the return of Frances and +her mother from their summering at Bar Harbor in compliance with the +family traditions. Now Frances was back again, and fortune had thrown +a sunburst of beauty into the post by centering her and Nola here at +once. Nola was the guest of the colonel's daughter, and there were +flutterings in uniformed breasts. + +Beef day was an event at the agency which never grew old to the people +at the post. Without beef day they must have dwindled off to acidulous +shadows, as the Indians who depended upon it for more solid sustenance +would have done in the event of its discontinuation by a paternal +government. + +There were phases of Indian life and character which one never saw +save on beef day, which fell on Wednesday of each week. Guests at the +post watched the bright picture with the keen interest of a pageant on +the stage; tourists came over by stage from Meander in the summer +months by the score to be present; the resident officers, and their +wives and families--such as had them--found in it an ever-recurring +source of interest and relief from the tedium of days all alike. + +This beef day, the morning following the meeting between Saul Chadron +and his mysterious guest, a chattering group stood on the veranda of +Colonel Landcraft's house in the bright friendly sun. They were +waiting for horses to make the short journey to the agency--for one's +honesty was questioned, his sanity doubted, if he went afoot in that +country even a quarter of a mile--and gayest among them was Nola +Chadron, the sun in her fair, springing hair. + +Nola's crown reached little higher than a proper soldier's heart, but +what she lacked in stature she supplied in plastic perfection of body +and vivacity of face. There was a bounding joyousness of life in her; +her eager eyes reflecting only the anticipated pleasures of today. +There was no shadow of yesterday's regret in them, no cloud of +tomorrow's doubt. + +On the other balance there was Frances Landcraft, taller by half a +head, soldierly, too, as became her lineage, in the manner of lifting +her chin in what seemed a patrician scorn of small things such as a +lady should walk the world unconscious of. The brown in her hair was +richer than the clear agate of her eyes; it rippled across her ear +like the scroll of water upon the sand. + +There was a womanly dignity about her, although the threshold of +girlhood must not have been far behind her that bright autumnal +morning. Her nod was equal to a stave of Nola's chatter, her smile +worth a league of the light laughter from that bounding little lady's +lips. Not that she was always so silent as on that morning, there +among the young wives of the post, at her own guest's side. She had +her hours of overflowing spirits like any girl, but in some company +she was always grave. + +When Major King was in attendance, especially, the seeing ones made +note. And there were others, too, who said that she was by nature a +colonel among women, haughty, cold and aloof. These wondered how the +major ever had made headway with her up to the point of gaining her +hand. Knowing ones smiled at that, and said it had been arranged. + +There were ambitions on both sides of that match, it was known--ambition +on the colonel's part to secure his only child a station of dignity, and +what he held to be of consequence above all achievements in the +world. Major King was a rising man, with two friends in the cabinet. +It was said that he would be a brigadier-general before he reached +forty. + +On the major's side, was the ambition to strengthen his political +affiliations by alliance with a family of patrician strain, together +with the money that his bride would bring, for Colonel Landcraft was a +weighty man in this world's valued accumulations. So the match had +been arranged. + +The veranda of the colonel's house gave a view of the parade grounds +and the long avenue that came down between the officers' houses, +cottonwoods lacing their limbs above the road. There was green in +the lawns, the flash of flowers between the leaves and shrubs, +white-gleaming walls, trim walks, shorn hedges. It seemed a pleasant +place of quiet beauty that bright September morning, and a pity to +give it up by and by to dust and desolation; a place where men and +women might be happy, but for the gnawing fire of ambition in their +hearts. + +Mrs. Colonel Landcraft was not going. Indians made her sick, she said, +especially Indians sitting around in the tall grass waiting for the +carcasses to be cut up and apportioned out to them in bloody chunks. +But there seemed to be another source of her sickness that morning, +measuring by the grave glances with which she searched her daughter's +face. She wondered whether the major and Frances had quarreled; and if +so, whether Nola Chadron had been the cause. + +They were off, with the colonel and a lately-assigned captain in the +lead. There was a keener pleasure in this beef day than usual for the +colonel, for he had new ground to sow with its wonders, which were +beginning to pale in his old eyes which had seen so much of the +world. + +"Very likely we'll see the minister's wife there," said he, as they +rode forward, "and if so, it will be worth your while to take special +note of her. St. John Mathews, the Episcopalian minister over there at +the mission--those white buildings there among the trees--is a +full-blooded Crow. One of the pioneer missionaries took him up and +sent him back East to school, where in time he entered the ministry +and married this white girl. She was a college girl, I've been told, +glamoured by the romance of Mathews' life. Well, it was soon over." + +The colonel sighed, and fell silent. The captain, feeling that it was +intended that he should, made polite inquiry. + +"The trouble is that Mathews is an Indian out of his place," the +colonel resumed. "He returned here twenty years or so ago, and took up +his work among his people. But as he advanced toward civilization, his +wife began to slip back. Little by little she adopted the Indian ways +and dress, until now you couldn't tell her from a squaw if you were to +meet her for the first time. She presents a curious psychological +study--or perhaps biological example of atavism, for I believe there's +more body than soul in the poor creature now. It's nature maintaining +the balance, you see. He goes up; she slips back. + +"If she's there, she'll be squatting among the squaws, waiting to +carry home her husband's allotment of warm, bloody beef. She doesn't +have to do it, and it shames and humiliates Mathews, too, even though +they say she cuts it up and divides it among the poorer Indians. She's +a savage; her eyes sparkle at the sight of red meat." + +They rounded the agency buildings and came upon an open meadow in +which the slaughterhouses stood at a distance from the road. Here, +in the grassy expanse, the Indians were gathered, waiting the +distribution of the meat. The scene was barbarically animated. Groups +of women in their bright dresses sat here and there on the grass, and +apart from them in gravity waited old men in moccasins and blankets +and with feathers in their hair. Spry young men smoked cigarettes +and talked volubly, garbed in the worst of civilization and the +most useless of savagery. + +One and all they turned their backs upon the visitors, the nearest +groups and individuals moving away from them with the impassive +dignity of their race. There is more scorn in an Indian squaw's back, +turned to an impertinent stranger, than in the faces of six matrons of +society's finest-sifted under similar conditions. + +Colonel Landcraft led his party across the meadow, entirely +unconscious of the cold disdain of the people whom he looked down upon +from his superior heights. He could not have understood if any there +had felt the trespass from the Indians' side--and there was one, very +near and dear to the colonel who felt it so--and attempted to explain. +The colonel very likely would have puffed up with military consequence +almost to the bursting-point. + +Feeling, delicacy, in those smeared, smelling creatures! Surliness in +excess they might have, but dignity, not at all. Were they not there +as beggars to receive bounty from the government's hand? + +"Oh, there's Mrs. Mathews!" said Nola, with the eagerness of a child +who has found a quail's nest in the grass. She was off at an angle, +like a hunter on the scent. Colonel Landcraft and his guest followed +with equal rude eagerness, and the others swept after them, Frances +alone hanging back. Major King was at Nola's side. If he noted the +lagging of his fiancée he did not heed. + +The minister's wife, a shawl over her head, her braided hair in front +of her shoulders like an Indian woman, rose from her place in startled +confusion. She looked as if she would have fled if an avenue had been +open, or a refuge presented. The embarrassed creature was obliged to +stand in their curious eyes, and stammer in a tongue which seemed to +be growing strange to her from its uncommon use. + +She was a short woman, growing heavy and shapeless now, and there was +gray in her black hair. Her skin was browned by sun, wind, and smoke +to the hue of her poor neighbors and friends. When she spoke in reply +to the questions which poured upon her, she bent her head like a timid +girl. + +Frances checked her horse and remained behind, out of range of +hearing. She was cut to the heart with shame for her companions, and +her cheek burned with the indignation that she suffered with the +harried woman in their midst. A little Indian girl came flying past, +ducking and dashing under the neck of Frances' horse, in pursuit of a +piece of paper which the wind whirled ahead of her. At Frances' +stirrup she caught it, and held it up with a smile. + +"Did you lose this, lady?" she asked, in the very best of mission +English. + +"No," said Frances, bending over to see what it might be. The little +girl placed it in her hand and scurried away again to a beckoning +woman, who stood on her knees and scowled over her offspring's dash +into the ways of civilized little girls. + +It was a narrow strip of paper that she had rescued from the wind, +with the names of several men written on it in pencil, and at the head +of the list the name of Alan Macdonald. Opposite that name some crude +hand had entered, with pen that had flowed heavily under his pressure, +the figures "$500." + +Frances turned it round her finger and sat waiting for the others to +leave off their persecution of the minister's wife and come back to +her, wondering in abstracted wandering of mind who Alan Macdonald +might be, and for what purpose he had subscribed the sum of five +hundred dollars. + +"I think she's the most romantic little thing in the world!" Nola was +declaring, in her extravagant surface way as they returned to where +Frances sat her horse, her wandering eyes on the blue foothills, the +strip of paper prominent about her finger. "Oh, honey! what's the +matter? Did you cut your finger?" + +"No," said Frances, her serious young face lighting with a smile, +"it's a little subscription list, or something, that somebody lost. +Alan Macdonald heads it for five hundred dollars. Do you know Alan +Macdonald, and what his charitable purpose may be?" + +Nola tossed her head with a contemptuous sniff. + +"They call him the 'king of the rustlers' up the river," said she. + +"Oh, he _is_ a man of consequence, then?" said Frances, a quickening +of humor in her brown eyes, seeing that Nola was up on her high horse +about it. + +"We'd better be going down to the slaughter-house if we want to see +the fun," bustled the colonel, wheeling his horse. "I see a movement +setting in that way." + +"He's just a common thief!" declared Nola, with flushed cheek and +resentful eye, as Frances fell in beside her for the march against the +abattoir. + +Frances still carried the paper twisted about her finger, reserving +her judgment upon Alan Macdonald, for she knew something of the feuds +of that hard-speaking land. + +"Anyway, I suppose he'd like to have his paper back," she suggested. +"Will you hand it to him the next time you meet him?" + +Frances was entirely grave about it, although it was only a piece of +banter which she felt that Nola would appreciate. But Nola was not in +an appreciative mood, for she was a full-blooded daughter of the +baronial rule. She jerked her head like a vicious bronco and reined +hurriedly away from Frances as she extended the paper. + +"I'll not touch the thing!" said Nola, fire in her eyes. + +Major King was enjoying the passage between the girls, riding at +Nola's side with his cavalry hands held precisely. + +"If I'm not mistaken, the gentleman in question is there talking to +Miller, the agent," said he, nodding toward two horsemen a little +distance ahead. "But I wouldn't excite him, Miss Landcraft, if I were +you. He's said to be the quickest and deadliest man with a weapon on +this range." + +Major King smiled over his own pleasantry. Frances looked at Nola with +brows lifted inquiringly, as if waiting her verification. Then the +grave young lady settled back in her saddle and laughed merrily, +reaching across and touching her friend's arm in conciliating caress. + +"Oh, you delightful little savage!" she said. "I believe you'd like to +take a shot at poor Mr. Macdonald yourself." + +"We never start anything on the reservation," Nola rejoined, quite +seriously. + +Miller, the Indian agent, rode away and left Macdonald sitting there +on his horse as the military party approached. He spurred up to meet +the colonel, and to present his respects to the ladies--a hard matter +for a little round man with a tight paunch, sitting in a Mexican +saddle. The party halted, and Frances looked across at Macdonald, who +seemed to be waiting for Miller to rejoin him. + +Macdonald was a supple, sinewy man, as he appeared across the few rods +intervening. His coat was tied with his slicker at the cantle of his +saddle, his blue flannel shirt was powdered with the white dust of the +plain. Instead of the flaring neckerchief which the cowboys commonly +favored, Macdonald wore a cravat, the ends of it tucked into the bosom +of his shirt, and in place of the leather chaps of men who ride +breakneck through brush and bramble, his legs were clad in tough brown +corduroys, and fended by boots to his knees. There were revolvers in +the holsters at his belt. + +Not an unusual figure for that time and place, but something uncommon +in the air of unbending severity that sat on him, which Frances felt +even at that distance. He looked like a man who had a purpose in his +life, and who was living it in his own brave way. If he was a cattle +thief, as charged, thought she, then she would put her faith against +the world that he was indeed a master of his trade. + +They were talking around Miller, who was going to give them places of +vantage for the coming show. Only Frances and Major King were left +behind, where she had stopped her horse to look curiously across at +Alan Macdonald, king of the rustlers, as he was called. + +"It may not be anything at all to him, and it may be something +important," said Frances, reaching out the slip to Major King. "Would +you mind handing it to him, and explaining how it came into my +hands?" + +"I'll not have anything to do with the fellow!" said the major, +flushing hotly. "How can you ask such a thing of _me?_ Throw it away, +it's no concern of yours--the memorandum of a cattle thief!" + +Frances drew herself straight. Her imperious chin was as high as Major +King ever had carried his own in the most self-conscious moment of his +military career. + +"Will you take it to him?" she demanded. + +"Certainly not!" returned the major, haughtily emphatic. Then, +softening a little, "Don't be silly, Frances; what a row you make over +a scrap of blowing paper!" + +"Then I'll take it myself!" + +"Miss Landcraft!" + +"_Major_ King!" + +It was the steel of conventionality against the flint of womanly +defiance. Major King started in his saddle, as if to reach out and +restrain her. It was one of those defiantly foolish little things +which women and men--especially women--do in moments of pique, and +Frances knew it at the time. But she rode away from the major with a +hot flush of insubordination in her cheeks, and Alan Macdonald +quickened from his pensive pose when he saw her coming. + +His hand went to his hat when her intention became unmistakable to +him. She held the little paper out toward him while still a rod away. + +"A little Indian girl gave me this; she found it blowing along--they +tell me you are Mr. Macdonald," she said, her face as serious as his +own. "I thought it might be a subscription list for a church, or +something, and that you might want it." + +"Thank you, Miss Landcraft," said he, his voice low-modulated, his +manner easy. + +Her face colored at the unexpected way of this man without a coat, who +spoke her name with the accent of refinement, just as if he had known +her, and had met her casually upon the way. + +"I have seen you a hundred times at the post and the agency," he +explained, to smooth away her confusion. "I have seen you from afar." + +"Oh," said she, as lame as the word was short. + +He was scanning the written paper. Now he looked at her, a smile +waking in his eyes. It moved in slow illumination over his face, but +did not break his lips, pressed in their stern, strong line. She saw +that his long hair was light, and that his eyes were gray, with sandy +brows over them which stood on end at the points nearest his nose, +from a habit of bending them in concentration, she supposed, as he had +been doing but a moment before he smiled. + +"No, it isn't a church subscription, Miss Landcraft, it's for a +cemetery," said he. + +"Oh," said she again, wondering why she did not go back to Major King, +whose horse appeared restive, and in need of the spur, which the major +gave him unfeelingly. + +At the same time she noted that Alan Macdonald's forehead was broad +and deep, for his leather-weighted hat was pushed back from it where +his fair, straight hair lay thick, and that his bony chin had a little +croft in it, and that his face was long, and hollowed like a +student's, and that youth was in his eyes in spite of the experience +which hardships of unknown kind had written across his face. Not a +handsome man, but a strong one in his way, whatever that way might +be. + +"I am indebted to you for this," said he, drawing forth his watch with +a quick movement as he spoke, opening the back cover, folding the +little paper carefully away in it, "and grateful beyond words." + +"Good-bye, Mr. Macdonald," said she, wheeling her horse suddenly, +smiling back at him as she rode away to Major King. + +Alan Macdonald sat with his hat off until she was again at the major's +side, when he replaced it over his fair hair with slow hand, as if he +had come from some holy presence. As for Frances, her turn of defiance +had driven her clouds away. She met the major smiling and radiant, a +twinkling of mischief in her lively eyes. + +The major was a diplomat, as all good soldiers, and some very +indifferent ones, are. Whatever his dignity and gentler feelings had +suffered while she was away, he covered the hurt now with a smile. + +"And how fares the bandit king this morning?" he inquired. + +"He seems to be in spirits," she replied. + +The others were out of sight around the buildings where the carcasses +of beef had been prepared. Nobody but the major knew of Frances' +little dash out of the conventional, and the knowledge that it was so +was comfortable in his breast. + +"And the pe-apers," said he, in melodramatic whisper, "were they the +thieves' muster roll?" + +"He isn't a thief," said she, with quiet dignity, "he's a gentleman. +Yes, the paper _was_ important." + +"Ha! the plot deepens!" said Major King. + +"It was a matter of life and death," said she, with solemn rebuke for +his levity, speaking a truer word than she was aware. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE RANCHHOUSE BY THE RIVER + + +Saul Chadron had built himself into that house. It was a solid and +assertive thing of rude importance where it stood in the great plain, +the river lying flat before it in its low banks like a gray thread +through the summer green. There was a bold front to the house, and a +turret with windows, standing like a lighthouse above the sea of +meadows in which his thousand-numbered cattle fed. + +As white as a dove it sat there among the cottonwoods at the +riverside. A stream of water led into its gardens to gladden them and +give them life. Years ago, when Chadron's importance was beginning to +feel itself strong upon its legs, and when Nola was a little thing +with light curls blowing about her blue eyes, the house had grown up +under the wand of riches in that barren place. + +The post at Fort Shakie had been the nearest neighbor in those days, +and it remained the nearest neighbor still, with the exception of one +usurper and outcast homesteader, Alan Macdonald by name, who had +invaded the land over which Chadron laid his extensive claim. Fifteen +miles up the river from the grand white house Macdonald had strung his +barbed wire and carried in the irrigation ditch to his alfalfa field. +He had chosen the most fertile spot in the vast plain through which +the river swept, and it was in the heart of Saul Chadron's domain. + +After the lordly manner of the cattle "barons," as they were called in +the Northwest, Chadron set his bounds by mountains and rivers. +Twenty-five hundred square miles, roughly measured, lay within his +lines, the Alamito Ranch he called it--the Little Cottonwood. He had +no more title to that great sweep of land than the next man who might +come along, and he paid no rental fee to nation nor state for grazing +his herds upon it. But the cattle barons had so apportioned the land +between themselves, and Saul Chadron, and each member of the Drovers' +Association, had the power of their mighty organization to uphold his +hand. That power was incontestable in the Northwest in its day; there +was no higher law. + +This Alan Macdonald was an unaccountable man, a man of education, it +was said, which made him doubly dangerous in Saul Chadron's eyes. Saul +himself had come up from the saddle, and he was not strong on letters, +but he had seen the power of learning in lawyers' offices, and he +respected it, and handled it warily, like a loaded gun. + +Chadron had sent his cowboys up the river when Macdonald first came, +and tried to "throw a holy scare into him," as he put it. The old +formula did not work in the case of the lean, long-jawed, bony-chinned +man. He was polite, but obdurate, and his quick gray eyes seemed to +read to their inner process of bluff and bluster as through tissue +paper before a lamp. When they had tried to flash their guns on him, +the climax of their play, he had beaten them to it. Two of them were +carried back to the big ranchhouse in blankets, with bullets through +their fleshy parts--not fatal wounds, but effective. + +The problem of a fighting "nester" was a new one to the cattlemen of +that country. For twenty years they had kept that state under the +dominion of the steer, and held its rich agricultural and mineral +lands undeveloped. The herbage there, curing in the dry suns of summer +as it stood on the upland plains, provided winter forage for their +herds. There was no need for man to put his hand to the soil and +debase himself to a peasant's level when he might live in a king's +estate by roaming his herds over the untamed land. + +Homesteaders who did not know the conditions drifted there on the +westward-mounting wave, only to be hustled rudely away, or to pay the +penalty of refusal with their lives. Reasons were not given, rights +were not pleaded by the lords of many herds. They had the might to +work their will; that was enough. + +So it could be understood what indignation mounted in the breast of +tough old Saul Chadron when a pigmy homesteader put his firm feet down +on the ground and refused to move along at his command, and even +fought back to maintain what he claimed to be his rights. It was an +unprecedented stand, a dangerous example. But this nester had held out +for more than two years against his forces, armed by some invisible +strength, it seemed, guarded against ambuscades and surprises by some +cunning sense which led him whole and secure about his nefarious +ways. + +Not alone that, but other homesteaders had come and settled near him +across the river on two other big ranches which cornered there against +Chadron's own. These nesters drew courage from Macdonald's example, +and cunning from his counsel, and stood against the warnings, +persecutions, and attempts at forceful dislodgment. The law of might +did not seem to apply to them, and there was no other source equal to +the dignity of the Drovers' Association--at least none to which it +cared to carry its grievances and air them. + +So they cut Alan Macdonald's fences, and other homesteaders' fences, +in the night and drove a thousand or two cattle across his fields, +trampling the growing grain and forage into the earth; they persecuted +him in a score of harassing, quick, and hidden blows. But this +homesteader was not to be driven away by ordinary means. Nature seemed +to lend a hand to him, he made crops in spite of the cattlemen, and +was prospering. He had taken root and appeared determined to remain, +and the others were taking deep root with him, and the free, wide +range was coming under the menace of the fence and the lowly plow. + +That was the condition of things in those fair autumn days when +Prances Landcraft returned to the post. The Drovers' Association, and +especially the president of it, was being defied in that section, +where probably a hundred homesteaders had settled with their families +of long-backed sons and daughters. They were but a speck on the land +yet, as Chadron had told the smoky stranger when he had engaged him to +try his hand at throwing the "holy scare." But they spread far over +the upland plain, having sought the most favored spots, and they were +a blight and a pest in the eyes of the cattlemen. + +Nola had flitted back to the ranchhouse, carrying Frances with her to +bring down the curtain on her summer's festivities there in one last +burst of joy. The event was to be a masquerade, and everybody from the +post was coming, together with the few from Meander who had polish +enough to float them, like new needles in a glass of water, through +frontier society's depths. Some were coming from Cheyenne, also, and +the big house was dressed for them, even to the bank of palms to +conceal the musicians, in the polite way that society has of standing +something in front of what it cannot well dispense with, yet of which +it appears to be ashamed. + +It was the afternoon of the festal day, and Nola sighed happily as she +stood with Frances in the ballroom, surveying the perfection of every +detail. Money could do things away off there in that corner of the +world as well as it could do them in Omaha or elsewhere. Saul Chadron +had hothouses in which even oranges and pineapples grew. + +Mrs. Chadron was in the living-room, with its big fireplace and homely +things, when they came chattering out of the enchanted place. She was +sitting by the window which gave her a view of the dim gray road where +it came over the grassy swells from Meander and the world, knitting a +large blue sock. + +Mrs. Chadron was a cow-woman of the unimproved school. She was a heavy +feeder on solids, and she liked plenty of chili peppers in them, which +combination gave her a waist and a ruddiness of face like a brewer. +But she was a good woman in her fashion, which was narrow, and +intolerant of all things which did not wear hoofs and horns, or live +and grow mighty from the proceeds of them. She never had expanded +mentally to fit the large place that Saul had made for her in the +world of cattle, although her struggle had been both painful and +sincere. + +Now she had given it up, and dismissed the troubles of high life from +her fat little head, leaving Nola to stand in the door and do the +honors with credit to the entire family. She had settled down to her +roasts and hot condiments, her knitting and her afternoon naps, as +contentedly as an old cat with a singed back under a kitchen stove. +She had no desire to go back to the winter home in Cheyenne, with its +grandeur, its Chinese cook, and furniture that she was afraid to use. +There was no satisfaction in that place for Mrs. Chadron, beyond the +swelling pride of ownership. For comfort, peace, and a mind at ease, +give her the ranchhouse by the river, where she could set her hand to +a dish if she wanted to, no one thinking it amiss. + +"Well, I declare! if here don't come Banjo Gibson," said she, her hand +on the curtain, her red face near the pane like a beacon to welcome +the coming guest. There was pleasure in her voice, and anticipation. +The blue sock slid from her lap to the floor, forgotten. + +"Yes, it's Banjo," said Nola. "I wonder where he's been all summer? I +haven't seen him in an age." + +"Who is he?" Frances inquired, looking out at the approaching figure, + +"The troubadour of the North Platte, I call him," laughed Nola; "the +queerest little traveling musician in a thousand miles. He belongs +back in the days of romance, when men like him went playing from +castle to court--the last one of his kind." + +Frances watched him with new interest as he drew up to the big gate, +which was arranged with weights and levers so that a horseman could +open and close it without leaving the saddle. The troubadour rode a +mustang the color of a dry chili pepper, but with none of its spirit. +It came in with drooping head, the reins lying untouched on its neck, +its mane and forelock platted and adorned fantastically with +vari-colored ribbons. Rosettes were on the bridle, a fringe of leather +thongs along the reins. + +The musician himself was scarcely less remarkably than the horse. He +looked at that distance--now being at the gate--to be a dry little man +of middle age, with a thirsty look about his throat, which was long, +with a lump in it like an elbow. He was a slender man and short, with +gloves on his hands, a slight sandy mustache on his lip, and wearing a +dun-colored hat tilted a little to one side, showing a waviness almost +curly in his glistening black hair. He carried a violin case behind +his saddle, and a banjo in a green covering slung like a carbine over +his shoulder. + +"He'll know where to put his horse," said Mrs. Chadron, getting up +with a new interest in life, "and I'll just go and have Maggie stir +him up a bite to eat and warm the coffee. He's always hungry when he +comes anywhere, poor little man!" + +"Can he play that battery of instruments?" Prances asked. + +"Wait till you hear him," nodded Nola, a laugh in her merry eyes. + +Then they fell to talking of the coming night, and of the trivial +things which are so much to youth, and to watching along the road +toward Meander for the expected guests from Cheyenne, who were to come +up on the afternoon train. + +Regaled at length, Banjo Gibson, in the wake of Mrs. Chadron, who +presented him with pride, came into the room where the young ladies +waited with impatience the waning of the daylight hours. Banjo +acknowledged the honor of meeting Miss Landcraft with extravagant +words, which had the flavor of a manual of politeness and a ready +letter-writer in them. He was on more natural terms with Nola, having +known her since childhood, and he called her "Miss Nola," and held her +hand with a tender lingering. + +His voice was full and rich, a deep, soft note in it like a rare +instrument in tune. His small feet were shod in the shiningest of +shoes, which he had given a furbishing in the barn, and a flowing +cravat tied in a large bow adorned his low collar. There were stripes +in the musician's shirt like a Persian tent, but it was as clean and +unwrinkled as if he had that moment put it on. + +Banjo Gibson--if he had any other christened name, it was unknown to +men--was an original. As Nola had said, he belonged back a few hundred +years, when musical proficiency was not so common as now. The +profession was not crowded in that country, happily, and Banjo +traveled from ranch to ranch carrying cheer and entertainment with him +as he passed. + +He had been doing that for years, having worked his way westward from +Nebraska with the big cattle ranches, and his art was his living. +Banjo's arrival at a ranch usually resulted in a dance, for which he +supplied the music, and received such compensation as the generosity +of the host might fix. Banjo never quarreled over such matters. All he +needed was enough to buy cigarettes and shirts. + +Banjo seldom played in company with any other musician, owing to +certain limitations, which he raised to distinguishing virtues. He +played by "air," as he said, despising the unproficiency of all such +as had need of looking on a book while they fiddled. Knowing nothing +of transposition, he was obliged to tune his banjo--on those rare +occasions when he stooped to play "second" at a dance--in the key of +each fresh tune. This was hard on the strings, as well as on the +patience of the player, and Banjo liked best to go it single-handed +and alone. + +When he heard that musicians were coming from Cheyenne--a day's +journey by train--to play for Nola's ball, his face told that he was +hurt, but his respect of hospitality curbed his words. He knew that +there was one appreciative ear in the mansion by the river that no +amount of "dago fiddlin'" ever would charm and satisfy like his own +voice with the banjo, or his little brown fiddle when it gave out the +old foot-warming tunes. Mrs. Chadron was his champion in all company, +and his friend in all places. + +"Well, sakes alive! Banjo, I'm as tickled to see you as if you was one +of my own folks," she declared, her face as warm as if she had just +gorged on the hottest of hot dishes which her Mexican cook, Maggie, +could devise. + +"I'm glad to be able to make it around ag'in, thank you, mom," Banjo +assured her, sentiment and soul behind the simple words. "I always +carry a warm place in my heart for Alamito wherever I may stray." + +Nola frisked around and took the banjo from its green cover, talking +all the time, pushing and placing chairs, and settling Banjo in a +comfortable place. Then she armed him with the instrument, making +quite a ceremony of it, and asked him to play. + +Banjo twanged the instrument into tune, hooked the toe of his left +foot behind the forward leg of his chair, and struck up a song which +he judged would please the young ladies. Of Mrs. Chadron he was sure; +she had laughed over it a hundred times. It was about an adventure +which the bard had shared with his gal in a place designated in +Banjo's uncertain vocabulary as "the big cook-quari-um." It began: + + Oh-h-h, I stopped at a big cook-quari-um + Not very long ago, + To see the bass and suckers + And hear the white whale blow. + +The chorus of it ran: + + Oh-h-h-h, the big sea-line he howled and he growled, + The seal beat time on a drum; + The whale he swallered a den-vereel + In the big cook-quari-um. + +From that one Banjo passed to "The Cowboy's Lament," and from tragedy +to love. There could be nothing more moving--if not in one direction, +then in another--than the sentimental expression of Banjo's little +sandy face as he sang: + + I know you were once my true-lov-o-o-o, + But such a thing it has an aind; + My love and my transpo'ts are ov-o-o-o, + But you may still be my fraind-d-d. + +Sundown was rosy behind the distant mountains, a sea of purple shadows +laved their nearer feet, when Banjo got out his fiddle at Mrs. +Chadron's request and sang her "favorite" along with the moving tones +of that instrument. + + Dau-ling I am growing-a o-o-eld, + Seel-vo threads a-mong tho go-o-ld-- + +As he sang, Nola slipped from the room. He was finishing when she sped +by the window and came sparkling into the room with the announcement +that the guests from far Cheyenne were coming. Frances was up in +excitement; Mrs. Chadron searched the floor for her unfinished sock. + +"What was that flashed a-past the winder like a streak a minute ago?" +Banjo inquired. + +"Flashed by the window?" Nola repeated, puzzled. + +Frances laughed, the two girls stopping in the door, merriment +gleaming from their young faces like rays from iridescent gems. + +"Why, that was Nola," Frances told him, curious to learn what the +sentimental eyes of the little musician foretold. + +"I thought it was a star from the sky," said Banjo, sighing softly, +like a falling leaf. + +As they waited at the gate to welcome the guests, who were cantering +up with a curtain of dust behind them, they laughed over Banjo's +compliment. + +"I knew there was something behind those eyes," said Frances. + +"No telling how long he's been saving it for a chance to work it off +on somebody," Nola said. "He got it out of a book--the Mexicans all +have them, full of _brindies_, what we call toasts, and silly soft +compliments like that." + +"I've seen them, little red books that they give for premiums with the +Mexican papers down in Texas," Frances nodded, "but Banjo didn't get +that out of a book--it was spontaneous." + +"I must write it down, and compare it with the next time he gets it +off." + +"Give him credit for the way he delivered it, no matter where he got +it," Frances laughed. "Many a more sophisticated man than your desert +troubadour would have broken his neck over that. He's in love with +you, Nola--didn't you hear him sigh?" + +"Oh, he has been ever since I was old enough to take notice of it," +returned Nola, lightly. + +"Oh, my luv's like a falling star," paraphrased Frances. + +"Not much!" Nola denied, more than half serious. "Venus is ascendant; +you keep your eye on her and see." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MAN IN THE PLAID + + +There was no mistaking the assiduity with which Major King waited upon +Nola Chadron that night at the ball, any more than there was a chance +for doubt of that lively little lady's identity. He sought her at the +first, and hung by her side through many dances, and promenaded her in +the garden walks where Japanese lanterns glimmered dimly in the soft +September night, with all the close attention of a farrier cooling a +valuable horse. + +Perhaps it was punishment--or meant to be--for the insubordination of +Frances Landcraft in speaking to the outlawed Alan Macdonald on last +beef day. If so, it was systematically and faithfully administered. + +Nola was dressed like a cowgirl. Not that there were any cowgirls in +that part of the country, or anywhere else, who dressed that way, +except at the Pioneer Week celebration at Cheyenne, and in the +romantic dramas of the West. But she was so attired, perhaps for the +advantage the short skirt gave her handsome ankles--and something in +silk stockings which approached them in tapering grace. + +She was improving her hour, whether out of exuberant mischief or in +deadly earnest the ladies from the post were puzzled to understand, +and if headway toward the already pledged heart of Major King was any +indication of it, her star was indeed ascendant. + +Frances Landcraft appeared at the ball as an Arabian lady, meaning in +her own interpretation of the masking to stand as a representation of +the "Thou," who is endearingly and importantly capitalized in the +verses of the ancient singer made famous by Irish-English Fitzgerald. +Her disguise was sufficient, only that her hair was so richly +assertive. There was not any like it in the cattle country; very +little like it anywhere. It was a telltale, precious possession, and +Major King never could have made good a plea of hidden identity +against it in this world. + +Frances had consolation enough for his alienation and absence from her +side if numbers could compensate for the withdrawal of the fealty of +one. She distributed her favors with such judicial fairness that the +tongue of gossip could not find a breach. At least until the tall +Scotsman appeared, with his defiant red hair and a feather in his +bonnet, his plaid fastened across his shoulder with a golden clasp. + +Nobody knew when he arrived, or whence. He spoke to none as he walked +in grave stateliness among the merry groups, acknowledging bold +challenges and gay banterings only with a bow. The ladies from the +post had their guesses as to who he might be, and laid cunning little +traps to provoke him into betrayal through his voice. As cunningly he +evaded + +them, with unsmiling courtesy, his steady gray eyes only seeming to +laugh at them behind his green mask. + +Frances had finished a dance with a Robin Hood--the slender one in +billiard-cloth green--there being no fewer than four of them, +variously rounded, diversely clad, when the Scot approached her where +she stood with her gallant near the musicians' brake of palms. + + A flask of wine, a book of verse--and Thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness-- + +said the tall Highlandman, bending over her shoulder, his words low in +her ear. "Only I could be happy without the wine," he added, as she +faced him in quick surprise. + +"Your penetration deserves a reward--you are the first to guess it," +said she. + +"Three dances, no less," said he, like a usurer demanding his toll. + +He offered his arm, and straightway bore her off from the astonished +Robin Hood, who stood staring after them, believing, perhaps, that he +was the victim of some prearranged plan. + +The spirit of his free ancestors seemed to be in the lithe, tall +Highlander's feet. There was no dancer equal to him in that room. A +thistle on the wind was not lighter, nor a wheeling swallow more +graceful in its flight. + +Many others stopped their dancing to watch that pair; whisperings ran +round like electrical conjectures. Nola steered Major King near the +whirling couple, and even tried to maneuver a collision, which +failed. + +"Who is that dancing with Frances Landcraft?" she breathed in the +major's ear. + +"I didn't know it was Miss Landcraft," he replied, although he knew it +very well, and resolved to find out who the Scotsman was, speedily and +completely. + +"My enchanted hour will soon pass," said the Scot, when that dance was +done, "and I have been looking the world over for you." + +"Dancing all the way?" she asked him lightly. + +"Far from it," he answered, his voice still muffled and low. + +They were standing withdrawn a little from the press in the room after +their second dance, when Major King came by. The major was a cavalier +in drooping hat, with white satin cape, and sword by his side, and +well enough known to all his friends in spite of the little spat of +mustache and beard. As the major passed he jostled the Scot with his +shoulder with a rudeness openly intentional. + +The major turned, and spoke an apology. Frances felt the Highlander's +muscles swell suddenly where her hand lay on his arm, but whatever had +sprung into his mind he repressed, and acknowledged the major's +apology with a lofty nod. + +The music for another dance was beginning, and couples were whirling +out upon the floor. + +"I don't care to dance again just now, delightfully as you carry a +clumsy one like me through--" + +"A self-disparagement, even, can't stand unchallenged," he interrupted. + +"Mr. Macdonald," she whispered, "your wig is awry." + +They were near the door opening to the illumined garden, with its late +roses, now at their best, and hydrangea clumps plumed in foggy bloom. +They stepped out of the swirl of the dance like particles thrown from +a wheel, not missed that moment even by those interested in keeping +them in sight. + +"You knew me!" said he, triumphantly glad, as they entered the +garden's comparative gloom. + +"At the first word," said she. + +"I came here in the hope that you would know me, and you alone--I came +with my heart full of that hope, and you knew me at the first word!" + +There was not so much marvel as satisfaction, even pride for her +penetration, in it. + +"Somebody else may have recognized you, too--that man who brushed +against you--" + +"He's one of your officers." + +"I know--Major King. Do you know him?" + +"No, and he doesn't know me. He can have no interest in me at all." + +"Very well; set your beautiful red wig straight and then tell me why +you wanted to come here among your enemies. It seems to me a hardy +challenge, a most unnecessary risk." + +"No risk is unnecessary that brings me to you," he said, his voice +trembling in earnestness. "I dared to come because I hoped to meet you +on equal ground." + +"You're a bold man--in more ways than one." She shook her head as in +rebuke of his temerity. + +"But you don't believe I'm a thief," said he, conclusively. + +"No; I have made public denial of it." She laughed lightly, but a +little nervously, an uneasiness over her that she could not define. + +"An angel has risen to plead for Alan Macdonald, then!" + +"Why should you need anybody to plead for you if there's no truth in +their charges? What is a man like you doing in this wild place, +wasting his life in a land where he isn't wanted?" + +They had turned into a path that branched beyond the lanterns. The +white gravel from the river bars with which it was paved glimmered +among the shadowy shrubs. Macdonald unclasped his plaid from his +shoulders and transferred it to hers. She drew it round her, wrapping +her arms in it like a squaw, for the wind was coming chill from the +mountains now. + +"It is soon said," he answered, quite willingly. "I am not hiding +under any other man's name--the one they call me by here is my own. I +was a 'son of a family,' as they say in Mexico, and looked for +distinction, if not glory, in the diplomatic service. Four years I +grubbed, an under secretary in the legation at Mexico City, then +served three more as consul at Valparaiso. An engineer who helped put +the railroad through this country told me about it down there when the +rust of my inactive life was beginning to canker my body and brain. I +threw up my chance for diplomatic distinction and came off up here +looking for life and adventure, and maybe a copper mine. I didn't find +the mine, but I've had some fun with the other two. Sometimes I'd like +to lose the adventure part of it now--it gets tiresome to be hunted, +after a while." + +"What else?" she asked, after a little, seeing that he walked slowly, +his head up, his eyes far away on the purple distances of the night, +as if he read a dream. + +"I settled in this valley quite innocently, as others have done, +before and after me, not knowing conditions. You've heard it said that +I'm a rustler--" + +"King of the rustlers," she corrected. + +"Yes, even that. But I am not a rustler. Everybody up here is a +rustler, Miss Landcraft, who doesn't belong to, or work for, the +Drovers' Association. They can't oust us by merely charging us with +homesteading government land, for that hasn't been made a statutory +crime yet. They have to make some sort of a charge against us to give +the color of justification to the crimes they practice on us, and +rustler is the worst one in the cattlemen's dictionary. It stands +ahead of murder and arson in this country. I'm not saying there are no +rustlers around the edges of these big ranches, for there are some. +But if there are any among the settlers up our way we don't know +it--and I think we'd pretty soon find out." + +They turned and walked back toward the house. + +"I don't see why you should trouble about it; this plainly isn't your +place," she said. + +"First, I refused to be driven out by Chadron and the rest because the +thing got on my mettle. I knew that I was right, and that they were +simply stealing the public domain. Then, as I hung on, it became +apparent that there was a man's work cut out for somebody up here. +I've taken the ready-made job." + +"Tell me about it." + +"There's a monstrous injustice being practiced, systematically and +cruelly, against thousands of homeless people who come to this country +in innocent hope every year. They come here believing it's the great +big open-handed West they've heard so much about, carrying everything +with them that they own. They cut the strings that hold them to the +things they know when they face this way, and when they try to settle +on the land that is their inheritance, this copper-bottomed +combination of stockmen drives them out. If they don't go, they shoot +them. You've heard of it." + +"Not just that way," said she, thoughtfully. + +"No, they never shoot anybody but a rustler, the way the world hears +of it," said he, in resentment. "But they'll hear another story on the +outside one of these days. I'm in this fight up to the eyes to break +the back of this infernal combination that's choking this state to +death. It's the first time in my life that I ever laid my hand to +anything for anybody but myself, and I'm going to see it through to +daylight." + +"But there must be millions behind the cattlemen, Mr. Macdonald." + +"There are. It seems just about hopeless that a handful of ragged +homesteaders ever can make a stand against them. But they're usurping +the public domain, and they'll overreach themselves one of these days. +Chadron has title to this homestead, but that's every inch of land +that he's got a legal right over. In spite of that, he lays the claim +of ownership to the land fifteen miles north of here, where I've +nested. He's been telling me for more than two years that I must clear +out." + +"You could give it up, and go back to your work among men, where it +would count," she said. + +"There are things here that count. I couldn't put a state on the +map--an industrial and progressive one, I mean--back home in +Washington, or sitting with my feet on the desk in some sleepy +consulate. And I'm going to put this state on the map where it +belongs. That's the job that's cut out for me here, Miss Landcraft." + +He said it without boast, but with such a stubborn note of determination +that she felt something lift within her, raising her to the plane of +his aspirations. She knew that Alan Macdonald was right about it, +although the thing that he would do was still dim in her perception. + +"Even then, I don't see what a ranch away off up here from anywhere +ever will be worth to you, especially when the post is abandoned. You +know the department is going to give it up?" + +"And then you--" he began in consternation, checking himself to add, +slowly, "no, I didn't know that." + +"Perhaps in a year." + +"It can't make much difference in the value of land up this valley, +though," he mused. "When the railroad comes on through--and that will +be as soon as we break the strangle hold of Chadron and men like +him--this country will develop overnight. There's petroleum under the +land up where I am, lying shallow, too. That will be worth something +then." + +The music of an old-style dance was being played. Now the piping +cowboy voice of some range cavalier rose, calling the figures. The two +in the garden path turned with one accord and faced away from the +bright windows again. + +"They'll be unmasking at midnight?