Produced by Curtis A. Weyant
KEITH OF THE BORDER
A TALE OF THE PLAINS
By Randall Parrish
Author of “My Lady of the North,” “My Lady of the South.” “When
Wilderness Was King,” etc.
CONTENTS
I The Plainsman
II The Scene of Tragedy
III An Arrest
IV An Old Acquaintance
V The One Way
VI The Escape
VII In the Sand Desert
VIII The Wilderness Cabin
IX The Girl of the Cabin
X Mr. Hawley Reveals Himself
XI The Fight in the Dark
XII Through the Night Shadows
XIII The Ford of the Arkansas
XIV The Landlady of the Occidental
XV Again Christie Maclaire
XVI Introducing Doctor Fairbain
XVII In the Next Room
XVIII Interviewing Willoughby
XIX A Glimpse at Conspiracy
XX Hope Goes to Sheridan
XXI The Marshal of Sheridan
XXII An Interrupted Interview
XXIII An Unexpected Meeting
XXIV A Mistake in Assassination
XXV A Reappearance of the General
XXVI A Chance Conversation
XXVII Miss Hope Suggests
XXVIII The Stage Door of the Trocadero
XXIX By Force of Arms
XXX In Christie's Room
XXXI The Search for the Missing
XXXII Fairbain and Christie
XXXIII Following the Trail
XXXIV Again at the Cabin
XXXV The Cabin Taken
XXXVI The Duel in the Desert
XXXVII At the Water-Hole
KEITH OF THE BORDER
A TALE OF THE PLAINS
Chapter I. The Plainsman
The man was riding just below the summit of the ridge, occasionally
uplifting his head so as to gaze across the crest, shading his eyes with
one hand to thus better concentrate his vision. Both horse and rider
plainly exhibited signs of weariness, but every movement of the latter
showed ceaseless vigilance, his glance roaming the barren ridges, a
brown Winchester lying cocked across the saddle pommel, his left hand
taut on the rein. Yet the horse he bestrode scarcely required restraint,
advancing slowly, with head hanging low, and only occasionally breaking
into a brief trot under the impetus of the spur.
The rider was a man approaching thirty, somewhat slender and long
of limb, but possessing broad, squared shoulders above a deep chest,
sitting the saddle easily in plainsman fashion, yet with an erectness of
carriage which suggested military training. The face under the wide
brim of the weather-worn slouch hat was clean-shaven, browned by sun and
wind, and strongly marked, the chin slightly prominent, the mouth firm,
the gray eyes full of character and daring. His dress was that of rough
service, plain leather “chaps,” showing marks of hard usage, a gray
woolen shirt turned low at the neck, with a kerchief knotted loosely
about the sinewy bronzed throat. At one hip dangled the holster of a
“forty-five,” on the other hung a canvas-covered canteen. His was figure
and face to be noted anywhere, a man from whom you would expect both
thought and action, and one who seemed to exactly fit into his wild
environment.
Where he rode was the very western extreme of the prairie country,
billowed like the sea, and from off the crest of its higher ridges, the
wide level sweep of the plains was visible, extending like a vast
brown ocean to the foothills of the far-away mountains. Yet the actual
commencement of that drear, barren expanse was fully ten miles distant,
while all about where he rode the conformation was irregular, comprising
narrow valleys and swelling mounds, with here and there a sharp ravine,
riven from the rock, and invisible until one drew up startled at its
very brink. The general trend of depression was undoubtedly southward,
leading toward the valley of the Arkansas, yet irregular ridges
occasionally cut across, adding to the confusion. The entire surrounding
landscape presented the same aspect, with no special object upon which
the eye could rest for guidance--no tree, no upheaval of rock, no
peculiarity of summit, no snake-like trail,--all about extended the same
dull, dead monotony of brown, sun-baked hills, with slightly greener
depressions lying between, interspersed by patches of sand or the white
gleam of alkali. It was a dreary, deserted land, parched under the hot
summer sun, brightened by no vegetation, excepting sparse bunches of
buffalo grass or an occasional stunted sage bush, and disclosing nowhere
slightest sign of human habitation.
The rising sun reddened the crest of the hills, and the rider, halting
his willing horse, sat motionless, gazing steadily into the southwest.
Apparently he perceived nothing there unusual, for he slowly turned his
body about in the saddle, sweeping his eyes, inch by inch, along the
line of the horizon, until the entire circuit had been completed. Then
his compressed lips smiled slightly, his hand unconsciously patting the
horse's neck.
