SMITH REACHED FOR THE TRAILING ROPE AND THEY WERE GONE!
SMITH REACHED FOR THE TRAILING ROPE AND THEY WERE GONE!
With the lightning-like gesture which had made his name a byword where Babe himself was unknown, he pulled his six-shooter from its holster and shot Tubbs through the head. He fell his length, like a bundle of blankets, and, even as he dropped, Babe was in the saddle and away.
It was a desperate race that was on, between desperate men; for if Smith was desperate, Ralston was not less so. Every fibre of his being was concentrated in the determination to recapture the man who had twice outwitted him. The deputy sheriff’s reputation was at stake; his pride and self-respect as well; and the blood-thirst was rising in him with each jump of his horse. Every other emotion paled, every other interest faded, beside the intensity of his desire to stop the man ahead of him.
Smith knew that he had only a chance in a thousand. He had seen Ralston with a six-shooter explode a cartridge placed on a rock as far away as he could see it, and he was riding the little brown mare whose swiftness Smith had reason to remember.
But he had the start, his bronco was young, its wind of the best, and it might have speed. The country was rough, Ralston’s horse might fall with him. So long as Smith was at liberty there was a fighting chance, and as always, he took it.
The young horse, mad with fright, kept to the serpentine course of the creek-bottom, and Ralston, on the little mare, sure-footed and swift as a jack-rabbit, followed its lead.
The race was like a steeple-chase, with boulders and brush and fallen logs to be hurdled, and gullies and washouts to complicate the course. And at every outward curve thepin-n-gg!of a bullet told Smith of his pursuer’s nearness. Lying flat on the barebacked horse, he hung well to the side until he was again out of sight. The lead plowed up the dirt ahead of him and behind him, and flattened itself against rocks; and at each futile shot Smith looked over his shoulder and grinned in derision, though his skin had still the curious yellowness of fear.
The race was lasting longer than Smith had dared hope. It began to look as if it were to narrow to a test of endurance, for although Ralston’s shots missed by only a hair’s breadth at times, still, they missed. If Smith ever had prayed, he would have prayed then; but he had neither words nor faith, so he only hoped and rode.
A flat came into sight ahead and a yell burst from Ralston—a yell that was unexpected to himself. A wave of exultation which seemed to come from without swept over him. He touched the mare with the spur, and she skimmed the rocks as if his weight on her back were nothing. It was smoother, and he was close enough now to use his best weapon. He thrust the empty rifle into its scabbard, and shot at Smith’s horse with his six-shooter. It stumbled; then its knees doubled under it, and Smith turned in the air. The game was up; Smith was afoot.
He picked up his hat and dusted his coat-sleeve while he waited, and his face was yellow and evil.
“That was a dum good horse,” was Babe’s single comment as he rode up.
“Get back to camp!” said Ralston peremptorily, and Smith, in his high-heeled, narrow-soled boots, stumbled ahead of them without a word.
He looked at Tubbs’s body without surprise. Sullen and surly, he felt no regret that Tubbs, braggart and fool though he was, was dead. Smith had no conscience to remind him that he himself was responsible.
Babe shook out Smith’s blue army blanket and rolled Tubbs in it. Smith had bought it from a drunken soldier, and he had owned it a long time. It was light and almost water-proof; he liked it, and he eyed Babe’s action with disfavor.
“I reckon this gent will have to spend the day in a tree,” said Babe prosaically.
“Couldn’t you use no other blanket nor that?” demanded Smith.
It was the first time he had spoken.
“Don’t take on so,” Babe replied comfortingly. “They furnish blankets where you’re goin’.”
He went on with his work of throwing a hitch around Tubbs with his picket-rope.
Ralston divided the scanty rations which Smith and Tubbs, and he and Babe, had brought with them. He made coffee, and handed a cup to Smith first. The latter arose and changed his seat.
“I never could eat with a corp’ settin’ around,” he said disagreeably.
Smith’s fastidiousness made Babe’s jaw drop, and a piece of biscuit which had made his cheek bulge inadvertently rolled out, but was skillfully intercepted before it reached the ground.
“I hope you’ll excuse us, Mr. Smith,” said Babe, bowing as well as he could sitting cross-legged on the ground. “I hope you’ll overlook our forgittin’ the napkins and toothpicks.”