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"I'm afraid I can't go in again, then. The hour of my enchantment is +nearly at its end." + +"You shouldn't have come," she chided, yet not in severity, rather in +subdued admiration for his reckless bravery. "Suppose they--" + +"Mac! O Mac!" called a cautious, low voice from a hydrangea bush close +at hand. + +"Who's there?" demanded Macdonald, springing forward. + +"They're onto you, Mac," answered the voice from the shrub, "they're +goin' to do you hurt. They're lookin' for you now!" + +There was a little rustling in the leaves as the unseen friend moved +away. The voice was the voice of Banjo Gibson, but not even the shadow +of the messenger had been seen. + +"You should have gone before--hurry!" she whispered in alarm. + +"Never mind. It was a risk, and I took it, and I'd take it again +tomorrow. It gave me these minutes with you, it was worth--" + +"You must go! Where's your horse?" + +"Down by the river in the willows. I can get to him, all right." + +"They may come any minute, they--" + +"No, they're dancing yet. I expected they'd find me out; they know me +too well. I'll get a start of them, before they even know I'm gone." + +"They may be waiting farther on--why don't you go--go! There--listen! + +"They're saddling," he whispered, as low sounds of haste came from the +barnyard corral. + +"Go--quick!" she urged, flinging his plaid across his arm. + +"I'm going--in one moment more. Miss Landcraft, I'll ride away from +you tonight perhaps never to see you again, and if I speak impetuously +before I leave you, forgive me before you hear the words--they'll not +hurt you--I don't believe they'll shame you." + +"Don't say anything more, Mr. Macdonald--even this delay may cost your +life!" + +"They'll kill me if they can; they've tried it more than once. I never +know when I ride away whether I'll ever return. It isn't a new +experience, just a little graver than usual--only that. I came here +tonight because I--I came to--in the hope--" he stammered, putting out +his hands as if supplicating her to understand, his plaid falling to +the ground. + +"Go!" she whispered, her hand on his arm in appeal, standing near him, +dangerously near. + +"I've got a right to love you--I've got a right!" he said, the torrent +of his passion leaping all curbing obstacles of delicacy, confusion, +fear. He flung the words from him in wild vehemence, as if they eased +a pang. + +"No--no, you have no right! you--" + +"I'll leave you in a minute, Frances, without the expectation of ever +seeing you again--only with the hope. It's mine to love you, mine to +have you if I come through this night. If you're pledged to another +man it can't be because you love him, and I'll tear the right away +from him--if I come through this night!" + +He spoke rapidly, bending so near that his breath moved the hair on +her temple. She stood with arms half lifted, her hands clenched, her +breath laboring in her bosom. She did not know that love--she had not +known that love--could spring up that way, and rage like a flame +before a wind. + +"If you're pledged to another man, then I'll defy him, man to man--I +do defy him, I challenge him!" + +As he spoke he stooped, suddenly, like a wind-bent flame, clasped her, +kissed her, held her enfolded in his arms one moment against his +breast. He released her then, and stepped back, standing tall and +silent, as if he waited for her blast of scorn. It did not come. She +was standing with hands pressed to her face, as if to cover some shame +or sorrow, or ease the throbbing of a soul-deep pain. + +The sound of men and horses came from the corral. He stood, waiting +for judgment. + +"Go now," she said, in a sad, small voice. + +"Give me a token to carry away, to tell me I have not broken my golden +hope," he said. + +"No, I'll give you nothing!" she declared, with the sharpness of one +wronged, and helpless of redress. "You have taken too much--you have +taken--" + +"What?" he asked, as if he exulted in what he heard, his blood singing +in his ears. + +"Oh, go--go!" she moaned, stripping off one long white glove and +throwing it to him. + +He caught it, and pressed it to his lips; then snatching off his +bonnet, hid it there, and bent among the shrubbery and was gone, as +swiftly and silently as a wolf. Frances flew to the house and up the +stairs to her room. There she threw up the window and sat panting in +it, straining, listening, for sounds from the river road. + +From below the voices of the revelers came, and the laughter over the +secrets half-guessed before masks were snatched away around the +banquet table. There was a dash of galloping hoofs from the corral, +the clatter of the closing gate. The sound grew dimmer, was lost, in +the sand of the hoof-cut trail. + +After a little, a shot! two! a silence; three! and one as if in reply. +Frances slipped to her knees beside the open window, a sob as bitter +as the pang of death rising from her breast. She prayed that Alan +Macdonald might ride fast, and that the vindictive hands of his +enemies might be unsteady that night by the gray riverside. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IF HE WAS A GENTLEMAN + + +"Don't you think we'd better drop it now, Frances, and be good?" + +Major King reined his horse near hers as he spoke, and laid his hand +on the pommel of her saddle as if he expected to meet other fingers +there. + +"You puzzle me, Major King," she returned, not willing to understand. + +They were bringing up the rear of the tired procession which was +returning to the post from the ball. Already the east was quickening. +The stars near the horizon were growing pale; the morning wind was +moving, with a warmth in it from the low places, like a tide toward +the mountains. + +"Oh, I mean this play acting of estrangement," said he, impatiently. +"Let's forget it--it doesn't carry naturally with either you or me." + +"Why, Major King!" Her voice was lively with mild surprise; she was +looking at him as if for verification of his words. Then, slowly: "I +hadn't thought of any estrangement, I hadn't intended to bring you to +task for one flirtatious night. Be sure, sir, if it has given you +pleasure, it has brought me no pain." + +"You began it," said he, petulantly. It is almost unbelievable how +boyishly silly a full-grown man can be. + +"I began it, Major King? It's too early in the morning for a joke!" + +"You were wilful and contrary; you would speak to the fellow that +day." + +"Oh!" deprecatingly. + +"Never mind it, though. Wilfulness doesn't become either of us, +Frances. I've tried my turn at it tonight, and it has left me cold." + +"Poor man!" said she, in low voice, like a sigh. Perhaps it was not +all for Major King; perhaps not all assumed. + +"Let's not quarrel, Frances." + +"Not now, I'm too tired for a real good one. Leave it for tomorrow." + +He rode on in silence, not sure, maybe, how much of it she meant. +Covertly she looked at him now and then, thinking better of him for +his ingenuous confession of failure to warm himself at little Nola +Chadron's heart-flame. She extended her hand. + +"Forgive me, Major King," she said, very softly, not far removed, +indeed, from tenderness. + +For a little while Major King left his horse to keep the road its own +way, his cavalry hands quite regardless of manuals, regulations, and +military airs. Both of them were enfolding her one. He might have held +it until they reached the post, but that she drew it away. + +There were some qualms of uneasiness in her breast that hour, some +upbraidings of conscience for treason to Major King, of whom she had +been girlishly fond, girlishly proud, womanly selfish. That quick, +wild scene in the garden was not to be put away for all those +arraignments of her honest heart, although it seemed impossible, +recalled there in the thin hours of that long and eventful night, like +something remembered of another, not of herself. + +Her cheeks grew hot, her heart leaped again, at the recollection of +that strong man's wild, bold words, his defiant kiss upon her lips. +She had yielded them in the recklessness of that moment, in the force +of his all-carrying demand, when she might have denied them, or sped +away from him, as innocence is believed to know from instinct when to +fly from a destructive lure. + +Closing her eyes against the gray-creeping morning, she saw him again, +standing that moment with her glove to his lips; saw him bend and +speed away, the cunning of his hunted ancestors in his swift feet and +self-eliminating form. A wild fear struck her, a cold dread fell like +ashes into her heart, as she wondered how well he had ridden that +night, and how far. + +Perhaps he was lying in his blood that hour, never to come back to her +again. Yet, why should it matter so much to her? Only that it was a +gallant life gone out, whatever its faults had been; only the interest +that she might have in any man who had danced with her, and told her +his story, and spoken of his designs. So she said, confessing with the +same breath that it was a poor, self-deluding lie. + +Back again in her home at the post, the day awake around her, reveille +sounding in the barracks, she turned the key in her door as if to shut +the secret in with her, and bent beneath the strain of her long +suspense. She no longer tried to conceal, or to deny to her own heart, +the love she bore that man, which had come so suddenly, and so +fiercely sweet. + +No longer past than the evening before her heart had ached with +jealous pain over the little triumph that Nola Chadron had thought she +was making of Major King. Now Nola might have Major King, and all the +world beside that her little head might covet. There was no +reservation in the surrender that she made of him in her conscience, +no regret. + +She reproached herself for it in one breath, and glowed with a strange +new gladness the next, clasping the great secret fearfully in her +breast, in the world-old delusion that she had come into possession of +a treasure uniquely and singularly her own. One thing she understood +plainly now; she never had loved Major King. What a revolution it was +to overturn a life's plans thus in a single night! thought she. + +How easily we are astounded by the eruptions in our own affairs, and +how disciplined in the end to find that the foundations of the world +have withstood the shock! + +Chadron himself had not gone out after Macdonald. He had been merry +among his guests long after the shots had sounded up the river. +Frances believed that the old man had put the matter into the hands of +his cowboys and ranch foreman, having no sons, no near male relatives +of his own in that place. She did not know how many had gone in +pursuit of Macdonald, but several horses were in the party which rode +out of the gate. None had returned, she was certain, at the time the +party dispersed. The chase must have led them far. + +There was no way of knowing what the result of that race had been. If +he had escaped, Frances believed that he would let her know in some +way; if he had fallen, she knew that the news of his death, important +as it would be to Chadron, would fly as if it had wings. There was +nothing to do but wait, and in any event hide away that warm sweet +thing that had unfolded in beautiful florescence in her soul. + +She told herself that he must have escaped, or the pursuers would have +returned long before the party from the post left the Chadron house. +He had led them a long ride in his daring way, and doubtless was +laughing at them now in his own house, among his friends. She wondered +what his surroundings were, and what his life was like on that ranch +for which he risked it. In the midst of this speculation she fell +asleep, and lay wearily in dreamless repose for many hours. + +Sleep is a marvelous clarifier of the mind. It is like the saleratus +which the pioneers used to cast into their barrels of Missouri River +water, to precipitate the silt and make it clear. Frances rose out of +her sleep with readjusted reasoning; in fear, and in doubt. + +She was shocked by the surrender that she had made to that unknown +man. Perhaps he was nothing more than a thief, as charged, and this +story fixing his identification had been only a fabrication. An honest +man would have had no necessity for such haste, such wild insistence +of his right to love her. It seemed, in the light of due reflection, +the rude way of an outlawed hand. + +Then there came the soft pleading of something deeper to answer for +Alan Macdonald, and to justify his rash deed. He had risked life to +see her and set himself right in her eyes, and he had doubled the risk +in standing there in the garden, defiantly proud, unbent, and +unrepentant, refusing to leave her without some favor to carry away. + +There was only a sigh to answer it, after all; only a hope that time +would bring her neither shame nor regret for that romantic passage in +the dusky garden path. That she had neither shame nor regret in that +hour was her sweetest consolation. More, she was comfortable in the +security that the secret of that swift interlude was her own. Honest +man or thief, Alan Macdonald was not the man to speak of that. + +Frances was surprised to find that she had slept into the middle of +the afternoon. Major King had called an hour ago, with inquiries, the +maid reported. There! that must be the major's ring again--she hoped +she might know it by this time, indeed. In case it was the major, +would miss-- + +Yes; miss would see him. Ask him to wait. The maid's ear was true; it +was the major's ring. She came bounding upstairs to report on it, her +breath short, her eyes big. + +"Oh, miss! I think something must 'a' happened to him, he looks all +shook!" she said. + +"Nonsense!" said Frances, a little flutter of apprehension, +indefinable, cold, passing through her nerves in spite of her bearing +and calm face. + +Major King had remained standing, waiting her. He was handsome and +trim in his uniform, dark-eyed, healthy-skinned, full of the vigor of +his young manhood. The major's face was pale, his carriage stiff and +severe. He appeared as if something might have happened to him, +indeed, or to somebody in whom he was deeply concerned. + +Frances knew that her face was a picture of the worriment and +straining of her past night, for it was a treacherous mirror of her +soul. She smiled as she made a little pause in the reception-room +door. Major King bowed, with formal, almost official, dignity. His +hand was in the bosom of his coat, and he drew it forth with something +white in it as she approached. + +"I'm dreadfully indolent to belong to a soldiering family, Major +King," she said, offering her hand in greeting. + +"Permit me," said he, placing the folded white thing in her +outstretched fingers. + +"What is it? Not--it isn't--" she stammered, something deeper than +surprise, than foreboding, in her eyes and colorless cheeks. + +"Unmistakably yours," he said; "your name is stamped in it." + +"It must be," she owned, her spirits sinking low, her breath weak +between her lips. "Thank you, Major King." + +The glove was soiled with earth-marks; it was wrinkled and drawn, as +if it had come back to her through conflict and tragedy. She rolled it +deliberately, in a compact little wad, her fingers as cold as her hope +for the life of the man who had borne it away. She knew that Major +King was waiting for a word; she was conscious of his stern eyes upon +her face. But she did not speak. As far as Major King's part in it +went, the matter was at an end. + +"Miss Landcraft, I am waiting." + +Major King spoke with imperious suggestion. She started, and looked +toward him quickly, a question in her eyes. + +"I sha'n't keep you then," she returned, her words little more than a +whisper. + +"Don't try to read a misunderstanding into my words," said he, his +voice shaking. Then he seemed to break his stiff, controlled pose as +if it had been a coating of ice, and expand into a trembling, +white-hot man in a moment. "God's name, girl! Say something, say +something! You know where that glove was found?" + +"No; and I shall not ask you, Major King." + +"But I demand of you to know how it came in that man's possession! +Tell me that--tell me!" + +He stood before her, very near to her. His hands were shaking, his +eyes gleaming with fury. + +"I might ask you with as much reason how it came in yours," she told +him, resentful of his angry demand. + +"A messenger arrived with it an hour ago." + +"For you, Major King?" + +"For me, certainly." + +She had no need to ask him whence the messenger came. She could see +the horsemen returning to the ranchhouse by the river in the gray +morning light, in the triumph of their successful hunt. Alan Macdonald +had fallen. It had been Nola's hand that had dispatched this evidence +of what she could but guess to be the disloyalty of Frances to her +betrothed. If Nola had hoped to make a case with the major, Frances +felt she had succeeded better than she knew. + +"Then there is nothing more to be said, Major King," said she, after a +little wait. + +"There is much more," he insisted. "Tell me that he snatched the glove +from you, tell me that you lost it--tell me anything, and I'll believe +you--but tell me something!" + +"There is nothing to tell you," said she, resentful of the meddling of +Nola Chadron, which his own light conduct with her had in a manner +justified. + +"Then I can only imagine the truth," he told her, bitterly. "But +surely you didn't give him the glove, surely you cannot love that wolf +of the range, that cattle thief, that murderer!" + +"You have no right to ask me that," she said, flashing with +resentment. + +"I have a right to ask you that, to ask you more; not only to ask, but +to demand. And you must answer. You forget that you are my affianced +wife." + +"But you are not my confessor, for all that." + +"God's name!" groaned King, his teeth set, his eyes staring as if he +had gone mad. "Will you shame us both? Do you forget you are _my +affianced wife?_" + +"That is ended--you are free!" + +"Frances!" he cried, sharply, as in despair of one sinking, whom he +was powerless to save. + +"It is at an end between us, Major King. My 'necessity' of explaining +everything, or anything, to you is wiped away, your responsibility for +my acts relieved. Lift your head, sir. You need not blush before the +world for me!" + +Sweat was springing on the major's forehead; he drew his breath +through open lips. + +"I refuse to humor your caprice--you are irresponsible, you don't know +what you are doing," he declared. "You are forcing the issue to this +point, Frances, I haven't demanded this." + +"You have demanded too much. You may go now, Major King." + +"It's only the infatuation of a moment. You can't care for a man like +that, Frances," he argued, shaken out of his passion by her determined +stand. + +"This is not a matter for discussion between you and me, sir." + +Major King bowed his head as if the rebuke had crushed him. She stood +aside to let him pass. When he reached the door she turned to him. He +paused, expectantly, hopefully, as if he felt that a reconciliation +was dawning. + +"If it hadn't been for you they wouldn't have discovered him last +night," she charged. "You betrayed him to his enemies. Can you tell +me, then--will you tell me--is Alan Macdonald--dead?" + +Major King stood, his stern eyes on the glove, unrolled again, now +dangling in her hand. + +"If he was a gentleman, as you said of him once, then he is dead," +said he. + +He turned and left her. She did not look after him, but stood with the +soiled glove spread in her hands, gazing upon it in sad tenderness. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A BOLD CIVILIAN + + +Colonel Landcraft was a slight man, and short of stature for a +soldierly figure when out of the saddle. His gray hair was thinning in +front, and his sharp querulous face was seamed in frowning pattern +about the eyes. His forehead was fashioned on an intention of +massiveness out of keeping with his tapering face, which ran out in a +disappointing chin, and under the shadow of that projecting brow his +cold blue eyes seemed as unfriendly as a winter sky. + +Early in his soldiering days the colonel had felt the want of inches +and pounds, a shortage which he tried to overcome by carrying himself +pulled up stiffly, giving him a strutting effect that had fastened +upon him and become inseparable from his mien. This air of superior +brusqueness was sharpened by the small fierceness of his visage, in +which his large iron-gray mustache branched like horns. + +Smallness of stature, disappointment in his ambition for preferment, +and a natural narrowness of soul, had turned Colonel Landcraft into a +military martinet of the most pronounced character. He was the +grandfather of colonels in the service, rank won in the old Indian +days. That he was not a brigadier-general was a circumstance puzzling +only to himself. He was a man of small bickerings, exactions, forms. +He fussed with civilians as a regular thing when in command of posts +within the precincts of civilization, and to serve under him, as +officer or man, was a chafing and galling experience. + +If ever there was an unpopular man in the service, then that man was +Colonel John Hancock Landcraft, direct descendant--he could figure it +out as straight as a bayonet--of the heavy-handed signer himself. His +years and his empty desires bore heavily on the colonel. The trespass +of time he resented; the barrenness of his hope he grieved. + +There he was in those Septembral days, galloping along toward the age +limit and retirement. Within a few weeks he would be subject to call +before the retiring board any day, and there was nothing in his +short-remaining time of service to shore up longer the hope of +advancement in rank as compensatory honor in his retirement. He was a +testy little old man, charged for instant explosion, and it was +generally understood by everybody but the colonel himself that the +department had sent him off to Fort Shakie to get him out of the way. + +On the afternoon of the day following Nola Chadron's ball, when Major +King returned to Frances the glove that Alan Macdonald had carried +away from the garden, Colonel Landcraft was a passenger on the mail +stage from Meander to the post. The colonel had been on official +business to the army post at Cheyenne. Instead of telegraphing to his +own post the intelligence of his return, and calling for a proper +equipage to meet him at the railroad end, he had chosen to come back +in this secret and unexpected way. + +That was true to the colonel's manner. Perhaps he hoped to catch +somebody overstepping the line of decorum, regulations, forms, either +in the conduct of the post's business or his own household. For the +colonel was as much a tyrant in one place as the other. So he +eliminated himself, wrapped to the bushy eyebrows in his greatcoat, +for there was a chilliness in the afternoon, and clouds were driving +over the sun. + +His austerity silenced the talkative driver, and when the stage +reached the hotel the colonel parted from him without a word and +clicked away briskly on his military heels--built up to give him +stature--to see what he might surprise out of joint at the post. + +Perhaps it was a shock to his valuation of his own indispensability to +find everything in proper form at the post. The sentry paced before +the flagstaff, decorum prevailed. There was not one small particular +loose to give him ground for flying at the culpable person and raking +him with his blistering fire. + +Colonel Landcraft turned into his own house with a countenance +somewhat fallen as a consequence of this discovery. It seemed to bear +home to him the fact that the United States Army would get along very +neatly and placidly without him. + +The colonel occupied one wing of his sprawling, commodious, and +somewhat impressive house as official headquarters. This room was full +of stiff bookcases, letter files, severe chairs. The colonel's desk +stood near the fireplace in a strong light, with nothing ever +unfinished left upon it. It was one of the colonel's greatest +satisfactions in life that he always was ready to snap down the cover +of that desk at a moment's notice and march away upon a campaign to +the world's end--and his own--leaving everything clear behind him. + +A private walk led up to a private door in the colonel's quarters, +where a private in uniform, with a rifle on his shoulder, made a +formal parade when the colonel was within, and accessible to the +military world for the transaction of business. This sentinel was not +on duty now, the return of the colonel being unlooked-for, and nobody +was the wiser in that household when the master of it let himself into +the room with his key. + +The day was merging into dusk, or the colonel probably would have been +aware that a man was hastening after him along the leaf-strewn walk as +he passed up the avenue to his home. He was not many rods behind the +colonel, and was gaining on him rapidly, when the crabbed old +gentleman closed his office door softly behind him. + +The unmilitary visitor--this fact was betrayed by both his gait and +his dress--turned sharply in upon the private walk and followed the +colonel to his door. He was turning through the letters and telegrams +which had arrived during his absence when the visitor laid hand to the +bell. + +No sound of ringing followed this application to the thumbscrew +arrangement on the door, for the colonel had taken the bell away long +ago. But there resulted a clucking, which brought the colonel to the +portal frowning and alert, warming in the expectation of having +somebody whom he might dress down at last. + +"Colonel Landcraft, I beg the favor of a word in private," said the +stranger at the door. + +The colonel opened the door wider, and peered sharply at the visitor, +a frown gathering on his unfriendly face. + +"I haven't the honor"--he began stiffly, seeing that it was an +inferior civilian, for all civilians, except the president, were +inferior to the colonel. + +"Macdonald is my name. I am a rancher in this country; you will have +heard of me," the visitor replied. + +"Nothing to your credit, young man," said the colonel, tartly. "What +do you want?" + +"A man's chance," said Macdonald, earnestly. "Will you let me +explain?" + +Colonel Landcraft stood out of the doorway; Macdonald entered. + +"I'll make a light," said the colonel, lowering the window-shades +before he struck the match. When he had the flame of the student's +lamp on top of his desk regulated to conform to his exactions, the +colonel faced about suddenly. + +"I am listening, sir." + +"At the beginning, sir, I want you to know who I am," said Macdonald, +producing papers. "My father, Senator Hampden Macdonald of Maine, now +lives in Washington. You have heard of him. I am Alan Macdonald, late +of the United States consular service. It is unlikely that you ever +heard of me in that connection." + +"I never heard of you before I came here," said the colonel, +unfavorably, unfolding the credentials which the visitor had placed on +his desk, and skimming them with cursory eye. Now he looked up from +his reading with a sudden little jerk of the head, and stood at severe +attention. "And the purpose of this visit, sir?" + +"First, to prove to you that the notorious character given me by the +cattlemen of this country is slanderous and unwarranted; secondly, to +ask you to give me a man's chance, as I have said, in a matter to +which I shall come without loss of words. I am a gentleman, and the +son of a gentleman; I do not acknowledge any moral or social superiors +in this land." + +The colonel, drew himself up a notch, and seemed to grow a little at +that. He looked hard at the tall, fair-haired, sober-faced man in +front of him, as if searching out his points to justify the bold claim +upon respectability that he had made. Macdonald was dressed in almost +military precision; the colonel could find no fault with that. His +riding-breeches told that they had been cut for no other legs, his +coat set to his shoulders with gentlemanly ease. Only his rather +greasy sombrero, with its weighty leather band, and the bulging +revolvers under his coat seemed out of place in the general trimness +of his attire. + +"Go on, sir," the colonel said. + +"I had the honor of meeting Miss Landcraft last night at the +masquerade given by Miss Chadron--" + +"How was that, sir? Did you have the effrontery to force yourself into +a company which despises you, at the risk of your life and the decorum +of the assemblage?" + +"I was drawn there," Macdonald spoke slowly, meeting the colonel's +cold eye with steady gaze, "by a hope that was miraculously realized. +I did risk my life, and I almost lost it. But that is nothing +unusual--I risk it every day." + +"You saw Miss Landcraft at the ball, danced with her, I suppose, +talked with her," nodded the colonel, understandingly. "Macdonald, you +are a bold, a foolishly bold, man." + +"I saw Miss Landcraft, I danced with her, I talked with her, and I +have come to you, sir, after a desperate ride through the night to +save my life as the penalty of those few minutes of pleasure, to +request the privilege of calling upon Miss Landcraft and paying my +court to her. I ask you to give me a man's chance to win her hand." + +The audacity of the request almost tied the colonel's sharp old +tongue. For a moment he stood with his mouth open, his face red in the +gathering storm of his sudden passion. + +"Sir!" said he, in amazed, unbelieving voice. + +"There are my credentials--they will bear investigation," Macdonald +said. + +"Damn your credentials, sir! I'll have nothing to do with them, you +blackguard, you scoundrel!" + +"I ask you to consider--" + +"I can consider nothing but the present fact that you are accused of +deeds of outlawry and violence, and are an outcast of society, even +the crude society of this wild country, sir. No matter who you are or +whence you sprung, the evidence in this country is against you. You +are a brigand and a thief, sir--this act of barbaric impetuosity in +itself condemns you--no civilized man would have the effrontery to +force himself into my presence in such a manner and make this insane +demand." + +"I am exercising a gentleman's prerogative, Colonel Landcraft." + +"You are a vulture aspiring to soar among eagles, sir!" + +"You have heard only the cattlemen's side of the story, Colonel +Landcraft," said Macdonald, with patience and restraint. "You know +that every man who attempts to build a fence around his cabin in this +country, and strikes a furrow in the ground, is a rustler according to +their creed." + +"I am aware that there is narrowness, injustice even, on the drovers' +side," the colonel admitted, softening a little, it seemed. "But for +all that, even if you were an equal, and an honest man, the road to +Miss Landcraft's heart is closed to assault, no matter how wild and +sudden. She is plighted to another man." + +"Sir--" + +"It is true; she will be married in the Christmas holidays. Go your +way now, Macdonald, and dismiss this romantic dream. You build too +high on the slight favor of a thoughtless girl. A dance or two is +nothing, sir; a whispered word is less. If you were the broad man of +the world that you would have me believe, you have known this. +Instead, you come dashing in here like a savage and claim the right to +woo her. Preposterous! She is beyond your world, sir. Go back to your +wild riding, Macdonald, and try to live an honest man." + +Macdonald stood with his head bent, brows gathered in stubborn +expression of resistance. Colonel Landcraft could read in his face +that there was no surrender, no acknowledgment of defeat, in that wild +rider's heart. The old warrior felt a warming of admiration for him, +as one brave man feels for another, no matter what differences lie +between them. Now Macdonald lifted his face, and there was that deep +movement of laughter in his eyes that Frances had found so marvelous +on the day of their first meeting. + +"Perhaps her heart is untouched, sir, in spite of the barricade that +has been raised between it and the world," he said. + +The colonel studied him shrewdly a little while before replying. + +"Macdonald, you're a strange man, a stubborn man, and a strong one. +There is work for a man like you in this life; why are you wasting it +here?" + +"If I live six months longer the world beyond these mountains will +know," was all that Macdonald said, taking up the papers which he had +submitted to the colonel, and placing them again in his pocket. + +Colonel Landcraft shook his head doubtfully. + +"Running off other men's cattle never will do it, Macdonald." + +The door of the colonel's room which gave into the hall of the main +entrance opened without the formality of announcement. Frances drew +back in quick confusion, speaking her apology from behind the door. + +"I ask your pardon, father. I heard voices here and wondered who it +could be--I didn't know you had come home." + +"Your appearance is opportune, Miss Landcraft," her father told her, +with no trace of ill-humor. "Come in. Here is this wild Alan Macdonald +come bursting in upon us from his hills." + +The colonel indicated him with a wave of the hand, and Macdonald +bowed, his heart shrinking when he saw how coldly she returned his +greeting from her place at the door. + +"He has come riding," the colonel continued, "with a demand on me to +be allowed to woo you, and carry you off to his cave among the rocks. +Show him the door, and add your testimony to my assurance--which seems +inadequate to satisfy the impetuous gentleman--that his case is +hopeless." + +The colonel waved them away with that, and turned again, with his +jerky suddenness, to his telegrams and letters. The colonel had not +meant for Macdonald to pass out of the door through which he had +entered. That was the military portal; the other one, opening into the +hall from which Frances came, was the world's door for entering that +house. And it was in that direction Colonel Landcraft had waved them +when he ordered Frances to take the visitor away. + +"This way, Mr. Macdonald, please," said she, politely cold, +unfeelingly formal. For all the warmth that he could discover in her +voice and eyes, or in her white face, so unaccountably severe and +hard, there might never have been a garden with white gravel path, or +a hot hasty kiss given in it--and received. + +In the hall the gloom of evening was deepened into darkness that made +her face indistinct, like the glimmering whiteness of the hydrangea +blooms in that past romantic night. She marched straight to the street +door and opened it, and he had no strength in his words to lift even a +small one up to stay her. He believed that he had taken the man's +course and the way of honor in the matter. That it had not been +indorsed by her was evident, he believed. + +"There was nothing for me to conceal," said he, as the door opened +upon the gray twilight and glooming trees along the street; "I came in +a man's way, as I thought--" + +"You came in a man's way, Mr. Macdonald, to ask the privilege of +attempting to win a woman's hand, when you lack the man's strength or +the man's courage to defend even the glove that covers it," she said. +Her voice was low; it was accusingly scornful. + +Macdonald started. "Then it has come back to you?" + +"It has come back to me, through a channel that I would have given the +hand that wore it"--she stretched it out as she spoke; it glimmered +like a nebulous star in misty skies there in the gloom before his +eyes--"to have kept the knowledge from!" + +"I lost it," said he, drawing himself up as if to withstand a blow, +"and in this hour I can plead no mitigation. A man should have put his +life down for it." + +"It might have been expected--of a man," said she. + +"But I ask you not to borrow trouble over the circumstance of its +return to you, Miss Landcraft," he said, cold now in his word, and +lofty. "You dropped it on the ballroom floor or in the garden path, +and I, the cattle thief, found it and carried it away, to show it as +evidence of a shadowy conquest, maybe, among my wild and lawless kind. +Beyond that you know nothing--you lost it, that was all." + +In the door he turned. + +"Good-bye, Mr. Macdonald," she said. + +"If time and events prove so unkind to me that I never come to a +vindication in this country," he said, "just go on thinking of me as a +thief and a wild rider, and a man of the night. Good-bye, Miss +Landcraft." + +She closed the door, and stood cooling from her sudden resentment at +seeing him there alive when her heart had told her that he must be +lying dead in the dust of the river trail. She should not have been so +suddenly resentful, she now believed. Perhaps there were mitigating +circumstances which he would not stoop to explain unasked. Her heart +bounded with the thought; warm blood came spreading in her cheeks. + +But Alan Macdonald was gone; misjudged and unjustly condemned, she now +believed, remorse assailing her. Now the fault could not be repaired, +for he was not the man to come back. But there was much in knowing +that she had not been mistaken in the beginning; comfort and pride in +the full knowledge that he was a _man!_ Only a man would have come, +bravely and sincerely, in that manner to her father; only a man would +have put his hurt behind him like that and marched away from her, too +proud to stoop to the mean expedient of begging her to allow him to +explain. + +She sighed as she turned back into the room where the colonel sat at +his desk, but her cheek was hot, her bosom agitated by an uplifting of +pride. The colonel turned, with inquiring impatience, a letter in his +hand. + +"He is gone," she said. + +"Very well," he nodded, shortly. + +"I have just come back to tell you, father, that I have broken my +engagement with Major King, to--" + +"Impossible! nonsense!" + +"To save you embarrassment in your future relations with him," she +concluded, unshaken. + +The colonel was standing now; his face reflecting the anger that +boiled in his breast. + +"I tell you, miss, you can't break your engagement to Major King! That +is out of your power, beyond you, entirely. It rests with me, and with +me solely, to terminate any such obligation. I have pledged a +soldier's word and a soldier's honor in this matter, miss. It is +incumbent on you to see that both are redeemed." + +"I'm in a mind to do my own thinking now, father; I'm old enough." + +"A woman is never old enough to know her own mind! What's the occasion +of this change in the wind? Surely not--" + +Colonel Landcraft's brows drew together over his thin nose, making +small glaring points of his blue eyes among the gathered wrinkles and +bristling hair. He held his words suspended while he searched her face +for justification of his pent arraignment. + +"Nonsense!" said he at last, letting his breath go with the word, as +if relief had come. "Put the notion out of your head, for you are +going to marry Major King." + +"I tell you, father, you must adjust yourself to my decision in this +matter. I am not going to marry Major King. I have told him so, and it +is final." + +His own stubbornness, his own fire, was reflected in her as she spoke. +But Colonel Landcraft was not to be moved from what he considered his +right to dispose of her in a way that he believed would be an honor to +the army and a glory to the nation. + +"You'll marry Major King, or die a maid!" he declared. + +"Very well, father," she returned, in ambiguous concession. + +She left him frowning among his papers. In his small, tyrannical way +he had settled that case, finally and completely, to his own thinking, +as he had disposed of wild-riding Alan Macdonald and his bold, +outlandish petition. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THROWING THE SCARE + + +Banjo Gibson arrived at Macdonald's place the following day, from +Sam Hatcher's ranch across the river, bringing news that three +homesteaders on that side had been killed in the past two days. They +had been shot from the willow thickets as they worked in their +fields or rode along the dim-marked highways. Banjo could not give +any further particulars; he did not know the victims' names. + +Macdonald understood what it meant, and whose hand was behind the +slaying of those home-makers of the wilderness. It was not a new +procedure in the cattle barons' land; this scourge had been +fore-shadowed in that list of names which Frances Landcraft had given +him. + +The word had gone out to them to be on guard. Now death had begun to +leap upon them from the roadside grass. Perhaps his own turn would +come tonight or tomorrow. He could not be more watchful than his +neighbors had been; no man could close all the doors. + +The price of life in that country for such men as himself always had +been unceasing vigilance. When a man stood guard over himself day and +night he could do no more, and even at that he was almost certain, +some time or other, to leave a chink open through which the waiting +blow might fall. After a time one became hardened to this condition of +life. The strain of watching fell away from him; it became a part of +his daily habit, and a man grew careless about securing the safeguards +upon his life by and by. + +"Them fellers," said Banjo, feeling that he had lowered himself +considerably in carrying the news involving their swift end to +Macdonald, "got about what was comin' to 'em I reckon, Mac. Why don't +a man like you hitch up with Chadron or Hatcher, or one of the good +men of this country, and git out from amongst them runts that's nosin' +around in the ground for a livin' like a drove of hogs?" + +"Every man to his liking, Banjo," Macdonald returned, "and I don't +like the company you've named." + +They never quarreled over the point, but Banjo never ceased to urge +the reformation, such as he honestly believed it to be, upon Macdonald +at every visit. The little troubadour felt that he was doing a +generous and friendly turn for a fallen man, and squaring his own +account with Macdonald in thus laboring for his redemption. + +Banjo was under obligation to Macdonald for no smaller matter than his +life, the homesteader having rescued him from drowning the past spring +when the musician, heading for Chadron's after playing for a dance, +had mistaken the river for the road and stubbornly urged his horse +into it. On that occasion Banjo's wits had been mixed with liquor, but +his sense of gratitude had been perfectly clear ever since. +Macdonald's door was the only one in the nesters' colony that stress +or friendship ever had constrained him to enter. Even as it was, with +all the big debt of gratitude owing, his intimacy with a man who had +opened an irrigation ditch was a thing of which he did not boast +abroad. + +Banjo made but a night's stop of it with Macdonald. Early in the +morning he was in the saddle again, with a dance ahead of him to play +for that night at a ranch twenty miles or more away. He lingered a +little after shaking hands with his host, trying the violin case as if +to see that it was secure, and fidgeting in his saddle, and holding +back on the start. Macdonald could see that there was something unsaid +in the little man's mind which gave him an uneasiness, like +indigestion. + +"What is it, Banjo?" he asked, to let it be known that he understood. + +"Mac, did you ever hear tell of a feller named Mark Thorn?" Banjo +inquired, looking about him with fearful caution, lowering his voice +almost to a whisper. + +"Yes, I've heard of him." + +"Well, he's in this country." + +"Are you sure about that, Banjo?" Macdonald's face was troubled; he +moved nearer the musician as he made the inquiry, and laid his hand on +his arm. + +"He's here. He's the feller you've got to watch out for. He cut +acrosst the road yisterday afternoon when I was comin' down here, and +when he seen me he stopped, for I used to know him up north and he +knew it wasn't no use to try to duck and hide his murderin' face from +me. He told me he was ranchin' up in Montany, and he'd come down here +to collect some money Chadron owed him on an old bill." + +"Pretty slim kind of a story. But he's here to collect money from +Chadron, all right, and give him value received. What kind of a +looking man is he?" + +"He's long and lean, like a rail, with a kind of a bend in him when he +walks, and the under lid of his left eye drawed like you'd pulled it +down and stuck a tack in it. He's wearin' a cap, and he's kind of +whiskered up, like he'd been layin' out some time." + +"I'd know him," Macdonald nodded. + +"You couldn't miss him in a thousand, Mac. Well, I must be rackin' +along." + +Banjo scarcely had passed out of sight when three horsemen came +galloping to Macdonald's gate. They brought news of a fresh tragedy, +and that in the immediate neighborhood. A boy had been shot down that +morning while doing chores on a homestead a little way across the +river. He was the son of one of the men on the death-list, and these +men, the father among them, had come to enlist Macdonald's aid in +running down the slayer. + +The boy's mother had seen the assassin hastening away among the scant +bushes on the slope above the house. The description that she gave of +him left no doubt in Macdonald's mind of his identity. It was Mark +Thorn, the cattlemen's contract killer, the homesteaders' scourge. + +It was a fruitless search that day, seeking old Mark Thorn among the +hills which rose brokenly a few miles back from the river and climbed +to the knees of the mountains in ever-mounting surge. A devil's +darning-needle in a cornfield would have been traced and cornered as +quickly as that slippery thin old killer of men, it seemed. + +As if to show his contempt for those who hunted him, and to emphasize +his own feeling of security, he slipped down to the edge of the fenced +lands and struck down another homesteader that afternoon, leaving him +dead at the handles of his plow. + +Those homesteaders were men of rare courage and unbending persistency +in the ordinary affairs of life, but three days of empty pursuit of +this monster left them out of heart. The name of Mark Thorn in itself +was sufficient to move a thrill of terror and repulsion. He had left +his red mark in many places through the land dominated by the cattle +interests of the Northwest, where settlers had attempted to find +lodgment. He had come at length to stand for an institution of +destruction, rather than an individual, which there was no power +strong enough to circumvent, nor force cunning enough to entrap. + +There never was a tale of monsters, wolf-men, bloody-muzzled great +beasts of dark forests, that struck deeper fear into the hearts of +primitive peasantry than this modern ogre moved in the minds and +hearts of those striving settlers in the cattle lands. Mark Thorn was +a shadowy, far-reaching thing to them, distorted in their imaginings +out of the semblance of a man. He had grown, in the stories founded on +facts horrible enough without enlargement, into a fateful destroyer, +from whom no man upon whom he had set his mark could escape. + +Little wonder, then, that fear for the safety of their wives and +children made the faces of these men gray as they rode the sage, +combing the hollows and hills for the sight of old Mark Thorn. One by +one they began to drop out of the posse, until of the fourteen besides +Macdonald who had ridden in the hunt on the second day, only five +remained on the evening of the third. + +It was no use looking for Mark Thorn, they said, shaking gloomy heads. +When he came into a country on a contract to kill, it was like a curse +predestined which the power of man could not turn aside. He had the +backing of the Drovers' Association, which had an arm as long in that +land as the old Persian king's. He would strike there, like the ghost +of all the devils in men that ever had lived on their fellows' blood, +and slink away as silently as a wolf out of the sheepfold at dawn when +his allotted task was done. + +Better to go home and guard what was left, they said. All of them were +men for a fight, but it was one thing to stand up to something that a +man could see, and quite another to fight blindfolded, and in the +dark. Catching Mark Thorn was like trying to ladle moonlight with a +sieve. The country wasn't worth it, they were beginning to believe. +When Mark Thorn came in, it was like the vultures flying ahead of the +last, devastating plague. + +The man whose boy had been shot down beside the little grass-roofed +barn was the last to leave. + +"I'll stick to it for a year, Alan, if you think it's any use," he +said. + +He was a gaunt man, with sunken cheeks and weary eyes; gray, worn, +unwashed, and old; one of the earth's disinherited who believed that +he had come into his rood of land at last. Now the driving shadow of +his restless fate was on him again. Macdonald could see that it was +heavy in his mind to hitch up and stagger on into the west, which was +already red with the sunset of his day. + +Macdonald was moved by a great compassion for this old man, whose hope +had been snatched away from him by the sting of a bullet in the dawn. +He laid his hand on the old homesteader's sagging thin shoulder and +poured the comfort of a strong man's sympathy into his empty eyes. + +"Go on back, Tom, and look after the others," he said. "Do your chores +by dark, morning and night, and stick close to cover all days and +watch for him. I'll keep on looking. I started to get that old hyena, +and I'll get him. Go on home." + + +The old man's eyes kindled with admiration. But it died as quickly as +it had leaped up, and he shook his long hair with a sigh. + +"You can't do nothin' agin him all alone, Alan." + +"I think I'll have a better chance alone than in a crowd, Tom. There's +no doubt that there were too many of us, crashing through the brush +and setting ourselves up against the sky line every time we rode up a +hill. I'll tackle him alone. Tell the neighbors to live under cover +till they hear I've either got him or he's got me. In case it turns +out against me, they can do whatever seems best to them." