The Rustler of Wind River Part 36

She scorned him and his veneration for orders, and turned from him coldly.

"Is there no doctor with your detachment?" she asked.

"He has gone on with the main body, Miss Landcraft. They have several wounded."

"Wounded murderers and burners of homes! Well, I'm not going to Alamito Ranch with you, sir, unless you can contrive an ambulance of some sort and take this gentleman too."

The officer brightened. He believed it could be arranged. Inside of an hour he had Tom La.s.siter around with a team and spring wagon, in which the homesteaders laid Macdonald tenderly upon a bed of hay.

Banjo waited until they were ready to begin their slow march to the ranch, when he led his little horse forward.

"I'll go on to the agency after the doctor and send him over to Alamito as quick as he can go," he said. "And I'll see if Mother Mathews can go over, too. She's worth four doctors when it comes to keep the pizen from spreadin' in a wound."

Frances gave him her benediction with her eyes, and farewell with a warm handclasp, and Banjo's beribboned horse frisked off on its long trip, quite refreshed from the labors of the past night.

Frances was carrying Macdonald's cartridge belt and revolvers, the confiscation of which had been overlooked by Major King in the excitement of the shooting. The young lieutenant hadn't the heart to take the weapons from her. Orders had been carried out; Macdonald had been disarmed. He let it go at that.

Frances rode in the wagon with Macdonald, a canteen of water slung over her shoulders. Now and then she moistened his lips with a little of it, and bathed his eyes, closed in pathetic weariness. He was unconscious still from the blow of Saul Chadron's big bullet. As she ministered to him she felt that he would open his eyes on this world's pains and cruel injustices nevermore.

And why had Major King ordered her, virtually under arrest, to Alamito Ranch, instead of sending her in disgrace to the post? Was it because he feared that she would communicate with her father from the post, and discover to him the treacherous compact between Chadron and King, or merely to take a mean revenge upon her by humiliating her in Nola Chadron's eyes?

He had taken the newspaper correspondent with him, and certainly would see that no more of the truth was sent out by him from that flame-swept country for several days. With her at the ranch, far from telegraphic communication with the world, nothing could go out from her that would enlighten the department on the deception that the cattlemen had practiced to draw the government into the conflict on their side. In the meantime, the Drovers' a.s.sociation would be at work, spreading money with free hand, corrupting evidence with the old dyes of falsehood.

Major King had seen his promised reward withdrawn through her intervention, and had made a play of being fair to both sides in the controversy, except that he kept one hand on Chadron's shoulder, so to speak, in making martyrs of those b.l.o.o.d.y men whom he had sent there to burn and kill. They were to be shipped safely back to their place, where they would disperse, and walk free of all prosecution afterwards. For that one service to the cattlemen Major King could scarcely hope to win his coveted reward.

She believed that Alan Macdonald would die. It seemed that the fever which would consume his feeble hope of life was already kindling on his lips. But she had no tears to pour out over him now. Only a great hardness in her heart against Saul Chadron, and a wild desire to lift her hand and strike him low.

Whether Major King would make her attempt against Chadron's life, or her interference with his military expedition his excuse for placing her under guard, remained for the future to develop. She turned these things in her mind as they proceeded along the white river road toward the ranch.

It came noontime, and decline of sun; the shadow of the mountains reached down into the valley, the mist came purple again over the foothills, the fire of sunset upon the clouds. Alan Macdonald still lived, his strong harsh face turned to the fading skies, his tired eyelids closed upon his dreams.

CHAPTER XX

LOVE AND DEATH

Maggie and Alvino had the ranch to themselves when the military party from the upper valley arrived, Mrs. Chadron and Nola having driven to Meander that morning. It had been their intention to return that evening, Maggie said. Mrs. Chadron had gone after chili peppers, and other things, but princ.i.p.ally chili peppers. There was not one left in the house, and the mistress could not live without them, any more than fire could burn without wood.

Dusk had settled when they reached the ranch, and night thickened fast. The lieutenant dropped two men at the corral gate--her guard, Frances understood--and went back to his task of watching for armed men upon the highroads.

Under the direction of Frances, Maggie had placed a cot in Mrs.

Chadron's favored sitting-room with the fireplace. There Macdonald lay in clean sheets, a blaze on the hearth, and Maggie was washing his wound with hot water, groaning in the pity which is the sweetest part of the women of her homely race.

"I think that he will live, miss," she said hopefully. "See, he has a strong breath on my damp hand--I can feel it like a little wind."

She spoke in her native tongue, which Frances understood thoroughly from her years in Texas and Arizona posts. Frances shook her head sorrowfully.

"I am afraid his breath will fail soon, Maggie."

"No, if they live the first hour after being shot, they get well,"

Maggie persisted, with apparent sincerity. "Here, put your hand on his heart--do you feel it? What a strong heart he has to live so well!

what a strong, strong heart!"

"Yes, a strong, strong heart!" Tears were falling for him now that there was none to see them, scalding their way down her pale cheeks.

"He must have carried something sacred with him to give him such strength, such life."

"He carried honor," said Frances, more to herself than to Maggie, doubting that she would understand.

"And love, maybe?" said Maggie, with soft word, soft upward-glancing of her feeling dark eyes.

"Who can tell?" Frances answered, turning her head away.

Maggie drew the sheet over him and stood looking down into his severe white face.

"If he could speak he would ask for his mother, and for water then, and after that the one he loves. That is the way a man's mind carries those three precious things when death blows its breath in his face."

"I do not know," said Frances, slowly.

There was such stress in waiting, such silence in the world, and such emptiness and pain! Reverently as Maggie's voice was lowered, soft and sympathetic as her word, Frances longed for her to be still, and go and leave her alone with him. She longed to hold the dear spark of his faltering life in her own hands, alone, quite alone; to warm it back to strength in her own lone heart. Surely her name could not be the last in his remembrance, no matter for the disturbing breath of death.

"I will bring you some food," said Maggie. "To give him life out of your life you must be strong."

Frances started out of her sleep in the rocking-chair before the fire.

She had turned the lamp low, but there was a flare of light on her face. Her faculties were so deeply sunk in that insidious sleep which had crept upon her like a bindweed upon wheat that she struggled to rise from it. She sprang up, her mind groping, remembering that there was something for which she was under heavy responsibility, but unable for a moment to bring it back to its place.

Nola was in the door with a candle, shading the flame from her eyes with her hand. Her hair was about her shoulders, her feet were bare under the hem of her long dressing-robe. She was staring, her lips were open, her breath was quick, as if she had arrived after a run.

"Is he--alive?" she whispered.

"Why should you come to ask? What is his life to you?" asked Frances, sorrowfully bitter.

"Oh, Maggie just woke and came up to tell me, mother doesn't know--she's just gone to bed. Isn't it terrible, Frances!"

Nola spoke distractedly, as if in great agony, or great fear.

"He can't harm any of you now, you're safe." Frances was hard and scornful. She turned from Nola and laid her hand on Macdonald's brow, drawing her breath with a relieved sigh when she felt the warmth of life still there.

"Oh, Frances, Frances!" Nola moaned, with expression of despair, "isn't this terrible!"

"If you mean it's terrible to have him here, I can't help it. I'm a prisoner, here against my will. I couldn't leave him out there alone to die."

Nola lowered her candle and stared at Frances, her eyes big and blank of everything but a wild expression that Frances had read as fear.