When they had finished, they slung Tubbs’s body into a tree, beyond the reach of coyotes. The cattle they left to drift back to their range. Tubbs’s horse was saddled for Smith, and, with Ralston holding the lead rope and Babe in the rear, the procession started back to the ranch.
Smith had much time to think on the homeward ride. He based his hopes upon the Indian woman. He knew that he could conciliate her with a look. She was resourceful, she had unlimited influence with the Indians, and she had proven that she was careless of her own life where he was concerned. She was a powerful ally. The situation was not so bad as it had seemed. He had been in tighter places, he told himself, and his spirits rose as he rode. Without the plodding cattle, they retraced their steps in half the time it had taken them to come, and it was not much after midday when they were sighted from the MacDonald ranch.
The Indians that Smith had missed were at the ford to meet them: Bear Chief, Yellow Bird, Running Rabbit, and others, who were strangers to him. They followed as Ralston and Babe rode with their prisoner up the path to put him under guard in the bunk-house.
Susie, McArthur, and Dora were at the door of the ranch-house, and Susie stepped out and stopped them when they would have passed.
“You can’t take him there; that place is for ourfriends. There’s the harness-house below. The dogs sleep there. There’ll be room for one more.”
The insult stung Smith to the quick.
“Whatyougot to say about it? Where’s your mother?”
With narrowed eyes she looked for a moment into his ugly visage, then she laid her hand upon the rope and led his horse close to the open window of the bedroom.
“There,” and she pointed to the still figure on its improvised bier. “There’s my mother!”
Smith looked in silence, and once more showed by his yellowing skin the fear within him. The avenue of escape upon which he had counted almost with certainty, was closed to him. At that moment the harsh, high walls of the penitentiary loomed close; the doors looked wide open to receive him; but, after an instant’s hesitation, he only shrugged his shoulders and said:
“Hell! I sleeps good anywhere.”
In deference to Susie’s wishes, Ralston and Babe had swung their horses to go back down the path when Smith turned in his saddle and looked at Dora. She was regarding him sorrowfully, her eyes misty with disappointment in him; and Smith misunderstood. A rush of feeling swept over him, and he burst out impulsively:
“Don’t go back on me! I done it for you, girl! I done it to makeour stake!”
Dora stood speechless, bewildered, confused under the astonished eyes upon her. She was appalled by the light in which he had placed her; and while the others followed to the harness-house below, she sank limply upon the door-sill, her face in her hands.
Smith sat on a wagon-tongue, swinging his legs, while they cleaned out the harness-house a bit for his occupancy.
“Throw down some straw and rustle up a blanket or two,” said Babe; and McArthur pulled his saddle-blankets apart to contribute the cleanest toward Smith’s bed.
Something in the alacrity the “bug-hunter” displayed angered Smith. He always had despised the little man in a general way. He uncinched his saddle on the wrong side; he clucked at his horse; he removed his hat when he talked to women; he was a weak and innocent fool to Smith, who lost no occasion to belittle him. Now, when the prisoner saw him moving about, free to go and come as he pleased, while he, Smith, was tied like an unruly pup, it, of a sudden, made his gorge rise; and, with one of his swift, characteristic transitions of mood, Smith turned to the Indians who guarded him.
“You never could find out who killed White Antelope—you smart-Alec Injuns!” he sneered contemptuously. “And you’ve always wanted to know, haven’t you?” He eyed them one by one. “Why, you don’t know straight up, you women warriors! I’ve a notion to tell you who killed White Antelope—just for fun—just because I want to laugh, me—Smith!”
The Indians drew closer.
“You think you’re scouts,” he went on tauntingly, “and you never saw White Antelope’s blanket right under your nose! Put it back, feller”—he nodded at McArthur. “I don’t aim to sleep on dead men’s clothes!”
The Indians looked at the blanket, and at McArthur, whom they had grown to like and trust. They recognized it now, and in the corner they saw the stiff and dingy stain, the jagged tell-tale holes.
McArthur mechanically held it up to view. He had not the faintest recollection where it had been purchased, or of whom obtained. Tubbs always had attended to such things.
No one spoke in the grave silence, and Smith leered.
“I likes company,” he said. “I’m sociable inclined. Put him in the dog-house with me.”
