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
in the 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 of Nate’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.