A Texas Ranger Part 26

"No, I reckon not."

"Tha's what I told him, but Jimmie says he heard Tom Peake say so.

Jimmie says this town will be full o' folks by night."

Without waiting to hear any more of Jimmie's prophecies, Fraser followed the trail till it reached a waterfall Brandt bad mentioned, then struck sharply to the right. In a little bunch of scrub oaks he found a saddled horse tied to a sapling. His instructions were to cross the road, which ran parallel with the stream, and follow the gulch that led to the river. Half an hour's travel brought him to another road. Into this he turned, and followed it.

In a desperate hurry though he was, Steve dared not show it. He held his piebald broncho to the ambling trot a cowpony naturally drops into. From his coat pocket he flashed a mouthharp for use in emergency.

Presently he met three men riding into town. They nodded at him, in the friendly, casual way of the outdoors West. The gait of the pony was a leisurely walk, and its rider was industriously executing, "I Met My Love In the Alamo."

"Going the wrong way, aren't you?" one of the three suggested.

"Don't you worry, I'll be there when y'u hang that guy they caught last night," he told them with a grin.

From time to time he met others. All travel seemed to be headed townward. There was excitement in the air. In the clear atmosphere voices carried a long way, and all the conversation that came to him was on the subjects of the war for the range, the battle of the previous evening, and the lynching scheduled to take place in a few hours. He realized that he had escaped none too soon, for it was certain that as the crowd in town multiplied, they would set a watch on the jail to prevent Brandt from slipping out with his prisoner.

About four miles from town he cut the telephone wires, for he knew that as soon as his escape became known to the jailer, the sheriff would be notified, and he would telephone in every direction the escape of his prisoner, just the same as if there had been no arrangement between them. It was certain, too, that all the roads leading from Gimlet b.u.t.te would be followed and patrolled immediately. For which reason he left the road after cutting the wires, and took to the hill trail marked out for him in the map furnished by Brandt.

By night, he was far up in the foothills. Close to a running stream, he camped in a little, gra.s.sy park, where his pony could find forage.

Brandt had stuffed his saddlebags with food, and had tied behind a sack, with a feed or two of oats for his horse. Fraser had ridden the range too many years to risk lighting a fire, even though he had put thirty-five miles between him and Gimlet b.u.t.te. The night was chill, as it always is in that alt.i.tude, but he rolled up in his blanket, got what sleep he could, and was off again by daybreak.

Before noon he was high in the mountain pa.s.ses, from which he could sometimes look down into the green parks where nested the little ranches of small cattlemen. He knew now that he was beyond the danger of the first hurried pursuit, and that it was more than likely that any of these mountaineers would hide him rather than give him up. Nevertheless, he had no immediate intention of putting them to the test.

The second night came down on him far up on Dutchman Creek, in the Cedar Mountain district. He made a bed, where his horse found a meal, in a haystack of a small ranch, the buildings of which were strung along the creek. He was weary, and he slept deep. When he awakened next morning, it was to hear the sound of men's voices. They drifted to him from the road in front of the house.

Carefully he looked down from the top of his stack upon three hors.e.m.e.n talking to the bare-headed ranchman whom they had called out from his breakfast.

"No, I ain't seen a thing of him. Shot Billy Faulkner, you say? What in time for?" the rancher was innocently asking.

"You know what for, Hank Speed," the leader of the posse made sullen answer. "Well, boys, we better be pushing on, I expect."

Fraser breathed freer when they rode out of sight. He had overslept, and had had a narrow shave; for his pony was grazing in the alfalfa field within a hundred yards of them at that moment. No sooner had the posse gone than Hank Speed stepped across the field without an instant's hesitation and looked the animal over, after which he returned to the house and came out again with a rifle in his hands.

The ranger slid down the farther side of the stack and slipped his revolver from its holster. He watched the ranchman make a tour of the out-buildings very carefully and cautiously, then make a circuit of the haystack at a safe distance. Soon the rancher caught sight of the man crouching against it.

"Oh, you're there, are you? Put up that gun. I ain't going to do you any harm."

"What's the matter with you putting yours up first?" asked the Texan amiably.