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AFOOT AND ALONE + + +Mark Thorn had not killed anybody since shooting the man at the plow. +There were five deaths to his credit on that contract, although none +of the fallen was on the cattlemen's list of desirables to be +removed. + +Five days had passed without a tragedy, and the homesteaders were +beginning to draw breath in the open again, in the belief that +Macdonald must have driven the slayer out of the country. Nothing had +been seen or heard of Macdonald since the evening that he parted +company with Tom Lassiter, father of the murdered boy. + +Macdonald, in the interval, was hard on the old villain's trail. He +had picked it up on the first day of his lone-handed hunt, and once he +had caught a glimpse of Thorn as he dodged among the red willows on +the river, but the sight had been too transitory to put in a shot. It +was evident now that Thorn knew that he was being hunted by a single +pursuer. More than that, there were indications written in the loose +earth where he passed, and in the tangled brushwood where he skulked, +that he had stopped running away and had turned to hunt the hunter. + +For two days they had been circling in a constantly tightening ring, +first one leading the hunt, then the other. Trained and accustomed as +he was to life under those conditions, Thorn had not yet been able to +take even a chance shot at his clinging pursuer. + +Macdonald was awake to the fact that this balance in his favor could +not be maintained long. As it was, he ascribed it more to luck than +skill on his part. This wild beast in human semblance must possess all +the wild beast's cunning; there would be a rift left open in this +straining game of hide and seek which his keen eyes would be sure to +see at no distant hour. + +The afternoon of that day was worn down to the hock. Macdonald had +been creeping and stooping, running, panting, and lying concealed from +the first gleam of dawn. Whether by design on the part of Thorn, or +merely the blind leading of the hunt, Macdonald could not tell, the +contest of wits had brought them within sight of Alamito ranchhouse. + +Resting a little while with his back against a ledge which insured him +from surprise, Macdonald looked out from the hills over the +wide-spanning valley, the farther shore of which was laved in a purple +mist as rich as the dye of some oriental weaving. He felt a surge of +indignant protest against the greedy injustice of that manorial +estate, the fair house glistening in the late sun among the +white-limbed cottonwoods. There Saul Chadron sat, like some distended +monster, his hands spread upon more than he could honestly use, or his +progeny after him for a thousand years, growling and snapping at all +whose steps lagged in passing, or whose weary eyes turned longingly +toward those grassy vales. + +There had been frost for many nights past; the green of the summerland +had merged into a yellow-brown, now gold beneath the slanting +sunbeams. A place of friendly beauty and sequestered peace, where a +man might come to take up his young dreams, or stagger under the +oppression of his years to put them down, and rest. It seemed so, in +the light of that failing afternoon. + +But the man who sat with his back against the ledge, his ears strained +to find the slightest hostile sound, his roaming eyes always coming +back with unconscious alertness and frowning investigation to the +nearer objects in the broken foreground, had tasted beneath the +illusive crust of that land, and the savor was bitter upon his lips. +He questioned what good there was to be got out of it, for him or +those for whom he had taken up the burden, for many a weary year to +come. + +The gloom of the situation bore heavily upon him; he felt the +uselessness of his fight. He recalled the words of Frances Landcraft: +"There must be millions behind the cattlemen." He felt that he never +had realized the weight of millions, iniquitous millions, before that +hour. They formed a barrier which his shoulder seemed destined never +to overturn. + +There he was, on that broad heath, afoot and alone, hunting, and +hunted by a slayer of men, one who stalked him as he would a wolf or a +lion for the bounty upon his head. And in the event that a lucky shot +should rid the earth of that foul thing, how much would it strengthen +his safety, and his neighbors', and fasten their weak hold upon the +land? + +Little, indeed. Others could be hired out of those uncounted millions +of the cattlemen's resources to finish what Mark Thorn had begun. The +night raids upon their fields would continue, the slanders against +them would spread and grow. Colonel Landcraft believed him to be what +malicious report had named him; there was not a doubt of that. And +what Frances thought of him since that misadventure of the glove, it +was not hard to guess. + +But that was not closed between them, he told himself, as he had told +himself before, times unnumbered. There was a final word to be said, +at the right time and place. The world would turn many times between +then and the Christmas holidays, when Frances was to become the bride +of another, according to the colonel's plans. + +Macdonald was weary from his night vigils and stealthy prowlings by +day, and hungry for a hot meal. Since he had taken the trail of Mark +Thorn alone he had not kindled a fire. Now the food that he had +carried with him was done; he must turn back home for a fresh supply, +and a night's rest. + +It did not matter much, anyway, he said, feeling the uselessness of +his life and strife in that place. It was a big and unfriendly land, a +hard and hopeless place for a man who tried to live in defiance of the +established order there. Why not leave it, with its despair and +heart-emptiness? The world was full enough of injustices elsewhere if +he cared to set his hand to right them. + +But a true man did not run away under fire, nor a brave one block out +a task and then shudder and slink away, when he stood off and saw the +immensity of the thing that he had undertaken. Besides all these +considerations, which in themselves formed insuperable reasons against +retreat, there had been some big talk into the ear of Frances +Landcraft. There was no putting down what he had begun. His dream had +taken root there; it would be cruel cowardice to wrench it up. + +He got up, the sun striking him on the face, from which the west wind +pressed back his hat brim as if to let the daylight see it. The dust +of his travels was on it, and the roughness of his new beard, and it +was harsh in some of its lines, and severe as an ashlar from the +craftsman's tool. But it was a man's face, with honor in it; the sun +found no weakness there, no shame concealed under the sophistries and +wiles by which men beguile the world. + +Macdonald looked away across the valley, past the white ranchhouse, +beyond the slow river which came down from the northwest in toilsome +curves, whose gray shores and bars were yellow in that sunlight as the +sands of famed Pactolus. His breast heaved with the long inspiration +which flared his thin nostrils like an Arab's scenting rain; he +revived with a new vigor as the freedom of the plains met his eyes and +made them glad. That was his place, his land; its troubles were his to +bear, its peace his to glean when it should ripen. It was his +inheritance; it was his place of rest. The lure of that country had a +deep seat in his heart; he loved it for its perils and its pains. It +was like a sweetheart to bind and call him back. A man makes his own +Fortunate Isles, as that shaggy old gray poet knew so well. + +For a moment Mark Thorn was forgotten as Macdonald repeated, in low +voice above his breath: + + Lo! These are the isles of the watery miles + That God let down from the firmament. + Lo! Duty and Love, and a true man's trust; + Your forehead to God and your feet in the dust-- + +Yes, that was his country; it had taken hold of him with that grip +which no man ever has shaken his heart free from, no matter how many +seas he has placed between its mystic lure and his back-straining +soul. Its fight was his fight, and there was gladness in the thought. + +His alertness as he went down the slope, and the grim purpose of his +presence in that forbidden place, did not prevent the pleading of a +softer cause, and a sweeter. That rare smile woke in his eyes and +unbent for a moment the harshness of his lips as he thought of brown +hair sweeping back from a white forehead, and a chin lifted +imperiously, as became one born to countenance only the exalted in +this life. There was something that made him breathe quicker in the +memory of her warm body held a transitory moment in his arms; the +recollection of the rose-softness of her lips. All these were waiting +in the world that he must win, claimed by another, true. But that was +immaterial, he told his heart, which leaped and exulted in the memory +of that garden path as if there was no tomorrow, and no such shadow in +man's life as doubt. + +Of course, there remained the matter of the glove. A man might have +been expected to die before yielding it to another, as she had said, +speaking out of a hot heart, he knew. There was a more comfortable +thought for Alan Macdonald as he went down the long slope with the +western sun on his face; not a thought of dying for a glove, but of +living to win the hand that it had covered. + +Chadron's ranchhouse was several miles to the westward of him, +although it appeared nearer by the trickery of that clear light. He +cut his course to bring himself into the public highway--a government +road, it was--that ran northward up the river, the road along which +Chadron's men had pursued him the night of the ball. He meant to +strike it some miles to the north of Chadron's homestead, for he was +not looking for any more trouble than he was carrying that day. + +He proceeded swiftly, but cautiously, watching for his man. But Mark +Thorn did not appear to be abroad in that part of the country. Until +sundown Macdonald walked unchallenged, when he struck the highway a +short distance south of the point where the trail leading to Fort +Shakie branched from it. + +Saul Chadron and his daughter Nola came riding out of the Fort Shakie +road, their horses in that tireless, swinging gallop which the animals +of that rare atmosphere can maintain for hours. As he rode, Chadron +swung his quirt in unison with the horse's undulations, from side to +side across its neck, like a baton. He sat as stiff and solid in his +saddle as a carved image. Nola came on neck and neck with him, on the +side of the road nearer Macdonald. + +Macdonald was carrying a rifle in addition to his side arms, and he +was a dusty grim figure to come upon suddenly afoot in the high road. +Chadron pulled in his horse and brought it to a stiff-legged stop when +he saw Macdonald, who had stepped to the roadside to let them pass. +The old cattleman's high-crowned sombrero was pinched to a peak; the +wind of his galloping gait had pressed its broad brim back from his +tough old weathered face. His white mustache and little dab of pointed +beard seemed whiter against the darkness of passion which mounted to +his scowling eyes. + +"What in the hell're you up to now?" he demanded, without regard for +his companion, who was accustomed, well enough, to his explosions and +expletives. + +Macdonald gravely lifted his hand to his hat, his eyes meeting Nola's +for an instant, Chadron's challenge unanswered. Nola's face flared at +this respectful salutation as if she had been insulted. She jerked her +horse back a little, as if she feared that violence would follow the +invasion of her caste by this fallen and branded man, her pliant waist +weaving in graceful balance with every movement of her beast. + +Macdonald lowered his eyes from her blazingly indignant face. Her +horse was slewed across the narrow road, and he considered between +waiting for them to ride on and striking into the shoulder-high sage +which grew thick at the roadside there. He thought that she was very +pretty in her fairness of hair and skin, and the lake-clear blueness +of her eyes. She was riding astride, as all the women in that country +rode, dressed in wide pantaloonish corduroys, with twinkling little +silver spurs on her heels. + +"What're you prowlin' down here around my place for?" Chadron asked, +spurring his horse as he spoke, checking its forward leap with rigid +arm, which made a commotion of hoofs and a cloud of dust. + +"This is a public highway, and I deny your right to question my +motives in it," Macdonald returned, calmly. + +"Sneakin' around to see if you can lay hands on a horse, I suppose," +Chadron said, leaning a little in towering menace toward the man in +the road. + +Macdonald felt a hot surge of resentment rise to his eyes, so suddenly +and so strongly that it dimmed his sight. He shut his mouth hard on +the words which sprang into it, and held himself in silence until he +had command of his anger. + +"I'm hunting," said he, meeting Chadron's eye with meaning look. + +"On foot, and waitin' for dark!" the cattleman sneered. + +"I'm going on foot because the game I'm after sticks close to the +ground. There's no need of naming that game to you--you know what it +is." + +Macdonald spoke with cutting severity. Chadron's dark face reddened +under his steady eyes, and again the big rowels of his spurs slashed +his horse's sides, making it bound and trample in threatening charge. + +"I don't know anything about your damn low business, but I'll tell you +this much; if I ever run onto you ag'in down this way I'll do a little +huntin' on my own accord." + +"That would be squarer, and more to my liking, than hiring somebody +else to do it for you, Mr. Chadron. Ride on--I don't want to stand +here and quarrel with you." + +"I'm goin' to clear you nesters out of there up the river"--Chadron +waved his hand in the direction of which he spoke--"and put a stop to +your rustlin' before another month rolls around. I've stood your +fences up there on my land as long as I'm goin' to!" + +"I've never had a chance to tell you before, Mr. Chadron"--Macdonald +spoke as respectfully as his deep detestation of the cattleman would +allow--"but if you've got any other charge to bring against me except +that of homesteading, bring it in a court. I'm ready to face you on +it, any day." + +"I carry my court right here with me," said Chadron, patting his +revolver. + +"I deny its jurisdiction," Macdonald returned, drawing himself up, a +flash of defiance in his clear eyes. + +Chadron jerked his head in expression of lofty disdain. + +"Go on! Git out of my sight!" he ordered. + +"The road is open to you," Macdonald replied. + +"I'm not goin' to turn my back on you till you're out of sight!" + +Chadron bent his great owlish brows in a scowl, laid his hand on his +revolver and whirled his horse in the direction that Macdonald was +facing. + +Macdonald did not answer. He turned from Chadron, something in his act +of going that told the cattleman he was above so mean suspicion on his +part. Nola shifted her horse to let him pass, her elbows tight at her +sides, scorn in her lively eyes. + +Again Macdonald's hand went to his hat in respectful salute, and again +he saw that flash of anger spread in the young woman's cheeks. Her +fury blazed in her eyes as she looked at him a moment, and a dull +color mounted in his own face as he beheld her foolish and unjustified +pride. + +Macdonald would have passed her then, but she spurred her horse upon +him with sudden-breaking temper, forcing him to spring back quickly to +the roadside to escape being trampled. Before he could collect himself +in his astonishment, she struck him a whistling blow with her +long-thonged quirt across the face. + +"You dog!" she said, her clenched little white teeth showing in her +parted lips. + +Macdonald caught the bridle and pushed her horse back to its haunches, +and she, in her reckless anger, struck him across the hand in sharp +quick blows. Her conduct was comparable to nothing but that of an +ill-bred child striking one whose situation, he has been told, is the +warrant of his inferiority. + +The struggle was over in a few seconds, and Macdonald stood free of +the little fury, a red welt across his cheek, the back of his hand cut +until the blood oozed through the skin in heavy black drops. Chadron +had not moved a hand to interfere on either side. Only now that the +foolish display of Nola's temper was done he rocked in his saddle and +shook the empty landscape with his loud, coarse laugh. + +He patted his daughter on the shoulder, like a hunter rewarding a dog. +Macdonald walked away from them, the only humiliation that he felt for +the incident being that which he suffered for her sake. + +It was not so much that a woman had debased herself to the level of a +savage, although that hurt him, too, but that her blows had been the +expression of the contempt in which the lords of that country held him +and his kind. Bullets did not matter so much, for a man could give +them back as hot as they came. But there was no answer, as he could +see it in that depressing hour, for such a feudal assertion of +superiority as this. + +It was to the work of breaking the hold of this hard-handed +aristocracy which had risen from the grass roots in the day of its +arrogant prosperity--a prosperity founded on usurpation of the rights +of the weak, and upheld by murder--that he had set his soul. The need +of hastening the reformation never had seemed greater to him than on +that day, or more hopeless, he admitted in his heart. + +For hour by hour the work ahead of him appeared to grow greater. +Little could be expected, judging by the experiences of the past few +days, from those who suffered most. The day of extremest pressure in +their poor affairs was being hastened by the cattlemen, as Chadron's +threat had foretold. Would they when the time came to fight do so, or +harness their lean teams and drive on into the west? That was the big +question upon which the success or the failure of his work depended. + +As he had come down from the hillside out of the sunshine and peace to +meet shadow and violence, so his high spirits, hopes, and intentions +seemed this bitter hour steeped in sudden gloom. In more ways than one +that evening on the white river road, Alan Macdonald felt that he was +afoot and alone. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +BUSINESS, NOT COMPANY + + +Saul Chadron was at breakfast next morning when Maggie the cook +appeared in the dining-room and announced a visitor for the señor +boss. Maggie's eyes were bulging, and she did a great deal of +pantomime with her shapely shoulders to express her combined fright, +disgust, and indignation. + +Chadron looked up from his ham and eggs, with a considerable portion +of the eggs on the blade of his knife, handle-down in one fist, his +fork standing like a lightning rod in the other, and asked her who the +man was and what he wanted at that hour of the day. Chadron was eating +by lamplight, and alone, according to his thrifty custom of slipping +up on the day before it was awake, as if in the hope of surprising it +at a vast disadvantage to itself, after his way of handling men and +things. + +"_Es un extranjero_," replied Maggie, forgetting her English in her +excitement. + +"Talk white man, you old sow!" Chadron growled. + +"He ees a es-trenger, I do not knowed to heem." + +"Tell him to go to the barn and wait, I'll be out there in a minute." + +"He will not a-goed. I told to heem--whee!" Maggie clamped her hands +to her back as if somebody had caught her in a ticklish spot, as she +squealed, and jumped into the room where the grand duke of the +cattlemen's nobility was taking his refreshment. + +Chadron had returned to his meal after ordering her to send his +visitor to the barn. He was swabbing his knife in the fold of a +pancake when Maggie made that frightful, shivering exclamation and +jumped aside out of the door. Now he looked up to reprove her, and met +the smoky eyes of Mark Thorn peering in from the kitchen. + +"What're you doin' around here, you old--come in--shut that door! Git +him some breakfast," he ordered, turning to Maggie. + +Maggie hung back a moment, until Thorn had come into the room, then +she shot into the kitchen like a cat through a fence, and slammed the +door behind her. + +"What in the hell do you mean by comin' around here?" Chadron demanded +angrily. "Didn't I tell you never to come here? you blink-eyed old +snag-shin!" + +"You told me," Thorn admitted, putting his rifle down across a chair, +drawing another to the table, and seating himself in readiness for the +coming meal. + +"Then what'd you sneak--" + +"News," said Thorn, in his brief way. + +"Which news?" Chadron brightened hopefully, his implements, clamped in +his hairy fists, inviting the first bolt from the heavens. + + +"I got him last night." + +"You got--_him?_" Chadron lifted himself from his chair on his bent +legs in the excitement of the news. + +"And I'm through with this job. I've come to cash in, and quit." + +"The hell you say!" + +"I'm gittin' too old for this kind of work. That feller chased me +around till my tongue was hangin' out so fur I stepped on it. I tell +you he was--" + +"How did you do it?" + +Thorn looked at him with a scowl. "Well, I never used a club on a man +yit," he said. + +"Where did it happen at?" + +"Up there at his place. He'd been chasin' me for two days, and when he +went back--after grub, I reckon--I doubled on him. Just as he went in +the door I got him. I left him with his damn feet stickin' out like a +shoemaker's sign." + +"How fur was you off from him, Mark?" + +"Fifty yards, more 'r less." + +"Did you go over to him to see if he was finished, or just creased?" + +"I never creased a man in my life!" Thorn was indignant over the +imputation. + +Chadron shook his head, in doubt, in discredit, in gloomy disbelief. + +"If you didn't go up to him and turn him over and look at the whites +of his eyes, you ain't sure," he protested. "That man's as slippery as +wet leather--he's fooled more than one that thought they had him, and +I'll bet you two bits he's fooled you." + +"Go and see, and settle it yourself, then," Thorn proposed, in surly +humor. + +Chadron had suspended his breakfast, as if the news had come between +him and his appetite. He sat in a study, his big hand curved round his +cup, his gaze on the cloth. At that juncture Maggie came in with a +platter of eggs and ham, which she put down before Mark Thorn +skittishly, ready to jump at the slightest hostile start. Thorn began +to eat, as calmly as if there was not a stain on his crippled soul. + +Unlike the meal of canned oysters which he had consumed as Chadron's +guest not many days before, Thorn was not welcomed to this by friendly +words and urging to take off the limit. Chadron sat watching him, in +divided attention and with dark face, as if he turned troubles over in +his mind. + +Thorn cleaned the platter in front of him, and looked round hungrily, +like a cat that has half-satisfied its stomach on a stolen bird. He +said nothing, only he reached his foul hand across the table and took +up the dish containing the remnant of Chadron's breakfast. This he +soon cleared up, when he rasped the back of his hand across his harsh +mustache, like a vulture preening its filthy plumage, and leaned back +with a full-stomached sigh. + +"He makes six," said he, looking hard at Chadron. + +"Huh!" Chadron grunted, noncommittally. + +"I want the money, down on the nail, a thousand for the job. I'm +through." + +"I'll have to look into it. I ain't payin' for anything sight 'nseen," +Chadron told him, starting out of his speculative wanderings. + +"Money down, on the nail," repeated Thorn, as if he had not heard. His +old cap was hovering over his long hair, its flaps down like the wings +of a brooding hen. There were clinging bits of broken sage on it, and +burrs, which it had gathered in his skulking through the brush. + +"I'll send a man up the river right away, and find out about this last +one," Chadron told him, nodding slowly. "If you've got Macdonald--" + +"If hell's got fire in it!" + +"If you've got him, I'll put something to the figure agreed on between +you and me. The other fellers you've knocked over don't count." + +"I'll hang around--" + +"Not here! You'll not hang around here, I tell you!" Chadron cut him +off harshly, fairly bristling. "Snake along out of here, and don't let +anybody see you. I'll meet you at the hotel in the morning." + +"Gittin' peticlar of your company, ain't you?" sneered Thorn. + +"You're not company--you're business," Chadron told him, with stern +and reproving eyes. + + * * * * * + +Chadron found Mark Thorn smoking into the chimney in the hotel office +next morning, apparently as if he had not moved from that spot since +their first meeting on that peculiar business. The old man-killer did +not turn his head as Chadron entered the room with a show of caution +and suspicion in his movements, and closed the door after him. + +He crossed over to the fire and stood near Thorn, who was slouching +low in his chair, his long legs stretched straight, his heels crossed +before the low ashy fire that smoldered in the chimney. For a little +while Chadron stood looking down on his hired scourge, a knitting of +displeasure in his face, as if he waited for him to break the silence. +Thorn continued his dark reverie undisturbed, it seemed, his pipestem +between his fingers. + +"Yes, it was his damn hired hand!" said Chadron, with profound +disgust. + +"That's what I heard you say," acknowledged Thorn, not moving his +head. + +"You knew it all the time; you was tryin' to work me for the money, so +you could light out!" + +"I didn't even know he had a hired hand!" Thorn drew in his legs, +straightened his back, and came with considerable spirit to the +defense of his evil intent. + +"Well, he ain't got none now, but _he's_ alive and kickin'. You've +bungled on this job worse than an old woman. I didn't fetch you in +here to clean out hired hands and kids; we can shake a blanket and +scare that kind out of the country!" + +"Well, put him in at fifty then, if he was only a hired hand," said +Thorn, willing to oblige. + +"When you go ahead and do what you agreed to, then we'll talk money, +and not a red till then." + +Thorn got up, unlimbering slowly, and laid the pipe on the mantel-shelf. +He seemed unmoved, indifferent; apathetic as a toothless old lion. +After a little silence he shook his head. + +"I'm done, I tell you," he said querulously, as if raising the +question crossed him. "Pay me for that many, and call it square." + +"Bring in Macdonald," Chadron demanded in firm tones. + +"I ain't a-goin' to touch him! If I keep on after that man he'll git +_me_--it's on the cards, I can see it in the dark." + +"Yes, you're lost your nerve, you old wildcat!" There was a taunt in +Chadron's voice, a sneer. + +Thorn turned on him, a savage, smothered noise in his throat. + +"You can say that because you owe me money, but you know it's a damn +lie! If you didn't owe me money, I'd make you swaller it with hot +lead!" + +"You're talkin' a little too free for a man of your trade, Mark." +While Chadron's tone was tolerant, even friendly, there was an +undercurrent of warning, even threat, in his words. + +"You're the feller that's lettin' his gab outrun his gumption. How +many does that make for me, talkin' about nerve, how many? Do you +know?" + +"I don't care how many, it lacks one of bein' enough to suit me." + +"Twenty-eight, and I've got 'em down in m' book and I can prove it!" + +"Make it twenty-nine, and then quit if you want to." + +"Maybe I will." Thorn leaned forward a little, a glitter in his smoky +eyes. + +Chadron fell back, his face growing pale. His hand was on his weapon, +his eyes noting narrowly every move Thorn made. + +"If you ever sling a gun on me, you old devil, it'll be--" + +"I ain't a-goin' to sling no gun on you as long as you owe me money. +I ain't a-goin' to cut the bottom out of m' own money-poke, Chad; +you don't need to swivel up in your hide, you ain't marked for +twenty-nine." + +"Well, don't throw out any more hints like that; I don't like that +kind of a joke." + +"No, I wouldn't touch a hair of your head," Thorn ran on, following +a vein which seemed to amuse him, for he smiled, a horrible, +face-drawing contortion of a smile, "for if you and me ever had a +fallin' out over money I might git so hard up I couldn't travel, and +one of them sheriff fellers might slip up on me." + +"What's all this fool gab got to do with business?" Chadron was +impatient; he looked at his watch. + +"Well, I'd be purty sure to make a speech from the gallers--I always +intended to--and lay everything open that ever took place between me +and you and the rest of them big fellers. There's a newspaper feller +in Cheyenne that wants to make a book out of m' life, with m' pict're +in the inside of the lid, to be sold when I'm dead. I could git money +for tellin' that feller what I know." + +"Go on and tell him then,"--Chadron spoke with a dare in his words, +and derision--"that'll be easy money, and it won't call for any nerve. +But you don't need to be plannin' any speech from the gallus--you'll +never go that fur if you try to double-cross me!" + +"I ain't aimin' to double-cross no man, but you can call it that if it +suits you. You can call it whatever you purty damn well care to--I'm +done!" + +Chadron made no reply to that. He was pulling on his great gloves, +frowning savagely, as if he meant to close the matter with what he had +said, and go. + +"Do I git any money, or don't I?" Thorn asked, sharply. + +"When you bring in that wolf's tail." + +"I ain't a-goin' to touch that feller, I tell you, Chad. That man +means bad luck to me--I can read it in the cards." + +"Maybe you call that kind of skulkin' livin' up to your big name?" +Chadron spoke in derision, playing on the vanity which he knew to be +as much a part of that old murderer's life as the blood of his +merciless heart. + +"I've got glory enough," said Thorn, satisfaction in his voice; "what +I want right now's money." + +"Earn it before you collect it." + +"Twenty-eight 'd fill a purty fair book, countin' in what I could tell +about the men I've had dealin's with," Thorn reflected, as to himself, +leaning against the mantel, frowning down at the floor with bent +head. + +"Talk till you're empty, you old fool, and who'll believe you? Huh! +you couldn't git yourself hung if you was to try!" Chadron's dark face +was blacker for the spreading flood of resentful blood; he pointed +with his heavy quirt at Thorn, as if to impress him with a sense of +the smallness of his wickedness, which men would not credit against +the cattlemen's word, even if he should publish it abroad. "You'll +never walk onto the scaffold, no matter how hard you try--there'll be +somebody around to head you off and give you a shorter cut than that, +I'm here to tell you!" + +"Huh!" said Thorn, still keeping his thoughtful pose. + +Man-killing is a trade that reacts differently on those who follow it, +according to their depth and nature. It makes black devils of some who +were once civil, smiling, wholesome men, whether the mischance of +life-taking has fallen to them in their duty to society or in outlawed +deeds. It plunges some into dark taciturnity and brooding coldness, as +if they had eaten of some root which blunted them to all common relish +of life. + +There are others of whom the bloody trade makes gabbling fools, +light-headed, wild-eyed wasters of words, full of the importance of +their mind-wrecking deeds. Like the savage whose reputation mounts +with each wet scalp, each fresh head, these kill out of depravity, +glorying in the growing score. To this class Mark Thorn belonged. + +There was but one side left to that depraved man's mind; his bloody, +base life had smothered the rest under the growing heap of his +horrible deeds. Thorn had killed twenty-eight human beings for hire, +of whom he had tally, but there was one to be included of whom he had +not taken count--himself. + +As he stood here against the chimney-shelf he was only the outside +husk of a man. His soul had been judged already, and burned out of him +by the unholy passion which he had indulged. He was as simple in his +garrulous chatter of glory and distinction as a half-fool. His warped +mind ran only on the spectacular end that he had planned for himself, +and the speech from the gallows that was to be the black, damning seal +at the end of his atrocious life's record. + +Thorn looked up from his study; he shook his head decisively. + +"I ain't a-goin' to go back over there in your country and give you a +chance at me. If you git me, you'll have to git me here. I ain't +a-goin' to sling a gun down on nobody for the money that's in it, I +tell you. I'm through; I'm out of the game; my craw's full. It's a bad +sign when a man wastes a bullet on a hired hand, takin' him for the +boss, and I ain't a-goin' to run no more resks on that feller. When my +day for glory comes I'll step out on the gallers and say m' piece, and +they'll be some big fellers in this country huntin' the tall grass +about that time, I guess." + +Chadron had taken up his quirt from the little round table where the +hotel register lay. He turned now toward the outer door, as if in +earnest about going his way and leaving Mark Thorn to follow his own +path, no matter to what consequences it might lead. + +"If you're square enough to settle up with me for this job," said +Thorn, "and pay me five hundred for what I've done, I'll leave your +name out when I come to make that little speech." + +Chadron turned on him with a sneer. "You seem to have your hangin' all +cut and dried, but you'll never go ten miles outside of this +reservation if you don't turn around and put that job through. You'll +never hang--you ain't cut out in the hangin' style." + +"I tell you I will!" protested Thorn hotly. "I can see it in the +cards." + +"Well, you'd better shuffle 'em ag'in." + +"I know what kind of a day it's goin' to be, and I know just adzackly +how I'll look when I hold up m' hands for them fellers to keep still. +Shucks! you can't tell me; I've seen that day a thousand times. It'll +be early in the mornin', and the sun bright--" + +The door leading to the dining-room opened, and Thorn left his +description of that great and final day in his career hanging like a +broken bridge. He turned to see who it was, squinting his old eyes up +sharply, and in watching the stranger he failed to see the whiteness +that came over Chadron's face like a rushing cloud. + +"Grab your gun!" Chadron whispered. + +"Just let it stay where it is, Thorn," advised the stranger, his quick +hand on his own weapon before Thorn could grasp what it was all about, +believing, as he did, in the safety of the reservation's neutral +ground. "Macdonald is my name; I've been looking for you." The +stranger came on as he spoke. + +He was but a few feet away from Thorn, and the old man-killer had his +revolvers buckled around him in their accustomed place, while his +death-spreading rifle stood near his hand, leaning its muzzle against +the chimney-jamb. Thorn seemed to be measuring all the chances which +he had left to him in that bold surprise, and to conclude in the same +second that they were not worth taking. + +Macdonald had not drawn his revolver. His hand was on the butt of it, +and his eye held Thorn with a challenge that the old slayer was in no +mind to accept. + +Thorn was not a close-fighting man. He never had killed one of his +kind in a face-to-face battle in all his bloody days. At the bottom he +was a coward, as his skulking deeds attested, and in that moment he +knew that he stood before his master. Slowly he lifted his long arms +above his head, without a word, and stood in the posture of complete +surrender. + +Nearer the outer door stood Chadron, to whom Macdonald seemed to give +little attention, as if not counting him in the game. The big +cattleman was "white to the gills," as his kind expressed that state. +Macdonald unbuckled Thorn's belt and hung his revolvers over his arm. + +"I knowed you'd git me, Macdonald," the old scoundrel said. + +Macdonald, haggard and dusty, and grim as the last day that old Mark +Thorn had pictured for himself, pushed his prisoner away from the +chimney, out of reach of the rifle, and indicated that he was to march +for the open door, through which the tables in the dining-room could +be seen. At Macdonald's coming Chadron had thrown his hand to his +revolver, where he still held it, as if undecided how far to go. + +"Keep your gun where it is, Chadron," Macdonald advised. "This isn't +my day for you. Clear out of here--quick!" + +Chadron backed toward the front door, his hand still dubiously on his +revolver. Still suspicious, his face as white as it would have been in +death, he reached back with his free hand to open the door. + +"I told you he'd git me," nodded Thorn, with something near to +exultation in the vindication of his reading of the cards. "I give you +a chance--no man's money ain't a-goin' to shut my mouth now!" + +"I'll shut it, damn you!" Chadron's voice was dry-sounding and far +up in his throat. He drew his revolver with a quick jerk that +seemed nothing more than a slight movement of the shoulder. Quick +as he was--and few in the cattlemen's baronies were ahead of him +there--Macdonald was quicker. The muzzle of Chadron's pistol was +still in the leather when Macdonald's weapon was leveled at his eyes. + +"Drop that gun!" + +A moment Chadron's arm hung stiffly in that half-finished movement, +while his eyes gave defiance. He had not bent before any man in many a +year of growing power. But there was no other way; it was either bend +or break, and the break would be beyond repair. + +Chadron's fingers were damp with sudden sweat as he unclasped them +from the pistol-butt and let the weapon fall; sweat was on his +forehead, and a heaviness on his chest as if a man sat on him. He felt +backwards through the open door with one foot, like an old man +distrustful of his limbs, and steadied himself with his shoulder +against the jamb, for there was a trembling in his knees. He knew that +he had saved himself from the drop into eternal inconsequence by the +shading of a second, for there was death in dusty Alan Macdonald's +face. The escape left Chadron shaken, like a man who has held himself +away from death by his finger-ends at the lip of a ledge. + +"I knowed you'd git me, Macdonald," Thorn repeated. "You don't need no +handcuffs nor nothin' for me. I'll go along with you as gentle as a +fish." + +Macdonald indicated that Thorn might lower his arms, having taken +possession of the rifle. "Have you got a horse?" he asked. + +Thorn said that he had one in the hotel stable. "But don't you try to +take me too fur, Macdonald," he advised. "Chadron he'll ride a streak +to git his men together and try to take me away from you--I could see +it in his eye when he went out of that door." + +Macdonald knew that Thorn had read Chadron's intentions right. He +nodded, to let him know that he understood the cattleman's motives. + +"Well, don't you run me off to no private rope party, neither, +Macdonald, for I can tell you things that many a man'd pay me big +money to keep my mouth shut on." + +"You'll have a chance, Thorn." + +"But I want it done in the right way, so's I'll git the credit and the +fame." + +Macdonald was surprised to find this man, whose infamous career had +branded him as the arch-monster of modern times, so vain and +garrulous. He could account for it by no other hypothesis than that +much killing had indurated the warped mind of the slayer until the +taking of a human life was to him a commonplace. He was not capable of +remorse, any more than he had been disposed to pity. He was not a man, +only the blighted and cursed husk of a man, indeed, but doubly +dangerous for his irresponsibility, for his atrophied small +understanding. + +Twenty miles lay between the prisoner and the doubtful security of the +jail at Meander, and most of the distance was through the grazing +lands within Chadron's bounds. On the other hand, it was not more than +twelve miles to his ranch on the river. He believed that he could +reach it before Chadron could raise men to stop him and take the +prisoner away. + +Once home with Thorn, he could raise a posse to guard him until the +sheriff could be summoned. Even then there was no certainty that the +prisoner ever would see the inside of the Meander jail, for the +sheriff of that county was nothing more than one of Chadron's cowboys, +elevated to office to serve the unrighteous desires of the men who had +put him there. + +But Macdonald was determined that there should be no private rope +party for Thorn, neither at the hands of the prisoner's employers nor +at those of the outraged settlers. Thorn must be brought to trial +publicly, and the story of his employment, which he appeared ready +enough to tell for the "glory" in it, must be told in a manner that +would establish its value. + +The cruelly inhuman tale of his contracts and killings, his +engagements and rewards, must be sown by the newspapers far and wide. +Out of this dark phase of their oppression their deliverance must +rise. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"HELL'S A-GOIN' TO POP" + + +Chance Dalton, foreman of Alamito Ranch, was in charge of the +expedition that rode late that afternoon against Macdonald's homestead +to liberate Mark Thorn, and close his mouth in the cattlemen's +effective way upon the bloody secrets which he might in vainglorious +boast reveal. Chadron had promised rewards for the successful outcome +of the venture, and Chance Dalton rode with his three picked men in a +sportsman's heat. + +He was going out on a hunt for game such as he had run down more than +once before in his many years under Chadron's hand. It was better +sport than running down wolves or mountain lions, for there was the +superior intelligence of the game to be considered. No man knew what +turn the ingenuity of desperation might give the human mind. The +hunted might go out in one last splendid blaze of courage, or he might +cringe and beg, with white face and rolling eyes. In the case of +Macdonald, Dalton anticipated something unusual. He had tasted that +unaccountable homesteader's spirit in the past. + +Dalton was a wiry, tough man who rode with his elbows out, like an +Indian. His face was scarred by old knife-wounds, making it hard for +him to shave, in consequence of which he allowed his red beard to grow +to inch-length, where he kept it in subjugation with shears. The +gutters of his scars were seen through it, and the ends of them ran +up, on both cheeks, to his eyes. A knife had gone across one of these, +missing the bright little pupil in its bony cave, but slashing the +eyebrow and leaving him leering on that side. + +The men who came behind him were cowboys from the Texas Panhandle, +lean and tough as the dried beef of their native plains. It was the +most formidable force, not in numbers, but in proficiency, that ever +had proceeded against Macdonald, and the most determined. + +Chadron himself had bent to the small office of spy to learn +Macdonald's intention in reference to his prisoner. From a sheltered +thicket in the foothills the cattleman had watched the homesteader +through his field glasses, making certain that he was returning Thorn +to the scene of his latest crimes, instead of risking the long road to +the Meander jail. + +Chadron knew that Macdonald would defend the prisoner's life with his +own, even against his neighbors. Macdonald would be as eager to have +Thorn tell the story of his transactions with the Drovers' Association +as they would be to have it shut off. The realization of this threw +Chadron into a state which he described to himself as the "fantods." +Another, with a more extensive and less picturesque vocabulary, would +have said that the president of the Drovers' Association was in a +condition of panic. + +So he had despatched his men on this silencing errand, and now, as the +sun was dipping over the hills, all red with the presage of a frosty +night, Chance Dalton and his men came riding in sight of Macdonald's +little nest of buildings fronting the road by the river. + +Macdonald had secured his prisoner with ropes, for there was no +compartment in his little house, built of boards from the mountain +sawmill, strong enough to confine a man, much less a slippery one like +Mark Thorn. The slayer had lapsed into his native taciturnity shortly +after beginning the trip from the reservation to Macdonald's +homestead, and now he lay on the floor trussed up like a hog for +market, looking blackly at Macdonald. Macdonald was considering the +night ride to Meander with his prisoner that he had planned, with the +intention of proceeding from there to Cheyenne and lodging him in +jail. He believed there might be a better chance of holding him for +trial there, and some slight hope of justice. + +A hail from the gate startled Macdonald. It was the custom of the +homesteaders in that country, carried with them from the hills of +Missouri and Arkansas, to sit in their saddles at a neighbor's gate +and call him to the door with a long "hello-o-oh!" It was the password +of friendship in that raw land; a cowboy never had been known to stoop +to its use. Cowboys rode up to a homesteader's door when they had +anything to say to him, and hammered on it with their guns. + +Macdonald went to the door and opened it unhesitatingly. The horseman +at the gate was a stranger to him. He wore a little derby hat, such as +the cowpunchers despised, and the trappings of his horse proclaimed +him as a newcomer to that country. He inquired loudly of the road to +Fort Shakie, and Macdonald shouted back the necessary directions, +moving a step away from his open door. + +The stranger put his hand to his ear and leaned over. + +"Which?" said he. + +At that sound of that distinctly-cowboy vernacular, Macdonald sprang +back to regain the shelter of his walls, sensing too late the trap +that the cowboy's unguarded word had betrayed. Chance Dalton at one +corner of the rude bungalow, his next best man at the other, had been +waiting for the decoy at the gate to draw Macdonald away from his +door. Now, as the homesteader leaped back in sudden alarm, they closed +in on him with their revolvers drawn. + +There was the sound of a third man trying the back door at the same +time, and the disguised cowboy at the gate slung his weapon out and +sent a wild shot into the lintel above Macdonald's head. The two of +them on the ground had him at a disadvantage which it would have been +fatal to dispute, and Macdonald, valuing a future chance more than a +present hopeless struggle, flung his hands out in a gesture of +emptiness and surrender. + +"Put 'em up--high!" Dalton ordered. + +Dalton watched him keenly as the three in that picture before the door +stood keyed to such tension as the human intelligence seldom is called +upon to withstand. Macdonald stood with one foot on the low threshold, +the door swinging half open at his back. He was bareheaded, his rough, +fair hair in wisps on temples and forehead. Dalton's teeth were +showing between his bearded lips, and his quick eyes were scowling, +but he held his companion back with a command of his free hand. + +Macdonald lifted his hands slowly, holding them little above a level +with his shoulders. + +"Give up your prisoner, Macdonald, and we'll deal square with you," +Dalton said. + +"Go in and take him," offered Macdonald, stepping aside out of the +door. + +"Go ahead of us, and put 'em up higher!" Dalton made a little +expressive flourish with his gun, evidently distrustful of the +homesteader's quick hand, even at his present disadvantage. + +The man at the back door was using the ax from Macdonald's wood pile, +as the sound of splintering timber told. Between three fires, +Macdonald felt his chance stretching to the breaking point, for he had +no faith at all in Chance Dalton's word. They had come to get him, and +it looked now as if they had won. + +When Macdonald entered the house he saw Thorn sitting in the middle of +the floor, where he had rolled and struggled in his efforts to see +what was taking place outside. + +"You've played hell now, ain't you? lettin' 'em git the drop on you +that way!" he said to Macdonald, angrily. "They'll swing--" + +"Hand over that gun, Macdonald," Dalton demanded. They were standing +near him, one on either hand, both leveling their guns at his head. +Macdonald could see the one at the back door of his little two-roomed +bungalow through the hole that he had chopped. + +"I don't hand my gun to any man; if you want it, come and take it," +Macdonald said, feeling that the end was rushing upon him, and +wondering what it would be. A bullet was better than a rope, which +Chadron had publicly boasted he had laid up for him. There was a long +chance if Dalton reached for that gun--a long and desperate chance. + +The man at the back door was shouting something, his gun thrust +through the hole. Dalton made a cross-reach with his left hand for +Macdonald's revolver. On the other side the cowboy was watching his +comrade's gun pointing through the kitchen door; Macdonald could see +the whites of his eyes as he turned them. + +"Don't shoot in here! we've got 'em," he called. + +His shifted eye told Macdonald that he was trusting to Dalton, and +Dalton at that moment was leaning forward with a strain, cautiously, +his hand near Macdonald's holster. + +Macdonald brought his lifted arms down, like a swimmer making a mighty +stroke, with all the steam behind them that he could raise. His +back-handed blow struck the cowboy in the face; Macdonald felt the +flame of his shot as it spurted past his forehead. The other arm fell +short of the nimbler and more watchful Dalton, but the duck that he +made to escape it broke the drop that he had held over Macdonald. + +Macdonald's hand flashed up with his own gun. He drove a disabling +shot through Dalton's wrist as the ranch foreman was coming up to +fire, and kicked the gun that he dropped out of reach of his other +hand. The cowboy who had caught Macdonald's desperate blow had +staggered back against the foot of the bed and fallen. Now he had +regained himself, and was crouching behind the bed, trying to cover +himself, and from there as he shrank down he fired. The next flash he +sprawled forward with hands outstretched across the blanket, as if he +had fallen on his knees to pray. + +Macdonald caught Dalton by the shirt collar as he went scrambling on +his knees after the revolver. Dalton was splashing blood from his +shattered wrist over the room, but he was senseless to pain and blind +to danger. He sprang at Macdonald, cursing and striking. + +"Keep off, Dalton! I don't want to kill you, man!" Macdonald warned. + +Careless of his life Dalton fought, and as they struggled Mark Thorn +undoubled himself from his hunched position on the floor and snatched +Dalton's revolver in his bound hands from the floor. His long legs +free of his binding ropes, Thorn sprang for the door. He reached it at +the moment that the man in the disguise of a homesteader pushed it +open. + +Macdonald did not see what took place there, for it was over by the +time he had struck Dalton into a limp quiet heap at his feet by a blow +with his revolver across the eyes. But there had been a shot at the +door, and Macdonald had heard the man from the back come running +around the side of the house. There were more shots, but all done +before Macdonald could leap to the door. + +There, through the smoke of many quick shots that drifted into the +open door, he saw the two cowboys fallen with outflung arms. In the +road a few rods distant Mark Thorn was mounting one of Chadron's +horses. The old outlaw flung himself flat along the horse's neck, and +presented little of his vital parts as a target. As he galloped away +Macdonald fired, but apparently did not hit. In a moment Thorn rode +down the river-bank and out of sight. + +Macdonald stood a little while in the middle of the disordered room +after re-entering the house, a feeling of great silence about him, and +a numbness in his ears and over his senses. It was a sensation such as +he had experienced once after standing for hours under the spell of +Niagara. Something seemed to have been silenced in the world. + +He was troubled over the outcome of that treacherous assault. He felt +that the shadow of the resultant tragedy was already stretching away +from there like the penumbra of an eclipse which must soon engulf +those homesteads on the river, and exact a terrible, blasting toll. + +Dalton was huddled there, his life wasting through the wound in his +wrist, blood on his face from the blow that had laid him still. The +dead man across the bed remained as he had fallen, his arms stretched +out in empty supplication. There was a pathos in the fellow's pose +that touched Macdonald with a pity which he knew to be undeserved. He +had not meant to take his life away in that hasty shot, but since it +had happened so, he knew that it had been his own deliverance. + +Macdonald stripped the garment back and looked at Dalton's hurt. There +would be another one to take toll for in the cattlemen's list unless +the drain of blood could be checked at once. Dalton moved, opening his +eyes. + +It seemed unlikely that Dalton ever would sling a gun with that member +again, if he should be so lucky, indeed, as to come through with his +life. The bone was shattered, the hand hung limp, like a broken wing. +Dalton sat up, yielding his arm to his enemy's ministrations, as +silent and ungracious as a dog. In a little while Macdonald had done +all that he could do, and with a hand under the hollow of Dalton's arm +he lifted him to his feet. + +"Can you ride?" he asked. Dalton did not reply. He looked at the +figure on the bed, and stood turning his eyes around the room in the +manner of one stunned, and completely confounded by the failure of a +scheme counted infallible. + +"You made a botch of this job, Dalton," Macdonald said. "The rest of +your crowd's outside where Thorn dropped them--he snatched your gun +from the floor and killed both of them." + +Dalton went weakly to the door, where he stood a moment, steadying +himself with a hand on the jamb. Macdonald eased him from there to the +gate, and brought the horses which the gang had hidden among the +willows. + +"Tell Chadron to send a wagon up here after these dead men," Macdonald +said, leading a horse to the gate. + +He helped the still silent Dalton into the saddle, where he sat +weakly. The man seemed to be debating something to say to this +unaccountably fortunate nester, who came untouched through all their +attempts upon his life. But whatever it was that he cogitated he kept +to himself, only turning his eyes back toward the house, where his two +men lay on the ground. The face of one was turned upward. In the +draining light of the spent day it looked as white as innocence. + +As Dalton drew his eyes away from the fearful evidence of his plan's +miscarriage, the sound of hard riding came from the direction of the +settlement up the river. Macdonald listened a moment as the sound +grew. + +"That will be no friend of yours, Dalton. Get out of this!" + +He cut Dalton's horse a sharp blow. The beast bounded away with a +start that almost unseated its dizzy rider; the two free animals +galloped after it. Chance Dalton was on his way to Chadron with his +burden of disgrace and disastrous news. It seemed a question to +Macdonald, as he watched him weaving in the saddle as the gloom closed +around him and shut him from sight, whether he ever would reach the +ranchhouse to recount his story, whatever version of the tragedy he +had planned. + +Tom Lassiter drew up before Macdonald's gate while the dust of +Dalton's going was still hanging there. The gaunt old homesteader with +the cloud of sorrows in his eyes said that he had been on his way over +to see what had become of Macdonald in his lone hunt for Mark Thorn. +He had heard the shooting, and the sound had hurried him forward. + +Macdonald told him what had happened, and took him in to see the +wreckage left after that sudden storm. Tom shook his head as he stood +in the yard looking down at the two dead men. + +"Hell's a-goin' to pop now!" he said. + +"I think you've said the word, Tom," Macdonald admitted. "They'll come +back on me hard for this." + +"You'll never have to stand up to 'em alone another time, I'll give +you a guarantee on that, Mac." + +"I'm glad to hear it," Macdonald replied, but wearily, and with no +warmth or faith in his words. + +"And they let that old scorpeen loose to skulk and kill ag'in!" + +"Yes, he got away." + +"They sure did oncork a hornet's nest when they come here this time, +though, they sure did!" Tom stood in the door, looking into the +darkening room and at the figure sprawled across the bed. "He-ell's +a-goin' to pop now!" he said again, in slow words scarcely above his +breath. + +He turned his head searchingly, as if he expected to see the cloud of +it already lowering out of the night. