THE NIGHT-RIDERS
Tresler had not the smallest inclination for sleep. He was tired
enough physically, but his brain was still much too active. Besides,
the bunkhouse was uninviting to him as yet. The two lines of
trestle-beds, with their unkempt occupants, were suggestive of--well,
anything but congenial sleeping companions. The atmosphere was close
and stuffy, and the yellow glimmer of the two oil-lamps, one stationed
at each end of the room, gave the place a distasteful suggestion of
squalor.
He was not unduly squeamish--far from it; but, be it remembered, he
had only just left a world of ease and luxury, where snow-white linen
and tasteful surroundings were necessary adjuncts to existence.
Therefore these things came to him in the nature of a shock.
He looked at his blankets spread over the straw palliasse that
disguised the loose bed-boards underneath, and this drew his attention
to the mattress itself. It was well-worn and dusty, and as he moved it
he felt that the straw inside was crushed to the smallest chaff. He
laid it back carefully so as not to disturb the dust, and rearranged
the blankets over it. Then he sat on the foot of it and pondered.
He gazed about him at the other beds. Some of the men were already
sleeping, announcing the fact more or less loudly. Others were swathed
in their blankets smoking in solemn silence. One was deep in the
blood-curdling pages of a dime novel, straining his eyes in the fitful
light of the lamps. The scene had novelty for him, but it was not
altogether enthralling, so he filled his pipe and lit it, and passed
out into the fresh night air. It was only ten o'clock, and he felt
that a smoke and a comfortable think would be pleasant before facing
the charms of his dusty couch.
The moon had not yet risen, but the starry sheen of the sky dimly
outlined everything. He was gazing upon the peaceful scene of a ranch
when night has spread her soft, velvety wings. There were few sounds
to distract his thoughts. The air still hummed with the busy insect
life; one of the prowling ranch dogs occasionally gave tongue, its
fiercely suspicious temper no doubt aroused by some vague shadow which
surely no other eyes than his could possibly have detected in the
darkness; sometimes the distressful plaint of a hungry coyote, hunting
for what it never seems to find--for he is always prowling and
hunting--would rouse the echoes and startle the "tenderfoot" with the
suddenness and nearness of its uncanny call. But for the rest all was
still. And he paced to and fro before the bunkhouse, thinking.
And, strangely enough, of all the scenes he had witnessed that day,
and of all the people he had met, it was the scene in which Diane
Marbolt had taken part, and of her he mostly thought. Perhaps it was
the unexpectedness of meeting a girl so charming that held him
interested. Perhaps it was the eager desire she had displayed in
warning him of his personal danger. Perhaps, even, it was the
recollection of the soft, brown eyes, the charming little sun-tanned
face that had first looked up at him from beneath the broad-brimmed
straw hat. Certain it was her sad face haunted him as no woman's face
had ever haunted him before as he looked out on the vast, dark world
about him. He felt that he would like to know something of her story;
not out of idle curiosity, but that he might discover some means of
banishing the look of sadness so out of place upon her beautiful
features.
His pipe burned out, and he recharged and lit it afresh; then he
extended his peregrinations. He moved out of the deeper shadows of the
bunkhouse and turned the corner in the direction of the western group
of corrals.
Now he saw the foreman's hut beyond the dark outline of the great
implement shed, and a light was still shining in the window. Turning
away he passed to the left of the shed, and strolled leisurely on to
the corrals. He had no desire in the world to meet Jake Harnach; not
that he thought such a contingency likely, but still there was always
the chance if the man had not yet gone to bed. He had already decided
that the less he saw of Jake the better it would be for both of them.
He remained for some minutes seated on the top of the corral fence,
but the mosquitoes were too thick, and drove him to further
wanderings.
Just as he was about to move away, he saw the door of the foreman's
hut open, and in the light that shone behind, the small figure of the
choreman, Joe Nelson, come out. Then the light was shut out as the
great figure of Jake blocked the doorway. Now he distinctly heard them
speaking.
"I shall want it first thing in the morning," said the foreman, in his
great hoarse voice.
"Guess I'll see to it," replied Joe; "but 'tain't the saddle fer
anybody who ain't used to it."
"That's o' no consequence. Your business is to have it there."
Then Jake retired, and the door was shut. A moment later the waiting
man saw Joe emerge from the shadow and stump off in the direction of
the bunkhouse. A few yards from the foreman's hut he halted and turned
about. Then Tresler witnessed something that made him smile, while it
raised a lively feeling of satisfaction in his heart. Joe slowly
raised one arm in the direction of the hut, and, although the light
was insufficient for him to see it, and he could hear no words, he
felt sure that the fist was clenched, and a string of blasphemous
invective was desecrating the purity of the night air. A moment later
Joe passed leisurely on his way, and the light went out in Jake's
dwelling.