Susie had listened with the Indians; she had looked at the blanket, the stain, the holes; she saw the blank consternation in McArthur’s face, the gathering storm in the Indians’ eyes. She stepped out a little from the rest.
“MisterSmith!” she said. “MisterSmith”—with oily, sarcastic emphasis—“how did you know that was White Antelope’s blanket, when you neversawWhite Antelope?”
XXIIA MONGOLIAN CUPID
With his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, Ralston leaned against the corner of the bunk-house, from which point of vantage he could catch a glimpse of the Schoolmarm’s white-curtained window. He now had no feeling of elation over his success. Smith was a victorious captive. Ralston’s heart ached miserably, and he wished that the day was ended and the morning come, that he might go, never to return.
He too had seen the mist in Dora’s eyes; and, with Smith’s words, the air-castles which had persistently built themselves without volition on his part, crumbled. There was nothing for him to do but to efface himself as quickly and as completely as possible. The sight of him could only be painful to Dora, and he wished to spare her all of that within his power.
He looked at the foothills, the red butte rising in their midst, the tinted Bad Lands, the winding, willow-fringed creek. It was all beautiful in its bizarre colorings; but the spirit of the picture, the warm, glowing heart of it, had gone from it for him. The world looked a dull and lifeless place. His love for Dora was greater than he had known, far mightier than he had realized until the end, the positive end, had come.
“Oh, Dora!” he whispered in utter wretchedness. “Dear little Schoolmarm!”
In the room behind the white-curtained window the Schoolmarm walked the floor with her cheeks aflame and as close to hysteria as ever she had been in her life.
“Whatwillhe think of me!” she asked herself over and over again, clasping and unclasping her cold hands. “Whatcanhe think but one thing?”
The more overwrought she became, the worse the situation seemed.
“And how he looked at me! How they all looked at me! Oh, it was too dreadful!”
She covered her burning face with her hands.
“There isn’t the slightest doubt,” she went on, “but that he thinks I knew all about it. Perhaps”—she paused in front of the mirror and stared into her own horrified eyes—“perhaps he thinks I belong to a gang of robbers! Maybe he thinks I am Smith’s tool, or that Smith is my tool, or something like that! Oh, whatever made him say such a thing! ‘Our stake—ourstake’—and—‘I done it for you!’”
Another thought, still more terrifying occurred to her excited mind:
“What if he should have to arrest me as an accomplice!”
She sat down weakly on the edge of the bed.
“Oh,” and she rocked to and fro in misery, “if only I never had tried to improve Smith’s mind!”
The tears slipped from under the Schoolmarm’s lashes, and her chin quivered.
Worn out by the all night’s vigil at her mother’s bedside, and the exciting events of the morning, Susie finally succumbed to the strain and slept the sleep of exhaustion. It was almost supper-time when she awakened. Passing the Schoolmarm’s door, she heard a sound at which she stopped and frankly listened. Teacher was crying!
“Ling, this is an awful world. Everything seems to be upside down and inside out!”
“Plenty tlouble,” agreed Ling, stepping briskly about as he collected ingredients for his biscuits.
“Don’t seem to make much difference whether you love people or hate ’em; it all ends the same way—in tears.”
“Plitty bad thing—love.” Ling solemnly measured baking-powder. “Make people cly.”
Susie surmised correctly that Ling’s ears also had been close to a nearby keyhole.
“There’d ’a’ been fewer tears on this ranch if it hadn’t been for Smith.”
“Many devils—Smith.”
Susie sat on the corner of his work-table, and there was silence while he deftly mixed, rolled, and cut his dough.
“Mr. Ralston intends to go away in the morning,” said Susie, as the biscuits were slammed in the oven.
Ling wagged his head dolorously.
“And they’ll never see each other again.”
His head continued to wag.
“Ling,” Susie whispered, “we’ve got todosomething.” She stepped lightly to the open door and closed it.
There were few at the supper-table that night, and there was none of the noisy banter which usually prevailed. The grub-liners came in softly and spoke in hushed tones, out of a kind of respect for two empty chairs which had been the recognized seats of Tubbs and the Indian woman.
Ralston bowed gravely as Dora entered—pale, her eyes showing traces of recent tears. Susie was absent, having no heart for food or company, and preferring to sit beside her mother for the brief time which remained to her. Even Meeteetse Ed shared in the general depression, and therefore it was in no spirit of flippancy that he observed as he replaced his cup violently in its saucer:
“Gosh A’mighty, Ling, you must have biled a gum-boot in this here tea!”
