Her Prairie Knight Part 14

Beatrice wondered who had done it. Then she came back to her surroundings and realized that Rex had left her, and she was alone. She shivered--this time not in ecstasy, but partly from loneliness--and went down the hill toward where d.i.c.k and Sir Redmond and the others were fighting steadily the larger fire, unconscious of the younger, new one that had stolen away from them and was beaten to death around the hill.

Once in the coulee, she was compelled to take to the burnt ground, which crisped hotly under her feet and sent up a rank, suffocating smell of burned gra.s.s into her nostrils. The whole country was alight, and down there the world seemed on fire. At times the smoke swooped blindingly, and half strangled her. Her skirts, in pa.s.sing, swept the black ashes from gra.s.s roots which showed red in the night.

Picking her way carefully around the spots that glowed warningly, shielding her face as well as she could from the smoke, she kept on until she was close upon the fighters. d.i.c.k and Sir Redmond were working side by side, the sacks they held rising and falling with the regularity of a machine for minutes at a time. A group of strange hors.e.m.e.n galloped up from the way she had come, followed by a wagon of water-barrels, careering recklessly over the uneven ground. The hors.e.m.e.n stopped just inside the burned rim, the horses sidestepping gingerly upon the hot turf.

"I guess you want some help here. Where shall we start in?" Beatrice recognized the voice. It was Keith Cameron.

"Sure, we do!" d.i.c.k answered, gratefully. "Start in any old place."

"I'm not sure we want your help," spoke the angry voice of Sir Redmond.

"I take it you've already done a devilish sight too much."

"What do you mean by that?" Keith demanded; and then, by the silence, it seemed that every one knew. Beatrice caught her breath. Was this one of the ways d.i.c.k meant that Keith could fight?

"Climb down, boys, and get busy," Keith called to his men, after a few breaths. "This is for d.i.c.k. Wait a minute! Pete, drive the wagon ahead, there. I guess we'd better begin on the other end and work this way.

Come on--there's too much hot air here." They clattered on across the coulee, kicking hot ashes up for the wind to seize upon. Beatrice went slowly up to d.i.c.k, feeling all at once very tired and out of heart with it all.

"d.i.c.k," she called, in an anxious little voice, "Rex has run away from me. What shall I do?"

d.i.c.k straightened stiffly, his hands upon his aching loins, and peered through the smoke at her.

"I guess the only thing to do, then, is to get into the wagon over there. You can drive, Trix, if you want to, and that will give us another man here. I was just going to have some one take you home; now--the Lord only knows!--you're liable to have to stay till morning.

Rex will go home, all right; you needn't worry about him."

He bent to the work again, and she could hear the wet sack thud, thud upon the ground. Other sacks and blankets went thud, thud, and down here at close range the fire was not so beautiful as it had been from the hilltop. Down here the glamour was gone. She climbed up to the high wagon seat and took the reins from the man, who immediately seized upon a sack and went off to the fight. She felt that she was out of touch.

She was out on the prairie at night, miles away from any house, driving a water-wagon for the men to put out a prairie fire. She had driven a coaching-party once on a wager; but she had never driven a lumber-wagon with barrels of water before. She could not think of any girl she knew who had.

It was a new experience, certainly, but she found no pleasure in it; she was tired and sleepy, and her eyes and throat smarted cruelly with the smoke. She looked back to the hill she had just left, and it seemed a long, long time since she sat upon a rock up there and watched the little, new fire grow and grow, and the strange shadows spring up from nowhere and beat it vindictively till it died.

Again she wondered vaguely who had done it; not Keith Cameron, surely, for Sir Redmond had all but accused him openly of setting the range afire. Would he stamp out a blaze that was just reaching a size to do mischief, if left a little longer? No one would have seen it for hours, probably. He would undoubtedly have let it run, unless--But who else could have set the fire? Who else would want to see the Pine Ridge country black and barren? d.i.c.k said Keith Cameron would not sit down and take his medicine--perhaps d.i.c.k knew he would do this thing.

As the fighters moved on across the coulee she drove the wagon to keep pace with them. Often a man would run up to the wagon, climb upon a wheel and dip a frayed gunny sack into a barrel, lift it out and run with it, all dripping, to the nearest point of the fire. Her part was to keep the wagon at the most convenient place. She began to feel the importance of her position, and to take pride in being always at the right spot. From the calm appreciation of the picturesque side, she drifted to the keen interest of the one who battles against heavy odds.

The wind had veered again, and the flames rushed up the long coulee like an express train. But the path it left was growing narrower every moment. Keith Cameron was doing grand work with his crew upon the other side, and the s.p.a.ce between them was shortening perceptibly.

Beatrice found herself watching the work of the Cross men. If they were doing it for effect, they certainly were acting well their part. She wondered what would happen when the two crews met, and the danger was over. Would Sir Redmond call Keith Cameron to account for what he had done? If he did, what would Keith say? And which side would d.i.c.k take?

Very likely, she thought, he would defend Keith Cameron, and shield him if he could.

Beatrice found herself crying quietly, and shivering, though the air was sultry with the fire. For the life of her, she could not tell why she cried, but she tried to believe it was the smoke in her eyes. Perhaps it was.

