A LONG NIGHT WATCH
Someone in the crowd saw the approaching plane. A shout went up which was
augmented to a roar of welcome. Once again a space was cleared; this time
without the command from the Deputy Sheriff.
The girls threw open the window and leaned out as the plane landed and
the men closed in about it. How they wished they could hear what was
being said. They saw Harry Hulbert leap out and, by his excited gestures,
the girls were sure that he had made some discovery which he considered
important.
“He seems to be pointing toward ‘The Dragoons.’” Mary looked over the
scattered buildings of the town, across the gray desert to the dull red
cliffs that loomed dark in the moonlight.
Dora caught her friend’s arm and held it tight. “Mary Moore,” she cried,
“if we had gone home tonight, we would have passed the side road that
leads to ‘The Dragoons,’ wouldn’t we?”
Mary nodded, but said nothing. She knew what her friend was thinking.
“Watch what they’re doing now. The sheriff is having the men who are
armed show their guns. Here come boys from the jail bringing more
firearms.” Mary turned a face, white with alarm. “Oh, Dora, don’t you
wish this was all over? Look, Jerry and Dick and Harry are getting up on
horseback. I do hope Harry knows how to ride. Good gracious, Dora, those
three boys are going with the sheriff to lead the posse. Isn’t that
terrible?”
“I don’t know as it is,” was the surprisingly calm reply. “Naturally
Harry would be the one to lead the men to the place where he saw the
bandits hiding.”
Women in the office of the hotel, seeing that their men were about to
ride away, rushed out to bid them goodbye.
The young boys and old men were not taken. After the others were gone,
there was an almost deathlike stillness down in the square. The women
returned indoors. Old men, many of them gray-bearded, stood in groups on
the sidewalks talking in low tones and shaking their grizzled heads
ominously. The boys trooped over to the pool hall. The proprietor had
been among the men who had ridden away and so the boys could play without
charge which they did gleefully.
Mary sank down on a low rocker near the window and her sweet blue eyes
were tragic as she gazed up at her friend. “Dora,” she said “if you were
a boy, would you have dared to ride into a robber’s den the way—”
“Sure thing,” was the brief reply. Dora still stood gazing at the desert
valley. Although the road disappeared from their sight when it first
dipped down from the town, she knew that the riders would again be
visible as they crossed to “The Dragoons.”
“If we can see them crossing the valley, so can the bandits,” she said,
thinking aloud. “Of course, the robbers must have look-outs if that’s
what men are called who spy around to warn the others of danger.”
“There they are! There they are!” Mary leaped to her feet to point. Dark
distant objects were moving rapidly across the moonlit sands of the
valley.
Suddenly Mary turned, a new alarm expressed in her face. “Dora,” she
cried, “now that only old men and boys are left here to protect this
town, what if the bandits should circle around and rob the stores and the
post office—”
“And carry off the beautiful young damsels,” Dora laughingly added, “like
a chapter out of an old-time story-book.”
“It may be amusing to you,” Mary seemed actually hurt, “but things _do_
happen even _now_ that are worse than anything I ever read in a book.”
“Righto! Ah agrees, as Sambo says.” Dora turned and slipped an arm about
her friend, and then, as though trying to change her thought, she went
on, “I wonder if that old darky and Marthy, his wife, will be working at
Sunnybank Seminary next fall when we go back.”
“That all seems so far away and so long ago, almost like a dream,” Mary
replied, as she gazed down at the silver plane which had been left in the
care of the old men. They were walking around it now, looking it over
with frank curiosity.
Dora tried again. “How I do wish Patsy and Polly were here! Pat,
especially, would get a great ‘kick,’ as she’d call it, out of all this
excitement.”
“More than I am, no doubt,” Mary confessed. “My imagination is getting
wilder and wilder every minute. I’m expecting something awful to happen
right here and—what was that?” She jumped and put her hand on her heart.
“Someone knocked on the door.” Dora went to open it. Mrs. Goode, looking
anxious in spite of her smile, said, “Don’t you girls want something to
eat? It’s almost midnight and you must be hungry.”
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Goode, I suppose we are hungry. We’re so terribly
nervous, I don’t know as we could eat, really.”