Dora, who had drank nearly half of hers, was unable to account for the peculiar tang which destroyed its flavor, and Ralston eyed the contents of his cup doubtfully after each swallow.
“Like as not the water’s gittin’ alkali,” ventured Old Man Rulison.
“Alkali nothin’. That’s gum-boot, or else a plug of Battle Ax fell in.”
Ling bore Meeteetse’s criticisms with surprising equanimity.
A moment later the lights blurred for Dora.
“I—I feel faint,” she whispered, striving to rise.
Ralston, who had already noted her increasing pallor, hastened around the table and helped her into the air. Ling’s immobile face was a study as he saw them leave the room together, but satisfaction was the most marked of its many expressions. He watched them from the pantry window as they walked to the cottonwood log which served as a garden-seat for all.
“I wonder if it was that queer tea?”
“It has been a hard day for you,” Ralston replied gently.
Dora was silent, and they remained so for some minutes. Ralston spoke at last and with an effort.
“I am sorry—sorrier than I can tell you—that it has been necessary for me to hurt you. I should rather, far, far rather, hurt myself than you, Miss Marshall—I wish I could make you know that. What I have done has been because it was my duty. I am employed by men who trust me, and I was in honor bound to follow the course I have; but if I had known what I know now—if I had been sure—I might in some way have made it easier for you. I am going away to-morrow, and perhaps it will do no harm to tell you that I had hoped”—he stopped to steady his voice, and went on—“I had hoped that our friendship might end differently.
“I shall be gone in the morning before you are awake, so I will say good-night—and good-by.” He arose and put out his hand. “Shall I send Susie to you?”
The lump in Dora’s throat hurt her.
“Wait a minute,” she whispered in a strained voice. “I want to say something, too, before you go. I don’t want you to go away thinking that I knew anything of Smith’s plans; that I knew he was going to steal cattle; that he was trying to make a ’stake’ for us—forme. It is all a misunderstanding.”
Dora was looking straight ahead of her, and did not see the change which came over Ralston’s face.
“I never thought of Smith in any way except to help him,” she went on. “He seemed different from most that stopped here, and I thought if I could just start him right, if only I could show him what he might do if he tried, he might be better for my efforts. And, after all, my time and good intentions were wasted. He deceived me in making me think that he too wanted to make more of his life, and that he was trying. And then to make such a speech before you all!”
“Don’t think about it—or Smith,” Ralston answered. “He has come to his inevitable end. When there’s bad blood, mistaken ideals, and wrong standards of living, you can’t do much—you can’t do anything. There is only one thing which controls men of his type, and that is fear—fear of the law. His love for you is undoubtedly the best, the whitest, thing that ever came into his life, but it couldn’t keep him straight, and never would. Don’t worry. Your efforts haven’t hurt him, or you. You are wiser, and maybe he is better.”
“It’s awfully good of you to comfort me,” said Dora gratefully.
“Good of me?” he laughed softly. “Little Schoolmarm”—he laid a hand upon each shoulder and looked into her eyes—“I love you.”
Her pupils dilated, and she breathed in wonder.
“Youloveme?”
“I do.” He brushed back a wisp of hair which had blown across her cheek, and, stooping, kissed her deliberately upon the mouth.
Inside the house a radiant Mongolian rushed from the pantry window into the room where Susie sat. He carried a nearly empty bottle which had once contained lemon extract, and his almond eyes danced as he handed it to her, whispering gleefully:
“All light! Good medicine!”
The big kerosene lamp screwed to the wall in the living-room had long since been lighted, but Susie still sat on the floor, leaning her cheek against the blanket which covered the Indian woman. The house was quiet save for Ling in the kitchen—and lonely—but she had a fancy that her mother would like to have her there beside her; so, although she was cramped from sitting, and the house was close after a hot day, she refused all offers to relieve her.
She was glad to see McArthur when he tapped on the door.
“I thought you’d like to read the letter that came with the picture,” he said, as he pulled up a chair beside her. “I want you to know how welcome you will be.”
He handed her the letter, with its neat, old-fashioned penmanship, its primness a little tremulous from the excitement of the writer at the time she had penned it. Susie read it carefully, and when she had finished she looked up at him with softened, grateful eyes.
