The last dash of that long ride was only a whirlwind of emotions to Frances. It was a red streak. She did not know what became of the boy; she left him there as she lashed her horse past him on the last desperate stretch.
The two forces were not more than half a mile apart, the cavalry just mounting at the ruins of a homestead where she knew they had stopped for breakfast at the well. A little band of outriders was setting off, a scouting party under the lead of Chadron, she believed. Macdonald’s men, their prisoners under guard between two long-strung lines of horsemen, were proceeding at a trot. Between the two forces the road made a long curve. Here it was bordered by brushwood that would hide a man on horseback.
When Frances broke through this screen which had hidden the cavalry from Macdonald, she found the cavalcade halted, for Macdonald had seen her coming down the hill. She told him in few words what her errand to him was, Tom Lassiter and those who rode with him at the head of the column pressing around.
The question and mystification in Macdonald’s face at her coming cleared with her brisk words. There was no wonder to him any more in her being
“I was looking for Chadron to come with help and attempt a rescue, and I was moving to forestall him, but we were late getting under way. They”—waving his hand toward the prisoners—“held out until an hour ago.”
“You must think, and think fast!” she said. “They’re almost here!”
“Yes. I’m going ahead to meet them, and offer to turn these prisoners over to Major King. They’ll have no excuse for firing on us then.”
“No, no! some other way—think of some other way!”
He looked gravely into her anxious, pleading eyes. “Why, no matter, Frances. If they’ve come here to do that, they’ll do it, but this way they’ll have to do it in the open, not by a trick.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“I think perhaps—”
“I’ll go!”
Macdonald turned to Lassiter in a few hurried words. She pressed to his side as the two rode away alone to meet the troops, repeating as if she had been denied:
“I’ll go!”
There was a dash of hoofs behind them, and a man who rode like a sack of bran came bouncing up, excitement over his large face.
“What’s up, Macdonald—where’re you off to?” he inquired.
Macdonald told him in a word, riding forward as he spoke. He introduced the stranger as a newspaper correspondent from Chicago, who had arrived at the homesteaders’ camp the evening past.
“So they got troops, did they?” the newspaper man said, riding forward keenly. “Yes, they told me down in Cheyenne they’d put that trick through. Here they come!”
Macdonald spurred ahead, holding up his right hand in the Indian sign of peace. Major King was riding with Chadron at the head of the vanguard. They drew rein suddenly at sight of what appeared to be such a formidable force at Macdonald’s back, for at that distance, and with the dimness of the scattering mist, it appeared as if several hundred horsemen were approaching.
Distrustful of Chadron, fearing that he might induce Major King to shoot Macdonald down as he sat there making overtures of peace, Frances rode forward and joined him, the correspondent coming jolting after her in his horn-riding way. After a brief parley among themselves Chadron and King, together with three or four officers, rode forward. One remained behind, and halted the column as it
Major King greeted Frances as he rode up, scowling in high dignity. Chadron could not cover his surprise so well as Major King at seeing her there, her horse in a sweat, her habit torn where the brambles had snatched at her in her hard ride to get ahead of the troops. He gave her a cold good-morning, and sat in the attitude of a man pricking up his ears as he leaned a little to peer into the ranks of the force ahead.
The homesteaders had come to a halt a hundred yards behind Macdonald; about the same distance behind Major King and his officers the cavalry had drawn up across the road. Major King sat in brief silence, as if waiting for Macdonald to begin. He looked the homesteader captain over with severe eyes.
“Well, sir?” said he.
“We were starting for Meander, Major King, to deliver to the sheriff fifty men whom we have taken in the commission of murder and arson,” Macdonald replied, with dignity. “Up to a few minutes ago we had no information that martial law had superseded the civil in this troubled country, but since that is the case, we will gladly turn our prisoners over to you, with the earnest request that they be held, collectively and individually, to answer for the crimes they have committed here.”
“Them’s my men, King—they’ve got ’em there!” said Chadron, boiling over the brim.
“This expedition has come to the relief of certain men, attacked and surrounded in the discharge of their duty by a band of cattle thieves of which you are the acknowledged head,” replied Major King.
“Then you have come on a mistaken errand, sir,” Macdonald told him.
“I have come into this lawless country to restore order and insure the lives and safety of property of the people to whom it belongs.”
“The evidence of these hired raiders’ crimes lies all around you, Major King,” Macdonald said. “These men swept in here in the employ of the cattle interests, burned these poor homes, and murdered such of the inhabitants as were unable to fly to safety in the hills ahead of them. We are appealing to the law; the cattlemen never have done that.”
“Say, Mr. Soldier, let me tell you something”—the newspaper correspondent, to whom one man’s dignity was as much as another’s, kicked his horse forward—“these raiders that bloody-handed Chadron sent in here have murdered children and women, do you know that?”