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE SEÑOR BOSS COMES RIDING + + +Nola Chadron had been a guest overnight at the post. She had come the +afternoon before, bright as a bubble, and Frances had met her with a +welcome as warm as if there never had been a shadow between them. + +Women can do such things so much better than men. Balzac said they +could murder under the cover of a kiss. Perhaps somebody else said it +ahead of him; certainly a great many of us have thought it after. +There is not one out of the whole world of them but is capable of +covering the fire of lies in her heart with the rose leaves of her +smiles. + +Nola had come into Frances' room to do her hair, and employ her busy +tongue while she plied the brush. She was a pretty bit of a figure in +her fancily-worked Japanese kimono and red Turkish slippers--harem +slippers, she called them, and thought it deliciously wicked to wear +them--as she sat shaking back her bright hair like a giver of +sunbeams. + +Frances, already dressed in her soft light apparel of the morning, +stood at the window watching the activity of the avenue below, +answering encouragingly now and then, laughing at the right time, to +keep the stream of her little guest's words running on. Frances seemed +all softness and warmth, all youth and freshness, as fair as a +camellia in a sunny casement, there at the window with the light +around her. Above that inborn dignity which every line of her body +expressed, there was a domestic tranquillity in her subdued beauty +that moved even irresponsible Nola with an admiration that she could +not put into words. + +"Oh, you soldiers!" said Nola, shaking her brush at Frances' placid +back, "you get up so early and you dress so fast that you're always +ahead of everybody else." + +Frances turned to her, a smile for her childish complaint. + +"You'll get into our soldiering ways in time, Nola. We get up early +and live in a hurry, I suppose, because a soldier's life is +traditionally uncertain, and he wants to make the most of his time." + +"And love and ride away," said Nola, feigning a sigh. + +"Do they?" asked Frances, not interested, turning to the window +again. + +"Of course," said Nola, positively. + + "Like the guardsmen of old England, + Or the beaux sabreurs of France--" + +that's an old border song, did you ever hear it?" + +"No, I never did." + +"It's about the Texas rangers, though, and not real soldiers like you +folks. A cavalryman's wife wrote it; I've got it in a book." + +"Maybe they do that way in Texas, Nola." + +"How?" + +"Love and ride away, as you said. I never heard of any of them doing +it, except figuratively, in the regular army." + +Nola suspended her brushing and looked at Frances curiously, a deeper +color rising and spreading in her animated face. + +"Oh, you little goose!" said she. + +"Mostly they hang around and make trouble for people and fools of +themselves," said Frances, in half-thoughtful vein, her back to her +visitor, who had stopped brushing now, and was winding, a comb in her +mouth. + +Nola held her quick hand at the half-finished coil of hair while she +looked narrowly at the outline of Frances' form against the window. A +little squint of perplexity was in her eyes, and furrows in her smooth +forehead. Presently she finished the coil with dextrous turn, and held +it with outspread hand while she reached to secure it with the comb. + +"I can't make you out sometimes, Frances, you're so funny," she +declared. "I'm afraid to talk to you half the time"--which was in no +part true--"you're so nunnish and severe." + +"Oh!" said Frances, fully discounting the declaration. + +No wonder that Major King was hard to wean from her, thought Nola, +with all that grace of body and charm of word. Superiority had been +born in Frances Landcraft, not educated into her in expensive schools, +the cattleman's daughter knew. It spoke for itself in the carriage of +her head there against the light of that fair new day, with the +sunshine on the dying cottonwood leaves beyond the windowpane; in the +lifting of her neck, white as King David's tower of shields. + +"Well, I _am_ half afraid of you sometimes," Nola persisted. "I draw +my hand back from touching you when you've got one of your soaring +fits on you and walk along like you couldn't see common mortals and +cowmen's daughters." + +"Well, everybody isn't like you, Nola; there are some who treat me +like a child." + +Frances was thinking of her father and Major King, both of whom had +continued to overlook and ignore her declaration of severance from her +plighted word. The colonel had brushed it aside with rough hand and +sharp word; the major had come penitent and in suppliance. But both of +them were determined to marry her according to schedule, with no +weight to her solemn denial. + +"Mothers do that, right along," Nola nodded. + +"Here's somebody else up early"--Frances held the curtain aside as she +spoke, and leaned a little to see--"here's your father, just turning +in." + +"The señor boss?" said Nola, hurrying to the window. + +Saul Chadron was mounting the steps booted and dusty, his revolvers +belted over his coat. "I wonder what's the matter? I hope it isn't +mother--I'll run down and see." + +The maid had let Chadron in by the time Nola opened the door of the +room, and there she stood leaning and listening, her little head out +in the hall, as if afraid to run to meet trouble. Chadron's big voice +came up to them. + +"It's all right," Nola nodded to Frances, who stood at her elbow, "he +wants to see the colonel." + +Frances had heard the cattleman's loud demand for instant audience. +Now the maid was explaining in temporizing tones. + +"The colonel he's busy with military matters this early in the day, +sir, and nobody ever disturbs him. He don't see nobody but the +officers. If you'll step in and wait--" + +"The officers can wait!" Chadron said, in loud, assertive voice that +made the servant shiver. "Where's he at?" + +Frances could see in her lively imagination the frightened maid's +gesture toward the colonel's office door. Now the girl's feet sounded +along the hall in hasty retreat as Chadron laid his hearty knock +against the colonel's panels. + +Frances smiled behind her friend's back. The impatient disregard by +civilians of the forms which her father held in such esteem always was +a matter of humor to her. She expected now to hear explosions from +within her father's sacred place, and when the sound failed to reach +her she concluded that some subordinate hand had opened the door to +Chadron's summons. + +"I'll hurry"--Nola dashed into her own room, finishing from the +door--"I want to catch him before he goes and find out what's wrong." + +Frances went below to see about breakfast for her tardy guest, a +little fluttering of excitement in her own breast. She wondered what +could have brought the cattleman to the post so early--he must have +left long before dawn--and in such haste to see her father, all +buckled about with his arms. She trusted that it might not be that +Alan Macdonald was involved in it, for it was her constant thought to +hope well for that bold young man who had heaved the homesteaders' +world to his shoulders and stood straining, untrusted and uncheered, +under its weight. + +True, he had not died in defense of her glove, but she had forgiven +him in her heart for that. A reasonable man would not have imperiled +his life for such a trifle, and a reasonable woman would not have +expected it. There was a great deal more sense in Alan Macdonald +living for his life's purpose than in dying for a foolish little +glove. So she said. + +The white gossamer fichu about her throat moved as with a breath in +the agitation of her bosom as she passed down the stairs; her +imperious chin was lowered, and her strong brown eyes were bent like a +nun's before the altar. Worthy or unworthy, her lips moved in a prayer +for Alan Macdonald, strong man in his obscure place; worthy or +unworthy, she wished him well, and her heart yearned after him with a +great tenderness, like a south wind roaming the night in gentle +quest. + +Major King, in attendance upon his chief, had opened the door to Saul +Chadron at the colonel's frowning nod. Without waiting for the +password into the mysteries of that chamber, Chadron had entered, his +heavy quirt in hand, gauntlets to his elbows, dusty boots to his +knees. Colonel Landcraft stood at his desk to receive him, his brows +bent in a disfavoring frown. + +"I've busted in on you, colonel, because my business is business, not +a mess of reportin' and signin' up on nothing, like your fool army +doin's." Chadron clamped with clicking spurs across the severe bare +floor as he made this announcement, the frown of his displeasure in +having been stopped at the door still dark on his face. + +"I'm waiting your pleasure, sir," Colonel Landcraft returned, +stiffly. + +"I want twenty-five troopers and a cannon, and somebody that knows how +to use it, and I want 'em right away!" + +Chadron gave the order with a hotness about him, and an impatience not +to be denied. + +"Sir!" said Colonel Landcraft, throwing his bony shoulders back, his +little blue eyes growing very cold and unfriendly. + +"Them damn rustlers of Macdonald's are up and standin' agin us, and I +tell you I want troopers, and I want 'em on the spot!" + +Colonel Landcraft swallowed like an eagle gorging a fish. His face +grew red, he clamped his jaw, and held his mouth shut. It took him +some little time to suppress his flooding emotions, and his voice +trembled even when he ventured to trust himself to speak. + +"That's a matter for your civil authorities, sir; I have nothing to do +with it at all." + +"You ain't got--nothing--?" Chadron's amazement seemed to overcome +him. He stopped, his eyes big, his mouth open; he turned his head from +side to side in dumbfounded way, as if to find another to bear witness +to this incredible thing. + +"I tell you they're threatenin' my property, and the property of my +neighbors!" protested Chadron, stunned, it seemed, that he should have +to stop for details and explanations. "We've got millions invested--if +them fellers gobbles up our land we're ruined!" + +"Sir, I can sympathize with you in your unfortunate business, but if I +had millions of my own at stake under similar conditions I would be +powerless to employ, on my own initiative, the forces of the United +States army to drive those brigands away." + +Chadron looked at him hard, his hat on his head, where it had remained +all the time, his eyes staring in unspeakable surprise. + +"The hell you would!" said he. + +"You and your neighbors surely can raise enough men to crush the +scoundrels, and hang their leader to a limb," the colonel suggested. +"Call out your men, Chadron, and ride against him. I never took you +for a man to squeal for help in a little affair like this." + +"He's got as many as a hundred men organized, maybe twice that"--Chadron +multiplied on the basis of damage that his men had suffered--"and my +men tell me he's drillin' 'em like soldiers." + +"I'm not surprised to hear that," nodded the colonel; "that man +Macdonald's got it in him to do that, and fight like the devil, too." + +"A gang of 'em killed three of my men a couple of days ago when I sent +'em up there to his shack to investigate a little matter, and +Macdonald shot my foreman up so bad I guess he'll die. I tell you, +man, it's a case for troopers!" + +"What has the sheriff and the rest of you done to restore order?" + +"I took twenty of my men up there yisterday, and a bunch of Sam +Hatcher's from acrosst the river was to join us and smoke that wolf +out of his hole and hang his damn hide on his cussed bob-wire fence. +But hell! they was ditched in around that shack of his'n, I tell you, +gentlemen, and he peppered us so hard we had to streak out of there. I +left two of my men, and Hatcher's crew couldn't come over to help us, +for them damn rustlers had breastworks throwed up over there and drove +'em away from the river. They've got us shut out from the only ford in +thirty miles." + +"Well, I'll be damned!" said the colonel, warming at this warlike +news. + +"Macdonald's had the gall to send me notice to keep out of that +country up the river, and to run my cattle out of there, and it's my +own land, by God! I've been grazin' it for eighteen years!" + +"It looks like a serious situation," the colonel admitted. + +"Serious!" There was scorn for the word and its weakness in Chadron's +stress. "It's hell, I tell you, when a man can't set foot on his own +land!" + +"Are they all rustlers up there in the settlement? are there no honest +homesteaders among them who would combine with you against this wild +man and his unlawful followers?" the colonel wanted to know. + +"Not a man amongst 'em that ain't cut the brand out of a hide," +Chadron declared. "They've been nestin' up there under that man +Macdonald for the last two years, and he's the brains of the pack. He +gits his rake-off out of all they run off and sell. Me and the other +cattlemen we've been feedin' and supportin' 'em till the drain's +gittin' more'n we can stand. We've got to put 'em out, like a fire, or +be eat up. We've got to hit 'em, and hit 'em hard." + +"It would seem so," the colonel agreed. + +"It's a state of war, I tell you, colonel; you're free to use your +troops in a state of war, ain't you? Twenty-five troopers, with a +little small cannon"--Chadron made illustration of the caliber that he +considered adequate for the business with his hands--"to knock 'em out +of their ditches so we could pick 'em off as they scatter, would be +enough; we can handle the rest." + +"If there is anything that I can do for you in my private capacity, I +am at your command," offered Colonel Landcraft, with official +emptiness, "but I regret that I am powerless to grant your request for +troops. I couldn't lift a finger in a matter like this without a +department order; you ought to understand that, Chadron." + +"Oh, if that's all that's bitin' you, go ahead--I'll take care of the +department," Chadron told him, with the relieved manner of one who had +seen a light. + +"Sir!" + +If Chadron had proposed treason the colonel could not have compressed +more censure into that word. + +"That's all right," Chadron assured him, comfortably; "I've got two +senators and five congressmen back there in Washington that jigger +when I jerk the gee-string. You can cut loose and come into this thing +with a free hand, and go the limit, the department be damned if they +don't like it!" + +Colonel Landcraft's face was flaming angrily. He snapped his dry old +eyelids like flints over the steel of his eyes, and stood as straight +as the human body could be drawn, one hand on his sword hilt, the +other pointing a trembling finger at Chadron's face. + +"You cattlemen run this state, and one or two others here in the +Northwest, I'm aware of that, Chadron. But there's one thing that you +don't run, and that's the United States army! I don't care a damn how +many congressmen dance to your tune, you're not big enough to move +even one trooper out of my barracks, sir! That's all I've got to say +to you." + +Chadron stood a little while, glowering at the colonel. It enraged him +to be blocked in that manner by a small and inconsequential man. This +he felt Colonel Landcraft to be, measured against his own strength and +importance in that country. Himself and the other two big cattlemen in +that section of the state lorded it over an area greater than two or +three of the old states where the slipping heritage of individual +liberty was born. Now here was a colonel in his way; one little old +gray colonel! + +"All right," Chadron said at length, charging his words with what he +doubtless meant to be a significant foreboding, measuring Colonel +Landcraft with contemptuous eye. "I can call out an army of my own. I +came to you because we pay you fellers to do what I'm askin' of you, +and because I thought it'd save me time. That's all." + +"You came to me because you have magnified your importance in this +country until you believe you're the entire nation," the colonel +replied, very hot and red. + +Chadron made no answer to that. He turned toward the military door, +but Colonel Landcraft would not permit his unsanctified feet, great as +they were and free to come and go as they liked in other places, to +pass that way. He frowned at Major King, who had stood by in silence +all the time, like a good soldier, his eyes straight ahead. Major King +touched Chadron's arm. + +"This way, sir, if you please," he said. + +Chadron started out, wrathfully and noisily. Half-way to the door he +turned, his dark face sneering in contemptuous scorn. + +"Yes, you're one hell of a colonel!" he said. + +Major King was holding the door open; Chadron swung his big body +around to face it, and passed out. Major King saluted his superior +officer and followed the cattleman into the hall, closing the sacred +door behind him on the wrathful little old soldier standing beside his +desk. King extended his hand, sympathy in gesture and look. + +"If I was in command of this post, sir, you'd never have to ask twice +for troops," he said. + +Chadron's sudden interest seemed to give him the movement of a little +start. His grip on the young officer's hand tightened as he bent a +searching look into his eyes. + +"King, I believe you!" he said. + +Nola came pattering down the stairs. Chadron stood with open arms, and +swallowed her in them as she leaped from the bottom tread. Major King +did not wait to see her emerge again, rosy and lip-tempting. There was +unfinished business within the colonel's room. + +A few minutes later Nola, excited to her finger-ends, was retailing +the story of the rustlers' uprising to Frances. + +"Mother's all worked up over it; she's afraid they'll burn us out and +murder us, but of course we'd clean them up before they'd ever get +_that_ far down the river." + +"It looks to me like a very serious situation for everybody +concerned," Frances said. "If your father brings in the men that you +say he's gone to Meander to telegraph for, there's going to be a lot +of killing done on both sides." + +"Father says he's going to clean them out for good this time--they've +cost us thousands of dollars in the past three years. Oh, you can't +understand what a low-down bunch of scrubs those rustlers are!" + +"Maybe not," Frances said, giving it up with a little sigh. + +"I've got to go back to mother this morning, right away, but that +little fuss up the river doesn't need to keep you from going home with +me as you promised, Frances." + +"I shouldn't mind, but I don't believe father will want me to go out +into your wild country. I really want to go--I want to look around in +your garden for a glove that I lost there on the night of the ball." + +"Oh, why didn't you tell me?" Nola's face seemed to clear of +something, a shadow of perplexity, it seemed, that Frances had seen in +it from time to time since her coming there. She looked frankly and +reprovingly at Frances. + +"I didn't miss it until I was leaving, and I didn't want to delay the +rest of them to look for it. It really doesn't matter." + +"It's a wonder mother didn't find it; she's always prowling around +among the flowers," said Nola, her eyes fixed in abstracted stare, as +if she was thinking deeply of something apart from what her words +expressed. + +What she was considering, indeed, was that her little scheme of +alienation had failed. Major King, she told herself, had not returned +the glove to Frances. For all his lightness in the matter, perhaps he +cared deeply for Frances, and would be more difficult to wean than she +had thought. It would have to be begun anew. That Frances was ignorant +of her treachery, as she now fully believed, made it easier. So the +little lady told herself, surveying the situation in her quick brain, +and deceiving herself completely, as many a shrewder schemer than she, +when self-entangled in the devious plottings of this life. + +On the other hand there sat Frances across the table--they were +breakfasting alone, Mrs. Landcraft being a strict militarist, and +always serving the colonel's coffee with her own hand--throwing up a +framework of speculation on her own account. Perhaps if she should go +to the ranch she might be in some manner instrumental in bringing this +needless warfare to a pacific end. Intervention at the right time, in +the proper quarter, might accomplish more than strife and bloodshed +could bring out of that one-sided war. + +No matter for the justice of the homesteaders' cause, and the +sincerity of their leader, neither of which she doubted or questioned, +the weight of numbers and resources would be on the side of the +cattlemen. It could result only in the homesteaders being driven from +their insecure holdings after the sacrifice of many lives. If she +could see Macdonald, and appeal to him to put down this foolish, even +though well-intended strife, something might result. + +It was an inconsequential turmoil, it seemed to her, there in that +sequestered land, for a man like Alan Macdonald to squander his life +upon. If he stood against the forces which Chadron had gone to summon, +he would be slain, and the abundant promise of his life wasted like +water on the sand. + +"I'll go with you, Nola," she said, rising from the table in quick +decision. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"THE RUSTLERS!" + + +"I've stood up for that man, and I've stood by him," said Banjo +Gibson, "but when a man shoots a friend of my friend he ain't no +friend of mine. I'm done with him; I won't never set a boot-heel +inside of his door ag'in." + +Banjo was in Mrs. Chadron's south sitting-room, with its friendly +fireplace and homely things, including Mrs. Chadron and her apparently +interminable sock. Only now it was a gray sock, designed not for the +mighty foot of Saul, but for Chance Dalton, lying on his back in the +bunkhouse in a fever growing out of the handling that he had gone +through at Macdonald's place. + +Banjo had arrived at the ranch the previous evening. He was sitting +now with his fiddle on his knee, having gone through the repertory +most favored by his hostess, with the exception of "Silver Threads." +That was an afternoon melody, Banjo maintained, and one would have +strained his friendship and shaken his respect if he had insisted upon +the musician putting bow to it in the morning hours. + +"Yes," sighed Mrs. Chadron, "it was bad enough when he just shot +cowboys, but when it come to Chance we felt real grieved. Chance he +ain't much to look at, but he's worth his weight in gold on the +ranch." + +"Busted his right arm all to pieces, they tell me?" + +"Right here." Mrs. Chadron marked across her wrist with her knitting +needle, and shook her head in heavy sadness. + +"That'll kind of spile him, won't it?" + +"Well, Saul says it won't make so much difference about him not havin' +the use of his hand on that side if it don't break his nerve. A man +loses confidence in himself, Saul says, most always when he loses the +hand or arm he's slung his gun with all his life. He takes the notion +that everybody's quicker'n he is, and just kind of slinges back and +drops out of the game." + +"Do you expect Saul he'll come back here with them soldiers he went +after?" + +"I expect he'll more'n likely order 'em right up the river to clear +them rustlers out before he stops or anything," she replied, in high +confidence. + +"The gall of them low-down brand-burners standin' up to fight a man on +his own land!" Banjo's indignation could not have been more pointed if +he had been a lord of many herds himself. + +"There comes them blessed girls!" reported Mrs. Chadron from her +station near the window. Banjo crossed over to see, his fiddle held to +his bosom like an infant. Nola and Frances were nearing the gate. + +"That colonel girl she's a up-setter, ain't she?" Banjo admired. + +"She's as sweet as locus' blooms," Mrs. Chadron declared, unstintingly. + +"But she's kind of distant; nothing friendly and warm-hearted like +your little Nola, mom." + +"She's a little cool to strangers, but when she knows a body she comes +out." + +Banjo nodded, drawing little whispers of melody from his fiddle-strings +by fingering them against the neck. + +"I noticed when she smiles she seems to change," he said. "It's like +puttin' bow to the strings. A fiddle's a glum kind of a thing till you +wake it up; she's that way, I reckon." + +"Well, git ready for dinner--or lunch, as Nola calls it--they'll be +starved by this time, ridin' all the way from the post in this chilly +wind. I'm mighty afraid we're goin' to have some weather before +long." + +"Can't put it off much longer," Banjo agreed, thinking of the hardship +of being caught out in one of those sweeping blizzards, when the +sudden cold grew so sharp that a man's banjo strings broke in the +tense contraction. That had happened to him more than once, and it +only seemed to sharpen the pleasure of being snowed in at a place like +Alamito, where the kitchen was fat and the hand of the host free. He +smiled as he turned to the kitchen to wash his face and soap his +hair. + +They passed a very pleasant afternoon at the ranchhouse, in spite of +Mrs. Chadron's uneasiness on account of their defenseless state. At +that season Chadron and his neighbors could not draw very heavily on +their scattered forces following the divided herds spread out over the +vast territory for the winter grazing. + +The twenty men gathered in a hurry-call by Chadron to avenge the +defeat of Chance Dalton, who had in their turn been met and +unexpectedly repulsed by the homesteaders, as Chadron had related in +his own way to Colonel Landcraft, were lying in camp several miles up +the river. That is, all that were left of them fit for duty after the +fight. A good many of them were limping, and would limp for many a +day. + +They were waiting the arrival of the troops, which they expected with +the same confidence Mrs. Chadron had held before Nola brought her an +explanation that covered the confusion of refusal. + +Neither of the young women knew of the tiff between the colonel and +Chadron, for the colonel was a man who kept his family apart from his +business. Chadron had not seen fit to uncover his humiliation to his +daughter, but had told her that he was acting on the advice of Colonel +Landcraft in sending to his friends in Cheyenne for men to put down +the uprising of rustlers himself. + +So there were comfortable enough relations between them all at the +ranch as the day bent to evening and the red sunset changed to gray. +Banjo played for them, as he had done that other afternoon, and sang +his sentimental songs in voice that quavered in the feeling passages. +Chadron had not left anybody to guard the house, because he knew very +well that Macdonald considered nothing beyond defense, and that he +would as quickly burn his own mother's roof above her head as he would +set torch to that home by the riverside. + +"Sing us that dreamy one, Banjo," Nola requested, "the one that begins +'Come sit by my side little--' you know the one I mean." + +A sentimental tenderness came into Banjo's face. He turned his head so +that he could look out of the window into the thickening landscape +beyond the corral gate, gray and mysterious and unfriendly now as a +twilight sea. Nola touched Frances' arm to prime her for the treat. + +"Watch his face," she whispered, smiling behind her hand. + +Banjo struck the chords of his accompaniment; the sentimental cast of +his face deepened, until it seemed that he was about to come to tears. +He sang: + + Come sit by my side litt-ul dau-ling, + And lay your brown head on my breast, + Whilse the angels of twilight o-round us + Are singing the flow-ohs to rest. + +Banjo must have loved many ladies in many lands, for that is the gift +and the privilege of the troubadour. Now he seemed calling up their +vanished faces out of the twilight as he sang his little song. What +feeling he threw into the chorus, what shaking of the voice, what soft +sinking away of the last notes, the whang of the banjo softened by +palm across the strings! + +The chorus: + + O, what can be sweet-o than dreaming + Tho dream that is on us tonight! + Pre-haps do you know litt-ul dau-ling, + Tho future lies hidded from sight. + +There was a great deal more of that song, which really was not so bad, +the way Banjo sang it, for he exalted it on the best qualities that +lived in his harmless breast; not so bad that way, indeed, as it looks +in print. Frances could not see where the joke at the little +musician's expense came in, although Nola was laughing behind his +unsuspecting back as the last notes died. + +Mrs. Chadron wiped her eyes. "I think it's the sweetest song that ever +was sung!" she said, and meant it, every word. + +Banjo said nothing at all, but put away his instrument with reverent +hands, as if no sound was worthy to come out of it after that sweet +agony of love. + +Mrs. Chadron got up, in her large, bustling, hospitable way, +sentimentally satisfied, and withal grossly hungry. + +"Supper'll be about ready now, children," she said, putting her sock +away in its basket, "and while you two are primpin' I'll run down to +the bunkhouse and take some chicken broth to Chance that Maggie made +him." + +"Oh, poor old Chance!" Nola pitied, "I've been sitting here enjoying +myself and forgetting all about him. I'll take it down to him, +mother--Banjo he'll come with me." + +Banjo was alert on the proposal, and keen to go. He brought Nola's +coat at her mother's suggestion, for the evening had a feeling of +frost in it, and attended her to the kitchen after the chicken broth +as gallantly as if he wore a sword. + +Mrs. Chadron came back from her investigations in the kitchen in a +little while to Frances, who waited alone before the happy little fire +in the chimney. She sighed as she resumed her rocking-chair by the +window, and crossed her seldom idle hands over her comfortably +inelegant front. + +"It'll be some little time before supper's ready to set down to," she +announced regretfully. "Maggie's makin' stuffed peppers, and they're +kind of slow to bake. We can talk." + +"Of course," Frances agreed, her mind running on the hope that had +brought her to the ranch; the hope of seeing Macdonald, and appealing +to him in pity's name for peace. + +"That thievin' Macdonald's to blame for Chance, our foreman, losin' +the use of his right hand," Mrs. Chadron said, with asperity. "Did +Nola tell you about the fight they had with him?" + +"Yes, she told me about it as we came." + +"It looks like the devil's harnessed up with that man, he does so much +damage without ever gittin' hurt himself. He had a crowd of rustlers +up there with him when Chance went up there to trace some stock, and +they up and killed three of our cowboys. Ain't it terrible?" + +"It is terrible!" Frances shuddered, withholding her opinion on which +side the terror lay, together with the blame. + +"Then Saul went up there with some more of the men to burn that +Macdonald's shack and drive him off of our land, and they run into a +bunch of them rustlers that Macdonald he'd fetched over there, and two +more of our men was killed. It looks like a body's got to fight night +and day for his rights now, since them nesters begun to come in here. +Well, we was here first, and Saul says we'll be here last. But I think +it's plumb scan'lous the way them rustlers bunches together and +fights. They never was known to do it before, and they wouldn't do it +now if it wasn't for that black-hearted thief, Macdonald!" + +"Did you ever see him?" Frances asked. + +"No, I never did, and don't never want to!" + +"I just asked you because he doesn't look like a bad man." + +"They say he sneaked in here the night of Nola's dance, but I didn't +see him. Oh, what 'm I tellin' you? Course you know _that_--you danced +with him!" + +"Yes," said Frances, neither sorry nor ashamed. + +"But you wasn't to blame, honey," Mrs. Chadron comforted, "you didn't +know him from Adamses off ox." + +Frances sat leaning forward, looking into the fire. The light of the +blaze was on her face, appealingly soft and girlishly sweet. Mrs. +Chadron laid a hand on her hair in motherly caress, moved by a +tenderness quite foreign to the vindictive creed which she had +pronounced against the nesters but a little while before. + +"I'm afraid you're starved, honey," she said, in genuine solicitude, +thus expressing the nearest human sympathy out of her full-feeding +soul. + +"I'm hungry, but far from starving," Frances told her, knowing that +the confession to an appetite would please her hostess better than a +gift. "When do you expect Mr. Chadron home?" + +"I don't know, honey, but you don't need to worry; them rustlers can't +pass our men Saul left camped up the valley." + +"I wasn't thinking of that; I'm not afraid." + +Mrs. Chadron chuckled. "Did I tell you about Nola?" she asked. Then, +answering herself, before Frances could more than turn her head +inquiringly; "No, of course, I never. It was too funny for anything!" + +"What was it?" Frances asked, in girlish eagerness. Mrs. Chadron's +smile was reflected in her face as she sat straight, and turned +expectantly to her hostess. + +"The other evening when she and her father was comin' home from the +postoffice over at the agency they run acrosst that sneak Macdonald, +afoot in the road, guns so thick on him you couldn't count 'em. Saul +asked him what he was skulkin' around down this way for, and the +feller he was kind of sassy about it, and tried to pass Nola and go +on. He had the gall to tip his hat to her, just like she was low +enough to notice a brand-burner! Well, she give him a larrup over the +face with her whip that cut the hide! He took hold of her bridle to +shove her horse out of the way so he could run, I reckon, and she +switched him till he squirmed like a puppy-dog! I laughed till I +nearly split when Saul told me!" + +Mrs. Chadron surrendered again to her keen appreciation of the humor +in that situation. Frances felt now that she understood the attitude +of the cattlemen toward the homesteaders as she never had even sensed +it before. Here was this motherly woman, naturally good at heart and +gentle, hardened and blinded by her prejudices until she could discuss +murder as a thing desired, and the extirpation of a whole community as +a just and righteous deed. + +There was no feeling of softness in her breast for the manful +strivings of Alan Macdonald to make a home in that land, not so much +for himself--for it was plain that he would grace a different world to +far better advantage--but for the disinherited of the earth. To Mrs. +Chadron he was a thing apart from her species, a horrible, low, grisly +monster, to whom the earth should afford no refuge and man no +hiding-place. There was no virtue in Alan Macdonald; his fences had +killed his right to human consideration. + +In a moment Mrs. Chadron was grave again. She put out her hand in that +gentle, motherly way and touched Frances' hair, smoothing it from her +forehead, pleased with the irrepressible life of it which sprung it +back after the passage of her palm like water in a vessel's wake. + +"I let on to you a little while ago that I wasn't uneasy, honey," she +said, "but I ain't no hand at hidin' the truth. I am uneasy, honey, +and on pins, for I don't trust them rustlers. I'm afraid they'll hear +that Saul's gone, and come sneakin' down here and burn us out before +morning, and do worse, maybe. I don't know why I've got that feelin', +but I have, and it's heavy in me, like raw dough." + +"I don't believe they'd do anything like that," Frances told her. + +"Oh, you don't know 'em like we do, honey, the low-down thieves! They +ort to be hunted like wolves and shot, wherever they're found." + +"Some of them have wives and children, haven't they?" Frances asked, +thinking aloud, as she sat with her chin resting in her hand. + +"Oh, I suppose they litter like any other wolves," Mrs. Chadron +returned, unfeelingly. + +"_Si a tu ventana llega una paloma_," sang Maggie in the kitchen, the +snapping of the oven door coming in quite harmoniously as she closed +it on the baking peppers. Mrs. Chadron sighed. + +"_Tratala con cariña que es mi persona_," sounded Maggie, a degree +louder. Mrs. Chadron sat upright, with a new interest in life apart +from her uneasy forebodings about the rustlers. Maggie was in the +dining-room, spreading the cloth. The peppers were coming along. + +Somebody burst into the kitchen; uncertain feet came across it; a cry +broke Maggie's song short as she jingled the silver in place on the +cloth. Banjo Gibson stumbled into the room where the low fire twinkled +in the chimney, reeling on his legs, his breath coming in groans. + +Maggie was behind him, holding the door open; the light from the big +lamp on the dining-table fell on the musician, who weaved there as if +he might fall. His hat was off, blood was in his eyes and over his +face from a wound at the edge of his hair. + +"Nola--Nola!" he gasped. + +Mrs. Chadron, already beside him, laid hold of him now and shook him. + +"Tell it, you little devil--tell it!" she screamed. + +Frances, with gentler hand, drew Banjo from her. + +"What's happened to Nola?" she asked. + +"The rustlers!" he said, his voice falling away in horror. + +"The rustlers!" Mrs. Chadron groaned, her arms lifted above her head. +She ran in wild distraction into the dining-room, now back to the +chimney to take down a rifle that hung in its case on a deer prong +over the mantel. + +"Nola, Nola!" she called, running out into the garden. Her wild voice +came back from there in a moment, crying her daughter's name in +agony. + +Banjo had sunk to the floor, his battered face held in his hands. + +"My God! they took her!" he groaned. "The rustlers, they took her, and +I couldn't lift a hand!" + +Frances beckoned to Maggie, who had followed her mistress to the +kitchen door. + +"Give him water; stop the blood," she ordered sharply. + +In a moment she had dashed out after Mrs. Chadron, and was running +frantically along the garden path toward the river. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE TRAIL AT DAWN + + +Frances stopped at the high wire fence along the river bank. It was +dark there between the shrubs of the garden on one hand and the tall +willows on the other, but nothing moved in them but her own leaping +heart. She called Mrs. Chadron, running along the fence as she cried +her name. + +Mrs. Chadron answered from the barn. Frances found her saddling a +horse, while Maggie's husband, an old Mexican with a stiff leg, +muttered prayers in his native tongue as he tightened the girths on +another. + +Mrs. Chadron was for riding in pursuit of Nola's abductors, although +she had not mounted a horse in fifteen years. There was no man about +the place except crippled old Alvino, and wounded Dalton lying in the +men's quarters near at hand. Neither of them was serviceable in such +an emergency, and Banjo, willing as he would be, seemed too badly hurt +to be of any use. + +Frances pressed her to dismiss this intention. Even if they knew which +way to ride, it would be a hopeless pursuit. + +"There's only one way to go--towards the rustlers' settlement," Mrs. +Chadron grimly returned. + +She was over her hysterical passion now, and steadied down into a +state of desperate determination to set out after the thieves and +bring Nola back. She did not know how it was to be accomplished, but +she felt her strength equal to any demand in the pressure of her +despair. She was lifting her foot to the stirrup, thinly dressed as +she was, her head bare, the rifle in her hand, when Frances took her +by the arm. + +"You can't go alone with Alvino, Mrs. Chadron." + +"I've got to go, I tell you--let loose of me!" + +She shook off Frances' restraining hand and turned to her horse again. +With her hand on the pommel of the saddle she stopped, and turned to +Alvino. + +"Go and fetch me Chance's guns out of the bunkhouse," she ordered. + +Alvino hitched away, swinging his stiff leg, with laborious, slow +gait. + +"You couldn't do anything against a crowd of desperate men--they might +kill you!" Frances said. + +"Let 'em kill me, then!" She lifted her hand, as if taking an oath. +"They'll pay for this trick--every man, woman, and child of them'll +bleed for what they've done to me tonight!" + +"Let Alvino go to the camp up the river where Mr. Chadron left the +men, and tell them; they can do more than you." + +"You couldn't drive him alone out of sight of the lights in the house +with fire. He'd come back with some kind of a lie before he'd went a +mile. I'll go to 'em myself, honey--I didn't think of them." + +"I'll go with you." + +"Wait till Alvino comes with them guns--I can use 'em better than I +can a rifle. Oh, why don't the man hurry!" + +"I'll run down and see what--" + +But Alvino came around the corral at that moment. He had stopped to +light a lantern, in his peculiar Mexican mode of estimating the +importance of time and occasion, and came flashing it in short, +violent arcs as he swayed to swing his jointless leg. + +Frances led out the other horse and was waiting to mount when Alvino +came panting up, the belt with its two revolvers over his arm. Mrs. +Chadron jerked it from him with something hard and sharp on her tongue +like a curse. Banjo Gibson came into the circle of light, a bandage on +his head. + +"I didn't even see 'em. They knocked me down, and when I come to she +was gone!" + +Banjo's voice was full of self-censure, and his feet were weak upon +the ground. He began to talk the moment the light struck him, and when +he had finished his little explanation he was standing beside Mrs. +Chadron's saddle. + +"Go to the house and lie down, Banjo," Mrs. Chadron said; "I ain't +time to fool with you!" + +"Are you two aimin' to go to the post after help?" Banjo steadied +himself on his legs by clinging to the horse's mane as he spoke. + +"We're goin' up the river after the men," Mrs. Chadron told him. + +"No, I'll go after the men; that's a man's job," Banjo insisted. "I +know right where they're camped at, you couldn't find 'em between now +and morning." + +There was no arguing Banjo out of it, no brushing the little man +aside. He was as firm as a man three times his weight, and he took +Mrs. Chadron by the arm, like a son, and led her away from the horse +with a manner at once so firm and yet considerate that it softened her +stern heart and plunged her into tears. + +"If you bring Nola back to me I'll give her to you, Banjo! I'll give +her to you!" she sobbed, as she belted him with Chance Dalton's guns. + +"If any reward in this world could drive me through hell fire to lay +my hands on it, you've named it," he said. + +Frances saw that Mrs. Chadron could be reasoned with now, and she was +grateful to Banjo for his opportune arrival. For the night was vast +and unfriendly over that empty land, and filled with a thousand +shudderful dangers. She was afraid of it, afraid to leave the lights +of the house behind her and ride out into it, no matter for all the +peril that poor little Nola might be facing in that cruel hour. + +Banjo rode away. They stood clinging to each other in the dim circle +of Alvino's lantern-light, listening to his horse until the distance +muffled its feet on the road. + +Frances was chilled with the horror of that brigandish act. Every +movement of the wind in the bushes made her skin crinkle and creep; +every sound of animals in barn and corral was magnified into some new +danger. Mrs. Chadron was in far worse state, with reason, certainly, +for being so. Now that the stimulation of her first wild outburst had +been exhausted, she stood wilted and weak, shivering with her hands +over her eyes, moaning and moaning in piteous low wail. + +Frances took the lantern from old Alvino's shaking hand. + +"Let's go and look for their tracks," she suggested, forcing a note of +eagerness into her words, "so we can tell the men, when they come back +to pick up the trail, how many there were and which way they went." + +"Oh, if Chance was only able to go after them, if he was only able!" +Mrs. Chadron wailed, following Frances as she hurried along the wire +fence that cut the garden from the river. + +"It was somebody that knowed the lay of the land," Mrs. Chadron said, +"for that gate down there back of the house is open. That's the way +they come and went--somebody that knowed the lay of the land." + +Frances felt her heart die within her as the recollection of another +night in that garden flashed like red fire in her mind. There was a +picture, as she stopped with closed eyes, struck cold and shuddering +by a fear she dared not own, of one flying, bent into the shadows, +along the garden path toward that gate. Someone who knew the "lay of +the land!" + +"Did you hear something?" Mrs. Chadron whispered, leaning close to her +where she had stopped, stock-still, as if she had struck a wall. + +"I thought I--I--saw something," Frances answered, in faint, sick +voice. + +The white gate was swinging as the invaders had left it, and in the +soft ground beyond it they found tracks. + +"Only one man!" said Mrs. Chadron, bending over. + +"There's only one track," said Frances, her breath so feeble, her +heart laboring so weakly that she believed that she must die. + +Alvino came up, and took the lead in tracking, with the aptness for +that trick that goes with primitive minds such as his. Even in the +farthest glimmer of the light he could pick up the trail, and soon he +led them to the willows where the ravisher's horse had been +concealed. + +"One shoe was lost," said he, pointing, "left one, hind foot." + +Mrs. Chadron stood looking in the direction that the rider had gone +with his precious burden, her eyes straining into the dark. + +"Oh, if I'd 'a' come down here place of saddlin' that horse!" she +lamented, with a pang for her lost opportunity. + +"He'd have been gone, even then--I was past here and didn't hear him," +Frances said. + +Still the vision persisted in her disturbed imagination of that other +night, of one leaning low in the saddle, his fleet horse stretching +its neck in desperation for the distant refuge; the dash of pursuing +hoofs; the sound of shots up the river; the prayer that she sent to +heaven in his behalf. + +"Well, it was somebody that knowed the lay of the land," Mrs. Chadron +was repeating, with accusing conviction. + +They returned to the house, having done all that they could do. It was +doubtful whether the dumb, plethoric nature of Mrs. Chadron made her +capable of suffering as Frances suffered, even with her greater reason +for pain of that cruel bereavement. Imaginative, refined, sensitive as +a harp, Frances reflected every wild wrench of horror that Nola +herself must have been suffering as the horseman bore her along in the +thick night. She felt that she must scream, but that some frightful +thing smothered the voice that struggled in her throat; that she must +leap and flee away, but a cloying power was heavy on her limbs, +binding her as if her feet were set in lava. + +Somebody that knew the "lay of the land." Great God! could he fight +that way, was it in Alan Macdonald to make a hawk's dash like that? It +was hard to admit the thought, to give standing to the doubtful +accusation. But those whom they called "rustlers" must have borne Nola +away. Beyond the homesteaders up the river were the mountains and the +wild country where no man made his home; except them and the cattlemen +and the cowboys attending the herds, that country was unpeopled. There +was nobody to whom the deed could be charged but the enemies that +Chadron had made in his persecution of the homesteaders. + +Perhaps they were not of the type that Macdonald described; maybe the +cattlemen were just in their arraignment of them for thieves and +skulking rascals, and Macdonald was no better than the reputation that +common report gave him. The mere fact of his defense of them in words, +and his association with them, seemed to convict him there in the +silence of that black-walled court of night. + +It was either that he was blinded to the deviltries of his associates +by his own high intentions, or as shrewdly dishonest as any scoundrel +that ever rode the wilds. He could be that, and carry it off before a +sharper judge than she. So she said, finding it hard to excuse his +blindness, if blindness it might be; unable to mitigate in any degree +the blame, even passive knowledge of the intent, of that base +offense. + +At length, through all the fog of her groping and piecing together, +she reached what she believed to be the motive which lay behind the +deed. The rustlers doubtless were aware of the blow that Chadron was +preparing to deliver upon them in retaliation for his recent losses. +They had carried off his daughter to make her the price of their own +immunity, or else to extract from him a ransom that would indemnify +them for quitting their lairs in the land upon which they preyed. + +She explained this to Mrs. Chadron when it became clear to her own +mind. Mrs. Chadron seemed to draw considerable hope from it that she +should receive her daughter back again unharmed in a little while. + +The rest of the night the two women spent at the gate, and in the road +up and down in front of it, straining for the sound of a hoof that +might bring them tidings. Mrs. Chadron kept up a moaning like an +infant whose distress no mind can read, no hand relieve. Now and then +she burst into a shrill and sudden cry, and time and again she +imagined that she heard Nola calling her, and dashed off along the +road with answering shout, to come back to her sad vigil at the gate +by and by on Frances' arm, crushed by this one great and sudden sorrow +of her life. + +Frances cheered her as much as might be with promises of the coming +day. At the first streak of dawn, she told Mrs. Chadron, she would +ride to the post and engage her father in the quest for the stolen +girl. Soldiers would be thrown out over the country for miles on every +side; the cowards would be hemmed in within a matter of hours, and +Nola would be at home, laughing over the experiences of her tragic +night. + +Frances was in the saddle at daybreak. She had left Mrs. Chadron in an +uneasy sleep, watched over by Maggie. Banjo had not returned; no word +had reached them from any source. Alvino let Frances out through the +gate at the back of the garden, for it was her intention to follow the +abductor's trail as far as possible without being led into strange +country. Somebody, or some wandering herd of cattle, might pass that +way and obliterate the traces before pursuers could be brought there. + +The tracks of the raider's horse were deep in the soft soil. She +followed them as they cut across the open toward the river road, +angling northward. At a place where the horse had stopped and made a +trampling in the lose earth--testimony of the fight that Nola had made +to get away--Frances started at the sight of something caught on a +clump of bull-berry bushes close at hand. She drew near the object +cautiously, leaning and looking in the half light of early morning. +Presently assured, she reached out and picked it up, and rode on with +it in her hand. + +Presently the trail merged into the river road, where hoofprints were +so numerous that Frances was not skilful enough to follow it farther. +But it was something to have established that the scoundrel was +heading for the homesteaders' settlement, and that he had taken the +road openly, as if he had nothing to fear. Also, that bit of evidence +picked from the bushes might serve its purpose in the right time and +place. + +She felt again that surge of indignation that had fired her heart +early in the sad night past. The man who had lurked in the garden +waiting his chance to snatch Nola away, was certain of the protection +to which he fled. It was the daring execution of one man, but the +planning of many, and at the head of them one with fire in his wild +soul, quick passion in his eyes, and mastery over his far-riding band. +It could be no other way. + +When she came to the branching of the roads she pulled up her horse +and sat considering her course a little while. Presently she rode +forward again, but not on the road that led to the army post. + +She had proceeded a mile, perhaps, along the road branching to the +homesteaders' settlement, upon which she knew Macdonald's claim to lie +somewhere up the river, when she rounded an elbow screened by +tall-growing greasewood and came face to face with a small cavalcade +of dusty men. At the head of them Alan Macdonald rode, beside an old +man whose neck was guttered like a wasted candle and his branching +great mustache gray as the dust on his bony shoulders. + +She halted when she saw them, and they jerked up their horses also, +with startled suddenness, like men riding in the expectation of danger +and surprise. Macdonald came forward in a moment, with respectful +salute, a look amounting almost to frightened questioning in his face. +For the sun was not up yet, although its flame was on the heavens, and +it was a strange, wild place to meet a woman of Frances Landcraft's +caste unattended, and with the shadow of a trouble in her face that +made it old, like misery. + +But there was no question of the unfriendliness of that face for Alan +Macdonald and the men who came riding at his back. It was as cold as +the gray earth beneath her horse's hoofs, and its severity was +reflected in the very pose of her body, even in the grip of her +slender thighs as they clasped her saddle, sitting there like a +dragoon outrider who had appeared to bar their way. + +Frances was wearing the brown corduroy riding-habit that she had worn +on the day when she first spoke to him. Her brown hair had fallen down +until it hid her ears, for she had ridden hard, and a strand of it +blew from beneath her cowboy hat in unheeded caress across her cheek. + +Macdonald saw her stiffen in the saddle and lift herself a little from +her seat as he drew near, his companions stopping a little distance +back. Her eyes were stern and reproachful; a little frown troubled her +white forehead. + +"I was starting out to find you, Mr. Macdonald," she said, severely. + +"If there is any service, Miss Landcraft--" + +"Don't talk emptiness, and don't pretend!" she said, a flash of anger +in her face. "It isn't a man's way to fight, it's a coward's! Bring +her back home!" + +"I don't know what you mean." There was such an astonished helplessness +in his manner that it would have convinced any unprejudiced mind of +his innocence in itself. + +"Oh!"