The Sunset Trail Part 14

Mr. Wright sent over to that mart whereof he was proprietor, and presently a pearl-gray sombrero appeared.

"There you are!" exclaimed Mr. Wright. "As good a Stetson as ever rode in a round-up! Price? Not a word! I'll take it out in advertising."

Mr. Wright became as an elder brother to Higginson Peabody. On the morning following the latter's advent the two sat convenient to the hotel bar and talked of Indians. That is, Mr. Wright talked of Indians, and Higginson Peabody gulped and listened, pale of cheek.

Mr. Wright said a Cheyenne was as full of the unexpected as a career in Wall Street. He hoped the Cheyennes wouldn't kill and scalp anybody about Dodge between then and Christmas. Mr. Wright set his limit at Christmas because that was three months away, and three months was as long as even an optimist was licensed to hope anything of a Cheyenne.

No, Mr. Wright did not think the Cheyennes would immediately bother Dodge. They were busy with the buffaloes at that season. Moreover, there were a number of buffalo hunters along the Medicine Lodge and the Cimarron whom they, the Cheyennes, might capture and burn at the stake.

This would, so Mr. Wright argued, slake the Cheyenne thirst for immediate amus.e.m.e.nt. Later, when they had burned up that year's stock of buffalo hunters and were suffering from ennui, the Cheyennes would doubtless visit Dodge.

"But," declared Mr. Wright, triumphantly, "we generally beat 'em off.

They never capture or kill more'n fifty of us before we have 'em routed.

Sure; we down three times as many of them as they do of us. Which reminds me: come down to Kelly's Alhambra and let me show you the head-dresses and bead jackets we shucked from the last outfit we wiped out."

Mr. Wright exhibited to Higginson Peabody what trophies had been brought north from the 'Dobe Walls and were then adorning the walls of the Alhambra. Also, he had Mr. Kelly, who was their custodian, bring out the eighty scalps, and counted them into the shrinking fingers of Higginson Peabody, who handled them gingerly. They were one and all, so Mr. Wright averred, stripped from slaughtered Cheyennes in the streets of Dodge.

"Isn't that so, Kell?" asked Mr. Wright, appealing to Mr. Kelly.

"Sh.o.r.e!" a.s.sented Mr. Kelly. Then, by way of particular corroboration and picking out a brace of scalps whereof the braided hair was unusually long and glossy, "I killed an' skelped these two right yere in the s'loon."

Higginson Peabody was impressed and said he would one day write up what he had heard for the _Weekly Planet_.

Mr. Wright invited Higginson Peabody to explore the region lying back of Dodge. They would make the trip on ponies. Mr. Wright held that the exploration was requisite to the right editing of a local paper.

"For how," demanded Mr. Wright, plausibly, "can you get out a paper and know nothing of the country you're in? As for Cheyennes, you need entertain no fear. You'll have a pony under you that can beat an antelope."

Higginson Peabody, with Mr. Wright as guide, philosopher and friend, broke into the gray rolling desert to the north of Dodge. At the end of the first mile Dodge dropped out of sight behind a swell and Higginson Peabody found himself surrounded by naught save the shadowless plains-as grimly stark as when they slipped from the palm of the Infinite! The very picture of loneliness, the scene pressed upon the unsophisticated sensibilities of Higginson Peabody like a menace. He wanted to return to Dodge, but he didn't like to say so.

Mr. Wright became replete of reminiscences. He showed Higginson Peabody where a party of emigrants had been butchered by the Cheyennes only eight weeks before.

By the side of a water hole Mr. Wright pointed to the ashes of a fire.

The Cheyennes had there grilled a victim on the coals.

"You see," explained Mr. Wright, in apology for the Cheyennes, "they didn't have any stake. The best they could do was tie him, wrist and heel, toss him in the fire and then keep him there with their lances."

"Was he from Dodge?" faltered Higginson Peabody.

"No," said Mr. Wright, carelessly, "if my memory serves, he was a sot from Abilene."

Ten minutes later they were winding along a dry arroya.

"What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Wright, and he leaped from his pony.

Mr. Wright held up a moccasin which, apparently, he had taken from the ground.

