The Night Riders Part 17

He lay quite still, watching intently. Something of the mare's nervous excitement gripped him. The movement was ghostly. It was only a movement. There was nothing distinct to be seen, nothing tangible; just a weird, nameless something. A dozen times he asked himself what it was. But the darkness always baffled him, and he could find no answer. He had an impression of great flapping wings--such wings as might belong to a giant bat. The movement was sufficiently regular to suggest this, but the idea carried no conviction. There, however, his conjectures ended.

At last he sprang up with a sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and his hand went to his revolver. The thing, or creature, whatever it was, was coming slowly but steadily toward him. Had he not been sure of this, the att.i.tude of the horses would have settled the question for him. Lady Jezebel pulled back in the throes of a wild fear, and the buckskin plunged madly to get free.

He had hardly persuaded them to a temporary calmness, when a mournful cry, rising in a wailing crescendo, split the air and died away abruptly. And he knew that it came from the advancing "movement."

And now it left the shadow and drew out into the moonlight. And the man watching beheld a dark heap distinctly outlined midway toward the bush. The wings seemed to have folded themselves, or, at least, to have lowered, and were trailing on the ground in the creature's wake.

Presently the whole thing ceased to move, and sat still like a great loathsome toad--a silent, uncanny heap amidst the lank prairie gra.s.s.

And somehow he felt glad that it was no longer approaching.

The moments crept by, and the position remained unchanged. Then slowly, with an air of settled purpose, the creature raised itself on its hind legs, and, swaying and shuffling, continued its advance. In an instant Tresler's revolver leapt from its holster, and he was ready to defend himself. The att.i.tude was familiar to him. He had read stories of the bears in the Rockies, and they came home to him now as he saw his adversary rear itself to its full height. His puzzlement was over; he understood now. He was dealing with a large specimen of the Rocky Mountain grizzly.

Yes, there could be no mistaking the swaying gait, the curious, snorting breathing, the sadly lolling head and slow movements. He remembered each detail with an exactness which astonished him, and was thrilled with the bristling sensation which a.s.sails every hunter when face to face with big game for the first time in his life.

He raised his gun, and took a long, steady aim, measuring the distance with deliberation, and selecting the animal's breast for his shot.

Then, just as he was about to fire, the brute's head turned and caught the cold, sharp moonlight full upon its face. There was a momentary flash of white, and Tresler's gun was lowered as though it had been struck down.

CHAPTER VIII

JOE NELSON INDULGES IN A LITTLE MATCH-MAKING

The moonlight had revealed the grotesque features of Joe Nelson!

Tresler returned his gun to its holster precipitately, and his action had in it all the chagrin of a man who has been "had" by a practical joker. His discomfiture, however, quickly gave way before the humor of the situation, and he burst into a roar of laughter.

He laughed while he watched his bear drop again to his hands and knees, and continue to crawl toward him, till the tears rolled down his cheeks. On came the little fellow, enveloped in the full embracing folds of a large brown blanket, and his silent dogged progress warned Tresler that, as yet, his own presence was either unrealized or ignored in the earnestness of his unswerving purpose. And the nature of that purpose--for Tresler had fully realized it--was the most laughable thing of all. Joe was stalking his buckskin pony with the senseless cunning of a drunken man.

At last the absurdity of the position became too much, and he hailed the little ch.o.r.eman in the midst of his laughter.

"Ho! You, Joe!" he called. "What the blazes d'you think you're doing?"

There was no reply. For all heed the man under the blanket gave, he might have been deaf, dumb and blind. He just came steadily on.

Tresler shouted again, and more sharply. This time his summons had its effect. It brought an answer--an answer that set him off into a fresh burst of laughter.

"Gorl darn it, boys," came a peevish voice, from amidst the blanket, "'tain't smart, neither, playin' around when a feller's kind o'

roundin' up his plug. How'm I goin' to cut that all-fired buckskin out o' the bunch wi' you gawkin' around like a reg'ment o' hoboes? Ef you don't reckon to fool any, why, some o' you git around an' head him off from the rest of 'em. I'd do it myself on'y my cussed legs has given out."

"Boys, eh?" Tresler was still laughing, but he checked his mirth sufficiently to answer, "Why, man, it's the whisky that's fooling you.

There are no 'boys,' and no 'bunch' of horses here. Just your horse and mine; and I've got them both safe enough. You're drunk, Joe--beastly drunk."

Joe suddenly struggled to his feet and stood swaying uncertainly, but trying hard to steady himself. He focussed his eyes with much effort upon the tall figure before him, and then suddenly moved forward like a man crossing a brook on a single, narrow, and dangerously swaying plank. He all but pitched headlong into the waiting man as he reached him, and would undoubtedly have fallen to the ground but for the aid of a friendly hand thrust out to catch him. And while Tresler turned to pacify the two thoroughly frightened horses, the little man's angry tones snapped out at him in what was intended for a dignified protest. In spite of his drunken condition, his words were distinct enough, though his voice was thick. After all, as he said, it was his legs that had given way.

