The Night Riders Part 13

All was still and drowsy about the ranch. Every available hand was out at work upon some set task, part of the daily routine of the cattle world. Mosquito Bend was a splendid example of discipline, for Jake was never the man to let his men remain idle. Even Arizona had been set to herd the milch cows and generally tend the horses remaining in the barn; and Tresler, too, was further acquainting himself with the cantankerous nature of barbed-wire fencing.

On this particular afternoon there was nothing about the ranch to indicate the undercurrent of trouble Tresler had so quickly discovered to be flowing beneath its calm surface. The sun was pouring down upon the wiltering foliage with a fierceness which had set the insect world droning its drowsy melody; the earth was already parching; the sloughs were already dry, and the tall gra.s.s therein was rapidly ripening against the season of haying. But in spite of the seeming peace; in spite of the cloudless sky, the pastoral beauty of the scene, the almost inaudible murmur of the distant river, the tide was flowing swiftly and surely. It was leaping with the roar of a torrent.

A clatter of horse's hoofs broke up the quiet, and came rattling over the river trail. The noise reached Jake's ears and set him alert. He recognized the eager haste, the terrific speed, of the animal approaching. He rose from his bunk and stood ready, and a look of deep interest was in his bold black eyes. Suddenly a horseman came into view. He was leaning well over his horse's neck, urging to a race with whip and spur. Jake saw him sweep by and breast the rise to the rancher's house.

At the verandah the man flung off his horse, and left the drooping beast standing while he hammered at the door. There was some delay, and he repeated his summons still more forcibly, adding his voice to his demand.

"h.e.l.lo there!" he called. "Any one in?"

"Archie Orr," Jake muttered to himself, as he stepped out of his hut.

The next moment the man at the verandah was caught up in the full blast of the foreman's half-savage and wholly hectoring protest.

"What blazin' racket are you raisin' ther'?" he roared, charging up the hill with heavy, hurried strides. "This ain't Skitter Reach, you dog-gone coyote, nor that ain't your pap's shanty. What's itchin' you, blast you?"

Archie swung round at the first shout. There was a wild expression on his somewhat weak face. It was the face of a weak nature suddenly worked up into the last pitch of frenzy. But even so the approach of Jake was not without its effect. His very presence was full of threat to the weaker man. Archie was no physical coward, but, in that first moment of meeting, he felt as if he had been suddenly taken by the collar, lifted up and shaken, and forcibly set down on his feet again.

And his reply came in a tone that voiced the mental process he had pa.s.sed through.

"I've come for help. I was in Forks last night, and only got home this afternoon," he answered, with unnatural calmness. Then the check gave way before his hysterical condition, and Jake's momentary influence was lost upon him. "I tell you it's Red Mask! It's him and his gang!

They've shot my father down; they've burned us out, and driven off our stock! G.o.d's curse on the man! But I'll have him. I'll hunt him down.

Ha! ha!" The young man's blue eyes flashed and his face worked as his hysteria rose and threatened to overwhelm him. "You hear?" he shouted on--"what does it say? Blood for blood. I'll have it! Give me some help. Give me horses, and I'll have it! I'll----" His voice had risen to a shriek.

"You'll shut off that d.a.m.ned noise, or"--Jake's ferocious face was thrust forward, and his fierce eyes glared furiously into the other's--"or git."

Archie shrank back silenced at once. The effect suited the foreman, and he went on with a sardonic leer--

"An' you'll have 'blood for blood' o' Red Mask? You? You who was away boozin' in Forks when you'd a right to ha' been around lookin' to see that old skinflint of a father o' yours didn't git no hurt. You're goin' to round up Red Mask; you who ain't got guts enough but to crawl round here fer help to do it. You!"

A hot reply sprang to the youngster's lips in spite of his fear of this man, but it died suddenly as a voice from within the doorway broke in upon them.

"And a right purpose too, Archie."

Diane stepped out on to the verandah and ranged herself at his side, while her scornful brown eyes sought the foreman's face. There was a moment's pause, then she looked up into the boy's troubled face.

"You want to see my father?"

Archie was only eighteen, and though well grown and muscular, he was still only a boy.

"Yes, Miss Diane; I do want to see him. I want to borrow a couple of horses from him, and to ask his advice."

Archie's recent heat and hysteria had soothed under the influence of the girl's presence. He now stood bowed and dejected; he appeared to have suddenly grown old. Jake watched the scene with a sneer on his brutal face, but remained silent now that Diane was present.

"I will rouse him myself," she said quietly, moving toward the door.

"Yes, you shall see him, Archie. I heard what you said just now, and I'll tell him. But----" She broke off, hesitating. Then she came back to him. "Is--is your father dead, or--only wounded?"

The boy's head dropped forward, and two great tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. Diane turned away, and a far-off look came into her steady brown eyes. There was a silence for a moment, then a deep, heart-broken sob came from the lad at her side. She flashed one hard glance in Jake's direction and turned to her companion, gently gripping his arm in a manner that expressed a world of womanly sympathy. Her touch, her quiet, strong helpfulness, did more for him than any formal words of condolence could have done. He lifted his head and dashed the tears from his face; and the girl smiled encouragement upon him.

"Wait here," she said; "I will go and fetch father."

She slipped away, leaving the two men alone. And when she had gone, the foreman's raucous voice sounded harshly on the still air.

"Say, you ain't smart, neither. We got one of your kidney around here now. Kind o' reckons to fix the old man through the girl. Most weak-kneed fellers gamble a pile on petticoats. Wal, I guess you're right out. Marbolt ain't easy that way. You'll be sorry you fetched him from his bed, or I don't know him."