“Isn’t she good!”
“The kindest of gentlewomen—your Aunt Harriet.”
“My Aunt Harriet!” Susie said it to herself rapturously.
“She hasn’t much in her life now—she’slonely, too—and if you can be spoiled, Susie, you soon will be well on the way—between Aunt Harriet and me.” He stroked her hair fondly.
“And I’m to go to school back there and live with her. I can’t believe it yet!” Susie declared. “So much has happened in the last twenty-four hours that I don’t know what to think about first. More things have happened in this little time than in all my life put together.”
“That’s the way life seems to be,” McArthur said musingly—“a few hours at a tension, and long, dull stretches in between.”
“Does she know—does Aunt Harriet know—howgreenI am?”
McArthur laughed at her anxiety.
“I am sure,” he replied reassuringly, “that she isn’t expecting a young lady of fashion.”
“Oh, I’ve got clothes,” said Susie. “Mother made me a dress that will be just the thing to wear in that—what do you call it?—train. She made it out of two shawls that she bought at the Agency.”
McArthur looked startled at the frock of red, green, and black plaids which Susie took from a nail behind the door.
“The colors seem a little—a little——”
“If that black was yellow, itwouldlook better,” Susie admitted. “I’ve got a new Stetson, too.”
“It will take some little time to arrange your affairs out here, and in the meantime I’ll write Aunt Harriet to choose a wardrobe for you and send it. It will give her the greatest pleasure.”
“Can I take Croppy and Daisy May?”
“Daisy May?”
“The pet badger,” she explained. “I named her after a Schoolmarm we had—she looks so solemn and important. I can keep her on a chain, and she needn’t eat until we get there,” Susie pleaded.
Trying not to smile at the mental picture of himself arriving in the staid college town, with a tawny-skinned child in a red, green, and black frock, a crop-eared cayuse, and a badger on a chain, McArthur ventured it as his opinion that the climate would be detrimental to Daisy May’s health.
“You undoubtedly will prefer to spend your summers here, and it will be pleasant to have Croppy and Daisy May home to welcome you.”
Susie’s face sobered.
“Oh, yes, I must come back when school is over. I wouldn’t feel it was right to go away for always and leave Dad and Mother here. Besides, I guess I’dwantto come back; because, after all, you know, I’m half Injun.”
“I wish you’d try and sleep, and let me sit here,” urged McArthur kindly.
Susie shook her head.
“No; Ling will stay after awhile, and I’m not sleepy or tired now.”
“Well, good-night, little sister.” He patted her head, while all the kindliness of his gentle nature shone from his eyes.
XXIIIIN THEIR OWN WAY
Through the chinks in the logs, where the daubing had dropped out, Smith watched the lights in the ranch-house. He relieved the tedium of the hours by trying to imagine what was going on inside, and in each picture Dora was the central figure. Now, he told himself, she was wiping the dishes for Ling, and teaching him English, as she often did; and when she had finished she would bring her portfolio into the dining-room and write home the exciting events of the day. He wondered what had “ailed” the Indian woman, that she should die so suddenly; but it was immaterial, since shewasdead. He knew that Susie would sit by her mother; probably in the chair with the cushion of goose-feathers. It was his favorite chair, though it went over backwards when he rocked too hard. Ralston—curse him!—was sitting on one of the benches outside the bunk-house, telling the grub-liners of Smith’s capture, and the bug-hunter was making notes of the story in his journal. But, alas! as is usual with the pictures one conjures, nothing at all took place as Smith fancied.
When all the lights, save the one in the living-room, had gone out, there was nothing to divert his thoughts. Babe, who was on guard outside, refused to converse with him, and he finally lay down, only to toss restlessly upon the blankets. The night seemed unusually still and the stillness made him nervous; even the sound of Babe’s back rubbing against the door when he shifted his position was company. Smith’s uneasiness was unlike him, and he wondered at it, while unable to conquer it. It must have been nearly midnight when, staring into the darkness with sleepless eyes, he felt, rather than heard, something move outside. It came from the rear, and Babe was at the door for only a moment before he had struck a match on a log to light a cigarette. The sound was so slight that only a trained ear like Smith’s would have detected it.
