The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 17

"Larry," he said sharply, "there were two of them."

"Yes," said Grant. "Only one left Muller's."

Breckenridge asked nothing further, but it was not the first time that night he felt a shiver run through him. He fell behind, but he heard one of the rest answer a question Grant put to him.

"Yes," he said. "The last man was riding a good deal harder than the other fellow."

Then there was silence, save for the soft trampling of hoofs, and Breckenridge fancied the others were gazing expectantly towards the shadowy blurr of the bluff, which rose a trifle clearer now against the skyline. He felt, with instinctive shrinking, that their search would be rewarded there in the blackness beneath the trees. The pace grew faster.

Men glanced at their neighbours now and then as well as ahead, and Breckenridge felt the silence grow oppressive as the bluff rose higher.

The snow dulled the beat of hoofs, and the flitting figures that rode with him pa.s.sed on almost as noiselessly as the long black shadows that followed them. His heart beat faster than usual when, as they reached the birches, Grant raised his hand.

"Ride wide and behind me," he said. "We're going to find one of them inside of five minutes."

There was an occasional crackle as a rotten twig or branch snapped beneath the hoofs. Slender trees slid athwart the moonlight, closed on one another, and opened out, and still, though the snow was scanty and in places swept away, Grant and a big Michigan bushman rode straight on.

Breckenridge, who was young, felt the tension grow almost unendurable. At last, when even the horses seemed to feel their masters' uneasiness, the leader pulled up, and with a floundering of hoofs and jingle of bridles the line of shadowy figures came to a standstill.

"Get down, boys, and light the lantern. Quilter's here," he said.

Breckenridge dismounting, looped his bridle round a bough, and by and by stood peering over the shoulders of the cl.u.s.tering men in front of him.

The moonlight shone in between the birches, and something dusky and rigid lay athwart it in the snow. One man was lighting a lantern, and though his hands were mittened he seemed singularly clumsy. At last, however, a pale light blinked out, and under it Breckenridge saw a white face and shadowy head, from which the fur cap had fallen.

"Yes," said somebody, with a suspicion of hoa.r.s.eness, "that's Quilter.

It's not going to be much use; but you had better go through his pockets, Larry!"

Grant knelt down, and his face also showed colourless in the lantern light as, with the help of another man, he gently moved the rigid form. Then, opening the big fur-coat he laid his hand on a brown smear on the deerskin jacket under it.

"One shot," he said. "Couldn't have been more than two or three yards off."

"Get through," said the bushman grimly. "The man who did it can't have more than an hour's start of us, any way, and from the trail he left his horse is played out."

In a minute or two Grant stood up with a little shiver. "You have got to bring out a sledge for him somehow, Muller," he said. "Boys, the man who shot him has left nothing, and the instructions from our other executives would be worth more to the cattle-men than a good many dollars."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WHITE FACE AND SHADOWY HEAD, FROM WHICH THE FUR CAP HAD FALLEN.--Page 114.]

"Well," said the big bushman, "we're going to get that man if we have to pull down Cedar Range or Clavering's place before we do it. Here's his trail. That one was made by Quilter's horse."

It scarcely seemed appropriate, and the whole scene was singularly undramatic, and in a curious fashion almost unimpressive; but Breckenridge, who came of a reticent stock, understood. Unlike the Americans of the cities, these men were not addicted to improving the occasion, and only a slight hardening of their grim faces suggested what they felt. They were almost as immobile in the faint moonlight as that frozen one with the lantern flickering beside it in the snow. Yet Breckenridge long afterwards remembered them.

Two men went back with Muller and the rest swung themselves into the saddle, and reckless of the risk to beast and man brushed through the bluff. Dry twigs crackled beneath them, rotten bough and withered bush went down, and a murmur went up when they rode out into the snow again. It sounded more ominous to Breckenridge than any clamorous shout. Then, bridles were shaken and heels went home as somebody found the trail, and the line tailed out farther and farther as blood and weight began to tell.

The men were riding so fiercely now, that a squadron of United States cavalry would scarcely have turned them from the trail. Breckenridge laughed harshly as he and Grant floundered down into a hollow, stirrup by stirrup and neck to neck.

"I should be very sorry for any of the cattle-boys we came upon to-night,"

he said.

Grant only nodded, and just then a shout went up from the head of the straggling line, and a man waved his hand.

"Heading for the river!" he said. "We'll find him in the timber. He can't cross the ice."

The line divided, and Grant and Breckenridge rode on with the smaller portion, while the rest swung wide to the right. In front of them the Cedar flowed through its birch-lined gully as yet but lightly bound with ice, and Breckenridge guessed that the men who had left them purposed cutting off the fugitive from the bridge. It was long before the first dim birches rose up against the sky, and the white wilderness was very still and the frost intense when they floundered into the gloom of the bluff at the hour that man's vitality sinks to its lowest. Every crackle of a brittle branch rang with horrible distinctness, and now and then a man turned in his saddle and glanced at his neighbour when from the shadowy hollow beneath them rose the sound of rending ice. The stream ran fast just there, and there had been but a few days' frost.