And now, without concerning himself with his direction, Tresler
continued his walk. He moved toward an open shed crowded with wagons.
This he skirted, intending to avoid the foreman's hut, but just as he
moved out from the shadow, he became aware that Jake's door had opened
again and some one was coming out. He waited for a moment listening.
He fancied he recognized the foreman's heavy tread. Curiosity
prompted him to inquire further, but he checked the impulse. After
all, the bully's doings were no concern of his. So he waited until the
sound of receding footsteps had died out, and then passed round the
back of the shed and strolled on.
There was nothing now in front of him but the dense black line of the
boundary pinewoods. These stretched away to the right and left as far
as the darkness permitted him to see. The blackness of their depths
was like a solid barrier, and he had neither time nor inclination to
explore them at that hour. Therefore he skirted away to the right,
intending to leave the forest edge before he came to the rancher's
house, and so make his way back to his quarters.
He was approaching the house, and it loomed dark and rigid before him.
Gazing upon it, his mind at once reverted to its blind owner, and he
found himself wondering if he were in bed yet, if Diane had retired,
and in which portion of the house she slept.
His pipe had gone out again, and he paused to relight it. He had his
matches in his hand, and was about to strike one, when suddenly a
light flashed out in front of him. It came and was gone in a second.
Yet it lasted long enough for him to realize that it came from a
window, and the window, he knew, from its position, must be the window
of Julian Marbolt's bedroom.
He waited for it to reappear, but the house remained in darkness; and,
after a moment's deliberation, he realized its meaning. The door of
the blind man's room must be opposite the window, and probably it was
the opening of it that had revealed the lamplight in the hall. The
thought suggested the fact that the rancher had just gone to bed.
He turned his attention again to his pipe; but he seemed destined not
to finish his smoke. Just as he had the match poised for a second
time, his ears, now painfully acute in the stillness about him, caught
the sound of horses' hoofs moving through the forest.
They sounded quite near; he even heard the gush of the animals'
nostrils. He peered into the depths. Then, suddenly realizing the
strangeness of his own position lurking so near the house and under
cover of the forest at that hour of the night, he dropped down in the
shadow of a low bush. Nor was it any too soon, for, a moment or two
later, he beheld two horsemen moving slowly toward him out of the
black depths. They came on until they were within half a dozen yards
of him, and almost at the edge of the woods. Then they drew up and sat
gazing out over the ranch in silent contemplation.
Tresler strained his eyes to obtain a knowledge of their appearance,
but the darkness thwarted him. He could see the vague outline of the
man nearest him, but it was so uncertain that he could make little of
it. One thing only he ascertained, and that was because the figure was
silhouetted against the starlit sky. The man seemed to have his face
covered with something that completely concealed his profile.
The whole scene passed almost before he realized it. The horsemen had
appeared so suddenly, and were gone so swiftly, returning through the
forest the way they had come, that he was not sure but that the whole
apparition had been a mere trick of imagination. Rising swiftly, he
gazed after the vanished riders, and the crunching of the pine cones
under the horses' hoofs, dying slowly away as they retreated, warned
him that the stealthy, nocturnal visit was no illusion, but a curious
fact that needed explanation.
Just for an instant it occurred to him that it might be two of the
hands out on night work around the cattle, then he remembered that the
full complement were even now slumbering in the bunkhouse. Puzzled and
somewhat disquieted, he turned his steps in the direction of his
quarters, fully intending to go to bed; but his adventures were not
over yet.
As he drew near his destination he observed the figure of a man,
bearing something on his back, coming slowly toward him. A moment
later he was looking down upon the diminutive person of Joe Nelson in
the act of carrying a saddle upon his shoulder.
"Hello, Nelson, where are you going at this hour of the night?" he
asked, as he came face to face with the little man.
The choreman deposited the saddle on the ground, and looked his man up
and down before he answered.
"Wher' am I goin'?" he said, as though he were thinking of other
things. "I guess I'm doin' a job in case I git fergittin' by the
mornin'. Jake reckons to want my saddle in the mornin' over at the
hoss corrals. But, say, why ain't you abed, Mr. Tresler?"
"Never mind the 'mister,' Joe," Tresler said amiably.
[Illustration: A moment later he beheld two horsemen]
"If you're going to the horse corrals now I'll go with you. I'm so
beastly wide awake that I can't turn in yet."
"Come right along, then. Guess I ain't feelin' that ways, sure."
Joe jerked his saddle up and slung it across his back again, and the
two men walked off in silence.