"Cheyenne," said Mr. Wright, sinking his voice to a whisper. "Warm, too; that moccasin was on its owner not five minutes ago!"

Higginson Peabody took the buckskin footgear in his hands, which shook a little. The moccasin _was_ warm. It could hardly have been otherwise since Mr. Wright had carried it in an inside pocket.

Mr. Wright glanced furtively about.

"We'd better skin out for Dodge," said he.

Higginson Peabody wheeled, being quite in the humour for Dodge. He was on the threshold of saying so when a medley of yelps and yells broke forth. Higginson Peabody cast a look to the rear; a score of befeathered and ochre-bedabbled demons were in open cry not a furlong away.

Mr. Wright had made no idle brag when he said the pony bestrode by Higginson Peabody could outstrip an antelope. The latter gave that animal its head and the scenery began racing rearward in a slate-coloured blur. Mr. Wright's pony was panting on the flank of its flying mate.

"Ride hard!" shouted Mr. Wright. "To be captured is death by torture!"

Higginson Peabody did ride hard. There was a rattle of rifles and six-shooters; the high lead ripped and whined and whistled-new sounds to the shrinking ears of Higginson Peabody! Now and again a bullet scuttered along the ground to right or left and threw up ominous pinches of dust. Suddenly Mr. Wright reeled in the saddle.

"Save yourself!" he gasped. "Tell Masterson and the boys--"

The rest was lost to Higginson Peabody, for Mr. Wright's pony, evidently as badly wounded as its rider, began falling to the rear.

On tore Higginson Peabody. Dodge at last! Drawing a deep breath he swept down the main street like a tornado.

"Indians! Indians!" yelled Higginson Peabody.

Arriving opposite its home corral the pony set four hoofs and skated; recovering, it wheeled to the left. Higginson Peabody, by these abrupt manoeuvres, was spilled from the saddle "like a pup from a basket,"

according to Mr. Kelly, who watched the ceremony from the Alhambra door.

Higginson Peabody reached the gra.s.s in a convenient ball. After a prolonged roll of twenty feet he scrambled up uninjured.

"Get your guns!" he cried to Mr. Kelly, and then began to run.

It was afterward a matter of regret in Dodge that no arrangements had been made for timing Higginson Peabody. He had only covered one hundred yards when he ran into the arms of Mr. Masterson, but it was the dispa.s.sionate judgment of both Mr. Kelly and Mr. Short, who, from their respective houses of entertainment, reviewed the feat, that he did those one hundred yards in better than ten seconds. Indeed, so much was popular admiration excited by the winged work of Higginson Peabody that, in commemoration thereof, Dodge renamed him the "Jackrabbit," by which honourable appellation he was ever afterward known to its generous inhabitants.

"Get your guns!" shouted Higginson Peabody when stopped by the outspread arms.

"What's the trouble?" asked Mr. Masterson.

"Indians!" yelled the fugitive, making an effort to resume his flight.

"Come," said Mr. Masterson, refusing to be shaken off, "it's only a joke. What you need now is a drink. Let's push for Luke Short's."

While Higginson Peabody stood at the Long Branch bar and restored that confidence in his fellow-men which a two-days' stay in Dodge had done much to shake, Cimarron Bill and a select bevy, clad in full Cheyenne regalia, faces painted, blankets flying, feathers tossing, came whooping down the street. They jumped from their steaming ponies and joined Mr.

Masterson and their victim.

"The drinks is on me!" shouted Cimarron Bill, giving the counter a resounding slap. "Which I'm as dry as a covered bridge!"

"The drinks is on the house," said Mr. Short, severely. Then to Higginson Peabody, "Here's to you, stranger! An' let me say," concluded Mr. Short, while a colour of compliment showed through his tones, "that if ever you do run a footrace I'll string my money on you."

As he considered the incident, Higginson Peabody was inclined to refuse the boon of Mr. Wright's further acquaintance, but Mr. Masterson and Mr.

Kelly explained that to do so would be regarded, by the liberal sentiment of Dodge, as churlish in the extreme.

"That scamper into camp," urged Mr. Kelly, "oughtn't to count. It's only folks we like an' intend to adopt into our midst on whom we confer them rites of initiation."