"I tell you I ain't going to hurt you. Soon as I stepped out of the house I seen your horse. All I had to do was to say so, and they would have had you slick."

"What did you get your gun for, then?"

"I ain't taking any chances till folks' intentions has been declared.

You might have let drive at me before I got a show to talk to you."

"All right. I'll trust you." Fraser dropped his revolver, and the other came across to him.

"Up in this country we ain't in mourning for Billy Faulkner. Old man Dillon told me what you done for him. I reckon we can find cover for you till things quiet down. My name is Speed."

"Call me Fraser."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Fraser. I reckon we better move you back into the timber a bit. Deputy sheriffs are some thick around here right now.

If you have to lie hid up in this country for a spell, we'll make an arrangement to have you taken care of."

"I'll have to lie hid. There's no doubt about that. I made my jail break just in time to keep from being invited as chief guest to a necktie party."

"Well, we'll put you where the whole United States Army couldn't find you."

They had been walking across the field and now crawled between the strands of fence wire.

"I left my saddle on top of the stack," the ranger explained.

"I'll take care of it. You better take cover on top of this ridge till I get word to Dillon you're here. My wife will fix you up some breakfast, and I'll bring it out."

"I've ce'tainly struck the good Samaritan," the Texan smiled.

"Sho! There ain't a man in the hills wouldn't do that much for a friend."

"I'm glad I have so many friends I never saw."

"Friends? The hills are full of them. You took a hand when old man Dillon and his girl were sure up against it. Cedar Mountain stands together these days. What you did for them was done for us all," Speed explained simply.

Fraser waited on the ridge till his host brought breakfast of bacon, biscuits, hard-boiled eggs, and coffee. While he ate, Speed sat down on a bowlder beside him and talked.

"I sent my boy with a note to Dillon. It's a good thirty miles from here, and the old man won't make it back till some time to-morrow.

Course, you're welcome at the house, but I judge it wouldn't be best for you to be seen there. No knowing when some of Brandt's deputies might b.u.t.t in with a warrant. You can slip down again after dark and burrow in the haystack. Eh? What think?"

"I'm in your hands, but I don't want to put you and your friends to so much trouble. Isn't there some mountain trail off the beaten road that I could take to Dillon's ranch, and so save him from the trip after me?"

Speed grinned. "Not in a thousand years, my friend. Dillon's ranch ain't to be found, except by them that know every pocket of these hills like their own back yard. I'll guarantee you couldn't find it in a month, unless you had a map locating it."

"Must be in that Lost Valley, which some folks say is a fairy tale," the ranger said carelessly, but with his eyes on the other.

The cattleman made no comment. It occurred to Fraser that his remark had stirred some suspicion of him. At least, it suggested caution.

"If you're through with your breakfast, I'll take back the dishes,"

Speed said dryly.

The day wore to sunset. After dark had fallen the Texan slipped through the alfalfa field again and bedded in the stack. Before the morning was more than gray he returned to the underbrush of the ridge. His breakfast finished, and Speed gone, he lay down on a great flat, sun-dappled rock, and looked into the unflecked blue sky. The season was spring, and the earth seemed fairly palpitating with young life. The low, tireless hum of insects went on all about him. The air was vocal with the notes of nesting birds. Away across the valley he could see a mountain slope, with snow gulches glowing pink in the dawn. Little checkerboard squares along the river showed irrigated patches. In the pleasant warmth he grew drowsy. His eyes closed, opened, closed again.

He was conscious of no sound that awakened him, yet he was aware of a presence that drew him from drowsiness to an alert attention.

Instinctively, his hand crept to his scabbarded weapon.

"Don't shoot me," a voice implored with laughter--a warm, vivid voice, that struck pleasantly on his memory.

The Texan turned lazily, and leaned on his elbow. She came smiling out of the brush, light as a roe, and with much of its slim, supple grace.

Before, he had seen her veiled by night; the day disclosed her a dark, spirited young creature. The ma.s.s of blue-black hair coiled at the nape of the brown neck, the flash of dark eyes beneath straight, dark eyebrows, together with a certain deliberation of movement that was not languor, made it impossible to doubt that she was a Southerner by inheritance, if not by birth.