It had sounded like the scraping of the leg of an overall against a sage-brush, and yet it was so trifling, so indistinct, that a field mouse might have made it. But somehow Smith knew, he was sure, that something human had caused it; and as he listened for a recurrence of the sound, the conviction grew upon him that there was movement and life outside. He was convinced that something was going to happen.
His judgment told him that the prowlers were more likely to be enemies than friends—he was in the enemies’ country. But, on the other hand, there was always the chance that unexpected help had arrived. Smith still believed in his luck. The grub-liners might come to his rescue, or “the boys,” who had been waiting at the rendezvous, might have learned in some unexpected way what had befallen him. Even if they were his enemies, they would first be obliged to overpower Babe, and, he told himself, in the “ruckus” he might somehow escape.
But even as he argued the question pro and con, unable to decide whether or not to warn Babe, a stifled exclamation and the thud of a heavy body against the door told him that it had been answered for him. Wide-eyed, breathless, his nerves at a tension, his heart pounding in his breast, he interpreted the sounds which followed as correctly as if he had been an eye-witness to the scene.
He could hear Babe’s heels strike the ground as he kicked and threshed, and the inarticulate epithets told Smith that his guard was gagged. He knew, too, that the attack was made by more than two men, for Babe was a young Hercules in strength.
Were they friends or foes? Were they Bar C cowpunchers come to take the law into their own hands, or were they his hoped-for rescuers? The suspense sent the perspiration out in beads on Smith’s forehead, and he wiped his moist face with his shirt-sleeve. Then he heard the shoulders against the door, the heavy breathing, the strain of muscles, and the creaking timber. It crashed in, and for a second Smith’s heart ceased to beat. He sniffed—and he knew! He smelled buckskin and the smoke of tepees. He spoke a word or two in their own tongue. They laughed softly, without answering. From instinct, he backed into a corner, and they groped for him in the darkness.
“The rat is hiding. Shall we get the cat?” The voice was Bear Chief’s.
Running Rabbit spoke as he struck a match.
“Come out, white man. It is too hot in here for you.”
Smith recovered himself, and said as he stepped forward:
“I am ready, friends.”
They tied his hands and pushed him into the open air. Babe squirmed in impotent rage as he passed. Dark shadows were gliding in and out of the stable and corrals, and when they led him to a saddled horse they motioned him to mount. He did so, and they tied his feet under the horse’s belly, his wrists to the saddle-horn. Seeing the thickness of the rope, he jested:
“Friends, I am not an ox.”
“If you were,” Yellow Bird answered, “there would be fresh meat to-morrow.”
There were other Indians waiting on their horses, deep in the gloom of the willows, and when the three whom Smith recognized were in the saddle they led the way to the creek, and the others fell in behind. They followed the stream for some distance, that they might leave no tracks, and there was no sound but the splashing and floundering of the horses as they slipped on the moss-covered rocks of the creek-bed.
Smith showed no fear or curiosity—he knew Indians too well to do either. His stoicism was theirs under similar circumstances. Had they been of his own race, his hope would have lain in throwing himself upon their mercy; for twice the instinctive sympathy of the white man for the under dog, for the individual who fights against overwhelming odds, had saved his life; but no such tactics would avail him now.
His hope lay in playing upon their superstitions and weaknesses; in winning their admiration, if possible; and in devising means by which to gain time. He knew that as soon as his absence was discovered an effort would be made to rescue him. He found some little comfort, too, in telling himself that these reservation Indians, broken in spirit by the white man’s laws and restrictions, were not the Indians of the old days on the Big Muddy and the Yellowstone. The fear of the white man’s vengeance would keep them from going too far. And so, as he rode, his hopes rose gradually; his confidence, to a degree, returned; and he even began to have a kind of curiosity as to what form their attempted revenge would take.
The slowness of their progress down the creek-bed had given him satisfaction, but once they left the water, there was no cause for congratulation as they quirted their horses at a breakneck speed over rocks and gullies in the direction of the Bad Lands. He could see that they had some definite destination, for when the horses veered somewhat to the south, Running Rabbit motioned them northward.
“He was there yesterday; Running Rabbit knows,” said Bear Chief, in answer to an Indian’s question; and Smith, listening, wondered where “there” might be, and what it was that Running Rabbit knew.
