When Peters awoke, he found himself on a bench in the railroad station. A local train was expected, and there had been men on the station platform when Peters shot over the railroad embankment and hit the tracks. Three or four of the men went forward to investigate the strange phenomenon, and they were the ones who had brought Peters into the waiting room. They had no more than laid him down, and stripped off his skis, when he opened his eyes.
“Sheriff gone to the dry wash yet?” he inquired faintly.
A man bent over him. “I’m Jordan, the sheriff,” said he. “What dry wash do you mean? Why should I go there?”
“Has—hasn’t Markham reached town?” went on Peters.
“Haven’t seen a thing of Markham. Oh!” Jordan exclaimed. “I know you now. You are Bailey’s man, Peters, from the Morton Ranch. Why were you sliding into town, at this time o’ night, on a pair of skis? Thunder! It was as much as your life was worth! You——”
“A gang of horse thieves ran off our horses—more’n fifty of ’em,” cut in Peters wildly. “It happened early in the evening. Get a posse, Jordan, and head off the gang at Long Knife Dry Wash. When Markham shows up, leave somebody in town to arrest him. He shot me in the arm. And send a doctor toMorton’s to look after Bailey. He’s wounded, too! I——”
Then Peters went to sleep again. When he next came to himself, and picked up the chain of events, he was in a bed in a room at the Roscommon House. Broad day looked in at the room windows, and Peters could gaze dreamily out at roofs covered with snow, and sparkling under the sun’s rays as though covered with diamonds. Hours had passed since he had had the brief awakening in the railroad station. Now he was in a comfortable bed, his left arm neatly bandaged, and Toynbee, the proprietor of the hotel, was sitting beside him.
“Did they get Markham, Toynbee?” asked Peters.
The landlord was reading a newspaper. He jumped in his chair as the unexpected words reached him from the bed.
“Oh, you’re back, eh?” said he. “You’ve been a long time on the road, although the doctor said we needn’t to mind. Get Markham? Well, I guess!” And Toynbee chuckled. “Jordan got him, and four others, along with the stolen horses. They were pushing through the dry wash when the sheriff and his party arrived there. You bet they got him, Peters, and red-handed at that. Big surprise to everybody. Why, Markham had put the whole thing up! He was back of the entire scheme! It has all come out. Markham won’t talk, but the rest of the gang feel different. Across the line there were men waiting to take the horses and rush ’em off where they’d never be found. Say! I guess you ought to have a medal for what you did last night! How are you feeling, anyhow?”
Peters was stunned. Porter Markham one of the horse thieves! Could Peters believe his ears? Markham had had a reason for driving the horses off their feet on the return from Devil’s Lake. With all the other stock taken from Morton’s, it had been Markham’s plan to make the sleigh team useless, so far as a drive of twenty miles to Roscommon, with news for the sheriff, was concerned; and Markham had protested against Peters’ plan of using skates in carrying an alarm to Roscommon; but when the method had been put into effect, in spite of him, Markham had taken to the skis and had waylaid Peters at the eastern foot of Bear Butte. In the light of recent events, the motive for that attack could be seen at an even more treacherous angle. Markham’s scheme was not to beat Peters to Roscommon with news for the sheriff, but to keep all knowledge of the robbery from the authorities until the stolen horses had been delivered across the line. Instead of making for the town, after securing Peters’ skates, Markham had followed the river bends beyond the town, to a point where he could join his rascally confederates with the horse herd.
“How do you feel, Peters?” repeated Toynbee, after waiting a long time for a reply.
“Mighty nigh locoed,” said Peters.
“No wonder! Say, you hit the railroad iron with your head when you went over the embankment. Any other head but yours would probably have been cracked.”
“You can’t crack a saphead,” commented Peters, but not in bitterness.
Next day, when Peters was thinking of getting out of his bed and helping drive the horses back to the ranch, no less a person than Uncle Silas Goddard walked into his room. Uncle Silas was an iron-gray man, big and broad, and with a regular heart under his ribs. He had received a telegram, signed Reece Bailey, per Morton, and had come to North Dakota by first train.
There were greetings, not those of a pleased employer for a worthy employee, but more in line with what one’snext of kin might say in circumstances altogether creditable. Bailey was “coming fine,” and would be on the job again in two or three weeks; and Peters, the doctor said, would be fit as a fiddle in seven days, at the outside. The horses were on the way back to Morton’s.
“What about Markham?” queried Peters.
Uncle Silas Goddard’s cheery face grew troubled. Well, Markham was only a boy, and a very foolish one. He had had a hard lesson. No stock had been lost, and Uncle Silas felt that he ought not to be too hard on Markham. He was going to let Markham go, on a promise to leave the country and make something of himself in other parts. Any one at all acquainted with Uncle Silas might have known he would do that very thing.
“As for you, Nixon,” the big ranchowner went on, “there’s a job waiting in Montana for a chap of your heft and disposition. But do you want to return to the home ranch?” he asked quizzically. “Miss Hesther Morton sends a very kindly message to you by me. She is sorry for a lot of things, she says, and hopes to see you right soon.”
But Nixon J. Peters had seen another light. He recalled his saphead dreams of rescuing Hesther from a burning house, and the shamed red stained his cheeks to the tow-colored hair.
“Miss Morton, all at once, is wasting her consideration on the wrong party. Uncle Silas,” said Peters. “I’m for Montana as soon as you want me there.”
“Good!” exclaimed Uncle Silas, and clasped Peters’ hand with a fervor that suggested not only good will but hearty congratulations.