--impatiently--"I can't hurt you, I'm alone. You'd just as well +tell me how much money you're going to demand, so I can set their +minds at rest." + +Macdonald's face was hot; his eyes felt as if they swam in fire. He +put out his hand in a gesture almost a command, his heavy eyebrows +gathered in a frown, an expression of sternness in his homely face +that made it almost majestic. + +"If you'll be good enough to tell me what your veiled accusations +point to, Miss Landcraft, then I can answer you by either yes or no." + +She unbent so far as to relate briefly what she believed they knew +better than herself already. But behind her high air as she talked +there was a secret warm feeling for the strength of this man. It was a +quality of fine steel in the human mind and body such as she never had +seen so beautifully blended before. In her own father there was +something of it, but only a reflection on water compared to this. It +seemed the temper of the desert, she thought, like that oriental +spirit which spread Islam's dark creed over half the world. + +When she had finished the relation of Nola's ravishment, he sat with +head drooped in dusty silence a moment. Then he looked her in the eyes +with such a steady blaze of indignation that she felt her own rage +kindle to meet it. His clear, steady gaze was an arraignment, an +accusation on the ugly charge of perversion of the truth as she knew +it to be in the bottom of her conscience when she had laid the crime +at the homesteaders' hands. If he saw her at all, she thought, it was +as some small despicable thing, for his eyes were so unflinching, as +they poured their steady fire into her own, that he seemed to be +summing up the final consequences which lay behind her, along the +dusty highway to the ranchhouse by the river. + +"In the first place," said he, speaking slowly, "there are no cattle +thieves among the homesteaders in the settlement up the river, Miss +Landcraft. I have told you this before. Here, I want you to meet some +of them, and judge for yourself." + +He beckoned to Tom Lassiter and the three with him, and they joined +him there before her. In a few words he told them who she was and the +news that she carried, as well as the accusation that went with it. + +"These men, their neighbors, and myself not only had no hand in this +deed, but there's not one among us that wouldn't put down his life to +keep that young woman from harm and give her back to her home. We have +our grievances against Saul Chadron, God knows! and they are grave +enough. But we don't fight that way, Miss Landcraft." + +"If you're innocent, then prove it by forcing the men that carried her +off, or the man, if there was only one, to bring her back home. Then +I'll believe you. Maybe others will, too. What are you riding the road +so early for, all armed and suspicious, if you're such honest men?" + +"We're goin' to the agency after ammunition to defend our homes, and +our wives and children--such of us as Saul Chadron and his hired +hounds has left children to, colonel's daughter," Tom Lassiter +answered, reproof in his kind old eyes. + +Frances had unrolled the bit of evidence that she had picked up from +the bushes, and was holding it on the horn of her saddle now, quite +unconscious of what her hands were doing, for she had forgotten the +importance of her find in the heat of that meeting. Macdonald spurred +forward, pointing to the thing in her hand. + +"Where did you get that?" he asked, a sharp note of concern in his +voice that made her start. + +She told him. He took it from her and turned to his comrades. + +"It's Mark Thorn's cap!" he said, holding it up, his fingers in the +crown. + +Tom Lassiter nodded his slow head as the others leaned to look. + +"Saul Chadron's chickens has come home to roost," he said. + +Frances understood nothing of the excitement that sprung out of the +mention of the outlaw's name, for Mark Thorn and his bloody history +were alike unknown to her. Her resentment mounted at being an outsider +to their important or pretended secret. + +"Well, if you know whose cap it is, it ought to be easy for you to +find the owner," she said, unable to smother the sneer in her words. + +"He isn't one of us," said a homesteader, with grim shortness. + +"Oh!" said she, tossing her lofty head. + +There was a pallor in Macdonald's weathered face, as if somebody near +and dear to himself was in extreme peril. + +"She may never see home again," he said. Then quickly: "Which way did +he go, do you know?" + +She told him what she knew, not omitting the lost horseshoe. Tom +Lassiter bent in his saddle with eagerness as she mentioned that +particular, and ran his eyes over the road like one reading the pages +of a book. + +"There!" he said, pointing, "I've been seein' it all the way down, +Alan. He was headin' for the hills." + +Frances could not see the print of the shoeless hoof, nor any +peculiarity among the scores of tracks that would tell her of Nola's +abductor having ridden that far along the road. She flushed as the +thought came to her that this was a trick to throw her attention from +themselves and the blame upon some fictitious person, when they knew +whose hands were guilty all the time. The men were leaning in their +saddles, riding slowly back on their trail, talking in low voices and +sharp exclamations among themselves. She spurred hotly after them. + +"Mr. Chadron hasn't come home yet," she said, addressing Macdonald, +who sat straight in his saddle to hear, "but they expect him any hour. +If you'll say how much you're going to demand, and where you want it +paid, I'll carry the word to him. It might hurry matters, and save her +mother's life." + +"I'm sorry you repeated that," said Macdonald, touching his hat in +what he plainly meant a farewell salute. He turned from her and drew +Tom Lassiter aside. In a moment he was riding back again the way that +he had come. + +Frances looked at the unaccountable proceeding with the eyes of doubt +and suspicion. She did not believe any of them, and had no faith in +their mysterious trackings and whisperings aside, and mad gallopings +off to hidden ends. As for Tom Lassiter and his companions, they +ranged themselves preparatory to continuing their journey. + +"If you're goin' our way, colonel's daughter," said Tom, gathering up +his bridle-reins, "we'll be proud to ride along with you." + +Frances was looking at the dust-cloud that rose behind Macdonald. He +was no longer in sight. + +"Where has he gone?" she inquired, her suspicion growing every +moment. + +"He's gone to find that cowman's child, young lady, and take her home +to her mother," Tom replied, with dignity. He rode on. She followed, +presently gaining his side. + +"Is there such a man as Mark Thorn?" she asked after a little, looking +across at Lassiter with sly innuendo. + +"No, there ain't no man by that name, but there's a devil in the shape +of a human man called that," he answered. + +"Is he--what does he do?" She reined a little nearer to Lassiter, +feeling that there was little harm in him apart from the directing +hand. + +"He hires out to kill off folks that's in the way of the cattlemen at +so much a head, miss; like some hires out to kill off wolves. The +Drovers' Association hires him, and sees that he gits out of jail if +anybody ever puts him in, and fixes it up so he walks safe with the +blood of no knowin' how many innocent people on his hands. That's what +Mark Thorn does, ma'am. Chadron brought him in here a couple of weeks +ago to do some killin' off amongst us homesteaders so the rest 'd take +a scare and move out. He give that old devil a list of twenty men he +wanted shot, and Alan Macdonald's got that paper. His own name's at +the top of it, too." + +"Oh!" said she, catching her breath sharply, as if in pain. Her face +was white and cold. "Did he--did he--kill anybody here?" + +"He killed my little boy; he shot him down before his mother's eyes!" + +Tom Lassiter's guttered neck was agitated; the muscles of his bony jaw +knotted as he clamped his teeth and looked straight along the road +ahead of him. + +"Your little boy! Oh, what a coward he must be!" + +"He was a little tow-headed feller, and he had his mother's eyes, as +blue as robins' eggs," said Tom, his reminiscent sorrow so poignant +that tears sprung to her eyes in sympathy and plashed down unheeded +and unchecked. "He'd 'a' been fifteen in November. Talkin' about +fightin', ma'am, that's the way some people fights." + +"I'm sorry I said that, Mr. Lassiter," she confessed, hanging her head +like a corrected child. + +"He can't hear you now," said Tom. + +They rode on a little way. Tom told her of the other outrages for +which Thorn was accountable in that settlement. She was amazed as +deeply as she was shocked to hear of this, for if any word of it had +come to the post, it had been kept from her. Neither was it ever +mentioned in Chadron's home. + +"No," said Tom, when she mentioned that, "it ain't the kind of news +the cattlemen spreads around. But if we shoot one of them in defendin' +our own, the news runs like a pe-rairie fire. They call us rustlers, +and come ridin' up to swipe us out. Well, they's goin' to be a +change." + +"But if Chadron brought that terrible man in here, why should the +horrible creature turn against him?" she asked, doubt and suspicion +grasping the seeming fault in Lassiter's tale. + +"Chadron refused to make settlement with him for the killin' he done +because he didn't git Macdonald. Thorn told Alan that with his own +bloody tongue." + +Lassiter retailed to her eager ears the story of Macdonald's capture +of Thorn, and his fight with Chadron's men when they came to set the +old slayer free, as Lassiter supposed. + +"They turned him loose," said he, "and you know now what I meant when +I said Chadron's chickens has come home to roost." + +"Yes, I know now." She turned, and looked back. Remorse was heavy on +her for the injustice she had done Macdonald that day, and shame for +her sharp words bowed her head as she rode at old Tom Lassiter's +hand. + +"He'll run the old devil down ag'in," Tom spoke confidently, as of a +thing that admitted no dispute, "and take that young woman home if he +finds her livin'. Many thanks he'll git for it from them and her. Like +as not she'll bite the hand that saves her, for she's a cub of the old +bear. Well, let me tell you, colonel's daughter, if she was to live a +thousand years, and pray all her life, she wouldn't no more than be +worthy at the end to wash that man's feet with her tears and dry 'em +on her hair, like that poor soul you've read about in the Book." + +Frances slowed her horse as if overcome by a sudden indecision, and +turned in her saddle to look back again. Again she had let him go away +from her misunderstood, his high pride hurt, his independent heart too +lofty to bend down to the mean adjustment to be reached through +argument or explanation. One must accept Alan Macdonald for what his +face proclaimed him to be. She knew that now. He was not of the +mean-spirited who walk among men making apology for their lives. + +"He's gone on," said Lassiter, slowing his horse to her pace. + +"I'm afraid I was hasty and unjust," she confessed, struggling to hold +back her tears. + +"Yes, you was," said Lassiter, frankly, "but everybody on the outside +is unjust to all of us up here. We're kind of outcasts because we +fence the land and plow it. But I want to tell you, Macdonald's a man +amongst men, ma'am. He's fed the poor and lifted up the afflicted, and +he's watched with us beside our sick and prayed with us over our dead. +We know him, no matter what folks on the outside say. Well, we'll have +to spur up a little, ma'am, for we're in a hurry to git back." + +They approached the point where the road to the post branched. + +"There's goin' to be fightin' over here if Chadron tries to drive us +out," Tom said, "and we know he's sent for men to come in and help him +try it. We don't want to fight, but men that won't fight for their +homes ain't the kind you'd like to ride along the road with, ma'am." + +"Maybe the trouble can be settled some other way," she suggested, +thinking again of the hope that she had brought with her to the ranch +the day before. + +"When we bring the law in here, and elect officers to see it put in +force for every man alike, then this trouble it'll come to an end. +Well, if you ever feel like we deserve a good word, colonel's +daughter, we'd be proud to have you say it, for the feller that stands +up for the law and the Lord and his home agin the cattlemen in this +land, ma'am, he's got a hard row to hoe. Yes, we'll count any good +words you might say for us as so much gold. 'And the Levite, thou +shalt not forsake him, for he hath no part nor inheritance with +thee.'" + +Tom's voice was slow and solemn when he quoted that Mosaic injunction. +The appeal of the disinherited was in it, and the pain of lost years. +It touched her like a sorrow of her own. Tears were on her cheeks +again as she parted from him, giving him her hand in token of trust +and faith, and rode on toward the ranchhouse by the river. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WHEN FRIENDS PART + + +Banjo had returned, with fever in his wound. Mrs. Chadron was putting +horse liniment on it when Frances entered the sitting-room where the +news of the tragedy had visited them the night past. + +"I didn't go to the post--I saw some men in the road and turned back," +Frances told them, sinking down wearily in a chair before the fire. + +"I'm glad you turned back, honey," Mrs. Chadron said, shaking her head +sadly, "for I was no end worried about you. Them rustlers they're +comin' down from their settlement and gatherin' up by Macdonald's +place, the men told Banjo, and no tellin' what they might 'a' done if +they'd seen you." + +Mrs. Chadron's face was not red with the glow of peppers and much food +this morning. One night of anxiety had racked her, and left hollows +under her eyes and a flat grayness in her cheeks. + +Banjo had brought no other news. The men had scattered at daybreak to +search for the trail of the man who had carried Nola away, but Banjo, +sore and shaken, had come back depressed and full of pains. Mrs. +Chadron said that Saul surely would be home before noonday, and urged +Frances to go to her room and sleep. + +"I'm steadier this morning, I'll watch and wait," she said, pressing +the liniment-soaked cloth to Banjo's bruised forehead. + +Banjo contracted his muscles under the application, shriveling up on +himself like a snail in a fire, for it was hot and heroic liniment, +and strong medicine for strong beasts and tougher men. Banjo's face +was a picture of patient suffering, but he said nothing, and had not +spoken since Frances entered the room, for the treatment had been +under way before her arrival and there was scarcely enough breath left +in him to suffice for life, and none at all for words. Frances had it +in mind to suggest some milder remedy, but held her peace, feeling +that if Banjo survived the treatment he surely would be in no danger +from his hurt. + +The door of Nola's room was open as Frances passed, and there was a +depression in the counterpane which told where the lost girl's mother +had knelt beside it and wet it with her tears. Frances wondered +whether she had prayed, lingering compassionately a moment in the +door. + +The place was like Nola in its light and brightness and surface +comfort and assertive color notes of happiness, hung about with the +trophies of her short but victorious career among the hearts of men. +There were photographs of youths on dressing-table, chiffonier, and +walls, and flaring pennants of eastern universities and colleges. +Among the latter, as if it was the most triumphant trophy of them all, +there hung a little highland bonnet with a broken feather, of the +plaid Alan Macdonald had worn on the night of Nola's mask. + +Frances went in for a nearer inspection, and lifted the little saucy +bit of headgear from its place in the decorations of Nola's wall. +There could be no doubting it; that was Alan Macdonald's bonnet, and +there was a bullet hole in it at the stem of the little feather. The +close-grazing lead had sheared the plume in two, and gone on its +stinging way straight through the bonnet. + +An exclamation of tender pity rose above her breath. She fondled the +little headdress and pressed it to her bosom; she laid it against her +cheek and kissed it in consolation for its hurt--the woman's balsam +for all sufferings and heartbreaks, and incomparable among the +panaceas of all time. + +In spite of her sympathy for Nola in her grave situation, facing or +undergoing what terrors no one knew, there was a bridling of +resentment against her in Frances' breast as she hung the marred +bonnet back in its place. It seemed to her that Nola had exulted over +both herself and Alan Macdonald when she had put his bonnet on her +wall, and that she had kept it there after the coming of Frances to +that house in affront to friendship and mockery of the hospitality +that she professed to extend. + +Nola had asked her to that house so that she might see it hanging +there; she had arranged it and studied it with the cunning intent of +giving her pain. And how close that bullet had come to him! It must +have sheared his fair hair as it tore through and dashed the bonnet +from his head. + +How she suffered in picturing his peril, happily outlived! How her +heart trembled and her strong young limbs shook as she lived over in +breathless agony the crisis of that night! He had carried her glove in +his bonnet--she remembered the deft little movement of stowing it +there just the moment before he bent and flashed away among the +shadows. Excuse enough for losing it, indeed! + +But he had not told her of his escape to justify the loss; proudly he +had accepted the blame, and turned away with the hurt of it in his +unbending heart. + +She went back and took down the jaunty little cap again, and kissed it +with compensatory tenderness, and left a jewel trembling on its crown +from the well of her honest brown eye. If ever amends were made to any +little highland bonnet in this world, then Alan Macdonald's was that +bonnet, hanging there among the flaring pennants and trivial little +schoolgirl trophies on Nola Chadron's wall. + +Chadron came home toward evening at the head of sixty men. He had +raised his army speedily and effectively. These men had been gathered +by the members of the Drovers' Association and sent to Meander by +special train, horses, guns, ammunition, and provisions with them, +ready for a campaign. + +The cattlemen had made a common cause of this sectional difficulty. +Their indignation had been voiced very thoroughly by Mrs. Chadron when +she had spoken to Frances with such resentment of the homesteaders +standing up to fight. That was an unprecedented contingency. The "holy +scare," such as Mark Thorn and similar hired assassins spread in +communities of homesteaders, had been sufficient up to that day. Now +this organized front of self-defense must be broken, and the bold +rascals involved must be destroyed, root and branch. + +Press agents of the Drovers' Association in Cheyenne were sowing +nation-wide picturesque stories of the rustlers' uprising. The ground +was being prepared for the graver news that was to come; the +cattlemen's justification was being carefully arranged in advance. + +Frances shuddered for the homesteaders when she looked out of her +window upon this formidable force of lean-legged, gaunt-cheeked +gun-fighters. They were men of the trade, cowboys who had fought their +employers' battles from the Rio Grande to the Little Missouri. They +were grim and silent men as they pressed round the watering troughs at +the windmill with their horses, with flapping hats and low-slung +pistols, and rifles sheathed in leather cases on their saddles. + +She hurried down when she saw Chadron dismount at the gate. Mrs. +Chadron was there to meet him, for she had stood guard at her window +all day watching for his dust beyond the farthest hill. Frances could +hear her weeping now, and Chadron's heavy voice rising in command as +she came to the outer door. + +Chadron was in the saddle again, and there was hurrying among his men +at barn and corral as they put on bridles which they had jerked off, +and tightened girths and gathered up dangling straps. Chadron was +riding among them, large and commanding as a general, with a cloud in +his dark face that seemed a threat of death. + +Mrs. Chadron was hurrying in to make a bundle of some heavy clothing +for Nola to protect her against the night chill on her way home, which +the confident soul believed her daughter would be headed upon before +midnight. Saul the invincible was taking the trail; Saul, who smashed +his way to his desires in all things. She gave Frances a hurried word +of encouragement as they passed outside the door. + +Chadron was talking earnestly to his men. "I'll give fifty dollars +bonus to the man that brings him down," she heard him say as she drew +near, "and a hundred to the first man to lay eyes on my daughter." + +Frances was hurrying to him with the information that she had kept for +his ear alone. She was flushed with excitement as she came among the +rough horsemen like a bright bloom tossed among rusty weeds. They fell +back generously, not so much to give her room as to see her to better +advantage, passing winks and grimaces of approval between themselves +in their free and easy way. Chadron gave his hand in greeting as she +spoke some hasty words of comfort. + +"Thank you, Miss Frances, for your friendship in this bad business," +he said, heartily, and with the best that there was in him. "You've +been a great help and comfort to her mother, and if it wouldn't be +askin' too much I'd like for you to stay here with her till we bring +my little girl back home." + +"Yes, I intended to stay, Mr. Chadron; I didn't come out to tell you +that." She looked round at the admiring faces, too plainly expressive +of their approbation, some of them, and plucked Chadron's sleeve. +"Bend down--I want to tell you something," she said, in low, quick +voice. + +Chadron stooped, his hand lightly on her shoulder, in attitude of +paternal benediction. + +"It wasn't Macdonald, it was Mark Thorn," she whispered. + +Chadron's face displayed no surprise, shadowed no deeper concern. Only +there was a flitting look of perplexity in it as he sat upright in his +saddle again. + +"Who is he?" he asked. + +"Don't you know?" She watched him closely, baffled by his unmoved +countenance. + +"I never heard of anybody in this country by that name," he returned, +shaking his head with a show of entire sincerity. "Who was tellin' you +about him--who said he was the man?" + +A little confused, and more than a little disappointed over the +apparent failure of her news to surprise from Chadron a betrayal of +his guilty connection with Mark Thorn, she related the adventure of +the morning, the finding of the cap, the meeting with Macdonald and +his neighbors. She reserved nothing but what Lassiter had told her of +Thorn's employers and his bloody work in that valley. + +Chadron shook his head with an air of serious concern. There was a +look of commiseration in his eyes for her credulity, and shameful +duping by the cunning word of Alan Macdonald. + +"That's one of Macdonald's lies," he said, something so hard and +bitter in his voice when he pronounced that name that she shuddered. +"I never heard of anybody named Thorn, here or anywheres else. That +rustler captain he's a deep one, Miss Frances, and he was only +throwin' dust in your eyes. But I'm glad you told me." + +"But they said--the man he called Lassiter said--that Macdonald would +find Nola, and bring her home," she persisted, unwilling yet to accept +Chadron's word against that old man's, remembering the paper with the +list of names. + +"He's bald-faced enough to try even a trick like that!" he said. + +Chadron looked impatiently toward the house, muttering something about +the slowness of "them women," avoiding Frances' eyes. For she did not +believe Saul Chadron, and her distrust was eloquent in her face. + +"You mean that he'd pretend a rescue and bring her back, just to make +sympathy for himself and his side of this trouble?" + +"That's about the size of it," Chadron nodded, frowning sternly. + +"Oh, it seems impossible that anybody could be so heartless and low!" + +"A man that'd burn brands is low enough to go past anything you could +imagine in that little head of yours, Miss Frances. Do you mind +runnin' in and tellin'--no, here she comes." + +"Couldn't this trouble between you and the homesteaders--" + + +"Homesteaders! They're cattle thieves, born in 'em and bred in 'em, +and set in the hide and hair of 'em!" + +"Couldn't it be settled without all this fighting and killing?" she +went on, pressing her point. + +"It's all over now but the shoutin'," said he. "There's only one way +to handle a rustler, Miss Frances, and that's to salt his hide." + +"I'd be willing--I'd be glad--to go up there myself, alone, and take +any message you might send," she offered. "I think they'd listen to +reason, even to leaving the country if you want them to, rather than +try to stand against a ga--force like this." + +"You can't understand our side of it, Miss Frances,"--Chadron spoke +impatiently, reaching out for the bundle that his wife was bringing +while she was yet two rods away--"for you ain't been robbed and +wronged by them nesters like we have. You've got to live it to know +what it means, little lady. We've argued with 'em till we've used up +all our words, but their fences is still there. Now we're goin' to +clear 'em out." + +"But Macdonald seemed hurt when I asked him how much money they wanted +you to pay as Nola's ransom," she said. + +"He's deep, and he's tricky--too deep and too slick for you." Chadron +gathered up his reins, leaned over and whispered: "Don't say anything +about that Thorn yarn to her"--a sideways jerk of the head toward his +wife--"her trouble's deep enough without stirrin' it." + +Chadron had the bundle now, and Mrs. Chadron was helping him tie it +behind his saddle, shaking her head sadly as she handled the +belongings of her child with gentle touch. Tears were running down her +cheeks, but her usually ready words seemed dead upon her tongue. + +From the direction of the barn a little commotion moved forward among +the horsemen, like a wave before a breeze. Banjo Gibson appeared on +his horse as the last thong was tied about Nola's bundle, his hat +tilted more than its custom to spare the sore place over his eye. + +The cowboys looked at his gaudy trappings with curious eyes. Chadron +gave him a short word of greeting, and bent to kiss his wife +good-bye. + +"I'm with you in this here thing, Saul," said Banjo; "I'll ride to +hell's back door to help you find that little girl!" + +Chadron slewed in his saddle with an ugly scowl. + +"We don't want any banjo-pickers on this job, it's men's work!" he +said. + +Banjo seemed to droop with humiliation. Chuckles and derisive words +were heard among Chadron's train. The little musician hung his +bandaged head. + +"Oh, you ortn't be hard on Banjo, he means well," Mrs. Chadron +pleaded. + +"He can stay here and scratch the pigs," Chadron returned, in his +brutal way. "We've got to go now, old lady, but we'll be back before +morning, and we'll bring Nola. Don't you worry any more; she'll be all +right--they wouldn't dare to harm a hair of her head." + +Mrs. Chadron looked at him with large hope and larger trust in her +yearning face, and Banjo slewed his horse directly across the gate. + +"Before you leave, Saul, I want to tell you this," he said. "You've +hurt me, and you've hurt me _deep_! I'll leave here before another +hour passes by, and I'll never set a boot-heel inside of your door +ag'in as long as you live!" + +"Oh hell!" said Chadron, spurring forward into the road. + +Chadron's men rode away after him, except five whom he detailed to +stay behind and guard the ranch. These turned their horses into the +corral, made their little fire of twigs and gleaned brush in their +manner of wood-scant frugality, and over it cooked their simple +dinner, each man after his own way. + +Banjo led his horse to the gate in front of the house and left it +standing there while he went in to get his instruments. Mrs. Chadron +was moved to a fresh outburst of weeping by his preparations for +departure, and the sad, hurt look in his simple face. + +"You stay here, Banjo; don't you go!" she begged. "Saul he didn't mean +any harm by what he said--he won't remember nothing about it when he +comes back." + +"I'll remember it," Banjo told her, shaking his head in unbending +determination, "and I couldn't be easy here like I was in the past. If +I was to try to swaller a bite of Saul Chadron's grub after this it'd +stick in my throat and choke me. No, I'm a-goin', mom, but I'm +carryin' away kind thoughts of you in my breast, never to be forgot." + +Banjo hitched the shoulder strap of the instrument from which he took +his name with a jerking of the shoulder, and settled it in place; he +took up his fiddle box and hooked it under his arm, and offered Mrs. +Chadron his hand. She was crying, her face in her apron, and did not +see. Frances took the extended hand and clasped it warmly, for the +little musician and his homely small sentiments had found a place in +her heart. + +"You shouldn't leave until your head gets better," she said; "you're +hardly able to take another long ride after being in the saddle all +night, hurt like you are." + +Banjo looked at her with pain reflected in his shallow eyes. + +"The hurt that gives me my misery is where it can't be seen," he +said. + +"Where are you goin', Banjo, with the country riled up this way, and +you li'ble to be shot down any place by them rustlers?" Mrs. Chadron +asked, looking at him appealingly, her apron ready to stem her gushing +tears. + +"I'll go over to the mission and stay with Mother Mathews till I'm +healed up. I'll be welcome in that house; I'd be welcome there if I +was blind, and had m' back broke and couldn't touch a string." + +"Yes, you would, Banjo," Mrs. Chadron nodded. + +"She's married to a Injun, but she's as white as a angel's robe." + +"She's a good soul, Banjo, as good as ever lived." + +Frances took advantage of Banjo's trip to the reservation to send a +note to her father apprising him of the tragedy at the ranch. Banjo +buttoned it inside his coat, mounted his horse, and rode away. + +Mrs. Chadron watched him out of sight with lamentations. + +"I wish he'd 'a' stayed--it 'd 'a' been all right with Saul; Saul +didn't mean any harm by what he said. He's the tender-heartedest man +you ever saw, he wouldn't hurt a body's feelin's for a farm." + +"I don't believe Banjo is a man to hold a grudge very long," Frances +told her, looking after the retreating musician, her thoughts on him +but hazily, but rather on a little highland bonnet with a bullet hole +in its crown. + +"No, he ain't," Mrs. Chadron agreed, plucking up a little brightness. +"But it's a bad sign, a mighty bad sign, when a friend parts from you +with a hurt in his heart that way, and leaves your house in a huff and +feels put out like Banjo does." + +"Yes," said Frances, "we let them go away from us too often that way, +with sore hearts that even a little word might ease." + +She spoke with such wistful regret that the older woman felt its note +through her own deep gloom. She groped out, tears blinding her, until +her hand found her young friend's, and then she clasped it, and stood +holding it, no words between them. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ONE ROAD + + +Twenty-four hours after Banjo's departure a messenger arrived at the +ranchhouse. It was one of the cowboys attached to the ranch, and he +came with his right arm in a sling. He was worn, and beaten out by +long hours in the saddle and the pain of his wound. + +He said they had news of Nola, and that Chadron sent word that she +would be home before another night passed. This intelligence sent Mrs. +Chadron off to bedroom and kitchen to make preparations for her +reception and restoration. + +As she left the room Frances turned to the messenger, who stood +swinging his big hat awkwardly by the brim. She untied the sling that +held his wounded arm and made him sit by the table while she examined +his injury, concerning which Mrs. Chadron, in her excitement, had not +even inquired. + +The shot had gone through the forearm, grazing the bone. When Frances, +with the aid of Maggie, the Mexican woman with tender eyes, had +cleansed and bound up the wound, she turned to him with a decisive air +of demand. + +"Now, tell me the truth," she said. + +He was a bashful man, with a long, sheepish nose and the bluest of +harmless eyes. He started a little when she made that demand, and +blushed. + +"That's what the boss told me to say," he demurred. + +"I know he did; but what's happening?" + +"Well, we ain't heard hide nor hair of her"--he looked round +cautiously, lest Mrs. Chadron surprise him in the truth--"and them +rustlers they're clean gone and took everything but their houses and +fences along--beds and teams and stock, and everything." + +"Gone!" she repeated, staring at him blankly; "where have they gone?" + +"Macdonald's doin' it; that man's got brainds," the cowboy yielded, +with what he knew to be unlawful admiration of the enemy's parts. +"He's herdin' 'em back in the hills where they've built a regular +fort, they say. Some of us fellers caught up to a few of the +stragglers last night, and that's when I got this arm put on me." + +"Have any of the rustlers been killed?" + +"No," he admitted, disgustedly, "they ain't! We've burnt all the +shacks we come to, and cut their fences, but they all got slick and +clean away, down to the littlest kid. But the boss's after 'em," he +added, with brisk hopefulness, "and you'll have better news by +mornin'." + +Chadron himself was the next rider to arrive at that anxious house, +and he came as the messenger of disaster. He arrived between midnight +and morning, his horse spur-gashed, driven to the limit, himself +sunken-eyed from his anxiety and hard pursuit of his elusive enemy. + +Mrs. Chadron was asleep when he entered the living-room where Frances +was keeping lonely watch before the chimney fire. + +"What's happened?" she asked, hastening to meet him. + +Chadron stood there gray and dusty, his big hat down hard on his head, +his black eyes shooting inquiry into the shadowed room. + +"Where is she?" he whispered. + +"Upstairs, asleep--I've only just been able to persuade her to lie +down and close her eyes." + +"Well, there's no use to wake her up for bad news." + +"You haven't found Nola?" + +"I know right where she is. I could put my hand on her if I could +reach her." + +"Then why--?" + +"Hell!" said Chadron, bursting into a fire of passion, "why can't I +fly like an eagle? Young woman, I've got to tell you I've been beat +and tricked for the first time in my life! They've got my men hemmed +in, I tell you--they've got 'em shut up in a cañon as tight as if they +was nailed in their coffins!" + +If Chadron had been clearer of sight and mind in that moment of his +towering anger, he would have seen her cheeks flush at his words, and +her nostrils dilate and her breath come faster. But he was blind; his +little varnish of delicacy was gone. He was just a ranting, roaring, +dark-visaged brute with murder in his heart. + +"That damned Macdonald done it, led 'em into it like they was blind! +He's a wolf, and he's got the tricks of a wolf, he skulked ahead of +'em with a little pack of his rustlers and led 'em into his trap, then +the men he had hid there and ready they popped up as thick as grass. +They've got fifty of my men shut up there where they can't git to +water, and where they can't fight back. Now, what do you think of +that?" + +"I'll tell you what I think," she said, throwing up her head, her eyes +as quick and bright as water in the sun, "I think it's the judgment of +God! I glory in the trick Alan Macdonald played you, and I pray God he +can shut your hired murderers there till the last red-handed devil +dies of thirst!" + +Chadron fell back from her a step, his eyes staring, his mouth open, +his hand lifted as if to silence her. He stood so a moment, casting +his wild look around, fearful that somebody else had heard her +passionate denunciation. + +"What in the hell do you mean?" he asked, crouching as he spoke, his +teeth clenched, his voice smothered in his throat. + +"I mean that I know you're a murderer--and worse! You hired those men, +like you hired Mark Thorn, to come here and murder those innocent men +and their families!" + +"Well, what if I did?" he said, standing straight again, his composure +returning. "They're thieves; they've been livin' off of my cattle for +years. Anybody's got a right to kill a rustler--that's the only cure. +Well, they'll not pen them men of mine up there till they crack for +water, I'll bet you a purty on that! I'm goin' after soldiers, and +this time I'll git 'em, too." + +"Soldiers!" said she, in amazement. "Will you ask the United States +government to march troops here to save your hired assassins? Well, +you'll not get troops--if there's anything that I can say against you +to keep you from it!" + +"You keep out of it, my little lady; you ain't got no call to mix up +with a bunch of brand-burnin' thieves!" + +"They're not thieves, and you know it! Macdonald never stole an animal +from you or anybody else; none of the others ever did." + +"What do you know about it?" sharply. + +"I know it, as well as I know what's in your mind about the troops. +You'll go over father's head to get them. Well, by the time he wires +to the department the facts I'm going to lay before him, I'd like to +see the color of the trooper you'll get!" + +"You'll keep your mouth shut, and hold your finger out of this pie +before you git it burnt!" + +"I'll not keep my mouth shut!" She began moving about the room, +picking up her belongings. "I'm going to saddle my horse and go to the +post right now, and the facts of your bloody business will be in +Washington before morning." + +"You're not goin'--to the--post!" Chadron's words were slow and hard. +He stood with his back to the door. "This house was opened to you as a +friend, not as a traitor and a spy. You're not goin' to put your foot +outside of it into any business of mine, no matter which way you +lean." + +All day she had been dressed ready to mount and ride in any emergency, +her hat, gloves and quirt on the table before the fireplace. In that +sober habit she appeared smaller and less stately, and Saul Chadron, +with his heavy shoulders against the closed door, towered above her, +dark and angrily determined. + +"I'm going to get my horse," said she, standing before him, waiting +for him to quit the door. + +"You're goin' to stay right in this house, there's where you're goin' +to stay; and you'll stay till I've cleaned out Macdonald and his gang, +down to the last muddy-bellied wolf!" + +"You'll answer for detaining me here, sir!" + +"There ain't no man in this country that I answer to!" returned +Chadron, not without dignity, for power undisputed for so long, and in +such large affairs, had given him a certain manner of imperialism. + +"You'll find out where your mistake is, to your bitter cost, before +many days have gone over your head. Your master is on the way; you'll +meet him yet." + +"You might as well ca'm down, and take that hat off and make yourself +easy, Miss Frances; you ain't goin' to the post tonight." + +"Open that door, Mr. Chadron! For the memory of your daughter, be a +man!" + +"I'm actin' for the best, Miss Frances." Chadron softened in speech, +but unbent in will. "You must stay here till we settle them fellers. I +ain't got time to bring any more men up from Cheyenne--I've got to +have help within the next twenty-four hours. You can see how your +misplaced feelin's might muddle and delay me, and hold off the +troopers till they've killed off all of my men in that cañon back +yonder in the hills. It's for the best, I tell you; you'll see it that +way before daylight." + +"It's a pity about your gallant cutthroats! It's time the rest of this +country knew something about the methods of you cattlemen up here, and +the way you harass and hound and murder honest men that are trying to +make homes!" + +"Oh, Miss Frances! ca'm down, ca'm down!" coaxed Chadron, spreading +his hands in conciliatory gesture, as if to smooth her troubled +spirits, and calm her down by stroking her, like a cat. + +"Now you want to call out the army to rescue that pack of villains, +you want to enlist the government to help you murder more children! +Well, I'm a daughter of the army; I'm not going to stand around and +see you pull it down to any such business as yours!" + +"You'd better make up your mind to take it easy, now, Miss Frances. +Put down your hat and things, now, and run along off to bed like a +good little girl." + +She turned from him with a disdainful toss of the head, and walked +across to the window where Mrs. Chadron's great chair stood beside her +table. + +"Do you want it known that I was forced to leave your house by the +window?" she asked, her hand on the sash. + +"It won't do you any good if you do," Chadron growled, turning and +throwing the door open with gruff decision. He stood a moment +glowering at her, his shoulders thrust into the room. "You can't leave +here till I'm ready for you to go--I'm goin' to put my men on the +watch for you. If you try it afoot they'll fetch you back, and if you +git stubborn and try to ride off from 'em, they'll shoot your horse. +You take my word that I mean it, and set down and be good." + +He closed the door. She heard his heavy tread, careless, it seemed, +whether he broke the troubled sleep of his wife, pass out by way of +the kitchen. She returned to the fire, surging with the outrage of it, +and sat down to consider the situation. + +There was no doubt that Chadron meant what he had said. This was only +a mild proceeding to suppress evidence compared to his usual methods, +as witnessed by the importation of Mark Thorn, and now his wholesale +attempt with this army of hired gunslingers. But above the anger and +indignation there was the exultant thought of Macdonald's triumph over +the oppressor of the land. It glowed like a bright light in the +turmoil of her present hour. + +She had told Chadron that his master was on the way, and she had seen +him swell with the cloud of anger that shrouded his black heart. And +she knew that he feared that swift-footed man Macdonald, who had +outgeneraled him and crippled him before he had struck a blow. Well, +let him have his brutal way until morning; then she would prevail on +Mrs. Chadron to rescind his order and let her go home. + +There being nothing more to be hoped or dreaded in the way of news +that night, Frances suppressed her wrath and went upstairs and to bed. +But not to sleep; only to lie there with her hot cheeks burning like +fever, her hot heart triumphing in the complete confidence and +justification of Macdonald that Chadron's desperate act had +established. She glowed with inner warmth as she told herself that +there would be no more doubting, no more swaying before the wind of +her inclination. Her heart had read him truly that night in the garden +close. + +She heard Chadron ride away as she watched there for the dawn, and saw +the cowboy guard that he had established rouse themselves while the +east was only palely light and kindle their little fires. Soon the +scent of their coffee and bacon came through her open window. Then she +rose and dressed herself in her saddle garb again, and went tiptoeing +past Mrs. Chadron's door. + +Since going to bed Mrs. Chadron bad not stirred. She seemed to have +plunged over the precipice of sleep and to be lying stunned at the +bottom. Frances felt that there was no necessity for waking her out of +that much-needed repose, for the plan that she had formulated within +the past few minutes did not include an appeal for Mrs. Chadron's +assistance in it. + +Experience told her that Mrs. Chadron would accept unquestioningly the +arrangements and orders of her husband, in whom her faith was +boundless and her confidence without bottom. She would advance a +hundred tearful pleas to take the edge off Frances' indignant anger, +and weep and implore, but ten to one remain as steadfast as a ledge in +her fealty to Saul. So Frances was preparing to proceed without her +help or hindrance. + +She went softly into the room where she had faced Chadron a few hours +before, and crossed to the fireplace, where the last coals of the fire +that had kept her company were red among the ashes. It was dark yet, +only a little grayness, like murky water, showing under the rim of the +east, but she knew where the antlers hung above the mantel, with the +rifle in its case, and the two revolvers which Alvino had brought to +his mistress from the wounded foreman in the bunkhouse. + +But the antlers were empty. She felt them over with contracting heart, +then struck a match to make sure. The guns were gone. Saul Chadron had +removed them, foreseeing that they might stand her in the place of a +friend. + +She lit a lamp and began a search of the lower part of the house for +arms. There was not a single piece left in any of the places where +they commonly were a familiar sight. Even the shotgun was gone from +over the kitchen door. She returned to the sitting-room and laid some +sticks on the coals, and sat leaning toward the blaze in that sense of +comradeship that is as old between man and fire as the servitude of +that captive element. + +Her elbows were on her knees, and her gloved hands were clasped, and +the merry little fire laughed up into her fixed and thoughtful eyes. + +Fire has but one mood, no matter what it cheers or destroys. It always +laughs. There is no melancholy note in it, no drab, dull color of +death such as the flood comes tainted with. Even while it eats away +our homes and possessions, it has a certain comfort in its touch and +glow if we stand far enough away. + +Dawn broadened; the watery light came in like cold. Frances got up, +shivering a little at the unfriendly look of the morning. She thought +she heard a cautious foot stealing away from the window, and turned +from it with contemptuous recollection of Chadron's threat to set +spies over her. + +Frances left the house with no caution to conceal her movements, and +went to the barn. Alvino was hobbling about among the horses with his +lantern. He gave her an open and guileless good-morning, and she told +him to saddle her horse. + +She was determined to ride boldly out of the gate and away, hardly +convinced that even those seasoned ruffians would take a chance of +hitting her by firing at her horse. None of the imported shooters was +in sight as she mounted before the barn door, but two of them lounged +casually at the gate as she approached. + +"Where was you aimin' to go so early?" asked one of them, laying hand +on her bridle. + +"I'm the daughter of Colonel Landcraft, commanding officer at +Fort Shakie, and I'm going home," she answered, as placidly and +good-humoredly as if it might be his regular business to inquire. + +"I'm sorry to have to edge in on your plans, sissy," the fellow +returned, familiarly, "but nobody goes away from this ranch for some +little time to come. That's the boss's orders. Don't you know them +rustlers is shootin' up the country ever' which way all around here? +Shucks! It ain't safe for no lady to go skylarkin' around in." + +"They wouldn't hurt me--they know there's a regiment of cavalry at the +post standing up for me." + +"I don't reckon them rustlers cares much more about them troopers than +we do, sis." + +"Will you please open the gate?" + +"I hate to refuse a lady, but I dasn't do it." He shook his head in +exaggerated gravity, and his companion covered a sputtering laugh with +his hand. + +Frances felt her resolution to keep her temper dissolving. She shifted +her quirt as the quick desire to strike him down and ride over his +ugly grinning face flashed through her. But the wooden stock was light +under the braided leather; she knew that she could not have knocked a +grunt out of the tough rascal who barred her way with his insolent +leer in his mean squint eyes. He was a man who had nothing to lose, +therefore nothing to fear. + +"If it's dangerous for me to go alone, get your horse and come with +me. I'll see that you get more out of it than you make working for +Chadron." + +The fellow squinted up at her with eyes half-shut, in an expression of +cunning. + +"Now you trot along back and behave you'self, before I have to take +you down and spank you," he said. + +The other three men of the ranch guard came waddling up in that +slouching gait of saddle-men, cigarettes dangling from their lips. +Frances saw that she would not be allowed to pass that way. But they +were all at that spot; none of them could be watching the back gate. +She wheeled her long-legged cavalry horse to make a dash for it, and +came face to face with Mrs. Chadron, who was hurrying from the house +with excited gesticulations, pointing up the road. + +"Somebody's comin', it looks like one of the boys, I saw him from the +upstairs winder!" she announced, "Where was you goin', honey?" + +"I was starting home, Mrs. Chadron, but these men--" + +"There he comes!" cried Mrs. Chadron, hastening to the gate. + +A horseman had come around the last brush-screened turn of the road, +and was drawing near. Frances felt her heart leap like a hare, and a +delicious feeling of triumph mingle with the great pride that swept +through her in a warm flood. Tears were in her eyes, half-blinding +her; a sob of gladness rose in her breast and burst forth a little +happy cry. + +For that was Alan Macdonald coming forward on his weary horse, bearing +something in his arms wrapped in a blanket, out of which a shower of +long hair fell in bright cascade over his arm. + +Mrs. Chadron pressed her lips tight. Neither cry nor groan came out of +them as she stood steadying herself by a straining grip on the gate, +watching Macdonald's approach. None of them knew whether the burden +that he bore was living or dead; none of them in the group at the gate +but Frances knew the rider's face. + +One of the cowboys opened the gate wide, without a word, to let him +enter. Mrs. Chadron lifted her arms appealingly, and hurried to his +side as he stopped. Stiffly he leaned over, his inert burden held +tenderly, and lowered what he bore into Mrs. Chadron's outstretched +arms. + +With that change of position there was a sharp movement in the +muffling blanket, two arms reached up with the quick clutching of a +falling child, and clasped him about the neck. Then a sharp cry of +waking recognition, and Nola was sobbing on her mother's breast. + +Alan Macdonald said no word. The light of the sunrise was strong on +his face, set in the suffering of great weariness; the stiffness of +his long and burdened ride was in his limbs. He turned his dusty +horse, with its head low-drooping, and rode out the way that he had +come. No hand was lifted to stop him, no voice raised in either +benediction or curse. + +Mrs. Chadron was soothing her daughter, who was incoherent in the joy +of her delivery, holding her clasped in her arms. Beyond that bright +head there was no world for that mother then; save for the words which +she crooned in the child's ears there was no message in her soul. + +Frances felt tears streaking her face in hot rivulets as she sat in +her saddle, struck inactive by the great admiration, the boundless +pride, that this unselfish deed woke in her. She never had, in her +life of joyousness, experienced such a high sense of human admiration +before. + +The cowboy who had opened the gate still held it so, the spell of +Macdonald's dramatic arrival still over him. With his comrades he +stood speechless, gazing after the departing horseman. + +Frances touched her horse lightly and rode after him. Mother and +daughter were so estranged from all the world in that happy moment of +reunion that neither saw her go, and the guards at the gate, either +forgetful of their charge or softened by the moving scene, did not +interpose to stop her. + +Macdonald raised his drooping head with quick start as she came +dashing to his side. She was weeping, and she put out her hand with a +motion of entreaty, her voice thick with sobs. + +"I wronged you and slandered you," she said, in bitter confession, +"and I let you go when I should have spoken! I'm not worthy to ride +along this road with you, Alan Macdonald, but I need your protection, +I need your help. Will you let me go?" + +He checked his horse and looked across at her, a tender softening +coming into his tired face. + +"Why, God bless you! there's only one road in the world for you and +me," said he. His hand met hers where it fluttered like a dove between +them; his slow, translating smile woke in his eyes and spread like a +sunbeam over his stern lips. + +Behind them Mrs. Chadron was calling. Frances turned and waved her +hand. + +"Come back, Frances, come back here!" Mrs. Chadron's words came +distinctly to them, for they were not more than a hundred yards from +the gate, and there was a note of eagerness in them, almost a command. +Both of them turned. + +There was a commotion among the men at the gate, a hurrying and loud +words. Nola was beckoning to Frances to return; now she called her +name, with fearful entreaty. + +"That's Chance Dalton with his arm in a sling," said Macdonald, +looking at her curiously. "What's up?" + +"Chadron has made them all believe that you stole Nola for the sole +purpose of making a pretended rescue to win sympathy for your cause," +she said. "Even Nola will believe it--maybe they've told her. Chadron +has offered a reward of fifty dollars--a bonus, he called it, so maybe +there is more--to the man that kills you! Come on--quick! I'll tell +you as we go." + +Macdonald's horse was refreshed in some measure by the diminishing of +its burden, but the best that it could do was a tired, hard-jogging +gallop. In a little while they rounded the screen of brush which hid +them from the ranchhouse and from those who Frances knew would be +their pursuers in a moment. Quickly she told him of her reason for +wanting to go to the post, and Chadron's reason for desiring to hold +her at the ranch. + +Macdonald looked at her with new life in his weary eyes. + +"We'll win now; you were the one recruit I lacked," he said. + +"But they'll kill you--Mrs. Chadron can't hold them back--she doesn't +want to hold them back--for she's full of Chadron's lies about you. +Your horse is worn out--you can't outrun them." + +"How many are there besides the five I saw?" + +"Only Dalton, and he's supposed to be crippled." + +"Oh, well," he said, easily, as if only five whole men and a cripple +didn't amount to so much, taken all in the day's work. + +"Your men up there need your leadership and advice. Take my horse and +go; he can outrun them." + +He looked at her admiringly, but with a little reproving shake of the +head. + +"There's neither mercy nor manhood in any man that rides in Saul +Chadron's pay," he told her. "They'd overtake you on this old plug +before you'd gone a mile. The one condition on which I part company +with you is that you ride ahead, this instant, and that you put your +horse through for all that's in him." + +"And leave you to fight six of them!" + +"Staying here would only put you in unnecessary danger. I ask you to +go, and go at once." + +"I'll not go!" She said it finally and emphatically. + +Macdonald checked his horse; she held back her animal to the slow pace +of his. Now he offered his hand, as in farewell. + +"You can assure them at the post that we'll not fire on the +soldiers--they can come in peace. Good-bye." + +"I'm not going!" she persisted. + +"They'll not consider you, Frances--they'll not hold their fire on +your account. You're a rustler now, you're one of us." + +"You said--there--was--only--one--road," she told him, her face turned +away. + +"It's that way, then, to the left--up that dry bed of Horsethief +Cañon." He spoke with a lift of exultation, of pride, and more than +pride. "Ride low--they're coming!