Archie made no reply. Nor was any more talk possible, for at that moment there came the steady tap, tap, of the blind man's stick down the pa.s.sage, and the two men faced the door expectantly. The rancher shuffled out on to the verandah. Diane was at his side, and led him straight over to young Orr. The old man's head was poised alertly for a second; then he turned swiftly in the foreman's direction.

"Hah! that you, Jake?" He nodded as he spoke, and then turned back to the other. The blind man's instinct seemed something more than human.

"Eh? Your father murdered, boy?" Marbolt questioned, without the least softening of tone. "Murdered?"

Archie gulped down his rising emotion. But there was no life in his answer--his words came in a tone of utter hopelessness.

"Yes, sir; shot down, I gather, in defense of our homestead."

The steady stare of the rancher's red eyes was hard to support. Archie felt himself weaken before the personality of this man he had come to see.

"Gather?"

The hardness of his greeting had now changed to the gentleness of tone in which the blind man usually spoke. But the boy drew no confidence from it while confronted by those unseeing eyes. It was Diane who understood and replied for him.

"Yes; Archie was in Forks last night, on business, father. He only learned what had happened on returning home this afternoon. He--he wants some help."

"Yes, sir," Archie went on quickly; "only a little help. I came home to find our homestead burned clean out. Not a roof left to shelter my mother and sister, and not one living beast left upon the place, except the dogs. Oh, my G.o.d, it is awful! Mother and Alice were sitting beside the corral gate weeping fit to break their hearts over the dead body of father when I found them. And the story, as I learned it, sir, was simple--horribly, terribly simple. They were roused at about two in the morning by the dogs barking. Father, thinking timber wolves were around, went out with a gun. He saw nothing till he got to the corrals. Then mother, watching from her window, saw the flash of several guns, and heard the rattle of their reports. Father dropped.

Then the gang of murderers roused out the stock, and some drove it off, while others wantonly fired the buildings. It was Red Mask, sir, for he came up to the house and ordered mother out before the place was fired. She is sure it was him because of his mask. She begged him not to burn her home, but the devil had no remorse; he vouchsafed only one reply. Maybe she forced him to an answer with her appeal; maybe he only spoke to intimidate others who might hear of his words from her.

Anyway, he said, 'Your man and you open your mouths too wide around this place. Manson Orr wrote in to the police, and asked for protection. You won't need it now, neither will he.'" He paused, while the horror of his story sank deeply into the heart of at least one of his hearers. Then he went on with that eager, nervous fire he had at first displayed: "Mr. Marbolt, I look to you to help me. I've got nothing to keep me now from following this devil of a man. I want to borrow horses, and I'll hunt him down. I'll hunt him down while I've a breath left in my body, sir," he went on, with rising pa.s.sion. "I'll pay him if it takes me my lifetime! Only lend me the horses, sir. It is as much to your interest as mine, for he has robbed you before now; your property is no more safe than any other man's. Let us combine to fight him, to bring him down, to measure him his full measure, to send him to h.e.l.l, where he belongs. I'll do this----"

"Yes, while your mother and sister starve," put in the blind man, drily. Then, as the fire of Archie's pa.s.sion suddenly sank at the cold, incisive words, and he remained silent and abashed, he went on, in quiet, even tones, while his red eyes were focussed upon his visitor's face with disconcerting directness, "No, no; go you--I won't say 'home,' but go you to your mother and sister: look after them, care for them, work for them. You owe that to them before any act of vengeance be made. When you have achieved their comfort, you are at liberty to plunge into any rashness you choose. I am no youngster, Archie Orr, I am a man of years, who has seen, all my life, only through a brain rendered doubly acute by lack of sight, and my advice is worthy of your consideration. You have nothing more to fear from Red Mask at present, but if you continue your headlong course you will have; and, as far as I can make out, his hand is heavy and swift in falling. Go back to your women-folk, I say. You can get no horses from me for such a foolhardy purpose as you meditate."

Diane had watched her father closely, and as he finished speaking, she moved toward the bereaved man and laid a hand upon his arm in gentle appeal.

"Father is right, Archie. Go back to them, those two lonely, broken-hearted women. You can do all for them if you will. They need all that your kind, honest heart can bestow. It is now that you must show the stuff you are made of."

Archie had turned away; but he looked round and mechanically glanced down at the brown hand still resting upon his arm. The sight of it held him for some moments, and when he raised his head a new look was in his eyes. The sympathy in her tones, the gentle encouragement of the few words she had spoken, had completed that which the sound but unsympathetic advice of her father had begun.

His purpose had been the wild impulse of unstable youth; there was no strength to it, no real resolution. Besides, he was a gentle-hearted lad, to whom Diane's appeal for his mother and sister was irresistible.

"Thank you, Miss Diane," he said, with a profound sigh. "Your kind heart has seen where my anger has been blind. Yes, I will return and help my mother. And I thank you, sir," he went on, turning reluctantly to face the stare of the rancher's eyes again. "You, too, have plainly shown me my duty, and I shall follow it, but--if ever----"

"And you'll do well," broke in Jake, with a rough laugh that jarred terribly. "Your father's paid his pound. If his son's wise, he'll hunt his hole."

Archie's eyes flashed ominously. Diane saw the look, and, in an instant, drew his attention to his horse, which was moving off toward the barn.

"See, Archie," she said, with a gentle smile, "your horse is weary, and is looking for rest."

The boy read her meaning. He held out his hand impulsively, and the girl placed hers into it. In a moment his other had closed over it, and he shook it tenderly. Then, without a word, he made off after his horse.

The blind man's face was turned in his direction as he went, and when the sound of his footsteps had died away, he turned abruptly and tapped his way back to the door. At the threshold he turned upon the foreman.

"Two days in succession I have been disturbed," he gritted out. "You are getting past your work, Jake Harnach."