“Who in the hell are you?” Chadron demanded, bristling with rage, whirling his horse to face him.
“This is Chadron,” Macdonald said, a little flash of humor in his eyes over Chadron’s hearing the truth about himself from an unexpected source.
“Well, I’m glad I’ve run into you, Chadron; I’ve got a little list of questions to ask you,” the correspondent told him, far from being either impressed
“You’d just as well keep your questions for another day—you’ll send nothing out of here!” said Major King, sharply.
Neel looked across his nose at King with triumphant leer.
“I’ve sent out something, Mr. Soldier-man,” said he; “it was on the wire by midnight last night, rushed to Meander by courier, and it’s all over the country this morning. It’s a story that’ll give the other side of this situation up here to the war department, and it’ll make this whole nation climb up on its hind legs and howl. Murder? Huh, murder’s no name for it!”
Chadron was growling something below his breath into King’s ear.
“Forty-three men and boys—look at them, there they are—rounded up fifty of the cutthroats the Drovers’ Association rushed up here from Cheyenne on a special train to wipe the homesteaders out,” Neel continued, rising to considerable heat in the partisanship of his new light. “Five dollars a day was the hire of that gang, and five dollars bonus for every man, woman, or baby that they killed! Yes, I’ve got signed statements from them, Chadron, and I’d like to know what you’ve got to say, if anything?”
“Disarm that rabble,” said Major King, speaking to a subordinate officer, “and take charge of the men they have been holding.”
“Sir, I protest—” Macdonald began.
“I have no words to waste on you!” Major King cut him off shortly.
“I’d play a slow hand on that line, King, and a careful one, if I were you,” advised Neel. “If you take these men’s guns away from them they’ll be at the mercy of Chadron’s brigands. I tell you, man, I know the situation in this country!”
“Thank you,” said King, in cold hauteur.
Chadron’s eyes were lighting with the glitter of revenge. He sat grinding his bridle-reins in his gloved hand, as if he had the bones of the nesters in his palm at last.
“You will proceed, with the rescued party under guard, to Meander,” continued Major King to his officer, speaking as if he had plans for his own employment aside from the expedition. “There, Mr. Chadron will furnish transportation to return them whence they came.”
“I’ll furnish—” began Chadron, in amazement at this unexpected turn.
“Transportation, sir,” completed Major King, in his cold way.
“These men should be held to the civil authorities for trial in this county, and not set free,” Macdonald protested, indignant over the order.
Major King ignored him. He was still looking at Chadron, who was almost choking on his rage.
“Hell! Do you mean to tell me the whole damn thing’s goin’ to fizzle out this way, King? I want
“Certainly not, sir!” snapped King.
“My orders to you—” Chadron flared.
“It happens that I am not marching under your orders at—”
“The hell you ain’t!” Chadron exploded.
“It’s an outrage on humanity to turn those scoundrels loose, Major King!” Neel said. “Why, I’ve got signed statements, I tell you—”
“Remove this man to the rear!” Major King addressed a lieutenant, who communicated the order to the next lowest in rank immediately at hand, who passed it on to two troopers, who came forward briskly and rode the protesting correspondent off between them.
Other troopers were collecting the arms of the homesteaders, a proceeding which Macdonald witnessed with a sick heart. Frances, sitting her horse in silence through all that had passed, gave him what comfort and hope she could express with her eyes.
“Detail a patrol of twenty men,” Major King continued his instructions to his officer, “to keep the roads and disarm all individuals and bands encountered.”
“That don’t apply to my men!” declared Chadron, positively. In his face there was a dark threat of disaster for Major King’s future hopes of advancement.
“It applies to everybody as they come,” said
Chadron was gaping in amazement. That feeling in him seemed to smother every other, even his hot rage against King for this sudden shifting of their plans and complete overthrow of the cattlemen’s expectations of the troops. The one little comfort that he was to get out of the expedition was that of seeing his raiders taken out of Macdonald’s hands and marched off to be set free.
Macdonald felt that he understood the change in King. The major had come there full of the intention of doing Chadron’s will; he had not a doubt of that. But murder, even with the faint color of excuse that they would have contrived to give it, could not be done in the eyes of such a witness as Frances Landcraft. Subserviency, a bending of dignity even, could not be stooped to before one who had been schooled to hold a soldier’s honor his most precious endowment.
Major King had shown a hand of half-fairness in treating both sides alike. That much was to his credit, at the worst. But he had not done it because he was a high-souled and honorable man. His eyes betrayed him in that, no matter how stern he tried to make them. The coming of that fair outrider in the night had turned aside a great tragedy, and saved Major King partly to himself, at least, and perhaps wholly to his career.
