Ted Strong in Montana Part 25

"Pardon me, but who are you?" asked Ted.

"I?" said the woman, drawing herself up proudly. "I am Whipple."

"What? Leader of the Whipple gang?" asked Ted, almost incredulously.

"The same," said she. "I have laughed many times at the fear I inspired among you ranchmen in the valley, and the officers of the law, to say nothing of the soldiers. But that was because they had never seen me, and believed me to be a man."

They all looked their astonishment, for she was an exceedingly pretty woman, and spoke in gentle tones.

"But it is all over now," she continued sadly. "If those steers and ponies are yours, take them. I am going to leave the mountains, and my men are scattered and will leave also. I told them to go. And now that Silver Face is no more, there is no reason why I should stay here."

"You loved him?" asked Ted, nodding toward the tent.

"Yes," she answered quietly. "He was my husband. When I had nursed him back to life I sent my boys out and kidnaped a preacher. I had him brought here blindfolded, and made him marry us, then sent him back, not knowing where he had been."

Ted and the boys looked their sympathy.

"Can I be of any a.s.sistance to you in caring for him?" asked Stella, very sweetly.

A look of terror crossed the woman's face.

"No, no," she cried. "Leave me with my dead. Take what belongs to you and go."

She retired into the tent, and they heard her weeping, and turned away.

The boys started immediately on the back trail to the ranch, where they arrived with their cattle and ponies.

That was the last of the Whipple gang, for the members of it left the country, and the outlaw Indians were gathered in by the troops and the Indian police, and imprisoned on the reservations.

But on winter evenings, as he sat before the big fire in the Long Tom ranch house, his big snow camp, Ted Strong often turned over in his mind the facts about the death of Silver Face, the man of mystery.

Somehow, away down in his heart, he did not believe that the man with the silver mask was dead, but that he would some day meet him again and solve the mystery that surrounded him.

In the early part of December, however, the members of the Moon Valley outfit left the Long Tom Ranch for Phoenix, Arizona.

CHAPTER XIII.

AN UNEXPECTED GUEST.

Although it was winter, the air was soft and pleasant, and at noon the sun shone with some fervor.

It was Arizona, and as Ted Strong sat on Sultan and gazed across the wide valley, over which the sun's warm rays shimmered above the sand and cactus, greasewood and sage toward a low-lying ranch house in the far distance, it did not seem at all like Christmas.

But it was Christmas Eve, in spite of the fact that there was no snow, no sleigh bells, no apparent use for Santa Claus, and that roses were blooming in yards where there was sufficient black earth for them to thrive.

Behind his saddle Ted had a great bundle wrapped in burlap and securely tied.

For many miles on the way Ted had cast anxious glances behind him, and occasionally reached back to a.s.sure himself that he had not lost his freight.

This argued that it was a very precious burden.

"I guess that must be the place," mused Ted, as he looked at the apparently deserted house.

Not a live creature was to be seen about the place, neither man, woman, nor beast.

"Cheerful-looking prospect for Christmas," Ted continued to soliloquize, as those who travel or ride on mountain or plain in solitude often get in the habit of doing.

"Wonder where the folks are?" he continued. "Hope they got here all right. But, of course, they did. Bud is too good a leader to let them get off the trail. Besides, they have been long enough on the way to have got here and back again." Again he paused, musing.

"Well, Sultan, old chap, it has been a long, dry drive, hasn't it?"

Sultan, on hearing his name, gave a toss of his head and a soft snicker, and Ted's hand pa.s.sed gently over his beautiful, glossy mane with a caressing gesture.

"h.e.l.lo, here comes some one. Wonder who it is. That's the only sign of life, except a few rattlesnakes and horned toads I've seen since I left the railroad at San Carlos."

Shading his eyes from the sun, Ted looked for several minutes at the dark speck bobbing along in the distance, a mere shadow against the yellow surface of the earth.

"He's taking his time," muttered Ted. "Reckon he's wondering who I am, and what I'm standing here for. It can't be one of our fellows. I guess I'll just wait for him to come up and say howdy."

There was a faint trail, or road, which skirted Sombrero Peak, the ma.s.s of multicolored rock at Ted's back, over which he had come on his way from San Carlos to the Bubbly Well ranch house, which he was now facing in the distance. But where he was now standing the road branched off to the west, while a fainter trail lay straight before him to the ranch house.

Bubbly Well was the ranch of Major Caruthers, an Englishman, and a retired officer of the British army, who had come to America to pa.s.s his remaining days in the open. He was a well-preserved man, tall, stalwart, with white hair and a red, fresh-looking face, who could ride well and was an excellent shot, but who knew nothing about the cattle business.

Ted had met him in Phoenix, at the hotel, and had dropped into "cow talk." When the English major learned that Ted knew so much about the cattle business, he told of his ranch at Bubbly Well, confessing that his own knowledge of steers, cows, round-ups, and the like was so limited that, instead of making the ranch pay, it had been steadily losing money for him.

It was then that the major had invited Ted to visit him at the ranch, look the situation over, and give expert advice how to better the condition of things.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the major; "let's make up a Christmas party for Bubbly Well. The holidays are so beastly lonely out here, don't you know, and Christmas knocks me all of a heap. Come out and help me make things cheerful."

"I'd like to," Ted had said, "but I'm not a free agent. I am with a party of friends, who are also my partners in the cattle business and other enterprises. You see, my first duty is to them. I don't know what their plans are."

At this the major looked considerably crestfallen. Then Ted, as briefly as he could, told the Englishman all about the broncho boys and their plans and principles.

As he talked, Major Caruthers occasionally interjected such exclamations as "Extraordinary!" "Very remarkable!" "Fawncy!"

He was intensely interested in Ted's accounts of some of the adventures which the members of the Moon Valley outfit had gone through, and when Ted stopped, with an apology for having consumed so much time in talking about himself and his friends, the major a.s.sured him that he could listen with pleasure and profit all night if Ted could only go on telling him such stories.

"My boy, I have the very thing," said the major, after a moment's thought.

Ted looked at the Englishman inquiringly.

"Do you think your friends, not knowing me, would accept an invitation to spend Christmas at Bubbly Well, and as long thereafter as they can and will?"

"That's a very kind thought," said Ted. "You see, we generally contrive to be at our Moon Valley Ranch at Christmas time, but this year we had business in this part of the country, and could not finish it in time to get back home, and were planning to get as much joy out of the day in the hotel here as we could."