“I reckon we're still alone, old girl,” he said quietly, a bit of
Southern drawl in the voice. “We'll try for the trail, and take it
easy.”
He swung stiffly out of the saddle, and with reins dangling over his
shoulder, began the slower advance on foot, the exhausted horse trailing
behind. His was not a situation in which one could feel certain of
safety, for any ridge might conceal the wary foemen he sought to avoid,
yet he proceeded now with renewed confidence. It was the Summer of 1868,
and the place the very heart of the Indian country, with every separate
tribe ranging between the Yellowstone and the Brazos, either restless
or openly on the war-path. Rumors of atrocities were being retold the
length and breadth of the border, and every report drifting in to either
fort or settlement only added to the alarm. For once at least the Plains
Indians had discovered a common cause, tribal differences had been
adjusted in war against the white invader, and Kiowas, Comanches,
Arapahoes, Cheyennes, and Sioux, had become welded together in savage
brotherhood. To oppose them were the scattered and unorganized settlers
lining the more eastern streams, guarded by small detachments of regular
troops posted here and there amid that broad wilderness, scarcely within
touch of each other.
Everywhere beyond these lines of patrol wandered roaming war parties,
attacking travellers on the trails, raiding exposed settlements, and
occasionally venturing to try open battle with the small squads of armed
men. In this stress of sudden emergency--every available soldier on
active duty--civilians had been pressed into service, and hastily
despatched to warn exposed settlers, guide wagon trains, or carry
despatches between outposts. And thus our rider, Jack Keith, who knew
every foot of the plains lying between the Republican and the Canadian
Rivers, was one of these thus suddenly requisitioned, merely because
he chanced to be discovered unemployed by the harassed commander of
a cantonment just without the environs of Carson City. Twenty minutes
later he was riding swiftly into the northwest, bearing important news
to General Sheridan, commander of the Department, who happened at that
moment to be at Fort Cairnes. To Keith this had been merely another page
in a career of adventure; for him to take his life in his hands had
long ago become an old story. He had quietly performed the special duty
allotted him, watched a squadron of troopers trot forth down the valley
of the Republican, received the hasty thanks of the peppery little
general, and then, having nothing better to do, traded his horse in
at the government corral for a fresh mount and started back again for
Carson City. For the greater portion of two nights and a day he had been
in the saddle, but he was accustomed to this, for he had driven more
than one bunch of longhorns up the Texas trail; and as he had slept
three hours at Cairnes, and as his nerves were like steel, the thought
of danger gave him slight concern. He was thoroughly tired, and it
rested him to get out of the saddle, while the freshness of the morning
air was a tonic, the very breath of which made him forgetful of fatigue.
After all, this was indeed the very sort of experience which appealed to
him, and always had--this life of peril in the open, under the stars and
the sky. He had constantly experienced it for so long now, eight years,
as to make it seem merely natural. While he ploughed steadily forward
through the shifting sand of the coulee, his thought drifted idly back
over those years, and sometimes he smiled, and occasionally frowned, as
various incidents returned to memory. It had been a rough life, yet
one not unusual to those of his generation. Born of excellent family in
tidewater Virginia, his father a successful planter, his mother had died
while he was still in early boyhood, and he had grown up cut off from
all womanly influence. He had barely attained his majority, a senior at
William and Mary's College, when the Civil War came; and one month
after Virginia cast in her lot with the South, he became a sergeant in
a cavalry regiment commanded by his father. He had enjoyed that life
and won his spurs, yet it had cost. There was much not over pleasant
to remember, and those strenuous years of almost ceaseless fighting,
of long night marches, of swift, merciless raiding, of lonely scouting
within the enemy's lines, of severe wounds, hardship, and suffering,
had left their marks on both body and soul. His father had fallen on the
field at Antietam, and left him utterly alone in the world, but he had
fought on grimly to the end, until the last flag of the Confederacy had
been furled. By that time, upon the collar of his tattered gray jacket
appeared the tarnished insignia of a captain. The quick tears dimmed
his eyes even now as he recalled anew that final parting following
Appomattox, the battle-worn faces of his men, and his own painful
journey homeward, defeated, wounded, and penniless. It was no home
when he got there, only a heap of ashes and a few weed-grown acres. No
familiar face greeted him; not even a slave was left.
He had honestly endeavored to remain there, to face the future and work
it out alone; he persuaded himself to feel that this was his paramount
duty to the State, to the memory of the dead. But those very years
of army life made such a task impossible; the dull, dead monotony of
routine, the loneliness, the slowness of results, became intolerable. As
it came to thousands of his comrades, the call of the West came to him,
and at last he yielded, and drifted toward the frontier. The life there
fascinated him, drawing him deeper and deeper into its swirling vortex.
