The Rustler of Wind River Part 32

"He'll dance in h.e.l.l for that trick before the sun goes down on another day!"

"His big play for sympathy fell flat," said King, with a contemptuous laugh. "There wasn't much of a crowd on hand when he arrived at the ranch."

Silence. A little shifting of feet, a growl from Chadron, and a curse.

"But as for your proposal involving Miss Chadron, I am honored by it,"

said King.

"Any man would be!" Chadron declared.

"And we will just let it stand, waiting the lady's sanction."

That brightened Chadron up. He moved about, and there was a sound as if he had slapped the young officer on the back in pure comradeship and open admiration.

"What's your scheme for drawin' that feller into firin' on your men?"

he asked.

"We'll talk it over as we go," said King.

A bugle lifted its sharp, electrifying note in the barracks.

"Boots and saddles!" Chadron said.

"Yes; we march at nine o'clock."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TRAIL OF THE COFFEE

"You done right to come to the mission after me, for I'd ride to the gatepost of h.e.l.l to turn a trick agin Saul Chadron!"

Banjo's voice had a quaver of earnestness in it that needed no daylight to enforce. The pitchy night made a bobbing blur of him as he rode his quick-stepping little horse at Frances Landcraft's side.

"Yes, you owe him one," Frances admitted.

"And I'll pay him before mornin' or it won't be no fault of mine. That there little ten-cent-size major he'd 'a' stopped you if he'd 'a'

known you was goin', don't you suppose?"

"I'm sure he would have, Mr. Gibson."

"Which?" said Banjo.

"Banjo," she corrected.

"Now, that sounds more comfortabler," he told her. "I didn't know for a minute who you meant, that name's gittin' to be a stranger to me."

"Well, we don't want a stranger along tonight," said she, seriously.

"You're right, we don't. That there horse you're ridin' he's a good one, as good as any in the cavalry, even if he ain't as tall. He was an outlaw till Missus Mathews tamed him down."

"How did she do it--not break him like a bronco-buster?"

"No, she done it like she tames Injuns and other folks, by gentle words and gentler hands. Some they'll tell you she's sunk down to the ways of Injuns, clean out of a white man's sight in the dirt and doin's of them dead-horse eatin' 'Rapahoes. But I know she ain't. She lets herself down on a level to reach 'em, and git her hands under 'em so she can lift 'em up, the same as she puts herself on my level when she wants to reach me, or your level, or anybody's level, mom."

"Her eyes and her soft ways tell you that, Banjo, as plain as any words."

"She's done ten times as much as that big-backed buffalo of a preacher she's married to ever done for his own people, or ever will. He's clim above 'em with his educated ways; the Injun's ironed out of that man.

You can't reach down and help anybody up, mom, if you go along through this here world on stilts."

"Not very well, Banjo."

"You need both of your hands to hold your stilts, mom; you ain't got even a finger to spare for a low-down feller like me."

"You're not a low-down fellow, Banjo. Don't be calling yourself names."

"I was low-down enough to believe what they told me about Macdonald shootin' up Chance Dalton. I believed it till Missus Mathews give me the straight of it. One of them Injun police fellers told her how that job was put up, and how it failed to work."

"A man named La.s.siter told me about it."

They rode along in silence a long time after that. Then Banjo--

"Well, I hope we don't bust out onto them cavalry fellers too sudden and meet a flock of bullets. I'd never forgive the man that put a bullet through my fiddle."

"We'll go slowly, and keep listening; I can tell cavalry from cowboys as far as I can hear."

"I bet a purty you can, brought up with 'em like you was."

"They'll not be able to do anything before daylight, and when we overtake them we'll ride around and get ahead while they're waiting for morning. I don't know where the homesteaders are, but they'll be sending out scouts to locate them, and we can watch."

They were following the road that the cavalry had taken an hour in advance of them. Listening now, they rode on without words. Now and then a bush at the roadside flipped a stirrup, now and again Banjo's little horse snorted in short impatience, as if expressing its disapproval of this journey through the dark. Night was a.s.sertive in its heaviness, but communicative of its mysteries in its wild scents--the silent music of its hour.

There are those who, on walking in the night, can tell the hour by the smell, the taste, the elusive fine aroma of the quiet air. Before midnight it is like a new-lit censer; in the small hours the smell of old camp fires comes trailing, and the scent of rain upon embers.

But Frances Landcraft was not afraid of the night as she rode silently through it with Banjo Gibson at her side. There was no shudder in it for her as there had been on the night that Nola was stolen; it could not have raised up a terror grim enough to turn her back upon the road.

Her one thought was that she must reach Macdonald before Chadron and King could find him, and tell him that the troops were coming, and that he was to be trapped into firing upon them. She knew that many lives depended upon her endurance, courage, and strategy; many lives, but most of all Alan Macdonald's life. He must be warned, at the cost of her own safety, her own life, if necessary.

To that end the troops must be followed, and a desperate dash at daylight must be made into Macdonald's camp. Perhaps it would be a race with the cavalry at the last moment.

Banjo said it was beginning to feel like morning. An hour past they had crossed the river at the ford near Macdonald's place, and the foothills stood rough and black against the starry horizon. They were near them now, so near that the deeper darkness of their timbered sides fell over them like a cold shadow.

Suddenly she checked Banjo with a sharp word.

"I heard them!" she whispered.