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DANGER AND DIGNITY + + +"Did you carry her that way all the way home?" + +Frances asked the question abruptly, like one throwing down some +troublesome and heavy thing that he has labored gallantly to conceal. +It was the first word that she had spoken since they had taken refuge +from their close-pressing pursuers in the dugout that some old-time +homesteader had been driven away from by Chadron's cowboys. + +Macdonald was keeping his horse back from the door with the barrel of +his rifle, while he peered out cautiously again, perplexed to +understand the reason why Dalton had not led his men against them in a +charge. + +"Not all the way, Frances. She rode behind me till she got so cold and +sleepy I was afraid she'd fall off." + +"Yes, I'll bet she put on half of it!" she said, spitefully. "She +looked strong enough when you put her down there at the gate." + +This unexpected little outburst of jealousy was pleasant to his ears. +Above the trouble of that morning, and of the future which was charged +with it to the blackness of complete obscuration, her warrant of +affection was like a lifting sunbeam of hope. + +"I can't figure out what Dalton and that gang mean by this," said he, +the present danger again pressing ahead of the present joy. + +"I saw a man dodge behind that big rock across there a minute ago," +she said. + +"You keep back away from that door--don't lean over out of that +corner!" he admonished, almost harshly. "If you get where you can see, +you can be seen. Don't forget that." + +He resumed his watch at the little hole that he had drilled beside the +weight-bowed jamb of the door in the earth front of their refuge. She +sat silent in her dark corner across from him, only now and then +shaking her glove at the horses when one of them pricked up his ears +and shewed a desire to dodge out into the sunlight and pleasant +grazing spread on the hillside. + +It was cold and moldy in the dugout, and the timbers across the roof +were bent under the weight of the earth. It looked unsafe, but there +was only one place in it that a bullet could come through, and that +was the open door. There was no way to shut that; the original battens +of the homesteader lay under foot, broken apart and rotting. + +"Well, it beats me!" said he, his eye to the peephole in the wall. + +"If I'd keep one of the horses on this side it wouldn't crowd your +corner so," she suggested. + +"It would be better, only they'll cut loose at anything that passes +the door. They'll show their hand before long." He enlarged the hole +to admit his rifle barrel. She watched him in silence. Which was just +as well, for she had no words to express her admiration for his +steadiness and courage under the trying pressure of that situation. +Her confidence in him was so entire that she had no fear; it did not +admit a question of their safe deliverance. With him at her side, this +dangerous, grave matter seemed but a passing perplexity. She left it +to him with the confidence and up-looking trust of a child. + +While she understood the peril of their situation, fear, doubt, had no +place in her mind. She was under the protection of Alan Macdonald, the +infallible. + +No matter what others may think of a man's infallibility, it is only a +dangerous one who considers himself endowed with that more than human +attribute. Macdonald did not share her case of mind as he stood with +his eye to the squint-hole that he had bored beside the rotting jamb. + +"How did you find her? where was she?" she asked, her thoughts more on +the marvel of Nola's return than her own present danger. + +"I lost Thorn's trail that first day," he returned, "and then things +began to get so hot for us up the valley that I had to drop the search +and get those people back to safety ahead of Chadron's raid. Yesterday +afternoon we caught a man trying to get through our lines and down +into the valley. He was a half-breed trapper who lives up in the +foothills, carrying a note down to Chadron. I've got that curious +piece of writing around me somewhere--you can read it when this blows +by. Anyway, it was from Thorn, demanding ten thousand dollars in gold. +He wanted it sent back by the messenger, and he prescribed some +picturesque penalties in case of failure on Chadron's part." + +"And then you found her?" + +"I couldn't very well ask anybody else to go after her," he admitted, +with a modest reticence that amounted almost to being ashamed. "After +I made sure that we had Chadron's raiders cooped up where they +couldn't get out, I went up and got her. Thorn wasn't there, nobody +but the Indian woman, the 'breed's wife. She was the jailer--a regular +wildcat of a woman." + +That was all there was to be told, it seemed, as far as Macdonald was +concerned. He had the hole in the wall--at which he had worked as he +talked--to his liking now, and was squinting through it like a +telescope. + +"Nola wasn't afraid to come with you," she said, positively. + +"She didn't appear to be, Frances." + +"No; she _knew_ she was safe, no matter how little she deserved any +kindness at your hands. I know what she did--I know how she--how +she--_struck_ you in the face that time!" + +"Oh," said he, as if reminded of a trifle that he had forgotten. + +"Did she--put her arms around your neck that way _many_ times while +you were carrying her home?" + +"She did _not_! Many times! why, she didn't do it even once." + +"Oh, at the gate--I saw her!" + +He said nothing for a little while, only stood with head bent, as if +thinking it over. + +"Well, she didn't get very far with it," he said, quite seriously. +"Anyway, she was asleep then, and didn't know what she was doing. It +was just the subconscious reaching up of a falling, or dreaming, +child." + +She was not a little amused, in a quick turn from her serious bent of +jealousy, at his long and careful explanation of the incident. She +laughed, and the little green cloud that had troubled her blew away on +the gale of her mirth. + +"Oh, well!" said she, from her deep corner across the bright oblong of +the door, tossing it all away from her. "Do you think they'll go away +and let us come out after a while?" + +"I don't believe they've got any such intention. If it doesn't come to +a fight before then, I believe we'll have to drive the horses out +ahead of us after dark, and try to get away under the confusion. You +should have gone on, Frances, when I told you." + +The horses were growing restive, moving, stamping, snorting, and +becoming quarrelsome together. Macdonald's little range animal had a +viciousness in it, and would not make friends with the chestnut +cavalry horse. It squealed and bit, and even tried to use its heels, +at every friendly approach. + +Macdonald feared that so much commotion might bring the shaky, rotten +roof down on them. A hoof driven against one of the timbers which +supported it might do the trick, and bring them to a worse end than +would the waiting bullets of Dalton and his gang. + +"I'll have to risk putting that horse of yours over on your side," he +told her. "Stand ready to catch him, but don't lean a hair past the +door." + +He turned the horse and gave it a slap. As it crossed the bar of light +falling through the door, a shot cracked among the rocks. The bullet +knocked earth over him as it smacked in the facing of the door. The +man who had fired had shot obliquely, there being no shelter directly +in front, and that fact had saved the horse. + +Macdonald peered through his loophole. He could not see the smoke, but +he let them know that he was primed by answering the shot at random. +The shot drew a volley, a bullet or two striking the rear wall of the +cave. + +After that they waited for what might come between then and night. +They said little, for each was straining with unpleasant thoughts and +anxieties, and put to constant watchfulness to keep the horses from +slewing around into the line of fire. Every time a tail switched out +into the streak of light a bullet came nipping in. Sometimes Macdonald +let them go unanswered, and again he would spring up and drive away at +the rocks which he knew sheltered them, almost driven to the point of +rushing out and trying to dislodge them by storm. + +So the day wore by. They had been in the dugout since a little after +sunrise. Sunset was pale on the hilltops beyond them when Macdonald, +his strained and tired eyes to the loophole, saw Dalton and two of his +men slipping from rock to rock, drawing nearer for what he expected to +be the rush. + +"Can you shoot?" he asked her, his mouth hot and dry as if his blood +had turned to liquid fire. + +"Yes, I can shoot," she answered, steadily. + +He tossed one of his revolvers across to her, dimly seen now in the +deepening gloom of the cave, and flung a handful of cartridges after +it. + +"They're closing in on us for the rush, and I'm going to try to stop +them. Keep back there where you are, and hold your horse under cover +as long as you hear me shooting. If I stop first, call Dalton and tell +him who you are. I believe in that case he'll let you go." + +"I'm going to help you," she said, rising resolutely. "When you--stop +shooting--" she choked a little over the words, her voice caught in a +dry little sob--"then I'll stop shooting, too!" + +"Stay back there, Frances! Do you hear--stay back!" + +Somebody was on the roof of the dugout; under his weight clods of +earth fell, and then, with a soft breaking of rotten timber, a booted +foot broke through. It was on Frances' side, and the fellow's foot +almost touched her saddle as her frightened horse plunged. + +The man was tugging to drag his foot through the roof now, earth and +broken timber showering down. Macdonald only glanced over his +shoulder, as if leaving that trapped one to her. He was set for their +charge in front. She raised her revolver to fire as the other leg +broke through, and the fellow's body dropped into the enlarged hole. +At that moment the men in front fired a volley through the gaping +door. Frances saw the intruder drop to the ground, torn by the heavy +bullets from his companions' guns. + +The place was full of smoke, and the turmoil of the frightened horses, +and the noise of quick shots from Macdonald's station across the door. +She could not make anything out in the confusion as she turned from +the dead man to face the door, only that Macdonald was not at his +place at the loophole now. + +She called him, but her voice was nothing in the sound of firing. A +choking volume of smoke was packing the cave. She saw Macdonald's +horse lower its head and dash out, with a whip of its tail like a +defiance of her authority. Then in a moment everything was still out +there, with a fearful suddenness. + +She flung herself into the cloud of smoke that hung in the door, +sobbing Macdonald's name; she stumbled into the fresh sweet air, +almost blind in her anxiety, and the confusion of that quickly enacted +scene, her head bent as if to run under the bullets which she +expected. + +She did not see how it happened, she did not know that he was there; +but his arm was supporting her, his cool hand was on her forehead, +stroking her face as if he had plucked her drowning from the sea. + +"Where are they?" she asked, only to exclaim, and shrink closer to him +at the sight of one lying a few rods away, in that sprawling limp +posture of those who fall by violence. + +"There were only four of them--there the other two go." He pointed +down the little swale where the tall grass was still green. +Macdonald's horse had fallen to grazing there, his master's perils and +escapes all one to him now. It threw its head up and stood listening, +trotted a little way and stopped, ears stiff, nostrils stretched. + +"There's somebody coming," she said. + +"Yes--Chadron and a fresh gang, maybe." + +He sprang to the dugout door, where Frances' horse stood with its head +out inquiringly. + +"Jump up--quick!" he said, bringing the horse out. "Go this time, +Frances; don't hang back a second more!" + +"Never mind, Alan," she said, from the other side of the horse, "it's +the cavalry--I guess they've come after me." + +Major King was at the head of the detail of seven men which rode up, +horses a lather of sweat. He threw himself from the saddle and hurried +to Frances, his face full of the liveliest concern. Macdonald stepped +around to meet him. + +"Thank heaven! you're not hurt," the major said. + +"No, but we thought we were in for another fight," she told him, +offering him her hand in the gratefulness of her relief. He almost +snatched it in his eagerness, and drew her toward him, and stood +holding it in his haughty, proprietary way. "Mr. Macdonald--" + +"The scoundrels heard us coming and ran--we got a glimpse of them down +there. Chadron will have to answer for this outrage!" the major said. + +"Major King, this is Mr. Macdonald," said she, firmly, breaking down +the high manner in which the soldier persisted in overlooking and +eliminating the homesteader. + +Major King's face flushed; he drew back a hasty step as Macdonald +offered his hand, in the frank and open manner of an equal man who +raised no thought nor question on that point. + +"Sir, I've been hearing of the gallant _rescue_ that you made of +another young lady this morning," he said, with sneering emphasis. +"You are hardly the kind of a man I shake hands with!" + +The troopers, sitting their blowing horses a rod away, made their +saddles creak as they shifted to see this little dash of melodrama. +Macdonald's face was swept by a sudden paleness, as if a sickness had +come over him. He clenched his lean jaw hard; the firmness of his +mouth was grimmer still as his hand dropped slowly to his side. +Frances looked her indignation and censure into Major King's hot +eyes. + +"Mr. Macdonald has defended me like a gallant gentleman, sir! Those +ruffians didn't run because they heard you coming, but because he +faced them out here in the open, single-handed and alone, and drove +them to their horses, Major King!" + +The troopers were looking Macdonald over with favor. They had seen the +evidence of his stand against Chadron's men. + +"You're deceived in your estimation of the fellow, Miss Landcraft," +the major returned, red to the eyes in his offended dignity. "I +arrived at the ranch not an hour ago, detailed to escort you back to +the post. Will you have the kindness to mount at once, please?" + +He stepped forward to give her a hand into the saddle. But Macdonald +was before him in that office, urged to it by the quick message of her +eyes. From the saddle she leaned and gave him her warm, soft hand. + +"Your men need you, Mr. Macdonald--go to them," she said. "My prayers +for your success in this fight for the right will follow you." + +Macdonald was standing bareheaded at her stirrup. Her hand lingered a +moment in his, her eyes sounded the bottom of his soul. Major King, +with his little uprising of dignity, was a very small matter in the +homesteader's mind just then, although a minute past he had fought +with himself to keep from twisting the arrogant officer's neck. + +She fell in beside Major King, who was sitting grim enough in his way +now, in the saddle, and they rode away. Macdonald stood, hat in hand, +the last sunbeams of that day over his fair tangled hair, the smoke of +his conflict on his face, the tender light of a man's most sacred fire +in his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +BOOTS AND SADDLES + + +When Major King delivered Frances--his punctilious military observance +made her home-coming nothing less--to Colonel Landcraft, they found +that grizzled warrior in an electrical state of excitement. He was +moving in quick little charges, but with a certain grim system in all +of them, between desk and bookcases, letter files, cabinets, and back +to his desk again. He drew a document here, tucked one away there, +slipped an elastic about others assembled on his desk, and clapped a +sheaf of them in his pocket. + +Major King saluted within the door. + +"I have the honor to report the safe return of the detachment +dispatched to Alamito Ranch for the convoy of Miss Landcraft," he +said. + +Colonel Landcraft returned the salute, and stood stiffly while his +officer spoke. + +"Very well, sir," said he. Then flinging away his official stiffness, +he met Frances half-way as she ran to meet him, and enfolded her to +his breast, just as if his dry old heart knew that she had come to him +through perils. + +Breathlessly she told him the story, leaving no word unsaid that would +mount to the credit of Alan Macdonald. Colonel Landcraft was as hot as +blazing straw over the matter. He swore that he would roast Saul +Chadron's heart on his sword, and snatched that implement from the +chair where it hung as he spoke, and buckled it on with trembling +hand. + +King interposed to tell him that Chadron was not at the ranch, and +begged the colonel to delegate to him the office of avenger of this +insult and hazard that Frances had suffered at the hands of his men. +For a moment Colonel Landcraft held the young officer's eye with +thankful expression of admiration, then he drew himself up as if in +censure for wasted time, saluted, took a paper from his desk, and said +with grave dignity: + +"It must fall to you, Major King, to demand the reparation for this +outrage that I shall not be here to enforce. I am ordered to +Washington, sir, to make my appearance before the retiring board. The +department has vested the command of this post in you, sir--here is +the order. My soldiering days are at an end." + +He handed the paper to Major King, with a salute. With a salute the +young officer took it from his hand, an eager light in his eyes, a +flush springing to his pale face. Frances clung to her father's arm, a +little trembling moan on her lips as if she had received a mortal +hurt. + +"Never mind, never mind, dear heart," said the old man, a shake in his +own voice. Frances, looking up with her great pity into his stern, set +face, saw a tear creeping down his cheek, toughened by the fires of +thirty years' campaigns. + +"I'll never soldier any more," he said, "the politicians have got me. +They've been after me a long time, and they've got me. But there is +one easement in my disgrace--" + +"Don't speak of it on those terms, sir!" implored Major King, more a +man than a soldier as he laid a consoling hand on the old man's arm. + +"No, no!" said Frances, clinging to her father's hand. + +Colonel Landcraft smiled, looking from one to the other of them, and a +softness came into his face. He took Major King's hand and carried it +to join Frances', and she, in her softness for her father, allowed it +to remain in the young soldier's grasp. + +"There is one gleam of joy in the sundown of my life," the colonel +said, "and that is in seeing my daughter pledged to a soldier. I must +live in the reflection of your achievements, if I live beyond this +disgrace, sir." + +"I will try to make them worthy of my mentor, sir," Major King +returned. + +Frances stood with bowed head, the major still holding her hand in his +ardent grasp. + +"It's a crushing blow, to come before the preferment in rank that I +have been led to expect would be my retiring compensation!" The +colonel turned from them sharply, as if in pain, and walked in +marching stride across the room. Frances withdrew her hand, with a +little struggle, not softened by the appeal in the major's eyes. + +"My poor wife is bowed under it," the colonel spoke as he marched back +and forth. "She has hoped with me for some fitting reward for the +years of service I have unselfishly given to my country, sir, for the +surrender of my better self to the army. I'll never outlive it, I feel +that I'll never outlive it!" + +Colonel Landcraft had no thought apart from what he felt to be his +hovering disgrace. He had forgotten his rage against Chadron, +forgotten that his daughter had lived through a day as hazardous as +any that he had experienced in the Apache campaigns, or in his bleak +watches against the Sioux. He turned to her now, where she stood +weeping softly with bowed head, the grime of the dugout on her habit, +her hair, its bonds broken, straying over her face. + +"I had counted pleasurably on seeing you two married," he said, "but +something tells me I shall never come back from this journey, never +resume command of this post." He turned back to his marching, stopped +three or four paces along, turned sharply, a new light in his face. +"Why shouldn't it be before I leave--tonight, within the hour?" + +"Oh, father!" said Frances, in terrified voice, lifting her face in +its tear-wet loveliness. + +"I must make the train that leaves Meander at four o'clock tomorrow +morning, I shall have to leave here within--" he flashed out his watch +with his quick, nervous hand--"within three-quarters of an hour. What +do you say, Major King? Are you ready?" + +"I have been ready at any time for two years," Major King replied, in +trembling eagerness. + +Frances was thrown into such a mental turmoil by the sudden proposal +that she could not, at that moment, speak a further protest. She stood +with white face, her heart seeming to shrivel, and fall away to +laboring faintness. Colonel Landcraft was not considering her. He was +thinking that he must have three hours' sleep in the hotel at Meander +before the train left for Omaha. + +"Then we shall have the wedding at once, just as you stand!" he +declared. "We'll have the chaplain in and--go and tell your mother, +child, and--oh, well, throw on another dress if you like." + +Frances found her tongue as her danger of being married off in that +hot and hasty manner grew imminent. + +"I'm not going to marry Major King, father, now or at any future +time," said she, speaking slowly, her words coming with coldness from +her lips. + +"Silence! you have nothing to say, nothing to do but obey!" Colonel +Landcraft blazed up in sudden explosion, after his manner, and set his +heel down hard on the floor, making his sword clank in its scabbard on +his thigh. + +"I have not had much to say," Frances admitted, bitterly, "but I am +going to have a great deal to say in this matter now. Both of you have +gone ahead about this thing just as if I was irresponsible, both of +you--" + +"Hold your tongue, miss! I command you--hold your tongue!" + +"It's the farthest thing from my heart to give you pain, or disappoint +you in your calculations of me, father," she told him, her voice +gathering power, her words speed, for she was a warrior like himself, +only that her balance was not so easily overthrown; "but I am not +going to marry Major King." + +"Heaven and hell!" said Colonel Landcraft, stamping up and down. + +"Heaven _or_ hell," said she, "and not hell--if I can escape it." + +"I'll not permit this insubordination in a member of my family!" +roared the colonel, his face fiery, his rumpled eyebrows knitted in a +scowl. "I'll have obedience, with good grace, and at once, or damn my +soul, you'll leave my house!" + +"Major King, if you are a gentleman, sir, you will relieve me of this +unwelcome pressure to force me against my inclination. It is quite +useless, sir, I tell you most earnestly. I would rather die than marry +you--I would rather die!" + +"Sir, I have no wish to coerce the lady"--Major King's voice shook, +his words were low--"as she seems to have no preference for me, sir. +Miss Landcraft perhaps has placed her heart somewhere else." + +"She has no right to act with such treachery to me and you, sir," the +colonel said. "I'll not have it! Where else, sir--who?" + +"Spare me the humiliation of informing you," begged Major King, with +averted face, with sorrow in his voice. + +"Oh, you slanderous coward!" Frances assailed him with scorn of word +and look. Colonel Landcraft was shaking a trembling finger at her, his +face thrust within a foot of her own. + +"I'll not have it! you'll not--who is the fellow, who?" + +"There is nothing to conceal, there is no humiliation on my part in +speaking his name, but pride--the highest pride of my heart!" + +She stood back from them a little, her lofty head thrown back, her +face full of color now, the strength of defense of the man she loved +in her brave brown eyes. + +"Some low poltroon, some sneaking civilian--" + +"He is a man, father--you have granted that. His name is--" + +"Stop!" thundered the colonel. "Heaven and hell! Will you disgrace me +by making public confession of your shame? Leave this room, before you +drive me to send you from it with a curse!" + +In her room Frances heard the horses come to the door to carry her +father away. She had sat there, trembling and hot, sorry for his +foolish rage, hurt by his narrow injustice. Yet she had no bitterness +in her heart against him, for she believed that she knew him best. +When his passion had fallen he would come to her, lofty still, but +ashamed, and they would put it behind them, as they had put other +differences in the past. + +Her mother had gone to him to share the last moments of his presence +there, and to intercede for her. Now Frances listened, her hot cheek +in her hand, her eyes burning, her heart surging in fevered stroke. +There was a good deal of coming and going before the house; men came +up and dismounted, others rode away. Watching, her face against the +cool pane, she did not see her father leave. Yet he had not come to +her, and the time for his going was past. + +Her heart was sore and troubled at the thought that perhaps he had +gone without the word of pacification between them. It was almost +terrifying to her to think of that. She ran down the stairs and stood +listening at his closed door. + +That was not his voice, that heavy growl, that animal note. Saul +Chadron's; no other. Her mother came in through the front door, +weeping, and clasped Frances in her arms as she stood there, shadowy +in the light of the dim hall lamp. + +"He is gone!" she said. + +Frances did not speak. But for the first time in her life a feeling of +bitterness against her father for his hardness of heart and unbending +way of injustice lifted itself in her breast. She led her mother to +her own room, giving her such comfort as she could put into words. + +"He said he never marched out to sure defeat before," Mrs. Landcraft +told her. "I've seen him go many a time, Frances, but never with such +a pain in my heart as tonight!" + +And Saul Chadron was the man who had caused his going, Frances knew, a +new illumination having come over the situation since hearing his +voice in the colonel's office a few minutes past. Chadron had been at +Meander, telegraphing to the cattlemen's servants in Washington all +the time. He had demanded the colonel's recall, and the substitution +of Major King, because he wanted a man in authority at the post whom +he could use. + +This favoritism of Chadron made her distrustful at once of Major King. +There must be some scheming and plotting afoot. She went down and +stood in the hall again, not even above bending to listen at the +keyhole. Chadron was talking again. She felt that he must have been +talking all the time that she had been away. It must be an unworthy +cause that needed so much pleading, she thought. + +"Well, he'll not shoot, I tell you, King; he's too smart for that. +He'll have to be trapped into it. If you've got to have an excuse to +fire on them--and I can't see where it comes in, King, damn my neck if +I can--we've got to set a trap." + +"Leave that to me," returned Major King, coldly. + +"How much force are you authorized to use?" + +"The order leaves that detail to me. 'Sufficient force to restore +order,' it says." + +"I think you ort to take a troop, at the least, King, and a +cannon--maybe two." + +"I don't think artillery will be necessary, sir." + +"Well, I'll leave it to you, King, but I'd hate like hell to take you +up there and have that feller lick you. You don't know him like I do. +I tell you he'd lay on his back and fight like a catamount as long as +he had a breath left in him." + +"Can you locate them in the night?" + +"I think we'd have to wait up there somewheres for daybreak. I'm not +just sure which cañon they are in." + +There was silence. Frances peeped through the keyhole, but could see +nothing except thick smoke over bookcases and files. + +"Well, we'll not want to dislodge them before daylight, anyway," said +King. + +"If Macdonald can back off without a fight, he'll do it," Chadron +declared, "for he knows as well as you and I what it'd mean to fire on +the troops. And I want you to git him, King, and make sure you've got +him." + +"It depends largely on whether the fellow can be provoked into firing +on us, Chadron. You think he can be; so do I. But in case he doesn't, +the best we can do will be to arrest him." + +"What good would he be to me arrested, King? I tell you I want his +scalp, and if you bring that feller out of there in a sack you'll come +back a brigadier. I put you where you're at. Well, I can put you +higher just as easy. But the purty I want for my trouble is that +feller's scalp." + +There was the sound of somebody walking about, in quick, nervous +strides. Frances knew that Major King had got up from his usurped +place at the desk--place unworthily filled, this low intrigue with +Chadron aside, she knew--and was strutting in the shadow of his +promised glory. + +"Leave it to me, Chadron; I've got my own account to square with that +wolf of the range!" + +A sharp little silence, in which Frances could picture Chadron looking +at King in his covert, man-weighing way. Then Chadron went on: + +"King, I've noticed now and then that you seemed to have a soft spot +in your gizzard for that little girl of mine. Well, I'll throw her in +to boot if you put this thing through right. Is it a go?" + +"I'd hesitate to bargain for the young lady without her being a party +to the business," King replied, whether from wisdom born of his recent +experience, or through lack of interest in the proposal Frances could +not read in his even, well-pitched voice. + +"Oh, she'd jump at you like a bullfrog at red flannel," Chadron +assured him. "I could put your uniform on a wooden man and marry him +off to the best girl in seven states. They never think of lookin' +under a soldier's vest." + +"You flatter me, Mr. Chadron, and the uniform of the United States +army," returned King, with barely covered contempt. "Suppose we allow +events to shape themselves in regard to Miss Chadron. She'll hardly be +entertaining marriage notions yet--after her recent experience." + +Chadron got up so quickly he overturned his chair. + +"By God, sir! do you mean to intimate you wouldn't have her after what +she's gone through? Well, I'll put a bullet through any man that +says--" + +"Oh, hold yourself in, Chadron; there's no call for this." + +King's cold contempt would have been like a lash to a man of finer +sensibilities than Saul Chadron. As it was, Frances could hear the +heavy cattleman breathing like a mad bull. + +"When you talk about my little girl, King, go as easy as if you was +carryin' quicksilver in a dish. You told me she was all right a little +while ago, and I tell you I don't like--" + +"Miss Chadron was as bright as a redbird when I saw her this +afternoon," King assured him, calmly. "She has suffered no harm at the +hands of Macdonald and his outlaws." + +"He'll dance in hell for that trick before the sun goes down on +another day!" + +"His big play for sympathy fell flat," said King, with a contemptuous +laugh. "There wasn't much of a crowd on hand when he arrived at the +ranch." + +Silence. A little shifting of feet, a growl from Chadron, and a +curse. + +"But as for your proposal involving Miss Chadron, I am honored by it," +said King. + +"Any man would be!" Chadron declared. + +"And we will just let it stand, waiting the lady's sanction." + +That brightened Chadron up. He moved about, and there was a sound as +if he had slapped the young officer on the back in pure comradeship +and open admiration. + +"What's your scheme for drawin' that feller into firin' on your men?" +he asked. + +"We'll talk it over as we go," said King. + +A bugle lifted its sharp, electrifying note in the barracks. + +"Boots and saddles!" Chadron said. + +"Yes; we march at nine o'clock." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE TRAIL OF THE COFFEE + + +"You done right to come to the mission after me, for I'd ride to the +gatepost of hell to turn a trick agin Saul Chadron!" + +Banjo's voice had a quaver of earnestness in it that needed no +daylight to enforce. The pitchy night made a bobbing blur of him as he +rode his quick-stepping little horse at Frances Landcraft's side. + +"Yes, you owe him one," Frances admitted. + +"And I'll pay him before mornin' or it won't be no fault of mine. That +there little ten-cent-size major he'd 'a' stopped you if he'd 'a' +known you was goin', don't you suppose?" + +"I'm sure he would have, Mr. Gibson." + +"Which?" said Banjo. + +"Banjo," she corrected. + +"Now, that sounds more comfortabler," he told her. "I didn't know for +a minute who you meant, that name's gittin' to be a stranger to me." + +"Well, we don't want a stranger along tonight," said she, seriously. + +"You're right, we don't. That there horse you're ridin' he's a good +one, as good as any in the cavalry, even if he ain't as tall. He was +an outlaw till Missus Mathews tamed him down." + +"How did she do it--not break him like a bronco-buster?" + +"No, she done it like she tames Injuns and other folks, by gentle +words and gentler hands. Some they'll tell you she's sunk down to the +ways of Injuns, clean out of a white man's sight in the dirt and +doin's of them dead-horse eatin' 'Rapahoes. But I know she ain't. She +lets herself down on a level to reach 'em, and git her hands under 'em +so she can lift 'em up, the same as she puts herself on my level when +she wants to reach me, or your level, or anybody's level, mom." + +"Her eyes and her soft ways tell you that, Banjo, as plain as any +words." + +"She's done ten times as much as that big-backed buffalo of a preacher +she's married to ever done for his own people, or ever will. He's clim +above 'em with his educated ways; the Injun's ironed out of that man. +You can't reach down and help anybody up, mom, if you go along through +this here world on stilts." + +"Not very well, Banjo." + +"You need both of your hands to hold your stilts, mom; you ain't got +even a finger to spare for a low-down feller like me." + +"You're not a low-down fellow, Banjo. Don't be calling yourself +names." + +"I was low-down enough to believe what they told me about Macdonald +shootin' up Chance Dalton. I believed it till Missus Mathews give me +the straight of it. One of them Injun police fellers told her how that +job was put up, and how it failed to work." + +"A man named Lassiter told me about it." + +They rode along in silence a long time after that. Then Banjo-- + +"Well, I hope we don't bust out onto them cavalry fellers too sudden +and meet a flock of bullets. I'd never forgive the man that put a +bullet through my fiddle." + +"We'll go slowly, and keep listening; I can tell cavalry from cowboys +as far as I can hear." + +"I bet a purty you can, brought up with 'em like you was." + +"They'll not be able to do anything before daylight, and when we +overtake them we'll ride around and get ahead while they're waiting +for morning. I don't know where the homesteaders are, but they'll be +sending out scouts to locate them, and we can watch." + +They were following the road that the cavalry had taken an hour in +advance of them. Listening now, they rode on without words. Now and +then a bush at the roadside flipped a stirrup, now and again Banjo's +little horse snorted in short impatience, as if expressing its +disapproval of this journey through the dark. Night was assertive in +its heaviness, but communicative of its mysteries in its wild +scents--the silent music of its hour. + +There are those who, on walking in the night, can tell the hour by the +smell, the taste, the elusive fine aroma of the quiet air. Before +midnight it is like a new-lit censer; in the small hours the smell of +old camp fires comes trailing, and the scent of rain upon embers. + +But Frances Landcraft was not afraid of the night as she rode silently +through it with Banjo Gibson at her side. There was no shudder in it +for her as there had been on the night that Nola was stolen; it could +not have raised up a terror grim enough to turn her back upon the +road. + +Her one thought was that she must reach Macdonald before Chadron and +King could find him, and tell him that the troops were coming, and +that he was to be trapped into firing upon them. She knew that many +lives depended upon her endurance, courage, and strategy; many lives, +but most of all Alan Macdonald's life. He must be warned, at the cost +of her own safety, her own life, if necessary. + +To that end the troops must be followed, and a desperate dash at +daylight must be made into Macdonald's camp. Perhaps it would be a +race with the cavalry at the last moment. + +Banjo said it was beginning to feel like morning. An hour past they +had crossed the river at the ford near Macdonald's place, and the +foothills stood rough and black against the starry horizon. They were +near them now, so near that the deeper darkness of their timbered +sides fell over them like a cold shadow. + +Suddenly she checked Banjo with a sharp word. + +"I heard them!" she whispered. + +Banjo's little horse, eager for the fellowship of its kind as his +master was for his own in his way, threw up its head and whinnied. +Banjo churned it with his heels, slapped it on the side of the head, +and shut off the shrill call in a grunt, but the signal had gone +abroad. From the blackness ahead it was answered, and the slow wind +prowling down from the hills ahead of dawn carried the scent of +cigarettes to them as they waited breathlessly for results. + +"They're dismounted, and waiting for daylight," she said. "We must +ride around them." + +They were leaving the road, the low brush rasping harshly on their +stirrups--as loud as a bugle-call, it seemed to Frances--when a dash +of hoofs from ahead told that a detachment was coming to investigate. +Now there came a hail. Frances stopped; Banjo behind her whispered to +know what they should do. + +"Keep that little fool horse still!" she said. + +Now the patrol, which had stopped to hail, was coming on again. +Banjo's horse was not to be sequestered, nor his craving for +companionship in that lonesome night suppressed. He lifted his shrill +nicker again, and a shot from the outriders of cavalry was the +answer. + +"Answer them, tell them who you are Banjo--they all know you--and I'll +slip away. Good-bye, and thank you for your brave help!" + +"I'll go with you, they'll hear one as much as they'll hear two." + +"No, no, you can help me much better by doing as I tell you. Tell them +that a led horse got away from you, and that's the noise of it running +away." + +She waited for no more words, for the patrol was very near, and now +and then one of them fired as he rode. Banjo yelled to them. + +"Say, you fellers! Stop that fool shootin' around here, I tell you!" + +"Who are you?" came the answer. + +"Banjo, you darned fool! And I tell you right now, pardner, the first +man that busts my fiddle with a bullet'll have to mix with me!" + +The soldiers came up laughing, and heard Banjo's explanation of the +horse, still dimly heard, galloping off. Frances stopped to listen. +Presently she heard them coming on again, evidently not entirely +satisfied with Banjo's story. But the parley with him had delayed +them; she had a good lead now. + +In a little swale, where the greasewood reached above her head, she +stopped again to listen. She heard the troopers beating the bushes +away off to one side, and knew that they soon would give it up. When +they passed out of her hearing, she rode on, slowly, and with +caution. + +She was frontiersman enough to keep her direction by the north +star--Colonel Landcraft had seen to that particular of her education +himself--but Polaris would not tell her which way to go to find Alan +Macdonald and his dusty men standing their vigil over their cooped-up +enemies. Nothing but luck, she knew, could lead her there, for she was +in a sea of sage-brush, with the black river valley behind her, the +blacker hills ahead, and never a mark of a trail to follow anywhere. + +She had rounded the cavalry troop and left it far behind; the silence +which immersed the sleeping land told her this. No hoof but her own +mount's beat the earth within sound, no foot but hers strained +saddle-leather within reach of her now, she believed. + +There was only one thing to do; ride slowly in the direction that she +had been holding with Banjo, and keep eyes, ears, and nose all on the +watch. The ways of the range were early; if there was anybody within a +mile of her to windward she would smell the smoke of his fire when he +lit it, and see the wink of it, too, unless he built it low. + +But it was neither the scent of fire nor the red eye of it winking on +the hill that at length gave her despairing heart a fresh handful of +hope--nothing less indeed than the aroma of boiling coffee. It had +such a feeling of comfort and welcome, of domesticity and peace in it +that she felt as if she approached a door with a friend standing ready +to take her horse. + +Her horse was not insensible to the cheer that somebody was brewing +for himself in that wild place. She felt him quicken under her, and +put up his head eagerly, and go forward as if he was nearing home. She +wondered how far the smell of coffee would carry, and subsequent +experience was a revelation on that point. + +She had entered the hills, tracking back that wavering scent of +coffee, which rose fresh and sudden now, and trailed away the next +moment to the mere color of a smell. Now she had it, now she lost it, +as she wound over rugged ridges and through groves of quaking-asp and +balm of Gilead trees, always mounting among the hills, her eager horse +taking the way without guidance, as keen on the scent as she. + +It must have taken her an hour to run down that coffee pot. Morning +was coming among the fading stars when she mounted a long ridge, the +quick striding of her horse indicating that there was something ahead +at last, and came upon the camp fire, the coffee, and the cook, all +beside a splintered gray rock that rose as high as a house out of the +barrenness of the hill. + +The coffee-maker was a woman, and her pot was of several gallons' +capacity. She was standing with the cover of the boiler in one hand, a +great spoon in the other, her back half bent over her beverage, in the +position that the sound of Frances' coming had struck her. She did not +move out of that alert pose of suspicion until Frances drew rein +within a few feet of her and gave her good-morning. When the poor +harried creature saw that the visitor was a woman, her fright gave +place to wonder. + +Frances introduced herself without parley, and made inquiry for +Macdonald. + +"Why, bless your heart, you don't aim to tell me you rode all the way +from the post in the night by yourself?" the simple, friendly creature +said. "Well, Mr. Macdonald and most of the men they've left to take +them scoun'rels sent in here by the cattlemen to murder all of us over +to the jail at Meander." + +"How long have they been gone?" + +"Why, not so very long. I reckon you must 'a' missed meetin' 'em by a +hair." + +"I've got to catch up with them, right away! Is there anybody here +that can guide me?" + +"My son can, and he'll be glad. He's just went to sleep back there in +the tent after guardin' them fellers all night. I'll roust him out." + +The pioneer woman came back almost at once, and pressed a cup of her +coffee upon Frances. Frances took the tin vessel eagerly, for she was +chilled from her long ride. Then she dismounted to rest her horse +while her guide was getting ready, and warm her numb feet at the fire. +She told the woman how the scent of her coffee had led her out of her +groping like a beacon light on the hill. + +"It's about three miles from here down to the valley," the woman said. +"Coffee will carry on the mornin' air that way." + +"Do you think your son--?" + +"He's a-comin'," the woman replied. + +The boy came around the rock, leading a horse. He was wide awake and +alert, bare-footed, bareheaded, and without a coat. He leaped nimbly +onto his bare-backed beast, and Frances got into her saddle as fast as +her numb limbs would lift her. + +As she road away after the recklessly riding youth, she felt the hope +that she had warmed in her bosom all night paling to a shadow. It +seemed that, circumstances were ranging after a chart marked out for +them, and that her own earnest effort to interfere could not turn +aside the tragedy set for the gray valley below her. + +Morning was broadening now; she could see her guide distinctly even +when he rode many rods ahead. Dawn was the hour for treacherous men +and deeds of stealth; Chadron would be on the way again before now, +with the strength of the United States behind him to uphold his +outlawed hand. + +When they came down into the valley there was a low-spreading mist +over the gray sage, which lent a warmth to the raw morning wind. There +was a sense of indistinctness through the mist which was an ally to +Chadron. Ten rods away, even in the growing morning, it would have +been impossible to tell a cowboy from a cavalryman. + +Here a haystack smoldered in what had been a farmstead yard; its thin +blue smoke wavered up in the morning, incense over the dead hope of +the humble heart that had dreamed it had found a refuge in that spot. +At the roadside a little farther on the burned ruins of a cabin lay. +It had stood so near the wheel track that the heat of its embers was +warm on Frances' face as she galloped by. The wire fence was cut +between each post, beyond splicing or repair; the shrubs which some +home-hungry woman had set in her dooryard were trampled; the well curb +was overthrown. + +Over and over again as they rode that sad picture was repeated. +Destruction had swept the country, war had visited it. Side by side +upon the adjoining lines many of the homesteaders had built their +little houses, for the comfort of being near their kind. In the corner +of each quarter section on either side of the road along the fertile +valley, a little home had stood three days ago. Now all were gone, +marked only by little heaps of embers which twinkled a dying glow in +the breath of the morning wind. + +Day was spreading now. From the little swells in the land as she +mounted them Frances could see the deeper mist hovering in the low +places, the tops of tall shrubs and slender quaking-asp showing above +it as if they stood in snow. The band of sunrise was broadening across +the east; far down near the horizon a little slip of lemon-rind moon +was faltering out of sight. + +But there was no sight, no sound, of anybody in the road ahead. She +spurred up beside her guide and asked him if there was any other way +that they might have taken. No, he said; they would have to go that +way, for there was only one fordable place in the river for many +miles. He pointed to the road, fresh-turned by many hoofs, and clamped +his lean thighs to his bare horse, galloping on. + +"We'll take a cut acrosst here, and maybe head 'em off," he said, +dashing away through the stirrup-high sage, striking close to the +hills again, and into rougher going. + +The ache of the most intense anxiety that she ever had borne was upon +Frances; hope was only a shred in her hand. She believed now that all +her desperate riding must come to nothing in the end. + +She never had been that long in the saddle before in her life. Her +body was numb with cold and fatigue; she felt the motion of her horse, +heard its pounding feet in regular beat as it held to its long, +swinging gallop, but with the detached sense of being no party to it. +All that was sharp in her was the pain of her lost struggle. For she +expected every moment to hear firing, and to come upon confusion and +death at the next lift of the hill. + +In their short cut across the country they had mounted the top of a +long, slender ridge, which reached down into the valley like a finger. +Now her guide pulled up his horse so suddenly that it slid forward on +stiff legs, its hoofs plowing the loose shale. + +"You'd better go back--there's goin' to be a fight!" he said, a look +of shocked concern in his big wild eyes. + +"Do you see them? Where--" + +"There they are!"