CHAPTER XXII.PEACE ON THE BRAZOS.
When the scout, the Laramie man, Nate Dunbar and Perry rode up to the ranch house, they found Nomad and Cayuse just about to start off on their horses.
The girl was in front of the cabin. At sight of her husband and her father, she ran toward them with a cry of joy. Nate flung himself from his saddle and clasped his wife in his arms.
Hattie did not know how great a reason she had for rejoicing over the return of Dunbar and Perry. But she was soon to know.
“Waugh,” whooped the old trapper. “Ef hyer ain’t the lot o’ ye. Wouldn’t give us a chance ter ride out an’ hunt ye up, would ye, Perry? Mrs. Dunbar was erbout worried ter death, an’ Cayuse an’ me was goin’ on er hike ter see ef we couldn’t locate ye. Whar’d ye go ter, last night? An’ Buffler, how’d you come out in Hackamore? Ye must hev made good, er Nate wouldn’t be hyar with ye.”
“Hackamore?” echoed Mrs. Dunbar, withdrawing from her husband’s arms and turning to her father, “what happened in Hackamore, dad? This is the first time I’ve heard that anything was going wrong in town.”
“Nate will tell you all about it, Hattie,” said Perry. “Get us something to eat, will you, while he’s doing it? We’re a lot of hungry men, girl, I can tell you that. I’ll take your horse, Nate.”
Nomad and Cayuse dropped into line and led their horses back to the corral with the others.
The baron was asleep in the hammock. When the meal was ready Nomad turned the hammock upside down and informed the sputtering baron that everybody had got back and that all hands were sitting in at the chuck table.
“Vat a habbiness!” cried the baron bursting in on the scout and the rest just as they were taking their chairs for a late breakfast. “Vat a fine pitzness dot eferybody got oudt oof eferyt’ing und dot ve vas all corraled again mit ourselufs! Nodding much habbened to me dis trip, aber I don’d mind dot. Der bleasure oof finding you all togedder, iss more as I can oxbress.”
“Choke off, pard,” cried old Nomad; “Buffler is erbout ter tell us what happened in Hackamore, while us fellers was gyardin’ Mrs. Dunbar an’ the Star-A cabin. Don’t keep him hangin’ fire.”
The events that had transpired in Hackamore were recounted, and Hattie Dunbar flushed, and paled, and trembled at the peril her husband had so narrowly escaped.
“We owe a lot to you, Mr. Hickok,” said the girl. “We’ll never forget what we owe Mr. Hickok, will we, Nate?”
“No, Hattie,” answered Nate. “I reckon you, and I, and Dick can keep track of our obligations.”
“The sky pilot gets all the credit,” asserted Wild Bill.
And then, of course, he had to explain how it was Hawkins’ friendship for Jordan that had brought about the escape from the adobe house on the hill. To that escape, and to the knowledge Wild Bill had acquired inthe adobe house, the rescue of Dunbar from the toils of the law was due.
“I hope,” said Hattie tremulously, “that we have reached the end of Lige Benner’s persecutions. Couldn’t something be done to him for what he tried to do to Nate?”
“I doubt it,” answered Buffalo Bill. “We have a clear case against both Benners, Lige and Jerry, and this statement in writing by Abe Isaacs clinches the evidence, but I don’t believe Lige Benner could be punished by any court in this part of the country. He is too powerful. I think, however, that you and your people, Mrs. Dunbar, will never be troubled any more by the Benners. They went too far, in this last work, and everybody on the Brazos will learn of it. Every respectable cattleman will have nothing but contempt and disgust for the Benners after this.”
“We could swing Red Steve for what he’s done, Pard Cody,” declared Wild Bill.
“Providing we could catch him,” said the scout.
“And providing you could prove that he was the man who shot Hawkins,” added Dunbar.
“I’m pretty sure Red Steve was one of the White Caps,” put in Perry, “but I didn’t get a look at his face, and I couldn’t swear to it.”
“How about the man who came here and lured you out into the trail?” queried the scout.
“I never saw that man before.”
“They call him Shorty Dobbs over at the Circle-B,” said the Laramie man.
“I don’t think Dobbs has been with Benner long,” spoke up Dunbar.
“All’s well that ends well, they say,” observed Perry,“and I wish some one would tell me for certain that the present peace on the Brazos will last.”
“I and my pards will stay around here until we’re sure there’ll be nothing but peace on the river,” said the scout.
“That makes me feel easier in my mind,” declared Perry. “With you and your pards for friends and champions, Buffalo Bill, anything Benner can do won’t worry me much.”
“Buffler hes got somethin’ up his sleeve,” said old Nomad, “an’ I’ll bet a blue stack on it.”
“Vat it iss, bard?” queried the inquisitive baron.
“He’s goin’ ter hang eround ther Brazos an’ lay fer Red Steve. Steve was erbout ther fust ruffian the scout got acquainted with on the Brazos, an’ I reckon he’s plannin’ ter make Steve ther last, as well.”
“Red Steve richly deserves punishment for his misdeeds,” said the scout. “I couldn’t leave the Brazos while Red Steve was still at large without feeling I had failed in my duty.”
“Same here,” seconded the Laramie man. “But don’t you forget, Pard Cody, that I’ve marked Red Steve for my own. He and I are going to come together, before many days, and then he’ll go to some place where the law’s doing its regulation work and answer for Ace Hawkins.”
“The law’s in full bloom in Hackamore, Hickok,” laughed the scout.
“It’s not the sort of Bloom that spells right and justice. The sheriff in Hackamore is working for the Benners, if I’m any judge.”
“Bloom has always been hand-and-glove with Lige Benner,” said Perry. “And he has never been a friend ofNate’s and mine. He was only too willing, I’ll warrant you, to arrest Nate for taking those diamonds.”
“Ten to one,” spoke up Wild Bill, “Jerry Benner gave Bloom his cue before Abe Isaacs made his howl about the stones being stolen.”
“Ther hull thing sounds like er frame-up, from start ter finish,” dropped in old Nomad. “Thet Jerry Benner must er had a powerful head ter set a thing like thet ter goin’.”
“That head of his will get Lige Benner into trouble, one of these days,” averred Wild Bill.
“Oh,” exclaimed Nate Dunbar, pushing back from the table, “I was forgetting something.”
His hand went into an inside pocket and he brought out a little, plush-covered box.
“I didn’t finish all the business that took me to Hackamore,” he went on, “but I did manage to wind up the most important part of it. That’s for you, Hattie.”
A cry of delight broke from the girl when she saw the diamond.
“Whenever I look at this ring, Nate,” she said, slipping it on her finger and holding it where the sun struck vari-colored hues from the stone, “I shall always remember your peril in Hackamore, and the gallant friends who saved you from the plots of Lige Benner.”
“Amen to that,” added Dick Perry.