He asked himself if it could be that they were taking him to some desert spring, where they meant to tie him to die of thirst in sight of water. The alkali plain held many forms of torture, as he knew.
His captors did not taunt or insult him. They rode too hard, they were too much in earnest, to take the time for byplay. It was evident to Smith that they feared pursuit, and were anxious to reach their objective point before the sun rose. He knew this from the manner in which they watched the east.
Somehow, as the miles sped under their horses’ feet, the ride became more and more unreal to Smith. The moon, big, glorious, and late in rising, silvered the desert with its white light until they looked to be riding into an ocean. It made Smith think of the Big Water, by moonlight, over there on the Sundown slope. Even the lean, dark figures riding beside him seemed a part of a dream; and Dora, when he thought of her, was shadowy, unreal. He had a strange feeling that he was galloping, galloping out of her life.
THEY QUIRTED THEIR HORSES AT BREAKNECK SPEED IN THE DIRECTION OF THE BAD LANDS.
THEY QUIRTED THEIR HORSES AT BREAKNECK SPEED IN THE DIRECTION OF THE BAD LANDS.
There were times when he felt as if he were floating. His sensations were like the hallucinations of fever, and then he would find himself called back to a realization of facts by the swish of leather thongs on a horse’s flank, or some smothered, half-uttered imprecation when a horse stumbled. The air of the coming morning fanned his cheeks, its coolness stimulated him, and something of the fairy-like beauty of the white world around him impressed even Smith.
They had left the flatter country behind them, and were riding among hills and limestone cliffs, Running Rabbit winding in and out with the certainty of one on familiar ground. The way was rough, and they slackened their pace, riding one behind the other, Indian file.
Running Rabbit reined in where the moonlight turned a limestone hill to silver, and threw up his hand to halt.
He untied the rope which bound Smith’s hands and feet.
“You can’t coil a rope no more nor a gopher,” said Smith, watching him.
“The white man does many things better than the Indian.” Running Rabbit went on coiling the rope.
He motioned Smith to follow, and led the way on foot.
“I dotes on these moonlight picnics,” said Smith sardonically, as he panted up the steep hills, his high-heeled boots clattering among the rocks in contrast to the silent footsteps of the Indian’s moccasined feet.
Running Rabbit stopped where the limestone hill had cracked, leaving a crevice wide at the top and shallowing at the bottom.
“This is a good place for a white man who coils a rope so well, to rest,” he said, and seated himself near the edge of the crevice, motioning Smith to be seated also.
“Or for white men who shoot old Indians in the back to think about what they have done.” Yellow Bird joined them.
“Or for smart thieves to tell where they left their stolen horses.” Bear Chief dropped cross-legged near them.
“Or for those whose forked tongue talks love to two women at once to use it for himself.” The voice was sneering.
“Smith, you’re up against it!” the prisoner said to himself.
As the others came up the hill, they enlarged the half-circle which now faced him. Recovering himself, he eyed them indifferently, one by one.
“I have enemies, friends,” he said.
“White Antelope had no enemies,” Yellow Bird replied.
“The Indian woman had no enemies,” said Running Rabbit.
“It is our friends who steal our horses”—Bear Chief’s voice was even and unemotional.
Their behavior puzzled Smith. They seemed now to be in no hurry. Without gibes or jeers, they sat as if waiting for something or somebody. What was it? He asked himself the question over and over again. They listened with interest to the stories of his prowess and adventures. He flattered them collectively and individually, and they responded sometimes in praise as fulsome as has own. All the knowledge, the tact, the wit, of which he was possessed, he used to gain time. If only he could hold them until the sun rose. But why had they brought him there? With all his adroitness and subtlety, he could get no inkling of their intentions. The suspense got on Smith’s nerves, though he gave no outward sign. The first gray light of morning came, and still they waited. The east flamed.
“It will be hot to-day,” said Running Rabbit. “The sky is red.”
Then the sun showed itself, glowing like a red-hot stove-lid shoved above the horizon.
In silence they watched the coming day.
“This limestone draws the heat,” said Smith, and he laid aside his coat. “But it suits me. I hates to be chilly.”
Bear Chief stood up, and they all arose.
“You are like us—you like the sun. It is warm; it is good. Look at it. Look long time, white man!”
There was something ominous in his tone, and Smith moistened his short upper lip with the tip of his tongue.