And as they walked, Joe, under cover of the darkness, eyed his
companion with occasional sidelong glances, speculating as to what he
wanted with him. He quite understood that his companion was not
walking with him for the pleasure of his company. On his part Tresler
was wondering how much he ought to tell this man--almost a
stranger--of what he had seen. He felt that some one ought to
know--some one with more experience than himself. He felt certain that
the stealthy visit of the two horsemen was not wholesome. Such
espionage pointed to something that was not quite open and aboveboard.
They reached the corrals, and Joe deposited his burden upon the wooden
wall. Then he turned sharply on his companion.
"Wal, out wi' it, man," he demanded. "Guess you got something you're
wantin' to git off'n your chest."
Tresler laughed softly. "You're pretty sharp, Joe."
"Pretty sharp, eh?" returned the little man. "Say, it don't need no
razor to cut through the meanin' of a 'tenderfoot.' Wal?"
Tresler was looking up at the saddle. It was a small, almost skeleton
saddle, such as, at one time, was largely used in Texas; that was
before the heavier and more picturesque Mexican saddles came into
vogue among the ranchmen.
"What does Jake want that for?" he asked.
His question was an idle one, and merely put for the sake of gaining
time while he arrived at a definite decision upon the other matter.
"Guess it's fer some feller to ride to-morrow--eh? Whew!"
The choreman broke off and whistled softly. Something had just
occurred to him. He measured Tresler with his eye, and then looked at
the short-seated saddle with its high cantle and tall, abrupt horn in
front. He shook his head.
Tresler was not heeding him. Suddenly he stopped and sat on the
ground, propping his back against the corral wall, while he looked up
at Joe.
"Sit down," he said seriously; "I've got something rather particular I
want to talk about. At least, I think it's particular, being a
stranger to the country."
Without replying, Joe deposited himself on the ground beside his new
acquaintance. His face was screwed up into the expression Tresler had
begun to recognize as a smile. He took a chew of tobacco and prepared
to give his best attention.
"Git goin'," he observed easily.
"Well, look here, have we any near neighbors?"
"None nigher than Forks--'cep' the Breeds, an' they're nigh on six
mile south, out toward the hills. How?"
Then Tresler told him what he had seen at the edge of the pinewoods,
and the choreman listened with careful attention. At the end of his
story Tresler added--
"You see, it's probably nothing. Of course, I know nothing as yet of
prairie ways and doings. No doubt it can be explained. But I argued
the matter out from my own point of view, and it struck me that two
horsemen, approaching the ranch under cover of the forest and a dark
night, and not venturing into the open after having arrived, simply
didn't want to be seen. And their not wishing to be seen meant that
their object in coming wasn't--well, just above suspicion."
"Tol'ble reasonin'," nodded Joe, chewing his cud reflectively.
"What do you make of it?"
"A whole heap," Joe said, spitting emphatically. "What do I make of
it? Yes, that's it, a whole heap. Guess that feller you see most of
had his face covered. Was that cover a mask?"
"It might have been."
"A red mask?"
"I couldn't see the color. It was too dark. Might have been."
Joe turned and faced his companion, and, hunching his bent knees into
his arms, looked squarely into his eyes.
"See here, pard, guess you never heard o' hoss thieves? They ain't
likely to mean much to you," he said, with some slight contempt. Then
he added, by way of rubbing it in, "You bein' a 'tenderfoot.' Guess
you ain't heard tell of Red Mask an' his gang, neither?"
"Wrong twice," observed Tresler, with a quiet smile. "I've heard of
both horse thieves and Red Mask."
"You've heard tell of hoss thieves an' Red Mask? Wal, I'm figgerin'
you've seen both to-night, anyway; an' I'll further tell you this--if
you'd got the drop on him this night an' brought him down, you'd 'a'
done what most every feller fer two hundred miles around has been
layin' to do fer years, an' you'd 'a' been the biggest pot in Montana
by sundown to-morrow." He spoke with an accent of triumph, and paused
for effect. "Say, ther' wouldn't 'a' been a feller around as wouldn't
'a' taken his hat off to you," he went on, to accentuate the
situation. "Say, it was a dandy chance. But ther', you're a
'tenderfoot,'" he added, with a sigh of profound regret.
Tresler was inclined to laugh, but checked himself as he realized the
serious side of the matter.
"Well, if he were here to-night, what does it portend?" he asked.
"If he was here to-night it portends a deal," said Joe, sharply. "It
portends that the biggest 'tough,' the biggest man-killer an' hoss
thief in the country, is on the war-path, an' ther'll be trouble
around 'fore we're weeks older."