Macdonald tried to tell her in one long and earnest
“You’ve double-crossed me, King,” Chadron accused, in the flat voice of a man throwing down his hand. “I brought you up here to throw these nesters off of our land.”
“The civil courts must decide the ownership of that,” returned King, sourly. “Disarm that man!” He indicated Macdonald, and turned his horse as if to ride back and join his command.
The lieutenant appeared to feel that it would be no lowering of his dignity to touch the weapons of a man such as Macdonald’s bearing that morning had shown him to be. He approached with a smile half apologetic. Chadron was sitting by on his horse watching the proceeding keenly.
“Pardon me,” said the officer, reaching out to receive Macdonald’s guns.
A swift change swept over Macdonald’s face, a flush dyeing it to his ears. He sat motionless a little while, as if debating the question, the young officer’s hand still outstretched. Macdonald dropped his hand, quickly, as if moved to shorten the humiliation, to the buckle of his belt, and opened it with deft jerk. At that moment Chadron, ten feet away, slung a revolver from his side and fired.
Macdonald rocked in his saddle as Frances leaped to the ground and ran to his side. He wilted forward, his hat falling, and crumpled into her arms. The lieutenant relieved her of her bloody burden, and eased Macdonald to the ground.
Major King came riding back. At his sharp command troopers surrounded Chadron, who sat with his weapon still poised, like one gazing at the mark at which he had fired, the smoke of his shot around him.
“In a second he’d ’a’ got me! but I beat him to it, by God! I beat him to it!” he said.
Macdonald’s belt had slipped free of his body. With its burden of cartridges and its two long pistols it lay at Frances’ feet. She stooped, a little sound in her throat between a sob and a cry, jerked one of the guns out, wheeled upon Chadron and fired. The lieutenant struck up her arm in time to save the cattleman’s life. The blow sent the pistol whirling out of her hand.
“They will go off that way, sometimes,” said the young officer, with apology in his soft voice.
The soldiers closed around Chadron and hurried him away. A moment Major King sat looking at Macdonald, whose blood was wasting in the roadside dust from a wound in his chest. Then he flashed a look into Frances’ face that had a sneer of triumph in it, wheeled his horse and galloped away.
In a moment the lieutenant was summoned, leaving Frances alone between the two forces with Macdonald. She did not know whether he was dead. She dropped to her knees in the dust and began to tear frantically at his shirt to come to the wound. Tom Lassiter came hurrying up with others, denouncing the treacherous shot, swearing vengeance on the cowardly head that had conceived so murderous a thing.
Lassiter said that he was not dead, and set to work to stem the blood. It seemed to Frances that the world had fallen away from her, leaving her alone. She stood aside a little, her chin up in her old imperious way, her eyes on the far hills where the tender sunlight was just striking among the white-limbed aspen trees. But her heart was bent down to the darkness of despair.
She asked no questions of the men who were working so earnestly after their crude way to check that precious stream; she stood in the activity of passing troopers and escorted raiders insensible of any movement or sound in all the world around her. Only when Tom Lassiter stood from his ministrations and looked at her with understanding in his old weary eyes she turned her face back again, slowly resolute, to see if he had died.
Her throat was dry. It took an effort to bring a sound from it, and then it was strained and wavering.
“Is he—dead?”
“No, miss, he ain’t dead,” Tom answered. But there was such a shadow of sorrow and pain in his eyes that tears gushed into her own.
“Will—will—”
Tom shook his head. “The Lord that give him alone can answer that,” he said, a feeling sadness in his voice.
The troops had moved on, save the detail singled for police duty. These were tightening girths and trimming for the road again a little way from the
“Miss Landcraft, I am ordered to convey you to Alamito Ranch—under guard,” said he.
Banjo Gibson, held to be harmless and insignificant by Major King, had been set free. Now he came up, leading his horse, shocked to the deepest fibers of his sensitive soul by the cowardly deed that Saul Chadron had done.
“It went clean through him!” he said, rising from his inspection of Macdonald’s wound. And then, moved by the pain in Frances’ tearless eyes, he enlarged upon the advantages of that from a surgical view. “The beauty of a hole in a man’s chest like that is that it lets the pizen dreen off,” he told her. “It wouldn’t surprise me none to see Mac up and around inside of a couple of weeks, for he’s as hard as old hick’ry.”
“Well, I’m not going to Alamito Ranch and leave him out here to die of neglect, orders or no orders!” said she to the lieutenant.
The young officer’s face colored; he plucked at his new mustache in embarrassment. Perhaps the prospect of carrying a handsome and dignified young lady in his arms for a matter of twenty-odd miles was not as alluring to him as it might have been to another, for he was a slight young man, only a little while out of West Point. But orders were orders, and he gave Frances to understand that in diplomatic and polite phrasing.
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 Lassiter 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
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’ Association would be at work, spreading money with free
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 bloody 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.