He became freighter, mail carrier, hunter, government scout, cowboy
foreman. Once he had drifted into the mountains, and took a chance in
the mines, but the wide plains called him back once more to their desert
loneliness. What an utter waste it all seemed, now that he looked back
upon it. Eight years of fighting, hardship, and rough living, and what
had they brought him? The reputation of a hard rider, a daring player
at cards, a quick shot, a scorner of danger, and a bad man to fool
with--that was the whole of a record hardly won. The man's eyes
hardened, his lips set firmly, as this truth came crushing home. A
pretty life story surely, one to be proud of, and with probably no
better ending than an Indian bullet, or the flash of a revolver in some
barroom fight.
The narrow valley along which he was travelling suddenly changed its
direction, compelling him to climb the rise of the ridge. Slightly below
the summit he halted. In front extended the wide expanse of the Arkansas
valley, a scene of splendor under the golden rays of the sun, with vivid
contrast of colors, the gray of rocks, the yellow of sand, the brown
of distant hills, the green of vegetation, and the silver sheen of the
stream half hidden behind the fringe of cottonwoods lining its
banks. This was a sight Keith had often looked upon, but always with
appreciation, and for the moment his eyes swept across from bluff to
bluff without thought except for its wild beauty. Then he perceived
something which instantly startled him into attention--yonder, close
beside the river, just beyond that ragged bunch of cottonwoods, slender
spirals of blue smoke were visible. That would hardly be a camp of
freighters at this hour of the day, and besides, the Santa Fé trail
along here ran close in against the bluff, coming down to the river
at the ford two miles further west. No party of plainsmen would ever
venture to build a fire in so exposed a spot, and no small company would
take the chances of the trail. But surely that appeared to be the flap
of a canvas wagon top a little to the right of the smoke, yet all was
so far away he could not be certain. He stared in that direction a long
while, shading his eyes with both hands, unable to decide. There were
three or four moving black dots higher up the river, but so far away he
could not distinguish whether men or animals. Only as outlined against
the yellow sand dunes could he tell they were advancing westward toward
the ford.
Decidedly puzzled by all this, yet determined to solve the mystery and
unwilling to remain hidden there until night, Keith led his horse along
the slant of the ridge, until he attained a sharp break through the
bluff leading down into the valley. It was a rugged gash, nearly
impassable, but a half hour of toil won them the lower prairie, the
winding path preventing the slightest view of what might be meanwhile
transpiring below. Once safely out in the valley the river could no
longer be seen, while barely a hundred yards away, winding along like
a great serpent, ran the deeply rutted trail to Santa Fé. In neither
direction appeared any sign of human life. As near as he could determine
from those distant cottonwoods outlined against the sky, for the smoke
spirals were too thin by then to be observed, the spot sought must be
considerably to the right of where he had emerged. With this idea in
mind he advanced cautiously, his every sense alert, searching anxiously
for fresh signs of passage or evidence of a wagon train having deserted
the beaten track, and turned south. The trail itself, dustless and
packed hard, revealed nothing, but some five hundred yards beyond the
ravine he discovered what he sought--here two wagons had turned sharply
to the left, their wheels cutting deeply enough into the prairie sod to
show them heavily laden. With the experience of the border he was able
to determine that these wagons were drawn by mules, two span to each,
their small hoofs clearly defined on the turf, and that they were being
driven rapidly, on a sharp trot as they turned, and then, a hundred feet
further, at a slashing gallop. Just outside their trail appeared the
marks of a galloping horse. A few rods farther along Keith came to a
confused blur of pony tracks sweeping in from the east, and the whole
story of the chase was revealed as though he had witnessed it with his
own eyes. They must have been crazy, or else impelled by some grave
necessity, to venture along this trail in so small a party. And they
were travelling west--west! Keith drew a deep breath, and swore to
himself, “Of all the blame fools!”
He perceived the picture in all its grewsome details--the two mule-drawn
wagons moving slowly along the trail in the early morning; the band of
hostile Indians suddenly swooping out from some obscure hiding place
in the bluffs; the discovery of their presence; the desperate effort at
escape; the swerving from the open trail in vain hope of reaching the
river and finding protection underneath its banks; the frightened
mules galloping wildly, lashed into frenzy by the man on horseback; the
pounding of the ponies' hoofs, punctuated by the exultant yells of the
pursuers. Again he swore:
“Of all the blame fools!”