"Who is he?"
"Who is he? Wal, I 'lows that's a big question. Guess ther' ain't no
real sayin'. Some sez he's from across the border, some sez he's a
Breed, some sez he's the feller called Duncan, as used to run a bum
saloon in Whitewater, an' shot a man in his own bar an' skipped. No
one rightly knows, 'cep' he's real 'bad,' an' duffs nigh on to a
thousand head o' stock most every year."
"Then what's to be done?" Tresler asked, watching the little man's
twisted face as he munched his tobacco.
"What's to be done? Wal, I don't rightly know. Say, what wus you doin'
around that house? I ain't askin' fer cur'osity. Ye see, if you got
tellin' Jake as you wus round ther', it's likely he'd git real mad. Y'
see, Jake's dead sweet on Miss Dianny. It gives him the needle that
I'm around that house. O' course, ther' ain't nuthin' wi' me an' Miss
Dianny, 'cep' we're kind o' friendly. But Jake's that mean-sperrited
an' jealous. She hates him like pizen. I know, 'cos I'm kind o'
friendly wi' her, so to speak, meanin' nuthin', o' course. But that
ain't the point. If you wus to tell him he'd make your head swim."
"Oh, hang Jake!" exclaimed Tresler, impatiently; "I'm sick to death of
hearing of his terrorizing. He can't eat me----"
"No, but he'll make you wish he could," put in the choreman, quietly.
"He'd find me a tough mouthful," Tresler laughed.
"Mebbe. How came you around that house?"
"I simply wandered there by chance. I was smoking and taking a stroll.
I'd been all round the ranch."
"That wouldn't suit Jake. No." Joe was silent for a moment.
Tresler waited. At last the little man made a move and spat out his
chew.
"That's it," he said, slapping his thigh triumphantly--"that's it,
sure. Say, we needn't to tell Jake nuthin'. I'll git around among the
boys, an' let 'em know as I heerd tell of Red Mask bein' in the region
o' the Bend, an' how a Breed give me warnin', bein' scared to come
along to the ranch lest Red Mask got wind of it an' shut his head
lights fer him. Ther' ain't no use in rilin' Jake. Meanin' for you.
He's layin' fer you anyways, as I'm guessin' you'll likely know.
Savee? Lie low, most as low as a dead cat in a well. I'll play this
hand, wi'out you figgerin' in it; which, fer you, I guess is best."
Tresler got up and dusted his clothes. There was a slight pause while
he fingered the leather-capped stirrups of the stock saddle on the
wall.
Joe grew impatient. "Wal?" he said at last; "y' ain't bustin' wi'
'preciation."
"On the contrary, I appreciate your shrewdness and kindly interest on
my behalf most cordially," Tresler replied, dropping the stirrup and
turning to his companion; "but, you see, there's one little weakness
in the arrangement. Jake's liable to underestimate the importance of
the nocturnal visits unless he knows the real facts. Besides----"
"Besides," broke in Joe, with an impatience bred of his reading
through Tresler's lame objection, "you jest notion to rile Jake some.
Wal, you're a fool, Tresler--a dog-gone fool! Guess you'll strike a
snag, an' snags mostly hurts. Howsum, I ain't no wet-nurse, an' ef you
think to bluff Jake Harnach, get right ahead an' bluff. An' when you
bluff, bluff hard, an' back it, or you'll drop your wad sudden. Guess
I'll turn in."
Joe moved off and Tresler followed. At the door of the bunkhouse they
parted, for Joe slept in a lean-to against the kitchen of the
rancher's house. They had said "good-night," and Joe was moving away
when he suddenly changed his mind and came back again.
"Say, ther' ain't nothin' like a 'tenderfoot' fer bein' a fool, 'less
it's a settin' hen," he said, with profound contempt but with evident
good-will. "You're kind o' gritty, Tresler, I guess, but mebbe you'll
be ast to git across a tol'ble broncho in the mornin'. That's as may
be. But ef it's so, jest take two thinks 'fore settin' your six foot
o' body on a saddle built fer a feller o' five foot one. It ain't
reason'ble, an' it's dangerous. It's most like tryin' to do that as
isn't, never wus, and ain't like to be, an' if it did, wouldn't amount
to a heap anyway, 'cep' it's a heap o' foolishness."
Tresler laughed. "All right. Two into one won't go without leaving a
lot over. Good-night, Joe."
"So long. Them fellers as gits figgerin' mostly gits crazed fer doin'
what's impossible. Guess I ain't stuck on figgers nohow."
And the man vanished into the night, while Tresler passed into the
bunkhouse to get what little sleep his first night as a ranchman might
afford him.