“Over there is the ranch where the white woman lives. Look—look long time, white man!” He swung his gaunt arm to the west.
“You make the big talk, Injun,” sneered Smith, but his mouth was dry.
“Up there is the sky where the clouds send messages, where the sun shines to warm us and the moon to light us. There’s antelope over there in the foothills, and elk in the mountains, and sheep on the peaks. You like to hunt, white man, same as us. Look long time on all—for you will never see it again!”
The sun rose higher and hotter while the Indian talked. He had not finished speaking when Smith said:
“God!”
A look of indescribable horror was on his face. His skin had yellowed, and he stared into the crevice at his feet. Now he understood! He knew why they waited on the limestone hill! An odor, scarcely perceptible as yet, but which, faint as it was, sickened him, told him his fate. It was the unmistakable odor of rattlesnakes!
The crevice below was a breeding-place, a rattlesnakes’ den. Smith had seen such places often, and the stench which came from them when the sun was hot was like nothing else in the world. The recollection alone was almost enough to nauseate him, and he always had ridden a wide circle at the first whiff.
His aversion for snakes was like a pre-natal mark. He avoided cowpunchers who wore rattlesnake bands on their hats or stretched the skin over the edge of the cantle of their saddles. He always slept with a hair rope around his blankets when he spent a night in the open. He would not sit in a room where snake-rattles decorated the parlor mantel or the organ. A curiosity as to how they had learned his peculiarity crept through the paralyzing horror which numbed him, and as if in answer the scene in the dining-room of the ranch rose before him. “I hates snakes and mouse-traps goin’ off,” he had said. Yes, he remembered.
The Indians looked at his yellow skin and at his eyes in which the horror stayed, and laughed. He did not struggle when they stood him, mute, upon his feet and bound him, for Smith knew Indians. His lips and chin trembled; his throat, dry and contracted, made a clicking sound when he swallowed. His knees shook, and he had no power to control the twitching muscles of his arms and legs.
“He dances,” said Yellow Bird.
As the sun rose higher and streamed into the crevice, the overpowering odor increased with the heat. The yellow of Smith’s skin took on a greenish tinge.
“Ugh!” An Indian laid his hand upon his stomach. “Me sick!”
A bit of limestone fell into the crevice and bounded from one shelf of rock to the other. Upon each ledge a nest of rattlesnakes basked in the sun, and a chorus of hisses followed the fall of the stone.
“They sing! Their voices are strong to-day,” said Running Rabbit.
The Indians threw Smith upon the edge of the crevice, face downward, so that he could look below. With his staring, bloodshot eyes he saw them all—dozens of them—a hundred or more! Crawling on the shelves and in the bottom, writhing, wriggling, hissing, coiled to strike! Every marking, every shading, every size—Smith saw them all with his bulging, fascinated eyes. The Indians stoned them until a forked tongue darted from every mouth and every wicked eye flamed red.
The thick rope was tied under Smith’s arms, and a noose thrown over a huge rock. They shoved him over the edge—slowly—looking at him and each other, laughing a little at the sound of reptile fury from below. It was the end. Smith’s eyes opened before they let him drop, and his lips drew back from his white, slightly protruding teeth. They thought he meant to beg at last, and, rejoicing, waited. He looked like a coyote, a coyote when its ribs are crushed, its legs broken; when its eyes are blurred with the death film, and its mouth drips blood. He gathered himself—he was all but fainting—and threw back his head, looking at Bear Chief. He snarled—there was no tenderness in his voice when he gave the message:
“Tellher, you damned Injuns—tell the Schoolmarm I died game, me—Smith!”
TITLES SELECTED FROMGROSSET & DUNLAP’S LIST
TITLES SELECTED FROM
GROSSET & DUNLAP’S LIST
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
THE SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W. W. Fawcett. Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four colors and gold.
An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy New York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl.
TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town, with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for love.
FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller White. Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws.
Another story of “the storm country.” Two beautiful children are kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance.
THE LIGHTED MATCH. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R. F. Schahelitz.
A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out.
MAUD BAXTER. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe.
A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a young man who had been impressed into English service during the Revolution.
THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe.
A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman of title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling of affairs hold the reader’s interest.
THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field. Illustrated in colors; marginal illustrations.
A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. A story with a laugh on every page.