--he clutched her arm, leaning and pointing--"and +there's a bunch of fellers comin' to meet 'em that they don't see! I +tell you there's goin' to be a fight!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"I BEAT HIM TO IT" + + +The last dash of that long ride was only a whirlwind of emotions to +Frances. It was a red streak. She did not know what became of the boy; +she left him there as she lashed her horse past him on the last +desperate stretch. + +The two forces were not more than half a mile apart, the cavalry just +mounting at the ruins of a homestead where she knew they had stopped +for breakfast at the well. A little band of outriders was setting off, +a scouting party under the lead of Chadron, she believed. Macdonald's +men, their prisoners under guard between two long-strung lines of +horsemen, were proceeding at a trot. Between the two forces the road +made a long curve. Here it was bordered by brushwood that would hide a +man on horseback. + +When Frances broke through this screen which had hidden the cavalry +from Macdonald, she found the cavalcade halted, for Macdonald had seen +her coming down the hill. She told him in few words what her errand to +him was, Tom Lassiter and those who rode with him at the head of the +column pressing around. + +The question and mystification in Macdonald's face at her coming +cleared with her brisk words. There was no wonder to him any more in +her being there. It was like her to come, winging through the night +straight to him, like a dove with a message. If it had been another +woman to take up that brave and hardy task, then there would have been +marvel in it. As it was, he held out his hand to her, silently, like +one man to another in a pass where words alone would be weak and +lame. + +"I was looking for Chadron to come with help and attempt a rescue, and +I was moving to forestall him, but we were late getting under way. +They"--waving his hand toward the prisoners--"held out until an hour +ago." + +"You must think, and think fast!" she said. "They're almost here!" + +"Yes. I'm going ahead to meet them, and offer to turn these prisoners +over to Major King. They'll have no excuse for firing on us then." + +"No, no! some other way--think of some other way!" + +He looked gravely into her anxious, pleading eyes. "Why, no matter, +Frances. If they've come here to do that, they'll do it, but this way +they'll have to do it in the open, not by a trick." + +"I'll go with you," she said. + +"I think perhaps--" + +"I'll go!" + +Macdonald turned to Lassiter in a few hurried words. She pressed to +his side as the two rode away alone to meet the troops, repeating as +if she had been denied: + +"I'll go!" + +There was a dash of hoofs behind them, and a man who rode like a sack +of bran came bouncing up, excitement over his large face. + +"What's up, Macdonald--where're you off to?" he inquired. + +Macdonald told him in a word, riding forward as he spoke. He +introduced the stranger as a newspaper correspondent from Chicago, who +had arrived at the homesteaders' camp the evening past. + +"So they got troops, did they?" the newspaper man said, riding forward +keenly. "Yes, they told me down in Cheyenne they'd put that trick +through. Here they come!" + +Macdonald spurred ahead, holding up his right hand in the Indian sign +of peace. Major King was riding with Chadron at the head of the +vanguard. They drew rein suddenly at sight of what appeared to be such +a formidable force at Macdonald's back, for at that distance, and with +the dimness of the scattering mist, it appeared as if several hundred +horsemen were approaching. + +Distrustful of Chadron, fearing that he might induce Major King to +shoot Macdonald down as he sat there making overtures of peace, +Frances rode forward and joined him, the correspondent coming jolting +after her in his horn-riding way. After a brief parley among +themselves Chadron and King, together with three or four officers, +rode forward. One remained behind, and halted the column as it came +around the brushwood screen at the turn of the road. + +Major King greeted Frances as he rode up, scowling in high dignity. +Chadron could not cover his surprise so well as Major King at seeing +her there, her horse in a sweat, her habit torn where the brambles had +snatched at her in her hard ride to get ahead of the troops. He gave +her a cold good-morning, and sat in the attitude of a man pricking up +his ears as he leaned a little to peer into the ranks of the force +ahead. + +The homesteaders had come to a halt a hundred yards behind Macdonald; +about the same distance behind Major King and his officers the cavalry +had drawn up across the road. Major King sat in brief silence, as if +waiting for Macdonald to begin. He looked the homesteader captain over +with severe eyes. + +"Well, sir?" said he. + +"We were starting for Meander, Major King, to deliver to the sheriff +fifty men whom we have taken in the commission of murder and arson," +Macdonald replied, with dignity. "Up to a few minutes ago we had no +information that martial law had superseded the civil in this troubled +country, but since that is the case, we will gladly turn our prisoners +over to you, with the earnest request that they be held, collectively +and individually, to answer for the crimes they have committed here." + +"Them's my men, King--they've got 'em there!" said Chadron, boiling +over the brim. + +"This expedition has come to the relief of certain men, attacked and +surrounded in the discharge of their duty by a band of cattle thieves +of which you are the acknowledged head," replied Major King. + +"Then you have come on a mistaken errand, sir," Macdonald told him. + +"I have come into this lawless country to restore order and insure the +lives and safety of property of the people to whom it belongs." + +"The evidence of these hired raiders' crimes lies all around you, +Major King," Macdonald said. "These men swept in here in the employ of +the cattle interests, burned these poor homes, and murdered such of +the inhabitants as were unable to fly to safety in the hills ahead of +them. We are appealing to the law; the cattlemen never have done +that." + +"Say, Mr. Soldier, let me tell you something"--the newspaper +correspondent, to whom one man's dignity was as much as another's, +kicked his horse forward--"these raiders that bloody-handed Chadron +sent in here have murdered children and women, do you know that?" + +"Who in the hell are you?" Chadron demanded, bristling with rage, +whirling his horse to face him. + +"This is Chadron," Macdonald said, a little flash of humor in his eyes +over Chadron's hearing the truth about himself from an unexpected +source. + +"Well, I'm glad I've run into you, Chadron; I've got a little list of +questions to ask you," the correspondent told him, far from being +either impressed or cowed. "Neel is my name, of the _Chicago Tribune_, +I've--" + +"You'd just as well keep your questions for another day--you'll send +nothing out of here!" said Major King, sharply. + +Neel looked across his nose at King with triumphant leer. + +"I've sent out something, Mr. Soldier-man," said he; "it was on the +wire by midnight last night, rushed to Meander by courier, and it's +all over the country this morning. It's a story that'll give the other +side of this situation up here to the war department, and it'll make +this whole nation climb up on its hind legs and howl. Murder? Huh, +murder's no name for it!" + +Chadron was growling something below his breath into King's ear. + +"Forty-three men and boys--look at them, there they are--rounded up +fifty of the cutthroats the Drovers' Association rushed up here from +Cheyenne on a special train to wipe the homesteaders out," Neel +continued, rising to considerable heat in the partisanship of his new +light. "Five dollars a day was the hire of that gang, and five dollars +bonus for every man, woman, or baby that they killed! Yes, I've got +signed statements from them, Chadron, and I'd like to know what you've +got to say, if anything?" + +"Disarm that rabble," said Major King, speaking to a subordinate +officer, "and take charge of the men they have been holding." + +"Sir, I protest--" Macdonald began. + +"I have no words to waste on you!" Major King cut him off shortly. + +"I'd play a slow hand on that line, King, and a careful one, if I were +you," advised Neel. "If you take these men's guns away from them +they'll be at the mercy of Chadron's brigands. I tell you, man, I know +the situation in this country!" + +"Thank you," said King, in cold hauteur. + +Chadron's eyes were lighting with the glitter of revenge. He sat +grinding his bridle-reins in his gloved hand, as if he had the bones +of the nesters in his palm at last. + +"You will proceed, with the rescued party under guard, to Meander," +continued Major King to his officer, speaking as if he had plans for +his own employment aside from the expedition. "There, Mr. Chadron will +furnish transportation to return them whence they came." + +"I'll furnish--" began Chadron, in amazement at this unexpected turn. + +"Transportation, sir," completed Major King, in his cold way. + +"These men should be held to the civil authorities for trial in this +county, and not set free," Macdonald protested, indignant over the +order. + +Major King ignored him. He was still looking at Chadron, who was +almost choking on his rage. + +"Hell! Do you mean to tell me the whole damn thing's goin' to fizzle +out this way, King? I want something done, I tell you--I want +something done! I didn't bring you up here--" + +"Certainly not, sir!" snapped King. + +"My orders to you--" Chadron flared. + +"It happens that I am not marching under your orders at--" + +"The hell you ain't!" Chadron exploded. + +"It's an outrage on humanity to turn those scoundrels loose, Major +King!" Neel said. "Why, I've got signed statements, I tell you--" + +"Remove this man to the rear!" Major King addressed a lieutenant, who +communicated the order to the next lowest in rank immediately at hand, +who passed it on to two troopers, who came forward briskly and rode +the protesting correspondent off between them. + +Other troopers were collecting the arms of the homesteaders, a +proceeding which Macdonald witnessed with a sick heart. Frances, +sitting her horse in silence through all that had passed, gave him +what comfort and hope she could express with her eyes. + +"Detail a patrol of twenty men," Major King continued his instructions +to his officer, "to keep the roads and disarm all individuals and +bands encountered." + +"That don't apply to my men!" declared Chadron, positively. In his +face there was a dark threat of disaster for Major King's future hopes +of advancement. + +"It applies to everybody as they come," said King. "Troops have come +in here to restore order, and order will be restored." + +Chadron was gaping in amazement. That feeling in him seemed to smother +every other, even his hot rage against King for this sudden shifting +of their plans and complete overthrow of the cattlemen's expectations +of the troops. The one little comfort that he was to get out of the +expedition was that of seeing his raiders taken out of Macdonald's +hands and marched off to be set free. + +Macdonald felt that he understood the change in King. The major had +come there full of the intention of doing Chadron's will; he had not a +doubt of that. But murder, even with the faint color of excuse that +they would have contrived to give it, could not be done in the eyes of +such a witness as Frances Landcraft. Subserviency, a bending of +dignity even, could not be stooped to before one who had been schooled +to hold a soldier's honor his most precious endowment. + +Major King had shown a hand of half-fairness in treating both sides +alike. That much was to his credit, at the worst. But he had not done +it because he was a high-souled and honorable man. His eyes betrayed +him in that, no matter how stern he tried to make them. The coming of +that fair outrider in the night had turned aside a great tragedy, and +saved Major King partly to himself, at least, and perhaps wholly to +his career. + +Macdonald tried to tell her in one long and earnest look all this. She +nodded, seeming to understand. + +"You've double-crossed me, King," Chadron accused, in the flat voice +of a man throwing down his hand. "I brought you up here to throw these +nesters off of our land." + +"The civil courts must decide the ownership of that," returned King, +sourly. "Disarm that man!" He indicated Macdonald, and turned his +horse as if to ride back and join his command. + +The lieutenant appeared to feel that it would be no lowering of his +dignity to touch the weapons of a man such as Macdonald's bearing that +morning had shown him to be. He approached with a smile half +apologetic. Chadron was sitting by on his horse watching the +proceeding keenly. + +"Pardon me," said the officer, reaching out to receive Macdonald's +guns. + +A swift change swept over Macdonald's face, a flush dyeing it to his +ears. He sat motionless a little while, as if debating the question, +the young officer's hand still outstretched. Macdonald dropped his +hand, quickly, as if moved to shorten the humiliation, to the buckle +of his belt, and opened it with deft jerk. At that moment Chadron, ten +feet away, slung a revolver from his side and fired. + +Macdonald rocked in his saddle as Frances leaped to the ground and ran +to his side. He wilted forward, his hat falling, and crumpled into her +arms. The lieutenant relieved her of her bloody burden, and eased +Macdonald to the ground. + +Major King came riding back. At his sharp command troopers surrounded +Chadron, who sat with his weapon still poised, like one gazing at the +mark at which he had fired, the smoke of his shot around him. + +"In a second he'd 'a' got me! but I beat him to it, by God! I beat him +to it!" he said. + +Macdonald's belt had slipped free of his body. With its burden of +cartridges and its two long pistols it lay at Frances' feet. She +stooped, a little sound in her throat between a sob and a cry, jerked +one of the guns out, wheeled upon Chadron and fired. The lieutenant +struck up her arm in time to save the cattleman's life. The blow sent +the pistol whirling out of her hand. + +"They will go off that way, sometimes," said the young officer, with +apology in his soft voice. + +The soldiers closed around Chadron and hurried him away. A moment +Major King sat looking at Macdonald, whose blood was wasting in the +roadside dust from a wound in his chest. Then he flashed a look into +Frances' face that had a sneer of triumph in it, wheeled his horse and +galloped away. + +In a moment the lieutenant was summoned, leaving Frances alone between +the two forces with Macdonald. She did not know whether he was dead. +She dropped to her knees in the dust and began to tear frantically at +his shirt to come to the wound. Tom Lassiter came hurrying up with +others, denouncing the treacherous shot, swearing vengeance on the +cowardly head that had conceived so murderous a thing. + +Lassiter said that he was not dead, and set to work to stem the blood. +It seemed to Frances that the world had fallen away from her, leaving +her alone. She stood aside a little, her chin up in her old imperious +way, her eyes on the far hills where the tender sunlight was just +striking among the white-limbed aspen trees. But her heart was bent +down to the darkness of despair. + +She asked no questions of the men who were working so earnestly after +their crude way to check that precious stream; she stood in the +activity of passing troopers and escorted raiders insensible of any +movement or sound in all the world around her. Only when Tom Lassiter +stood from his ministrations and looked at her with understanding in +his old weary eyes she turned her face back again, slowly resolute, to +see if he had died. + +Her throat was dry. It took an effort to bring a sound from it, and +then it was strained and wavering. + +"Is he--dead?" + +"No, miss, he ain't dead," Tom answered. But there was such a shadow +of sorrow and pain in his eyes that tears gushed into her own. + +"Will--will--" + +Tom shook his head. "The Lord that give him alone can answer that," he +said, a feeling sadness in his voice. + +The troops had moved on, save the detail singled for police duty. +These were tightening girths and trimming for the road again a little +way from the spot where Macdonald lay. The lieutenant returned +hastily. + +"Miss Landcraft, I am ordered to convey you to Alamito Ranch--under +guard," said he. + +Banjo Gibson, held to be harmless and insignificant by Major King, had +been set free. Now he came up, leading his horse, shocked to the +deepest fibers of his sensitive soul by the cowardly deed that Saul +Chadron had done. + +"It went clean through him!" he said, rising from his inspection of +Macdonald's wound. And then, moved by the pain in Frances' tearless +eyes, he enlarged upon the advantages of that from a surgical view. +"The beauty of a hole in a man's chest like that is that it lets the +pizen dreen off," he told her. "It wouldn't surprise me none to see +Mac up and around inside of a couple of weeks, for he's as hard as old +hick'ry." + +"Well, I'm not going to Alamito Ranch and leave him out here to die of +neglect, orders or no orders!" said she to the lieutenant. + +The young officer's face colored; he plucked at his new mustache in +embarrassment. Perhaps the prospect of carrying a handsome and +dignified young lady in his arms for a matter of twenty-odd miles was +not as alluring to him as it might have been to another, for he was a +slight young man, only a little while out of West Point. But orders +were orders, and he gave Frances to understand that in diplomatic and +polite phrasing. + +She scorned him and his veneration for orders, and turned from him +coldly. + +"Is there no doctor with your detachment?" she asked. + +"He has gone on with the main body, Miss Landcraft. They have several +wounded." + +"Wounded murderers and burners of homes! Well, I'm not going to +Alamito Ranch with you, sir, unless you can contrive an ambulance of +some sort and take this gentleman too." + +The officer brightened. He believed it could be arranged. Inside of an +hour he had Tom Lassiter around with a team and spring wagon, in which +the homesteaders laid Macdonald tenderly upon a bed of hay. + +Banjo waited until they were ready to begin their slow march to the +ranch, when he led his little horse forward. + +"I'll go on to the agency after the doctor and send him over to +Alamito as quick as he can go," he said. "And I'll see if Mother +Mathews can go over, too. She's worth four doctors when it comes to +keep the pizen from spreadin' in a wound." + +Frances gave him her benediction with her eyes, and farewell with a +warm handclasp, and Banjo's beribboned horse frisked off on its long +trip, quite refreshed from the labors of the past night. + +Frances was carrying Macdonald's cartridge belt and revolvers, the +confiscation of which had been overlooked by Major King in the +excitement of the shooting. The young lieutenant hadn't the heart to +take the weapons from her. Orders had been carried out; Macdonald had +been disarmed. He let it go at that. + +Frances rode in the wagon with Macdonald, a canteen of water slung +over her shoulders. Now and then she moistened his lips with a little +of it, and bathed his eyes, closed in pathetic weariness. He was +unconscious still from the blow of Saul Chadron's big bullet. As she +ministered to him she felt that he would open his eyes on this world's +pains and cruel injustices nevermore. + +And why had Major King ordered her, virtually under arrest, to Alamito +Ranch, instead of sending her in disgrace to the post? Was it because +he feared that she would communicate with her father from the post, +and discover to him the treacherous compact between Chadron and King, +or merely to take a mean revenge upon her by humiliating her in Nola +Chadron's eyes? + +He had taken the newspaper correspondent with him, and certainly would +see that no more of the truth was sent out by him from that +flame-swept country for several days. With her at the ranch, far from +telegraphic communication with the world, nothing could go out from +her that would enlighten the department on the deception that the +cattlemen had practiced to draw the government into the conflict on +their side. In the meantime, the Drovers' Association would be at +work, spreading money with free hand, corrupting evidence with the old +dyes of falsehood. + +Major King had seen his promised reward withdrawn through her +intervention, and had made a play of being fair to both sides in the +controversy, except that he kept one hand on Chadron's shoulder, so to +speak, in making martyrs of those bloody men whom he had sent there to +burn and kill. They were to be shipped safely back to their place, +where they would disperse, and walk free of all prosecution +afterwards. For that one service to the cattlemen Major King could +scarcely hope to win his coveted reward. + +She believed that Alan Macdonald would die. It seemed that the fever +which would consume his feeble hope of life was already kindling on +his lips. But she had no tears to pour out over him now. Only a great +hardness in her heart against Saul Chadron, and a wild desire to lift +her hand and strike him low. + +Whether Major King would make her attempt against Chadron's life, or +her interference with his military expedition his excuse for placing +her under guard, remained for the future to develop. She turned these +things in her mind as they proceeded along the white river road toward +the ranch. + +It came noontime, and decline of sun; the shadow of the mountains +reached down into the valley, the mist came purple again over the +foothills, the fire of sunset upon the clouds. Alan Macdonald still +lived, his strong harsh face turned to the fading skies, his tired +eyelids closed upon his dreams. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +LOVE AND DEATH + + +Maggie and Alvino had the ranch to themselves when the military party +from the upper valley arrived, Mrs. Chadron and Nola having driven to +Meander that morning. It had been their intention to return that +evening, Maggie said. Mrs. Chadron had gone after chili peppers, and +other things, but principally chili peppers. There was not one left in +the house, and the mistress could not live without them, any more than +fire could burn without wood. + +Dusk had settled when they reached the ranch, and night thickened +fast. The lieutenant dropped two men at the corral gate--her guard, +Frances understood--and went back to his task of watching for armed +men upon the highroads. + +Under the direction of Frances, Maggie had placed a cot in Mrs. +Chadron's favored sitting-room with the fireplace. There Macdonald lay +in clean sheets, a blaze on the hearth, and Maggie was washing his +wound with hot water, groaning in the pity which is the sweetest part +of the women of her homely race. + +"I think that he will live, miss," she said hopefully. "See, he has a +strong breath on my damp hand--I can feel it like a little wind." + +She spoke in her native tongue, which Frances understood thoroughly +from her years in Texas and Arizona posts. Frances shook her head +sorrowfully. + +"I am afraid his breath will fail soon, Maggie." + +"No, if they live the first hour after being shot, they get well," +Maggie persisted, with apparent sincerity. "Here, put your hand on his +heart--do you feel it? What a strong heart he has to live so well! +what a strong, strong heart!" + +"Yes, a strong, strong heart!" Tears were falling for him now that +there was none to see them, scalding their way down her pale cheeks. + +"He must have carried something sacred with him to give him such +strength, such life." + +"He carried honor," said Frances, more to herself than to Maggie, +doubting that she would understand. + +"And love, maybe?" said Maggie, with soft word, soft upward-glancing +of her feeling dark eyes. + +"Who can tell?" Frances answered, turning her head away. + +Maggie drew the sheet over him and stood looking down into his severe +white face. + +"If he could speak he would ask for his mother, and for water then, +and after that the one he loves. That is the way a man's mind carries +those three precious things when death blows its breath in his face." + +"I do not know," said Frances, slowly. + +There was such stress in waiting, such silence in the world, and such +emptiness and pain! Reverently as Maggie's voice was lowered, soft and +sympathetic as her word, Frances longed for her to be still, and go +and leave her alone with him. She longed to hold the dear spark of his +faltering life in her own hands, alone, quite alone; to warm it back +to strength in her own lone heart. Surely her name could not be the +last in his remembrance, no matter for the disturbing breath of +death. + +"I will bring you some food," said Maggie. "To give him life out of +your life you must be strong." + + * * * * * + +Frances started out of her sleep in the rocking-chair before the fire. +She had turned the lamp low, but there was a flare of light on her +face. Her faculties were so deeply sunk in that insidious sleep which +had crept upon her like a bindweed upon wheat that she struggled to +rise from it. She sprang up, her mind groping, remembering that there +was something for which she was under heavy responsibility, but unable +for a moment to bring it back to its place. + +Nola was in the door with a candle, shading the flame from her eyes +with her hand. Her hair was about her shoulders, her feet were bare +under the hem of her long dressing-robe. She was staring, her lips +were open, her breath was quick, as if she had arrived after a run. + +"Is he--alive?" she whispered. + +"Why should you come to ask? What is his life to you?" asked Frances, +sorrowfully bitter. + +"Oh, Maggie just woke and came up to tell me, mother doesn't +know--she's just gone to bed. Isn't it terrible, Frances!" + +Nola spoke distractedly, as if in great agony, or great fear. + +"He can't harm any of you now, you're safe." Frances was hard and +scornful. She turned from Nola and laid her hand on Macdonald's brow, +drawing her breath with a relieved sigh when she felt the warmth of +life still there. + +"Oh, Frances, Frances!" Nola moaned, with expression of despair, +"isn't this terrible!" + +"If you mean it's terrible to have him here, I can't help it. I'm a +prisoner, here against my will. I couldn't leave him out there alone +to die." + +Nola lowered her candle and stared at Frances, her eyes big and blank +of everything but a wild expression that Frances had read as fear. + +"Will he die?" she whispered. + +"Yes; you are to have your heartless way at last. He will die, and his +blood will be on this house, never to be washed away!" + +"Why didn't you come back when we called you--both of you?" Nola drew +near, reaching out an appealing hand. Frances shrank from her, to bend +quickly over Macdonald when he groaned and moved his head. + +"Put out that light--it's in his eyes!" she said. + +Nola blew out the candle and came glimmering into the room in her soft +white gown. + +"Don't blame me, Frances, don't blame any of us. Mother and I wanted +to save you both, we tried to stop the men, and we could have held +them back if it hadn't been for Chance. Chance got three of them to +go, the others--" + +"They paid for that!" said Frances, a little lift of triumph in her +voice. + +"Yes, but they--" + +"Chance didn't do it, I tell you! If he says he did it he lies! It +was--somebody else." + +"The soldiers?" + +"No, not the soldiers." + +"I thought maybe--I saw one of them on guard in front of the house as +we came in." + +"He's guarding me, I'm under arrest, I tell you. The soldiers have +nothing to do with him." + +Nola stood looking down at Macdonald, who was deathly white in the +weak light of the low, shaded lamp. With a little timid outreaching, a +little starting and drawing back, she touched his forehead, where a +thick lock of his shaggy hair fell over it, like a sheaf of ripe wheat +burst from its band. + +"Oh, it breaks my heart to see him dying--it--breaks--my--heart!" she +sobbed. + +"You struck him! You're not--you're not fit to touch him--take your +hand away!" + +Frances pushed her hand away roughly. Nola drew back, drenched with a +sudden torrent of penitential tears. + +"I know it, I know it!" she confessed in bitterness, "I knew it when +he took me away from those people in the mountains and brought me +home. He carried me in his arms when I was tired, and sang to me as we +rode along there in the lonesome night! He sang to me, just like I was +a little child, so I wouldn't be afraid--afraid--of him!" + +"Oh, and you struck him, you struck him like a dog!" + +"I've suffered more for that than I hurt him, Frances--it's been like +fire in my heart!" + +"I pray to God it will burn up your wicked pride!" + +"We believed him, mother and I believed him, in spite of what Chance +said. Oh, if you'd only come back then, Frances, this thing wouldn't +have happened!" + +"I can't see what good that would have done," said Frances, wearily; +"there are others who don't believe him. They'd have got him some +time, just like they got him--in a coward's underhanded way, never +giving him a chance for his life." + +"We went to Meander this morning thinking we'd catch father there +before he left. We wanted to tell him about Mr. Macdonald, and get him +to drop this feud. If we could have seen him I know he'd have done +what we asked, for he's got the noblest heart in the world!" + +Whatever Frances felt on the noble nature of Saul Chadron she held +unexpressed. She did not feel that it fell to her duty to tell Nola +whose hand had struck Macdonald down, although she believed that the +cattleman's daughter deserved whatever pain and humiliation the +revelation might bring. For it was as plain as if Nola had confessed +it in words that she had much more than a friendly feeling of +gratitude for the foeman of her family. + +Her heart was as unstable as mercury, it seemed. Frances despised her +for her fickleness, scorned her for the mean face of friendship over +the treachery of her soul. Not that she regretted Major King. Nola was +free to take him and make the most of him. But she was not to come in +as a wedge to rive her from this man. + +Let her pay her debt of gratitude in something else than love. Living +or dead, Alan Macdonald was not for Nola Chadron. Her penance and her +tears, her meanings and sobs and her broken heart, even that, if it +should come, could not pay for the humiliation and the pain which that +house had brought upon him. + +"When did it happen?" asked Nola, the gust of her weeping past. + +"This morning, early." + +"Who did it--how did it happen? You got away from Chance--you said it +wasn't Chance." + +"We got away from that gang yesterday; this happened this morning, +miles from that place." + +"Who was it? Why don't you tell me, Frances?" + +They were standing at Macdonald's side. A little spurt of flame among +the ends of wood in the chimney threw a sudden illumination over them, +and played like water over a stone upon Macdonald's face, then sank +again, as if it had been plunged in ashes. Frances remained silent, +her vindictiveness, her hardness of heart, against this vacillating +girl dying away as the flame had died. It was not her desire to hurt +her with that story of treachery and cowardice which must leave its +stain upon her name for many a year. + +"The name of the man who shot him is a curse and a blight on this +land, a mockery of every holy human thought. I'll not speak it." + +Nola stared at her, horror speaking from her eyes. "He must be a +monster!" + +"He is the lowest of the accursed--a coward!" Frances said. + +Nola shuddered, standing silently by the couch a little while. Then: +"But I want to help you, Frances, if you'll let me." + +"There's nothing that you can do. I'm waiting for Mrs. Mathews and the +doctor from the agency." + +"You can go up and rest until they come, Frances, you look so tired +and pale. I'll watch by him--you can tell me what to do, and I'll call +you when they come." + +"No; I'll stay until--I'll stay here." + +"Oh, please go, Frances; you're nearly dead on your feet." + +"Why do you want me to leave him?" Frances asked, in a flash of +jealous suspicion. She turned to Nola, as if to search out her hidden +intention. + +"You were asleep in your chair when I came in, Frances," Nola chided +her, gently. + +Again they stood in silence, looking down upon the wounded man. +Frances was resentful of Nola's interest in him, of her presence in +the room. She was on the point of asking her to leave when Nola +spoke. + +"If he hadn't been so proud, if he'd only stooped to explain things to +us, to talk to us, even, this could have been avoided, Frances." + +"What could he have said?" Frances asked, wondering, indeed, what +explanation could have lessened his offense in Saul Chadron's eyes. + +"If I had known him, I would have understood," Nola replied, vaguely, +in soft low voice, as if communing with herself. + +"You! Well, perhaps--perhaps even you would have understood." + +"Look--he moved!" + +"Sh-h-h! your talking disturbs him, Nola. Go to bed--you can't help me +any here." + +"And leave him all to you!" + +The words flashed from Nola, as if they had sprung out of her mouth +before her reason had given them permission to depart. + +"Of course with me; he's mine!" + +"If he's going to die, Frances, can't I share him with you till the +end--can't I have just a little share in the care of him here with +you?" + +Nola laid her hand on Frances' arm as she pleaded, turning her white +face appealingly in the dim light. + +"Don't talk that way, girl!" said Frances, roughly; "you have no part +in him at all--he is nothing to you." + +"He is all to me--everything to me! Oh, Frances! If you knew, if you +knew!" + +"What? If I knew what?" Frances caught her arm in fierce grip, and +shook her savagely. + +"Don't--don't--hurt me, Frances!" Nola cringed and shrank away, and +lifted her arms as if to ward a blow. + +"What did you mean by that? Tell me--tell me!" + +"Oh, the way it came to me, the way it came to me as he carried me in +his arms and sang to me so I wouldn't be afraid!" moaned Nola, her +face hidden in her hands. "I never knew before what it was to care for +anybody that way--I never, never knew before!" + +"You can't have this man, nor any share in him, living or dead! I gave +up Major King to you; be satisfied." + +"Oh, Major King!" + +"Poor shadow that he is in comparison with a man, he'll have to serve +for you. Living or dead, I tell you, this man is mine. Now go!" + +Nola was shaking again with sudden gust of weeping. She had sunk to +the floor at the head of the couch, a white heap, her bare arms +clasping her head. + +"It breaks my heart to see him die!" she moaned, rocking herself in +her grief like a child. + +And child Frances felt her to be in her selfishness, a child never +denied, and careless and unfeeling of the rights of others from this +long indulgence. She doubted Nola's sincerity, even in the face of +such demonstrative evidence. There was no pity for her, and no +softness. + +"Get up!" Frances spoke sternly--"and go to your room." + +"He must not be allowed to die--he must be saved!" Nola reached out +her hands, standing now on her knees, as if to call back his +struggling soul. + +"Belated tears will not save him. Get up--it's time for you to go." + +Nola bent forward suddenly, her hair sweeping the wounded man's face, +her lips near his brow. Frances caught her with a sound in her throat +like a growl, and flung her back. + +"You'll not kiss him--you'll never kiss him!" she said. + +Nola sprang up, not crying now, but hot with sudden anger. + +"If you were out of the way he'd love me!" + +"Love _you!_ you little cat!" + +"Yes, he'd love me--I'd take him away from you like I've taken other +men! He'd love me, I tell you--he'd love _me!_" + +Frances looked at her steadily a moment, contempt in her eloquent +face. "If you have no other virtue in you, at least have some respect +for the dying," she said. + +"He's not dying, he'll not die!" Nola hotly denied. "He'll live--live +to love me!" + +"Go! This room--" + +"It's my house; I'll go and come in it when I please." + +"I'm a prisoner in it, not a guest. I'll force you out of the room if +I must. This disgraceful behavior must end, and end this minute. Are +you going?" + +"If you were out of the way, he'd love me," said Nola from the door, +spiteful, resentful, speaking slowly, as if pressing each word into +Frances' brain and heart; "if you were out of the way." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE MAN IN THE DOOR + + +When the doctor from the agency arrived at dawn, hours after Mrs. +Mathews, he found everything done for the wounded man that skill and +experience could suggest. Mrs. Mathews had carried instruments, +antiseptics, bandages, with her, and she had no need to wait for +anybody's directions in their use. So the doctor, who had been +reinforced by the same capable hands many a time before, took a cup of +hot coffee and rode home. + +Mrs. Mathews moved about as quietly as a nun, and with that humility +and sense of self-effacement that comes of penances and pains, borne +mainly for others who have fallen with bleeding feet beside the way. + +She was not an old woman, only as work and self-sacrifice had aged +her. Her abundant black hair--done up in two great braids which hung +in front of her shoulders, Indian-wise, and wrapped at their ends with +colored strings--was salted over with gray, but her beautiful small +hands were as light and swift as any girl's. Good deeds had blessed +them with eternal youth, it seemed. + +She wore a gray dress, sprinkled over with twinkling little Indian +gauds and bits of finery such as the squaws love. This barbaric +adornment seemed unaccountable in the general sobriety of her dress, +for not a jewel, save her wedding-ring alone, adorned her. Frances did +not marvel that she felt so safe in this gentle being's presence, safe +for herself, safe for the man who was more to her than her own soul. + +When the doctor had come and gone, Mrs. Mathews pressed Frances to +retire and sleep. She spoke with soft clearness, none of that +hesitation in her manner that Frances had marked on the day that they +rode up and surrounded her where the Indians were waiting their +rations of beef. + +"You know how it happened--who did it?" Frances asked. She was willing +to leave him with her, indeed, but reluctant to go until she had given +expression to a fear that hung over her like a threat. + +"Banjo told me," Mrs. Mathews said, nodding her graceful little head. + +"I'm afraid that when Chadron comes home and finds him here, he'll +throw him out to die," Frances whispered. "I've been keeping Mr. +Macdonald's pistols ready to--to--make a fight of it, if necessary. +Maybe you could manage it some other way." + +Frances was on her knees beside her new friend, her anxiety speaking +from her tired eyes, full of their shadows of pain. Mrs. Mathews drew +her close, and smoothed back Frances' wilful, redundant hair with +soothing touch. For a little while she said nothing, but there was +much in her delicate silence that told she understood. + +"No, Chadron will not do that," she said at last. "He is a violent, +blustering man, but I believe he owes me something that will make him +do in this case as I request. Go to sleep, child. When he wakes he'll +be conscious, but too weak for anything more than a smile." + +Frances went away assured, and stole softly up the stairs. The sun was +just under the hill; Mrs. Chadron would be stirring soon. Nola was up +already, Frances heard with surprise as she passed her door, moving +about her room with quick step. She hesitated there a moment, thinking +to turn back and ask Mrs. Mathews to deny her the hospital room. But +such a request would seem strange, and it would be difficult to +explain. She passed on into the room that she had lately occupied. +Soothed by her great confidence in Mrs. Mathews, she fell asleep, her +last waking hope being that when she stood before Alan Macdonald's +couch again it would be to see him smile. + +Frances woke toward the decline of day, with upbraidings for having +yielded to nature's ministrations for so long. Still, everything must +be progressing well with Alan Macdonald, or Mrs. Mathews would have +called her. She regretted that she hadn't something to put on besides +her torn and soiled riding habit to cheer him with the sight of when +he should open his eyes to smile. + +Anxious as she was, and fast as her heart fluttered, she took time to +arrange her hair in the way that she liked it best. It seemed warrant +to her that he must find her handsomer for that. People argue that +way, men in their gravity as well as women in their frivolity, each +believing that his own appraisement of himself is the incontestable +test, none rightly understanding how ridiculous pet foibles frequently +make us all. + +But there was nothing ridiculous in the coil of serene brown hair +drawn low against a white neck, nor in the ripples of it at the +temples, nor in the stately seriousness of the face that it shadowed +and adorned. Frances Landcraft was right, among thousands who were +wrong in her generation, in her opinion of what made her fairer in the +eyes of men. + +Her hand was on the door when a soft little step, like a wind in +grass, came quickly along the hall, and a light hand struck a signal +on the panel. Frances knew that it was Mrs. Mathews before she flung +the door open and disclosed her. She was dressed to take the road +again, and Frances drew back when she saw that, her blood falling away +from her heart. She believed that he stood in need of her gentle +ministrations no longer, and that she had come to tell her that he was +dead. + +Mrs. Mathews read her thought in her face, and shook her head with an +assuring smile. She entered the room, still silent, and closed the +door. + +"No, he is far from dead," she said. + +"Then why--why are you leaving?" + +"The little lady of the ranch has stepped into my place--but you need +not be afraid for yours." Mrs. Mathews smiled again as she said that. +"He asked for you with his first word, and he knows just how matters +stand." + +The color swept back over Frances' face, and ran down to hide in her +bosom, like a secret which the world was not to see. Her heart leaped +to hear that Maggie had been wrong in her application of the rule that +applies to men in general when death is blowing its breath in their +faces. + +"But that little Nola isn't competent to take care of him--she'll kill +him if she's left there with him alone!" + +"With kindness, then," said Mrs. Mathews, not smiling now, but shaking +her head in deprecation. "A surgeon is here, sent back by Major King, +he told me, and he has taken charge of Mr. Macdonald, along with Miss +Chadron and her mother. I have been dismissed, and you have been +barred from the room where he lies. There's a soldier guarding the +door to keep you away from his side." + +"That's Nola's work," Frances nodded, her indignation hot in her +cheek, "she thinks she can batter her way into his heart if she can +make him believe that I am neglecting him, that I have gone away." + +"Rest easy, my dear, sweet child," counseled Mrs. Mathews, her hand on +Frances' shoulder. "Mr. Macdonald will get well, and there is only one +door to his heart, and somebody that I know is standing in that." + +"But he--he doesn't understand; he'll think I've deserted him!" +Frances spoke with trembling lips, tears darkling in her eyes. + +"He knows how things stand; I had time to tell him that before they +ousted me. I'd have taken time to tell him, even if I'd had to--pinch +somebody's ear." + +The soft-voiced little creature laughed when she said that. Frances +felt her breath go deeper into her lungs with the relief of this +assurance, and the threatening tears came falling over her fresh young +cheeks. But they were tears of thankfulness, not of suspense or pain. + +Frances did not trouble the soldier at the door to exercise his +unwelcome and distasteful authority over her. But she saw that he was +there, indeed, as she went out to give Mrs. Mathews farewell at the +door. + +Nola came pattering to her as she turned back in the house again to +find Maggie, for her young appetite was clamoring. Nola's eyes were +round, her face set in an expression of shocked protest. + +"Isn't this an outrage, this high-handed business of Major King's?" +She ran up all flushed and out of breath, as if she had been wrestling +with her indignation and it had almost obtained the upper hand. + +"What fresh tyranny is he guilty of?" Frances inquired, putting last +night's hot words and hotter feelings behind her. + +"Ordering a soldier to guard the door of Mr. Macdonald's room, with +iron-clad instructions to keep you away from him! He sent his orders +back by Doctor Shirley--isn't it a petty piece of business?" + +"Mrs. Mathews told me. At least you could have allowed her to stay." + +"I?" Nola's eyes seemed to grow. She gazed and stared, injury, +disbelief, pain, in her mobile expression. "Why, Frances, I didn't +have a thing to do with it, not a thing! Mother and I protested +against this military invasion of our house, but protests were +useless. The country is under martial law, Doctor Shirley says." + +"How did Major King know that Mr. Macdonald had been brought here? He +rode away without giving any instructions for his disposal or care. I +believe he wanted him to die there where he fell." + +"I don't know how he came to hear it, unless the lieutenant here sent +a report to him. But I ask you to believe me, Frances"--Nola put her +hand on Frances' arm in her old wheedling, stroking way--"when I tell +you I hadn't anything to do with it. In spite of what I said last +night, I hadn't. I was wild and foolish last night, dear; I'm sorry +for all of that." + +"Never mind," Frances said. + +"Don't you worry, we'll take care of him, mother and I. Major King's +orders are that you're not to leave this house, but I tell you, +Frances, if I wanted to go home I'd go!" + +"So would I," returned Frances, with more meaning in her manner of +speaking than in her words. "Does Major King's interdiction extend to +the commissary? Am I going to be allowed to eat?" + +"Maggie's got it all ready; I ran up to call you." Nola slipped her +arm round Frances' waist and led her toward the kitchen, where Maggie +had the table spread. "You'll not mind the kitchen? The house is so +upset by those soldiers in it that we have no privacy left." + +"Prisoners and pensioners should eat in the kitchen," Frances +returned, trying to make a better appearance of friendliness for Nola +than she carried in her heart. + +Maggie was full of apologies for the poor service and humble +surroundings. "It is the doings of miss," she whispered, in her native +sibilant Mexican, when Nola found an excuse to leave Frances alone at +her meal. + +"It doesn't matter, Maggie; you eat in the kitchen, both of us are +women." + +"Yes, and some saints' images are made of lead, some of gold." + +"But they are all saints' images, Maggie." + +"The kitchen will be brighter from this day," Maggie declared, in the +extravagant way of her race, only meaning more than usually carries in +a Castilian compliment. + +She backed away from the table, never having it in her delicate nature +to be so rude as to turn her back upon her guest, and admired Frances +from a distance. The sun was reaching through a low window, moving +slowly up the cloth as if stealing upon the guest to give her a +good-night kiss. + +"Ah, miss!" sighed Maggie, her hands clasped as in adoration, "no +wonder that he lives with a well in his body. He has much to live for, +and that is the truth from a woman's lips." + +"It is worth more because of its rarity, then, Maggie," Frances said, +warming over with blushes at this ingenuous praise. "Do they let you +go into his room?" + +"The door is open to the servant," Maggie replied, with solemn nod. + +"It is closed to me--did you know?" + +"I know. Miss tells you it is orders from some captain, some general, +some soldier I do not know what"--a sweeping gesture to include all +soldiers, great and small and far away--"but that is a lie. It came +out of her own heart. She is a traitor to friendship, as well as a +thief." + +"Yes, I believed that from the beginning, Maggie." + +"This house of deceit is not a place for me, for even servant that I +am, I am a true servant. But I will not lie for a liar, nor be traitor +for one who deceives a friend. I shall go from here. Perhaps when you +are married to Mr. Macdonald you will have room in your kitchen for +me?" + +"We must not build on shadows, Maggie." + +"And there is that Alvino, a cunning man in a garden. You should see +how he charms the flowers and vegetables--but you have seen, it is his +work here, all this is his work." + +"If there is ever a home of my own--if it ever comes to that +happiness--" + +"God hasten the day!" + +"Then there will be room for both of you, Maggie." + +Frances rose from the table, and stood looking though the window where +the sun's friendly hand had reached in to caress her a few minutes +gone. There was no gleam of it now, only a dull redness on the horizon +where it had fallen out of sight, the red of iron cooling upon the +anvil. + +"In four weeks he will be able to kneel at the altar with you," said +Maggie, making a clatter with the stove lids in her excitement, "and +in youth that is only a day. And I have a drawn piece of fine linen, +as white as your bosom, that you must wear over your heart on that +day. It will bring you peace, far it was made by a holy sister and it +has been blessed by the bishop at Guadalupe." + +"Thank you, Maggie. If that day ever comes for me, I will wear it." + +Maggie came nearer the window, concern in her homely face, and stood +off a little respectful distance. + +"You want to be with him, you should be there at his side, and I will +open the door for you," she said. + +"You will?" Frances started hopefully. + +"Once inside, no man would lift a hand to put you out." + +"But how am I going to get inside, Maggie, with that sentry at the +door?" + +"I have been thinking how it could be done, miss. Soon it will be +dark, and with night comes fear. Miss is with him now; she is there +alone." + +Frances turned to her, such pain in her face as if she had been +stabbed. + +"Why should you go over that again? I know it!" she said, crossly. +"That has nothing to do with my going into the room." + +"It has much," Maggie declared, whispering now, treasuring her plot. +"The old one is upstairs, sleeping, and she will not wake until I +shake her. Outside the soldiers make their fires and cook, and Alvino +in the barn sings 'La Golondrina'--you hear him?