They rode at a venture, looking about them with strained intentness, for they had left the guiding trail behind them now. Suddenly a faint cry came out of the silence followed by a beat of hoofs that grew louder every second, until it seemed to swell into a roar. Either there was clearer ground in the bluff, or the rider took his chances blindly so long as he made haste.

The men spread out at a low command, and Breckenridge smiled mirthlessly as he remembered the restrained eagerness with which he had waited outside English covers when the quarry was a fox. He could feel his heart thumping furiously, and his mittened hands would tremble on the bridle. It seemed that the fugitive kept them waiting a horribly long while.

Then, there was a shout close by him, Grant's horse shot forward and he saw a shadowy object flash by amidst the trees. Hand and heel moved together, and the former grew steady again as he felt the spring of the beast under him and the bitter draught upon his cheek. His horse had rested, and the fugitive's was spent. Where he was going he scarcely noticed, save that it was down hill, for the birches seemed flying up to him, and the beast stumbled now and then. He was only sure that he was closing with the flying form in front of him.

The trees grew blurred together; he had to lean forward to evade the thrashing branches. His horse was blundering horribly, the slope grew steeper still, the ground beneath the dusty snow and fallen leaves was granite hard; but he was scarcely a length away, a few paces more would bring him level, and his right hand was stretched out for a grip of the stranger's bridle.

A hoa.r.s.e shout came ringing after him, and Breckenridge fancied it was a warning. The river was close in front and only thinly frozen yet, but he drove his heels home again. If the fugitive could risk the pa.s.sage of the ice, he could risk it, too. There was another sound that jarred across the hammering of the hoofs, a crash, and Breckenridge was alone, struggling with his horse. They reeled, smashing through withered bushes and striking slender trees, but at last he gained the mastery, and swung himself down from the saddle. Already several mounted men were cl.u.s.tered about something, while just before he joined them there was another crash, and a little thin smoke drifted among the trees. Then, he saw one of them snap a cartridge out of his rifle, and that a horse lay quivering at his feet. A man stood beside it, and Grant was speaking to him, but Breckenridge scarcely recognized his voice.

"We want everything you took from Quilter, the papers first," he said.

"Light that lantern, Jake, and then the rest stand round. I want you to notice what he gives me."

The man, saying nothing, handed him a crumpled packet, and Grant, tearing it open, pa.s.sed the cover to the rest.

"You know that writing?" he said.

There was a murmur of a.s.sent, and Grant took a paper from those in his hand, and gave it to a man who held it up in the blinking light of the lantern. "Now," he said, "we want to make sure the dollars he took from Quilter agree with it. Hand them over."

The prisoner took a wallet from his pocket and pa.s.sed it across. "I guess there's no use in me objecting. You'll find them there," he said.

"Count them," said Grant to the other man. "Two of you look over his shoulder and tell me if he's right."

It took some little time, for the man pa.s.sed the roll of bills to a comrade, who, after turning them over, replaced them in the wallet.

"Yes, that's right, boys; it's quite plain, even if we hadn't followed up his trail. Those dollars and doc.u.ments were handed Quilter."

Grant touched Breckenridge. "Get up and ride," he said. "They'll send us six men from each of the two committees. We'll be waiting for them at Boston's when they get there. Now, there's just another thing. Look at the magazine of that fellow's rifle."

A man took up the rifle, and snapped out the cartridges into his hand.

"Usual 44 Winchester. One of them gone," he said. "He wouldn't have started out after Quilter without his magazine full."

The man rubbed the fringe of his deerskin jacket upon the muzzle, and then held it up by the lantern where the rest could see the smear of the fouling upon it.

"I guess that's convincing, but we'll bring the rifle along," he said.

Grant nodded and turned to the prisoner as a man led up a horse. "Get up,"

he said. "You'll have a fair trial, but if you have any defence to make you had better think it over. You'll walk back to Hanson's, Jake."

The prisoner mounted, and they slowly rode away into the darkness which, now the moon had sunk, preceded the coming day.

It was two days later when Breckenridge, who had ridden a long way in the meanwhile, rejoined them at a lonely ranch within a day's journey of the railroad. Twelve men, whose bronzed faces showed very intent and grave under the light of the big lamp, sat round the long bare room, and the prisoner at the foot of a table. Grant stood at the head of it, with a roll of dollar bills and a rifle in front of him.

"Now," he said, "you have heard the testimony. Have you anything to tell us?"

"Well," said the prisoner, "I guess it wouldn't be much use. Hadn't you better get through with it? I don't like a fuss."

Grant signed to the men, who silently filed out, and returned within a minute. "The thing's quite plain," said one of them. "He killed Quilter."