“Well, try, dearies. Here’s Washita with a tray.”
Washita was an Indian girl with black, furtive eyes and a red woolen
dress. She also had red rags twined in with her long black braids. She
carried a tray into the room. Silently, she placed it on a table and
glided out. Mary shuddered unconsciously. “Indians give me the
‘shilly-shivers’ as Pat says.”
“Washita is harmless. I’ve had her for two years now. She’s almost the
last of a powerful tribe of Apaches which, long ago, had ‘The Dragoons’
for their fortress,” Mrs. Goode was explaining, when Mary begged, “Oh, do
tell us what you think the outcome of this raid will be. You know we have
three dear friends in the posse.”
Dora thought, “Aha! Harry Hulbert is a dear friend, is he, even before we
have met him.”
Mrs. Goode was replying. “I have a husband and two dearly loved sons
among those men, but, they _must_ do their duty. The life of a sheriff’s
wife is one of constant fear. I am feeling sure, though, that they will
all come back soon with their captives. The jail is ready for the
bandits. Now I must go back to the office. If you want me, ring the bell.
I’ll send Washita up for the tray—”
“Oh, Mrs. Goode, please don’t! Somehow she startles me.” It was Mary
imploring, although she knew her fears were foolish.
Mrs. Goode merely replied, “All right, dear. The tray can wait until
morning.”
Dora moved the kerosene lamp from the bureau to the small table. Then
they sat down and nibbled at the chicken sandwiches which had been
temptingly made. The milk was creamy and Dora succeeded in finishing her
share.
Mary, carrying a half-eaten sandwich, went to the window and looked
across the desert. She whirled and beckoned, then pointed. “Don’t you see
a horseman galloping this way?”
“I do see some object that seems to be coming pretty fast,” Dora
conceded. “Now it’s out of sight below the silver hills.”
Almost breathless they waited until the horseman again appeared. “He’s
probably the bearer of some sort of message,” Dora decided when the man
leaped from his horse and ran into the hotel.
Mary had put the partly eaten sandwich back on her plate and sat with
clenched hands waiting—hoping that they would soon learn the news which
the man brought.
“Don’t expect the worst,” Dora begged.
Although Mary was hoping there would come a knock at their door, she
jumped again when she heard it. Once more it was Dora who went to admit
their caller. A young cowboy, hot and panting, stood there holding out an
envelope.
“The writin’ ain’t in it, it’s on the back of it,” he informed them.
It had evidently been an old letter Dick had found in his pocket as it
bore his name on the envelope. The scribbled note was:
“We’re all right. The worst is over. Surprised the men while they were
all drunk except the sentinels. We’re fetching them in. Be back by
daybreak. Better get some sleep now.” Dick’s name was signed to it.
“Thanks be.” Mary finished her sandwich when the cowboy was gone, while
Dora, who was turning back the bedspread, said, “We’ll take Dick’s advice
and go to sleep or at least try to.”
“Well, I’ll lie down,” Mary was removing her shoes as she spoke, “but I
don’t expect to sleep a wink.”
They removed their outer clothing, then drew a quilt up over them. The
boys from the pool room had crossed to hear the news and many of them
returned to their homes with their mothers. They evidently believed
implicitly that all of the bandits had been captured and so they had
nothing to fear.
The humming of voices in the office was stilled and soon there were no
sounds in the street below.
Dora, no longer anxious, went to sleep quickly and although Mary had been
sure she wouldn’t sleep at all, at daybreak they neither of them heard
the men returning. It was hours later when there came a rap on their
door. Mary sat up looking about wildly. “Who’s there?” she called, almost
fearfully, then remembering that all was well, she jumped up and opened
the door a crack. Mrs. Goode smiled in at her. “Dearie,” she said, “Jerry
sent me up to ask if you girls will come down to breakfast now.”
“Of course we will. Thanks a lot.” Still Dora slept on. Mary shook her
laughingly as she said, “Wake up, Dodo! The hour is here at last when we
are to meet Pat’s aviator.”
Dora sprang out of bed and hurriedly dressed. “I feel in my bones,” she
prophesied, “that you and I will _share_ in some excitement today. See if
we don’t!”