--for that is sad +music, like his soul. Very well. You go to your room, but leave the +door open to let a finger in. When it is just creeping dark, and the +soldiers are eating, I will run in where the one sits beside the door. +My hair will be flying like the mane of a wild mare, my eyes +bi-i-i-g--so. In the English way I will shout 'The rustlers, the +rustlers! He ees comin'--help, help!' When you hear this, fly to me, +quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see; +miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in +my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!" + +"Why, Maggie! what a general you are!" + +"Under the couch where he lies," Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes +glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, "are the +revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I +pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and nobody knows. Strap +the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you +from the man you love!" + +"Maggie, you are magnificent!" + +"No," Maggie shook her head, sadly, "I am the daughter of a peon, a +servant to bear loads. But"--a flash of her subsiding grandeur--"I +would do that--ah, I would have done that in youth--for the man of my +heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear +miss." + +Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the +heavy black hair--mark of a vassal race--from the brown forehead and +looked tenderly into her eyes. + +"You are my sister," she said. + +Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her +knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the +host. + +"What benediction!" she murmured. + +"I will go now, and do as you have said." + +"When it is a little more dark," said Maggie, softly, looking after +her tenderly as she went away. + +Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before +the glass to see if anything could be done to make herself more +attractive in his eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of +embellishments. She turned from the mirror sighing, doubtful of the +success of Maggie's scheme, but determined to do her part in it, let +the result be what it might. Her place was there at his side, indeed; +none had the right to bar her his presence. + +The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked +brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place +then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the +sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and +disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know. + +She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pass heavily downstairs. +Hope sank lower as she descended; it seemed that their simple plot +must fail. Well, she sighed, at the worst it could only fail. As she +sat there waiting while twilight blended into the darker waters of +night, she reflected the many things which had overtaken her in the +two days past. Two incidents stood out above all the haste, confusion, +and pain which gave her sharp regret. One was that her father had +parted from her to meet his life's heaviest disappointment with anger +and unforgiving heart; the other that the shot which she had aimed at +Saul Chadron had been cheated of its mark. + +There came a trampling of hoofs from the direction of the post, +unmistakably cavalry. She strained from the window to see, but it was +at that period between dusk and dark when distant objects were +tantalizingly indefinite. Nothing could be made of the number, or who +came in command. But she believed that it must be Major King's troops +returning from escorting the raiders to Meander. + +Of course there would be no trying out of Maggie's scheme now. New +developments must come of the arrival of Major King, perhaps her own +removal to the post. Surely he could not sustain an excuse that she +was dangerous to his military operations now. + +Doors opened, and heavy feet passed the hall. Presently all was a +tangle of voices there, greetings and warm words of welcome, and the +sound of Mrs. Chadron weeping on her husband's breast for joy at his +return. + +Nola's light chatter rose out of the sound of the home-coming like a +bright thread in a garment, and the genteel voice of Major King +blended into the bustle of welcome with its accustomed suave +placidity. Frances felt downcast and lonely as she listened to them, +and the joyous preparations for refreshing the travelers which Mrs. +Chadron was pushing forward. They had no regard, no thought it seemed, +for the wounded man who lay with only the thickness of a door dividing +him from them. + +She was moved with concern, also, regarding Chadron's behavior when he +should learn of Macdonald's presence in that house. Would Nola have +the courage to own her attachment then, and stand between the wrath of +her father and his wounded enemy? + +She was not to be spared the test long. There was the noise of Chadron +moving heavily about, bestowing his coat, his hat, in their accustomed +places. He came now into the dining-room, where the sentinel kept +watch at Macdonald's door. Frances crept softly, fearfully, into the +hall and listened. + +Chadron questioned the soldier, in surprise. Frances heard the man's +explanation of his presence before the door given in low voice, and in +it the mention of Macdonald's name. Chadron stalked away, anger in the +sound of his step. His loud voice now sounded in the room where the +others were still chattering in the relief of speech after long +silence. Now he came back to the guarded door, Nola with him; Mrs. +Chadron following with pleading words and moanings. + +"Dead or alive, I don't care a damn! Out of this house he goes this +minute!" Chadron said. + +"Oh, father, surely you wouldn't throw a man at death's door out in +the night!" + +It was Nola, lifting a trembling voice, and Frances could imagine her +clinging to his arm. + +"Not after what he's done for us, Saul--not after what he's done!" +Mrs. Chadron sounded almost tearful in her pleading. "Why, he brought +Nola home--didn't you know that, Saul? He brought her home all safe +and sound!" + +"Yes, he stole her to make that play!" Chadron said, either still +deceived, or still stubborn, but in any case full of bitterness. + +"I'll never believe that, father!" Nola spoke braver than Frances had +expected of her. "But friend or enemy, common charity, common decency, +would--" + +"Common hell! Git away from in front of that door! I'm goin' to throw +his damned carcass out of this house--I can't breathe with that man in +it!" + +"Oh, Saul, Saul! don't throw the poor boy out!" Mrs. Chadron begged. + +"Will I have to jerk you away from that door by the hair of the head? +Let me by, I tell you!" + +Frances ran down stairs blindly, feeling that the moment for her +interference, weak as it might be, and ineffectual, had come. Now +Major King was speaking, his voice sounding as if he had placed +himself between Chadron and the door. + +"I think you'd better listen to your wife and daughter, Chadron. The +fellow can't harm anybody--let him alone." + +"No matter for the past, he's our guest, father, he's--" + +"Hell! Haven't they told you fool women the straight of it yet? I tell +you I had to shoot him to save my own life--he was pullin' a gun on +me, but I beat him to it!" + +"Oh Saul, my Saul!" Mrs. Chadron moaned. + +"Was it you that--oh, was it you!" There was accusation, disillusionment, +sorrow--and more than words can define--in Nola's voice. Frances waited +to hear no more. In a moment she was standing in the open door beside +Nola, who blocked it against her father with outstretched arms. + +Chadron was facing his wife, his back to Frances as she passed. + +"Yes, it was me, and all I'm sorry for is that I didn't finish him on +the spot. Here, you fellers"--to some troopers who crowded about the +open door leading to the veranda--"come in here and carry out this +cot." + +But it wasn't their day to take orders from Chadron; none of them +moved. Frances touched Nola's arm; she withdrew it and let her pass. + +Macdonald, alone in the room, had lifted himself to his elbow, +listening. Frances pressed him back to his pillow with one hand, +reaching with the other under the cot for his revolvers. Her heart +jumped with a great, glad bound, as if it had leaped from death to +safety, when she touched the weapons. A cold steadiness settled over +her. If Saul Chadron entered that room, she swore in her heart that +she would kill him. + +"Don't interfere with me, King," said Chadron, turning again to the +door, "I tell you he goes, alive or dead. I can't breathe--" + +"Stop where you are!" Frances rose from her groping under the cot, a +revolver in her hand. + +Chadron, who had laid hold of Nola to tear her from the door, jumped +like a man startled out of his sleep. In the heat of his passion he +had not noticed one woman more or less. + +"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said, catching himself as his hand reached +for his gun. + +"Frances will take him away as soon as he's able to be moved," said +Nola, pleading, fearful, her eyes great with the terror of what she +saw in Frances' face. + +"Yes, she'll go with him, right now!" Chadron declared. "I'll give you +just ten seconds to put down that gun, or I'll come in there and take +it away from you! No damn woman--" + +A loud and impatient summons sounded on the front door, drowning +Chadron's words. He turned, with an oath, demanding to know who it +was. Frances, still covering him with her steady hand, heard hurrying +feet, the door open, and Mrs. Chadron exclaiming and calling for Saul. +The man at the door had entered, and was jangling his spurs through +the hall in hasty stride. Chadron stood as if frozen in his boots, his +face growing whiter than wounded, blood-drained Macdonald's on his cot +of pain. + +Now the sound of the newcomer's voice rose in the hall, loud and +stern. But harsh as it was, and unfriendly to that house, the sound of +it made Frances' heart jump, and something big and warm rise in her +and sweep over her; dimming her eyes with tears. + +"Where's my daughter, Chadron, you cutthroat! Where's Miss Landcraft? +If the lightest hair of her head has suffered, by God! I'll burn this +house to the sills!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +PAID + + +Colonel Landcraft stood before Chadron in his worn regimentals, his +old campaign hat turned back from his forehead as if he had been +riding in the face of a wind. Macdonald, looking up at Frances from +his couch, spoke to her with his eyes. There was satisfaction in them, +a triumphant glow. She moved a step toward the door, and the colonel, +seeing her there, rushed to her and clasped her against his dusty +breast. + +"Standing armed against you in your own house, before your own wife +and daughter!" said he, turning like the old tiger that he was upon +Chadron again. "And in the presence of an officer of the United States +Army--my daughter, armed to protect herself! By heaven, sir! you've +disgraced the uniform you wear!" + +Major King, scowling darkly, dropped his hand in suggestive gesture to +his sword. Colonel Landcraft, his slight, bony old frame drawn up to +its utmost inch, marched to him, fire in his eye. + +"Unbuckle that sword! You're not fit to wear it," said he. + +Chadron had drawn away from the door of Macdonald's room a little, and +stood apart from Major King with his wife and daughter. The cattleman +had attempted no defense, had said no word. In the coming of Colonel +Landcraft, full of authority, strong and certain of hand, Chadron +appeared to know that his world was beginning to tumble about his +ears. + +Now he stepped forward to interpose in behalf of his tool and +co-conspirator, in one last big bluff. Major King fell back a stride +before the charge of the infuriated old colonel, which seemed to have +a threat of personal violence in it, the color sinking out of his +face, his hand still on his sword. + +"What authority have you got to come into my house givin' orders?" +Chadron wanted to know. "Maybe your bluffin' goes with some people, +but it don't go with me. You git to hell out of here!" + +"In your place and time I'll talk to you, you sneaking hound!" Colonel +Landcraft answered, throwing Chadron one blasting look. "Take off that +sword, surrender those arms! You are under arrest." This to Major +King, who stood scowling, watching the colonel as if to ward an +attack. + +"By whose authority do you make this demand?" questioned Major King, +insolently. "I am not aware that any command--" + +Colonel Landcraft turned his back upon him and strode to the open +door, through which the dismounted troopers could be seen standing +back a respectful distance in the shaft of light that fell through it. +At his appearance there, at the sight of that old battered hat and +familiar uniform, the men lifted a cheer. Little tyrant that he was, +hard-handed and exacting, they knew him for a soldier and a man. They +knew, too, that their old colonel had not been given a square deal in +that business, and they were glad to see him back. + +The colonel acknowledged the greeting with a salute, his old head held +prouder at that moment than he ever had carried it in his life. + +"Sergeant Snow!" he called. + +The sergeant hurried forward, stepped out into the light, came up at +salute with the alacrity of a man who found pleasure in the service to +be demanded of him. + +"Bring a detail of six men into this room, disarm Major King, and +place him under guard." + +The colonel wheeled again to face Chadron and King. + +"I am not under the obligation of explaining my authority to enter +this house to any man," said he, "but for your satisfaction, madam, +and in deference to you, Miss Chadron, I will tell you that I was +recalled by the department on my way to Washington and sent back to +resume command of Fort Shakie." + +Chadron was biting his mustache like an angry horse mouthing the bit. +In the background a captain and two lieutenants, who had arrived with +Chadron and King, stood doubtful, it seemed, of their part in that +last act of the cattleman's rough melodrama. + +Frances had returned to Macdonald's side, fearful that the excitement +might bring on a hemorrhage in his wound. She stood soothing him with +low, soft, and unnecessary words, unconscious of their tenderness, +perhaps, in the stress of her anxiety. But that they were appreciated +was evident in the slow-stealing smile that came over his worn, rugged +face like a breaking sun. + +Major King surrendered his arms to the sergeant with a petulant, lofty +shrug of his shoulders. + +"I'm not through with you yet, you old cuss!" said Chadron. "I never +started out to git a man but what I got him, and I'll git you. +I'll--" + +Chadron's voice caught in his throat. He stood there looking toward +the outside door, drawing his breath like a man suffocating. +Stealthily his hand moved toward his revolver, while his wife and +daughter, even Frances, struck by a thrill of some undefined terror, +leaned and looked as Chadron was looking, toward the open door. + +A tall, gaunt, dark shaggy man was standing there, an old flapping hat +drooping over his scowling eyes. He was a man with a great branching +mustache, and the under lid of one eye was drawn down upon his cheek +in a little point, as if caught by a surgical hook and held ready for +the knife; a man who bent forward from the middle, as if from long +habit of skulking under cover of low-growing shrubs; an evil man, +whose foul soul cried of bloody deeds through every feature of his +leering face. + +"Oh, that man! that man!" cried Nola, in fearful, wild scream. + +Mrs. Chadron clasped her in her arms and turned her defiant face +toward the man in the door. He was standing just as he had stood when +they first saw him, silent, still; as grim as the shadow of Saul +Chadron's sins. + +The soldiers who stood around Major King looked on with puzzled eyes; +Colonel Landcraft frowned. Macdonald from his cot could not see the +door, but he felt the sharp striking of those charged seconds. Chadron +moved to one side a little, his fixed eyes on the man in the door, his +hand nearer his revolver now; so near that his fingers touched it, and +now it was in his hand with a sudden bright flash into the light. + +Two shots in that quiet room, one following the other so closely that +they seemed but a divided one; two shots, delivered so quickly after +Nola's awful scream that no man could whip up his shocked nerves to +obedience fast enough to interpose. Saul Chadron pitched forward, his +hands clutching, his arms outspread, and fell dead, his face groveling +upon the floor. Outside, the soldiers lifted Mark Thorn, a bullet +through his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +TEARS IN THE NIGHT + + +They buried Saul Chadron next day in a corner of the garden by the +river. And there was the benediction of tender autumn sunshine over +the place where they laid him down, away from the turmoil of his life, +and the tangle of injustices that he left behind. + +But there was none to come forward and speak for the body of Mark +Thorn. The cowboys hid him in the sage at the foot of a butte, as men +go silently and shadow-like to bury away a shame. + +There seemed to be a heart-soreness over the ranchhouse by the river +as night fell upon it again. Saul Chadron had been a great and noble +man to some who wept in its silent rooms as the gloaming deepened into +darkness over the garden, where the last leaves of autumn were tugging +at their anchorage to sail away. Even Frances Landcraft in her vigil +beside Macdonald's cot felt pity for Chadron's fall. She regretted, at +least, that he had not gone out of life more worthily. + +Colonel Landcraft had gone up the river to carry a new message to the +homesteaders whose houses lay in ashes. He had ridden to tell them +that they could build in security and live in peace. The surgeon had +returned to the post, but was coming again tomorrow. Behind him he had +left the happy assurance that Macdonald would live. + +Macdonald himself had added his own brave word to bear out the +doctor's prediction, as far as Frances would permit him to speak. That +was not above ten words, whispered into her ear, inclined low to hear. +When he attempted to go beyond that, soft warm fingers made a latch +upon his lips. + +Mrs. Chadron came down a little after dark, and whispered at the door. +Macdonald was sleeping, and Frances went softly to tell her. + +"Nola's askin' for you," Mrs. Chadron told her, "she's all heartbroke +and moanin' in her bed. If you'll go to her, and comfort her a little, +honey, I'll take as good care of him as if he was my own." + +Frances was touched by the appeal for sympathy. She could picture +Nola, little fashioned by nature or her life's experiences to bear +grief, shuddering and sobbing alone in the dark, and her heart went +out to her in all its generosity and large forgivingness. + +Nola's room was dark for all except the night sky at her window. +Frances stood a moment in her door, listening, believing from the +silence that she must have gone to sleep. + +"Nola," she whispered, softly. + +A little shivering sob was the answer. Frances went in, and closed the +door. Nola was lying face downward on her pillow, like a child, and +Frances found on putting out her comforting hand that the fickle +little lady's bolster was wet with tears. She sat on the bedside and +tried gently to turn Nola's face toward her. That brought on a storm +of tears and moanings, and agonized burrowing of her face into the +pillow. + +"Oh, I feel so mean and wicked!" she cried. "If I hadn't been so +deceitful and treacherous and--and--and everything, maybe all this +sorrow wouldn't have come to us!" + +Frances said nothing. She had found one hot hand, tear-wet from lying +under Nola's cheek, and this she held tenderly, feeling it best to let +the tears of penitence purge the sufferer's soul in their world-old +way. After a time Nola became quieter. She shifted in the bed, and +moved over to give Frances more room, and put up her arms to draw her +friend down for the kiss of forgiveness which she knew would not be +denied. + +Afterwards she sat up in bed, and brushed her hair back from her +throbbing forehead with her palms. + +"Oh, it aches and aches--_so!_" she said. + +"I'll bind a cold towel around it, dear; that always used to ease it, +you remember?" + +"Not my head, Frances--my heart, my heart!" + +It was better so, Frances understood. Penitence that brings only a +headache is like plating over brass; it cannot long conceal the +baseness of the thing that lies beneath. + +"Time is the only remedy for that, Nola," she said, her own words slow +and sad. + +"Do you think I've sinned past forgiveness because I--because--I love +him?" Nola's voice trembled with earnestness. + +"He is free, to love and be loved as it may fall, Nola. I told you he +was mine, but I thought then that I was claiming him from death. He +will live. He never has asked me to marry him; maybe he never will. +When he recovers, he may turn to you--who can tell?" + +"No, it's only you that he thinks of, Frances. When I was watching by +him he opened his eyes, and you should have seen the look in them when +he saw me instead of you. He struggled to sit up and look for you, and +he called your name, sharp and frightened, as if he thought somebody +had taken you away from him forever." + +Frances did not need that assurance to quiet any fear of his loyalty. +She had spoken the truth, only because it was the truth, but not to +give Nola hope. For hope she knew there was not any, nor any love, to +come to Nola out of that man's heart. + +"We'll not talk of it," Frances said. + +"I must, I can't let anything stand between us, Frances. If I'd been +fair, all the way through--but I wasn't. I wasn't fair about Major +King, and I wasn't fair this time. I was fool enough to think that if +you were out of the way for a little while I could make him love me! +He'd never love me, never in a million years!" + +Frances said nothing. But she was beginning to doubt the sincerity of +Nola's repentance. There, under the shadow of her bereavement, she +could think of nothing but the hopelessness of love. + +"But I didn't want you to come up just to pet me and be good to me, +Frances--I wanted to give you something." + +Nola felt under her pillow, and groped for Frances' hand, in which she +placed a soft something with a stub of a feather in it. + +"I have no right to keep it," said Nola. "Do you know what it is?" + +"Yes, I know." + +Much of the softness which Frances had for the highland bonnet was in +her voice as she replied, and the little bonnet itself was being +nestled against her cheek, as a mother cuddles a baby's hand. + +"The best that's in me goes out to that man," said Nola solemnly--and +truthfully, Frances knew--"but I wouldn't take him from you now, +Frances, even if I could. I don't want to care for him, I don't want +to think of him. I just want to think of poor father lying out there +under the ground." + +"It's best for you to think of him." + +"Only a day ago he was alive and warm, like you and me, and now he's +dead! Mother never will want to leave this place again now, and I +don't feel like I want to either. I just want to lie down and die--oh, +I just want to die!" + +Pity for herself brought Nola's tears gushing again, and her choking +sobs into her throat. Her voice was hoarse from her lamentations; +there seemed to be only sorrow for her in every theme. Frances held +her shivering slim body in her supporting arm, and Nola's face bent +down upon her shoulder. It seemed that her renunciation was complete, +her regeneration undeniable. But Frances knew that a great flood of +tears was required to put out the fire of passion in a woman's heart. +One spark, one little spark, might live through the deluge to spring +into the heat of the past under the breath of memory. + +Again the heaving breast grew calm, and the tear-wet face was lifted +to shake back the fallen hair. + +"This has emptied everything out for me," Nola sighed. "I'm going to +be serious in everything, with everybody, after this. Do you suppose +Mrs. Mathews would let me help her over at the mission--if I went to +her meek and humble and asked her?" + +"If she saw that it would help _you_, she would, Nola." + +"Just think how lonesome it will be here when the post's abandoned and +everybody but the Indians gone! You'll be away--maybe long before +that--and I'll not see anybody but Indians and cowboys from year's +beginning to year's end. Oh, it will be so dreary and lonesome here!" + +"There's work up the river in the homesteaders' settlement, Nola; +there's suffering to be relieved, and bereaved hearts to be comforted. +There's your work, it seems to me, for you and those nearest to you +are to blame for the desolation of those poor homes, excuse it as +charitably as we may." + +Frances felt a shudder run through the girl's body as her arm clasped +the pliant waist. + +"Why, Frances! You can't mean that! They're terrible--just think what +they've done--oh, the underhanded thieves! By the law of the range +it's my fight now, instead of my work to help them!" + +"The law of the range isn't the law any longer here, Nola, and it +never will be again. Alan Macdonald has done the work that he put his +lone hand to. You have no quarrel with anybody, child, no feud to +carry on to a bloody end. Put it out of your mind. If you are sincere +in your heart, and truly penitent, you can prove it best by beginning +to do good in the place where your house has done a terrible, sad +wrong." + +"They started it!" said Nola, vindictively, the lifelong hatred for +those who encroached upon the range so deep in her breast, it seemed, +that the soil of her life must come away on its roots. + +"There's no use talking to you about it, then," said Frances, coldly. + +Nola seemed hurt by her tone. She began to cry again, and plead her +cause in moaning, broken words. "It's our country, we were here +first--father always said that!" + +"I know." + +"But I don't blame Mr. Macdonald, they deceived him, the rustlers +deceived him and told him lies. He didn't belong to this country, he +couldn't know at first, or understand. Frances"--she put her hand on +her friend's shoulder, and lifted her head as if trying to pierce the +dark and look into her eyes--"don't you know how it was with him? He +was too much of a man to turn his back on them, even when he found he +was on the wrong side. A man like him _must_ have understood it our +way." + +"What he has done in this country calls for no excuse," returned +Frances, loftily. + +"In your eyes and mine he wouldn't need any excuse for anything he +might do," said Nola, with a sagacity unexpected. "We love him, and +we'd love him, right or wrong. Well"--a sigh--"you've got a right to +love him, and I haven't. I wouldn't try to make him care for me now if +I could, for I'm different; I'm all emptied out." + +"It takes more than you've gone through to empty a human life, Nola. +But you have no right to love him; honor and honesty are in the way, +friendship not considered at all. You'll spring up in the sun again +after a little while, like fresh grass that's trodden on, just as +happy and light-hearted as before. Let me have this one without any +more interference--there are plenty in the world that you would stand +heart-high to with your bright little head, just as well as Alan +Macdonald." + +"I can't give him up, the thought of him, and the longing for him, +without regret, Frances; I can't!" + +"I wouldn't have you do it. I want you to have regret, and pain--not +too deep nor too lasting, but some corrective pain. Now, go to +sleep." + +Frances pressed her back to the pillow, and touched her head with +light caress. + +"Frances," she whispered, a new gladness dawning in her voice, "I'll +go and see those poor people, and try to help them--if they'll let me. +Maybe we _were_ wrong--partly, anyhow." + +"That's better," Frances encouraged. + +"And I'll try not to care for him, or think about him, even one little +bit." + +Frances bent and kissed her. Nola's arms clung to her neck a little, +holding her while she whispered in her ear. + +"For I'm going to be different, I'm going to be good--abso-_lutely_ +good!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +BANJO FACES INTO THE WEST + + +"You don't tell me? So the old colonel's got what his heart's been +pinin' for many a year. Well, well!" + +Mrs. Chadron was beside her window in her favored rocker again, less +assertive of bulk in her black dress, not so florid of face, and with +lines of sadness about her mouth and eyes. A fire was snapping in the +chimney, for the gray sky was driving a bitter wind, and the first +snowflakes of winter were straying down. + +Banjo Gibson was before the fire, his ears red, his cheeks redder, +just in from a brisk ride over from the post. His instruments lay +beside him on the floor, and he was limbering his fingers close to the +blaze. + +"Yes, he's a brigamadier now," said he. + +"Brigadier-General Landcraft," said she, musingly, looking away into +the grayness of the day; "well, maybe he deserves it. Fur as I'm +concerned, he's welcome to it, and I'm glad for Frances' sake." + +"He's vinegar and red pepper, that old man is! Takin' him up both +sides and down the middle, as the feller said, I reckon the +colonel--or brigamadier, I guess they'll call him now--he's about as +good as they make 'em. I always did have a kind of a likin' for that +old feller--he's something like me." + +"It was nice of you to come over and tell me the news, anyhow, Banjo; +you're always as obligin' and thoughtful as you can be." + +"It's always been a happiness and a pleasure, mom, and I've come a +good many times with news, sad and joyful, to your door. But I reckon +it'll be many a long day before I come ridin' to Alamito with news +ag'in; many a long, long day." + +"What do you mean, Banjo? You ain't goin'--" + +"To Californy; startin' from here as soon as my horse blows a spell +and eats his last feed at your feed box, mom. I've got to make it to +Meander to ketch the mornin' train." + +"Oh, Banjo! you don't tell me!" Tears gushed to Mrs. Chadron's eyes, +used to so much weeping now, and her lips trembled as she pressed them +hard to keep back a sob. "You're the last friend of the old times, the +last face outside of this house belongin' to the old days. When you're +gone my last friend, the very last one I care about outside of my own, +'ll be gone!" + +Banjo cleared his throat unsteadily, and looked very hard at the fire +for quite a spell before he spoke. + +"The best of friends must part," he said. + +"Yes, they must part," she admitted, her handkerchief pressed to her +eyes, her voice muffled behind it. + +"But they ain't no use of me stayin' around in this country and pinin' +for what's gone, and starvin' on the edge," said Banjo, briskly. +"Since you've sold out the cattle and the boys is all gone, scattered +ever-which-ways and to Texas, and the homesteaders is comin' into this +valley as thick as blackbirds, it ain't no place for me. I don't mix +with them kind of people, I never did. You've give it all up to 'em, +they tell me, but this homestead, mom?" + +"All but the homestead," she sighed, her tears checked now, her eyes +on the farthest hill, where she had watched the crest many and many a +time for Saul to rise over it, riding home from Meander. + +"You hadn't ort to let it go," said he, shaking his sad head. + +"I couldn't'a'held it, the lawyers and Mr. Macdonald told me that. +It's public land, Banjo, it belongs to them folks, I reckon. But we +was here first!" A futile sigh, a regretful sigh, a sigh bitter with +old recollections. + +"I reckon that's so, down to the bottom of it, but you folks made this +country what it was, and by rights it's yourn. Well, I stopped in to +say good-bye to the old brigamadier-colonel over at the post as I come +through. He tells me Alan and that little girl of hisn that stuck to +him and stood up for him through thick and thin 're goin' to be +married at Christmas time." + +"Then they'll be leavin', too," she said. + +"No, they're goin' to build on his ranch up the river and stay here, +and that old brigamadier-colonel he's goin' to take up land next to +'em, or has took it up, one of the two, and retire from the army when +they're married. He says this country's the breath of his body and he +couldn't live outside of it, he's been here so long." + +"Well, well!" said she, her face brightening a little at the news. + +"How's Alan by now?" + +"Up and around--he's goin' to leave us in the morning." + +"Frances here?" he asked. + +"No, she went over home this morning--I thought maybe you met her--but +she's comin' back for him in the morning." + +Banjo sat musing a little while. Then-- + +"Yes, you'll have neighbors, mom, plenty of 'em. A colony of nesters +is comin' here, three or four hundred of 'em, they tell me, all ready +to go to puttin' up schoolhouses and go to plowin' in the spring. And +they're goin' to run that hell-snortin' railroad right up this valley. +I reckon it'll cut right along here somewheres a'past your place." + +"Yes, changes'll come, Banjo, changes is bound to come," she sighed. + +"All over this country, they say, the nesters'll squat now wherever +they want to, and nobody won't dast to take a shot at 'em to drive 'em +off of his grass. They put so much in the papers about this rustlers' +war up here that folks has got it through 'em the nesters ain't been +gittin' what was comin' to 'em. The big ranches 'll all be split up to +flinders inside of five years." + +"Yes, the cattle days is passin', along with the folks that was +somebody in this country once. Well, Banjo, we had some good times in +the old days; we can remember them. But changes will come, we must +expect changes. You don't need to pack up and go on account of that. I +ain't goin' to leave." + +"I've made up my mind. I'm beginnin' to feel tight in the chist +already for lack of air." + +Both sat silent a little while. Banjo's elbows were across his knees, +his face lifted toward the window. The wind was falling, and there was +a little breaking among the low clouds, baring a bit of blue sky here +and there. Banjo viewed this brightening of the day with gladness. + +"I guess it's passin'," he said, going to the window and peering round +as much of the horizon as he could see, "it wasn't nothing but a +little shakin' out of the tablecloth after breakfast." + +"I'm glad of it, for I don't think it's good luck to start out on a +trip in a storm. That there Nola she's out in it, too." + +"Gone up the river?" + +"Yes. It beats all how she's takin' up with them people, and them with +her. She's even bought lumber with her own money to help some of 'em +build." + +"She's got a heart like a dove," he sighed. + +"As soft as a puddin'," Mrs. Chadron nodded. + +"But I never could git to it." Banjo sighed again. + +Mrs. Chadron shook her head, with an expression of sadness for his +failure which was deeper than any words she knew. + +"The loss of her pa bore down on her terrible; she's pinin' and +grievin' too hard for a body so young. I hear her cryin' and moanin' +in the night sometimes, and I know it ain't no use goin' to her, for +I've tried. She seems to need something more than an old woman like me +can give, but I don't know what it is." + +"Maybe she needs a change--a change of air," Banjo suggested, with +what vague hope only himself could tell. + +"Maybe, maybe she does. Well, you're goin' to take a change of air, +anyhow, Banjo. But what're you goin' to do away out there amongst +strangers?" + +"I was out there one time, five years ago, and didn't seem to like it +then. But since I've stood off and thought it over, it seems to me +that's a better place for me than here, with my old friends goin' or +gone, and things changin' this a-way. Out there around them hop and +fruit ranches they have great times at night in the camps, and a man +of my build can keep busy playin' for dances. I done it before, and +they took to me, right along." + +"They do everywheres, Banjo." + +"Some don't," he sighed, watching out of the window in the direction +that Nola must come. + +"She's not likely to come back before morning--I think she aims to go +to the post tonight and stay with Frances," she said, reading his +heart in his face. + +"Maybe it's for the best," said Banjo. + +"I guess everything that comes to us is for the best, if we knew how +to take it," she said. "Well, you set there and be comfortable, and +I'll stir Maggie up and have her make you something nice for dinner. +After that I want you to play me the old songs over before you go. +Just to think I'll never hear them songs no more breaks my heart, +Banjo--plumb breaks my heart!" + +As she passed Banjo she laid her hand on his head in a manner of +benediction, and tears were in her eyes. + +The sun was out again when they had finished lunch, coaxing autumn on +into November at the peril of frosted toes. Mrs. Chadron had +brightened considerably, also. Even bereavement and sorrow could not +shake her fealty to chili, and now it was rewarding her by a rubbing +of her old color in her face as she sat by the window and waited for +Banjo to tune his instruments for the parting songs. + +Her workbasket was beside her, the bright knitting-needles in the +unfinished sock. It never would be completed now, she knew, but she +kept it by her to cry over in the twilight hours, when thoughts of +Saul came over her with their deep-harrowing pangs. + +Banjo sang the touching old ballads over to her appreciative ear, +watching the shadows outside, as he played, for three o'clock. That +was the hour set for him to go. "Silver Threads" was saved for the +end, and when its last strain died Mrs. Chadron's face was hidden in +her hands. She was rocking gently, her handkerchief fallen to the +floor. + +Banjo put his bow in its place in the lid of the case, the rosin in +its little box. But the fiddle he still held on his knee, stroking its +smooth back with loving hand, as if he would soothe Mrs. Chadron's +regrets and longings and back-tugging pains by that vicarious caress. +So he sat petting his instrument, and after a little she looked at +him, her eyes red, and tear-streaks on her face. + +"Don't put it away just yet, Banjo," she requested; "there's another +one I want you to sing, and that will be the last. It's the saddest +one you play--one that I couldn't stand one time--do you remember?" +Banjo remembered; he nodded. "I can stand it now, Banjo; I want to +hear it now." + +Banjo drew bow again, no more words on either side, and began his +song: + + All o-lone and sad he left me, + But no oth-o's bride I'll be; + For in flow-os he bedecked me, + In tho cottage by tho sea. + +When he finished, Mrs. Chadron's head was bent upon her arm across the +little workstand where her basket stood. Her shoulders were moving in +piteous convulsions, but no sound of crying came from her. Banjo knew +that it was the hardest kind of weeping that tears the human heart. + +He put away his fiddle, and strapped the case. Then he went to her and +laid his hand on her shoulder. + +"I'll have to be saddlin' up, mom," said he, his own voice thick, "and +I'll say _adios_ to you now." + +"Good-bye, Banjo, and may God bless you in that country you're goin' +to so fur away from the friends you used to know!" + +Banjo's throat moved as he gulped his sorrow. "I'll not come back in +the house, but I'll wave you good-bye from the gate," said he. + +"I had hopes you might change your mind, Banjo," she said, as she took +his hand and held it a little while. + +"If I could'a'got to somebody's heart that I've pined for many a day, +I would'a'changed my mind, mom. But it wasn't to be." + +"It wasn't to be, Banjo," she said, shaking her head. "I don't think +she'll ever marry--she's changed, she's so changed!" + +"Well, _adios_ to you, mom, and the best of luck." + +"_Adios_, Banjo, boy; good-bye!" + +She waited at the window for him to pass the gate. He appeared there +leading his horse, and bent to examine the girths before putting foot +to the stirrup. She hoped that he was coming back, to tell her that he +could not find it in his heart to go. But no; the change that was +coming over the cattle country was like an unfriendly wind to the +little troubadour. His way was staked into the west where new ties +waited him, where new hearts were to be won. He mounted, turned to the +window, waved his hat and rode away. + +Mrs. Chadron sat in her old place and watched him until he passed +beyond the last hill line and out of her sight. Her last glimpse of +him had been in water lines through tears. Now she reached for her +basket and took out her unfinished knitting. Broken off there, like +her own life it was, she thought, never to be completed as designed. +The old days were done; the promise of them only partly fulfilled. She +was bidding farewell to more than Banjo, parting with more than +friends. + +"Good-bye, Banjo," she murmured, looking dimly toward the farthest +hill; "_adios!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +"HASTA LUEGO" + + +Frances came into the room as fresh as a morning-glory. Her cheeks +were like peonies, and the fire of her youth and strength danced in +her happy eyes. Macdonald rose to greet her, tall, gaunt, and pale +from the drain that his wound had made upon his life. He had been +smoking before the fireplace, and he reached up now to put his pipe +away on the manteltree. + +"And how are things at the post?" he asked, as she stood before him in +her saddle dress, her sombrero pressing down her hair, her quirt +swinging by its thong from her gloved wrist. + +Before replying she intercepted the hand that was reaching to stow the +pipe away, pressed it firmly back, inserted the stem between his close +lips. + +"In this family, the man smokes," she said. + +His slow smile, which was reward enough to her for all the trouble +that it took to wake it, twinkled in his eyes like someone coming to +the window with a light. + +"Then the piece of a man will go ahead and smoke," said he, drawing a +chair up beside his own and leading her to it with gentle pressure +upon her hand. + +"Has Mrs. Chadron been overfeeding you while I was gone? Did she give +you chili?" + +"She _offered_ me chili, in five different dishes, which I, +remembering the injunction, regretfully put aside." + +"Well, they're coming with the ambulance, I rode on ahead, and you'll +soon be beyond the peril of chili." She smiled as she looked up into +his face, and the smile broadened into an outright laugh when she saw +the little flitting cloud of vexation there. + +"I could well enough ride," said he. + +"The doctor says you could not." + +"I'm as fit for the saddle this minute as I ever was in my life," he +declared. + +She made no reply to that in words. But there was tender pity in her +caressing eyes as they measured the weakness of his thin arms, wasted +down to tendon and bone now, it seemed. He would ride to the post, she +knew very well, if permitted, and come through it without a murmur. +But the risk would be foolish, no matter what his pride must suffer by +going in a wagon. + +"Have you heard the news from Meander?" she inquired. + +"No, news comes slowly to Alamito Ranch, and will come slower now that +Banjo is gone, Mrs. Chadron says. What's been happening at Meander?" + +"They held their conventions there last week to nominate county +officers, and what do you think? They've nominated you for something, +for--for _what_ do you suppose?" + +"Nominated me? Who's nominated me?" + +"Oh, one party or the other began it, and the other indorsed you, +for--oh, it's--" + +"For what, Frances?" he asked, laughter in his eyes at her unaccountable +way of holding back on the secret. + +"Why, for _sheriff!_" said she, with magnificent scorn. + +Macdonald leaned back in his chair and laughed, the first audible +sound of merriment that she ever had heard come from those stern lips. +She looked at him with reproach. + +"It should have been governor, the very least they could have done, +decently!" She was full of feeling on the subject of what she believed +to be his undervaluation. + +Macdonald took her hand, the laughter dying out of his sober face. + +"That's all in the different ways of looking at a man, _palomita_," he +said to her. + +"But you look bigger than _sheriff_ to anybody!" she replied, +indignation large in her heart. + +"In this country, Frances, a sheriff is a pretty sizable man," he +said, his thoughtful eyes on the fire, "about the biggest man they can +conceive, next only to the president himself. Up here in the cattle +country the greatness of men is dimmed, their magnitude being measured +by appreciable results. The offices of lawmaker, governor, and such as +the outside world invest with their peculiar dignity, are incidental, +indefinite--all but negative, here. It's different with a sheriff. +He's the man who comes riding with his guns at his side; they can see +him perform. All the law that they know centers in him; all branches +of government, as they understand his powers. Yes, a sheriff is +something of a figure in this county, Frances, and to be nominated for +that office by one party and indorsed by another is just about the +biggest compliment a man can receive." + +"But surely, Alan, you'll not accept it?" + +"Why, I think so," he returned, thoughtfully. "I think I'd be worth +more to this county as sheriff than I would be as--as governor, let us +say." + +"Yes, but they go shooting sheriffs," she protested. + +"They'll not be doing so much careless and easy shooting around here +since Colonel--Brigadier-General Landcraft--and that sounds more like +his size, too--gave them a rubdown with the iron hand. The cattle +barons' day is over; their sun went down when Mark Thorn brought the +holy scare to Saul Chadron's door." + +"Father is of the same opinion. Do you know, Alan, the whole story +about that horrible old man Thorn is in the eastern papers?" + +"Is it possible?" + +"With a Cheyenne date-line," she nodded, "the whole story--who hired +him to skulk and kill, and a list of his known crimes. Father says if +there was anything lacking in the fight you made on the cattlemen, +this would finish them. It's a terrible story--poor Nola read it, and +learned for the first time her father's connection with Thorn. She's +humiliated and heartbroken over it all." + +"With sufficient reason," he nodded. + +"She's afraid her mother will hear of it in some way." + +"She'll find it out in time, Frances; a thing like that walks on a +man's grave." + +"It will not matter so much after a while, after her first grief +settles." + +"Did Nola come back with you?" + +"No, she went on to take some things to poor old Mrs. Lassiter. She +never has recovered from the loss of her son--it's killing her by +inches, Tom says. And you considering that office of sheriff!" She +turned to him with censorious eyes as she spoke, as if struck with a +pain of which he was the cause. "I tell you, you men don't know, you +don't know! It's the women that suffer in all this shooting and +killing--we are the ones that have to bear the sorrows in the night +and watch through the uncertain days!" + +"Yes," said he gently, "the poor women must bear most of this world's +pain. That is why God made them strong above all his created things." + +They sat in silence, thinking it over between them. Outside there was +sunshine over the brown rangeland; within there dwelt the lifting +confidence that their feet had passed the days of trouble and were +entering the bounds of an enlarging peace. + +"And Major King?" said he. + +"Father has relented, as I knew he would, out of regard for their +friendship of the past, and will not bring charges based on Major +King's plottings with Chadron." + +"It's better that way," he nodded. "Do you suppose there's nothing +between him and Nola?" + +"I think she'll have him after her grief passes, Alan." + +"Better than he deserves," said he. "There's a lump of gold in that +little lady's heart, Frances." + +"There is, Alan; I'm glad to hear you say that." There was moisture in +her tender eyes. + +"There was something in that man, too," he reflected. "It's +unfortunate that he allowed his desire to humiliate you and me to +drive him into such folly. If he'd only have held those brigands here +for the civil authorities, as I requested, we could have forgotten the +rest." + +"Yes, father says that would have saved him in his eyes, in spite of +his scheming with Chadron against your life, and against father's +honor and all that he holds sacred. But it's done, and he's genuinely +despised in the service for it. And there's the ambulance coming over +the hill." + +"Ambulance for me!" said he, in disgust of his slow mending. + +"Be glad that it isn't--oh, I shouldn't say that!" + +"I am," said he, nodding his slow, grave head. + +"We'll have to say good-bye to Mrs. Chadron," said she, bustling +around, or making a show of doing so to hide the tears which had +sprung into her eyes at the thought that it might have been a +different sort of conveyance coming to Alamito to take Alan Macdonald +away. + +"And to Alamito," said he, looking out into the frost-stricken garden +with a tenderness in his eyes. "I shall always have a softness in my +heart for Alamito, because it gave me you. That garden out there +yielded me the dearest flower that any garden ever gave a man"--he +took her hands, and folded them above his heart--"a flower with a soul +in it to keep it alive forever." + +She bowed her head as he spoke, as if receiving a benediction. + +"I hate saying good-bye to Mrs. Chadron," she said, her voice +trembling, "for she'll cry, and I'm afraid I'll cry, too." + +"It will not be farewell, only _hasta luego_[A] we can assure her of +that. We'll be neighbors to her, for this is home, dear heart, this is +our _val paraiso_." + +"Our valley of paradise," she nodded, her hands reaching up to his +shoulders and clinging there a moment in soft caress, "our home!" + +His arm about her shoulders, he faced her to the window, and pointed +to the hills, asleep now in their brown winter coat behind a clear +film of smoky blue. + +"I stood up there one evening, weighted down with guns and ammunition, +hunting and hunted in the most desperate game I ever played," he said. +"The sun was low over this valley, and Alamito was a gleam of white +among the autumn gold. I was tired, hungry, dusty, thirsty and sore, +and my heart was all but dead in its case. That was after you had sent +me away from the post, scorned and half despised." + +"Don't rebuke me for that night now, Alan," she pleaded, turning her +pained eyes to his. "I have suffered for my injustice." + +"It wasn't injustice, it was discipline, and it was good for both of +us. We must come to confidence through misunderstandings and false +charges very frequently in this life. Never mind that; I was telling +you about that evening on the side of the hill. I had been sitting +with my back to a rock, watching the brush for Mark Thorn, but I was +thinking more of you than of him. For he meant only death, and you +were life. But I thought that I had lost you that day." + +She drew nearer to him as they stood, in the unequivocal consolation +of her presence, in the most comforting refutation of that sad hour's +dark forebodings. + +"I thought that, until I stood up and started down the slope to go my +lone-handed way. The sun struck me in the face then, and it was yellow +over the valley, and the wind was glad. I knew then, when I looked out +over it, that it held something for me, that it was my country, and my +home. The lines of gray old Joaquin Miller came to me, and lifted my +heart in a new vision. I said them over to myself: + + Lo! these are the isles of the watery miles + That God let down from the firmament. + Lo! Duty and Love, and a true man's trust; + Your forehead to God and your feet in the dust-- + +only, there were two lines which I did not repeat, I dared not repeat, +even in my heart. My vision halted short of their fulfillment." + +"What are the words--do you remember them?" she asked. + +"Yes; I can repeat them now, for my vision is broader, it is a better +dream: + + Lo! Duty and Love, and a sweet babe's smiles, + And there, O friend, are the Fortunate Isles." + +He pressed her closer, and kissed her hair. They stood, unmindful of +the waiting ambulance, their vision fusing in the blue distances of +the land their hearts held dear. It was home. + +"Come on, Alan"--she started from her reverie and drew him by the +hand--"there's Mrs. Chadron on the porch, waiting for _hasta luego_." + +"For _hasta luego_," said he. + +----- +[A] For a little while. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Rustler of Wind River, by G. W. Ogden + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30485 *** |