Desert Dust Part 46

She cried to me, from my feet.

"You didn't do it! You didn't do it!"

"We're saved," I blatted. "Hurrah! We're saved! The soldiers are here."

Again the trumpet pealed, lilting silvery. She tottered up, clinging to me. She stared. She released me, and to my gladly questing gaze her face was very white, her eyes struggling for comprehension, like those of one awakened from a dream.

"I must go back to Benton," she faltered. "I shall never get away from Benton."

We stood mute while the blue-coats raced on with hearty cheers and brave clank of saber and canteen. We were sitting composedly when the lieutenant scrambled to us, among our rocks; the troopers followed, curiously scanning.

His stubbled red face, dust-smeared, queried us keenly; so did his curt voice.

"Just in time?"

"In time," I croaked. "Water! For her--for me."

There was a canteen apiece. We sucked.

"You are the two from the Mormon wagon train?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. You know?" I uttered.

"We came on as fast as we could. The Sioux are raiding again. By G.o.d, you had a narrow squeak, sir," he reproved. "You were crazy to try it--you and a woman, alone. We'll take you along as soon as my p.a.w.nees get in from chasing those beggars."

Distant whoops from a pursuit drifted in to us, out of the desert.

"Captain Adams sent you?" I inquired.

"Yes, sir."

"I will go back," I agreed. "I will go back, but there's no need of Mrs.

Montoyo. If you could see her safely landed at a stage station, and for Benton----?"

"We'll land you both. I have to report at Bridger. The train is all right.

It has an escort to Bitter Creek."

"I can overtake it, or join it," said I. "But the lady goes to Benton."

"Yes, yes," he snapped. "That's nothing to me, of course. But you'll do better to wait for the train at Bridger, Mr. ----? I don't believe I have your name?"

"Beeson," I informed, astonished.

"And the lady's? Your sister? Wife?"

"Mrs. Montoyo," I informed. And I repeated, that there should be no misunderstanding. "Mrs. Montoyo, from Benton. No relative, sir."

He pa.s.sed it over, as a gentleman should.

"Well, Mr. Beeson, you have business with the train?"

"I have business with Captain Adams, and he with me," I replied. "As probably you know. Since he sent you, I shall consider myself under arrest; but I will return of my own free will as soon as Mrs. Montoyo is safe."

"Under arrest? For what?" He blankly eyed me.

"For killing that man, sir. Captain Adams' son. But I was forced to it--I did it in self-defense. I should not have left, and I am ready to face the matter whenever possible."

"Oh!" said he, with a shrug, tossing the idea aside. "If that's all! I did hear something about that, from some of my men, but nothing from Adams.

You didn't kill him, I understand; merely laid him out. I saw him, myself, but I didn't ask questions. So you can rest easy on that score. His old man seemed to have no grudge against you for it. Fact is, he scarcely allowed me time to warn him of the Sioux before he told me you and a woman were out and were liable to lose your scalps, if nothing worse. I think,"

the lieutenant added, narrowing upon me, "that you'll find those Mormons are as just as any other set, in a show down. The lad, I gathered from the talk, drew on you after he'd cried quits." He turned hastily. "You spoke, madam? Anything wanted?"

The trumpeter orderly plucked me by the sleeve. He was a squat, sun-scorched little man, and his red-rimmed blue eyes squinted at me with painful interest. He whispered harshly from covert of bronzed hand.

"Beg your pardon, sorr. Mrs. Montoyo, be it--that lady?"

"Yes."

"From Benton City, sorr, ye say?"

"From Benton City."

"Sure, I know the name. It's the same of a gambler the vigilantes strung up last week; for I was there to see."

I heard a gusty sigh, an exclamation from the lieutenant. My Lady had fainted again.

"The reaction, sir," I apologized, to the lieutenant, as we worked.

"Naturally," answered he. "You'll both go back to Benton?"

"Certainly," said I.

CHAPTER XXII

STAR SHINE

It was six weeks later, with My Lady all recovered and I long since healed, and Fort Bridger pleasant in our memories, when we two rode into Benton once more, by horse from the nearest stage point. And here we sat our saddles, silent, wondering; for of Benton there was little significant of the past, very little tangible of the present, naught promising of its future.

Roaring Benton City had vanished, you might say, utterly. The iron tendrils of the Pacific Railway glistened, stretching westward into the sunset, and Benton had followed the lure, to Rawlins (as had been told us), to Green River, to Bryan--likely now still onward, for the track was traveling fast, charging the mountain slopes of Utah. The restless dust had settled. The Queen Hotel, the Big Tent, the rows of canvas, plank, tin, sheet metal, what-not stores, saloons, gambling dens, dance halls, human habitations--the blatant street and the station itself had subsided into this: a skeleton company of hacked and weazened posts, a fantastic outcrop of coldly blackened clay chimneys, a sprinkling of battered cans.

The fevered populace who had ridden high upon the tide of rapid life had remained only as ghosts haunting a potter's field, and the turmoil of frenzied pleasure had dwindled to a coyote's yelp mocking the twilight.

"It all, all is wiped out, like he is," she said. "But I wished to see."

"All, all is wiped out, dear heart," said I. "All of that. But here are you and I."