The sky was growing gray when the two crews met. The orange lights were gone, and d.i.c.k, with a spiteful flop of the black rag which had been a good, new sack, stamped out the last tiny red tongue of the fire. The men stood about in awkward silence, panting with heat and weariness. Sir Redmond was ostentatiously filling his pipe. Beatrice knew him by his straight, soldierly pose. In the drab half-light they were all mere black outlines of men, and, for the most part, she could not distinguish one from another. Keith Cameron she knew; instinctively by his slim height, and by the way he carried his head. Unconsciously, she leaned down from the high seat and listened for what would come next.

Keith seemed to be making a cigarette. A match flared and lighted his face for an instant, then was pinched out, and he was again only a black shape in the half-darkness.

"Well, I'm waiting for what you've got to say, Sir Redmond." His voice cut sharply through the silence. If he had known Beatrice was out there in the wagon he would have spoken lower, perhaps.

"I fancy I said all that is necessary just now," Sir Redmond answered calmly. "You know what I think. From now on I shall act."

"And what are you going to do, then?" Keith's voice was clear and unperturbed, as though he asked for the sake of being polite.

"That," retorted Sir Redmond, "is my own affair. However, since the matter concerns you rather closely, I will say that when I have the evidence I am confident I shall find, I shall seek the proper channels for retribution. There are laws in this country, aimed to protect a man's property, I take it. I warn you that I shall not spare--the guilty."

"d.i.c.k, it's up to you next. I want to know where you stand."

"At your back, Keith, right up to the finish. I know you; you fight fair."

"All right, then. I didn't think you'd go back on a fellow. And I tell you straight up, Sir Redmond Hayes, I'm not out touching matches to range land--not if it belonged to the devil himself. I've got some feeling for the dumb brutes that would have to suffer. You can get right to work hunting evidence, and be d.a.m.ned! You're dead welcome to all you can find; and in this part of the country you won't be able to buy much!

You know very well you deserve to get your rope crossed, or you wouldn't be on the lookout for trouble. Come, boys; let's. .h.i.t the trail. So long, d.i.c.k!"

Beatrice watched them troop off to their horses, heard them mount and go tearing off across the burned coulee bottom toward home. d.i.c.k came slowly over to her.

"I expect you're good and tired, sis. You've made a hand, all right, and helped us a whole lot, I can tell you. I'll drive now, and we'll hit the high places."

Beatrice smiled wanly. Not one of her Eastern acquaintances would have recognized Beatrice Lansell, the society beauty, in this remarkable-looking young woman, attired in a most haphazard fashion, with a face grimed like a chimney sweep, red eyelids drooping over tired, smarting eyes, and disheveled, ash-filled hair topped by a man's gray felt hat. When she smiled her teeth shone dead white, like a negro's.

d.i.c.k regarded her critically, one foot on the wheel hub. "Where did you get hold of Keith Cameron's hat?" he inquired.

Beatrice s.n.a.t.c.hed the hat from her head with childish petulance, and looked as if she were going to throw it viciously upon the ground. If her face had been clean d.i.c.k might have seen how the blood had rushed into her cheeks; as it was, she was safe behind a mask of soot. She placed the hat back upon her head, feeling, privately, a bit foolish.

"I supposed it was yours. I took it off the halltree." The dignity of her tone was superb, but, unfortunately, it did not match her appearance of rakish vagabondage.

d.i.c.k grinned through a deep layer of soot "Well, it happens to be Keith's. He lost it in the wind the other day, and I found it and took it home. It's too bad you've worn his hat all night and didn't know it.

You ought to see yourself. Your own mother won't know you, Trix."

"I can't look any worse than you do. A negro would be white by comparison. Do get in, so we can start! I'm tired to death, and half-starved." After these unamiable remarks, she refused to open her lips.

They drove silently in the gray of early morning, and the empty barrels danced monotonously their fantastic jig in the back of the wagon.

Sootyfaced cowboys galloped wearily over the prairie before them, and Sir Redmond rode moodily alongside.

Of a truth, the glamour was gone.

CHAPTER 11. Sir Redmond Waits His Answer.

Beatrice felt distinctly out of sorts the next day, and chose an hour for her ride when she felt reasonably secure from unwelcome company. But when she went out into the sunshine there was Sir Redmond waiting with Rex and his big gray. Beatrice was not exactly elated at the sight, but she saw nothing to do but smile and make the best of it. She wanted to be alone, so that she could dream along through the hills she had learned to love, and think out some things which troubled her, and decide just how she had best go about winning Rex for herself; it had become quite necessary to her peace of mind that she should teach d.i.c.k and Keith Cameron a much-needed lesson.

"It has been so long since we rode together," he apologized. "I hope you don't mind my coming along."

"Oh, no! Why should I mind?" Beatrice smiled upon him in friendly fashion. She liked Sir Redmond very much--only she hoped he was not going to make love. Somehow, she did not feel in the mood for love-making just then.

"I don't know why, I'm sure. But you seem rather fond of riding about these hills by yourself. One should never ask why women do things, I fancy. It seems always to invite disaster."

"Does it?" Beatrice was not half-listening. They were pa.s.sing, just then, the suburbs of a "dog town," and she was never tired of watching the prairie-dogs stand upon their burrows, chip-chip defiance until fear overtook their impertinence, and then dive headlong deep into the earth.

"I do think a prairie-dog is the most impudent creature alive and the most shrewish. I never pa.s.s but I am scolded by these little scoundrels till my ears burn. What do you think they say?"

"They're probably inviting you to stop with them and be their queen, and are scolding because your heart is hard and you only laugh and ride on."