"Guess you're that blazin' 'tenderfoot' Tresler," he said, with all the sarcasm he was capable of at the moment. "Wal, say, Mr. a'mighty Tresler, ef it wa'n't as you wus a 'tenderfoot,' I'd shoot you fer sayin' I wus drunk. Savee? You bein' a 'tenderfoot,' I'll jest mention you're side-tracked, you're most on the sc.r.a.p heap, you've left the sheer trail an' you're ditched. You've hit a gait you can't travel, an' don't amount to a decent, full-sized jacka.s.s. Savee? I ain't drunk. It's drink; see? Carney's rotgut. I tell you right here I'm sober, but my legs ain't. Mebbe you're that fool-headed you don't savee the difference."

Tresler restrained a further inclination to laugh. He had wasted too much time already, and was anxious to get back to the ranch. He quite realized that Joe knew what he was about, if his legs were _hors-de-combat_, for, after delivering himself of this, his unvarnished opinion, he wisely sought the safer vantage-ground of a sitting posture.

Tresler grabbed at the blanket and pulled it off his shoulders.

"What's this?" he asked sharply.

Joe looked up, his little eyes sparkling with resentment.

"'Tain't yours, anyway," he said. Then he added with less anger, and some uncertainty, "Guess I slept some down at the bushes. Durned plug got busy 'stead o' waitin' around. The fool hoss ain't got no manners anyways."

"Manners? Don't blither." Tresler seized him by the coat collar and yanked him suddenly upon his feet. "Now, hand over that letter to Sheriff Fyles. I've orders to deliver it myself."

Joe's twisted face turned upward with a comical expression of perplexity. The moonlight caught his eyes, and he blinked. Then he looked over at the horses, and, shaking his head solemnly, began to fumble at his pockets.

"S-Sheriff F-Fyles," he answered doubtfully. He seemed to have forgotten the very name. "F-Fyles?" he repeated again. "Letter? Say, now, I wus kind o' wonderin' what I c.u.m to Forks fer. Y' see I mostly git around Forks fer Carney's rotgut. Course, ther' wus a letter. Jest wher' did I put that now?" He became quite cheerful as he probed his pockets.

Tresler waited until, swaying and even stumbling in the process, he had turned out two pockets; then his impatience getting the better of him, he proceeded to conduct the search himself.

"Now see here," he said firmly, "I'll go through your pockets. If you've lost it, there'll be trouble for you when you get back. If you'd only kept clear of that saloon you would have been all right."

"That's so," said Joe humbly, as he submitted to the other's search.

Tresler proceeded systematically. There was nothing but tobacco and pipe in the outside pockets of his coat. His trousers revealed a ten-cent piece and a dollar bill, which the ch.o.r.eman thanked him profusely for finding, a.s.suring him, regretfully, that he wouldn't have left the saloon if he had known he had it. The inside pocket of the coat was drawn blank of all but a piece of newspaper, and Tresler p.r.o.nounced his verdict in no measured terms.

"You drunken little fool, you've lost it," he said, as he held out the unfolded newspaper.

Joe seemed past resentment with his fresh trouble. He squinted hard to get the newspaper into proper focus.

"Say," he observed meekly, "I guess it wus in that, sure. Sure, yes,"

he nodded emphatically, "I planted it that a-ways to kep it from the dirt. I 'member readin' the headin' o' that paper. Et wus 'bout some high-soundin' female in New Yo----"

"Confound it!" Tresler was more distressed for the little man than angry with him. He knew Jake would be furious, and cast about in his mind for excuses that might save him. The only one he could think of was feeble enough, but he suggested it.

"Well, there's only one thing to do; we must ride back, and you can say you lost the letter on the way out, and have spent the day looking for it."

Joe seemed utterly dejected. "Sure, yes. There's on'y one thing to do," he murmured disconsolately. "We must ride back. Say, you're sure, plumb sure it ain't in one of my pockets? Dead sure I must 'a' lost it?"

"No doubt of it. d.a.m.n it, Joe, I'm sorry. You'll be in a deuce of a sc.r.a.pe with Jake. It's all that cursed drink."

"That's so," murmured the culprit mournfully. His face was turned away. Now it suddenly brightened as though a fresh and more hopeful view of the matter had presented itself, and his twisted features slowly wreathed themselves into a smile. His deep-set eyes twinkled with an odd sort of mischievous humor as he raised them abruptly to the troubled face of his companion.

"Guess I kind o' forgot to tell you. I gave the sheriff that letter this mornin' 'fore I called on Carney. Mebbe, ef I'd told you 'fore I'd 'a' saved you----"

"You little----"

Tresler could find no words to express his exasperation. He made a grab at the now grinning man's coat collar, seized him, and, lifting him bodily, literally threw him on to the back of his buckskin pony.

"You little old devil!" he at last burst out; "you stay there, and back you go to the ranch. I'll shake the liquor out of you before we get home."

Tresler sprang into his saddle, and, turning his mare's head homeward, led the buckskin and its drunken freight at a rattling pace. And Joe kept silence for a while. He felt it was best so. But, in the end, he was the first to speak, and when he did so there was a quiet dryness in his tone that pointed all he said.