"I wish there was a shorter cut to get home," said the girl wearily.
"I'm just about tired. Climbing mountains is a little out of my line. I
wonder how long it will take to get used to it."
"There is a shorter way, Miss Hathaway," said one of the breed boys.
"It's through that sheep-ranch there. We always used to go that way
before they fenced it in, but there's gates to it if we can find 'em."
"Let's go through that way, then, if it's shorter. Of course it is
shorter--I can see that, and we'll trust to luck to be able to see the
gates. I suppose they're wire gates."
"Yes, just regular wire gates, an' it's gettin' dark pretty blame fast,
but mebbe we can find 'em all right."
So they followed the fence, searching in the dim light for the almost
invisible gate--the girl who had that day appointed herself commanding
officer and her three brave scouts.
Alongside the wire fence they followed a narrow cow-trail for nearly a
quarter of a mile, then the path disappeared inside the field, and the
side-hills along which they were obliged to travel were rough and
dangerous. It was late, and darkness settled down around them, cutting
from their vision everything but a small line of fence and the nearby
hills.
They made slow headway over the rocky banks. Hope, tired with the day's
exploring and hungry after her long ride and the somewhat slender diet
of the past week, was sorry they had not gone the road, which, though
longer, would not have taken such a length of time to travel. The boys
were good scouts, yet it became evident that they had never followed the
new line of fence before. Their horses slipped upon the sides of steep
inclines which became more rocky and dangerous as they proceeded.
Darkness increased rapidly. One horse in the rear fell down, but the
rider was upon his feet in an instant; then they dismounted and led
their horses, traveling along very slowly in Indian file. Some time
later they found the wire gate, much to the girl's relief. It was then
quite dark. The moon had risen, but showed itself fitfully behind black,
stormy looking clouds. Without difficulty they discovered a trail
leading somewhere, and followed it until they rounded a point from which
they could see the light in the sheep-man's house.
"Why, we're almost up to his _house_!" exclaimed Hope. "This isn't the
way. We don't want to go there!"
"I reckon we'll have to get pretty close up to it to find the road that
goes to the other gate," said the soft-voiced twin.
"How foolish we've been," sighed the girl.
"Yep, a pack o' idiots," agreed Dave.
"But it's too dark for anyone to see us--or notice us," she said with
relief. "I think we might go right up to the house and look through the
windows without anyone seeing us."
"Let's do it," suggested Dave.
"Well I should say not!" exclaimed the girl. "It's the last thing on
earth I would do--_peek_ into anyone's window! I am not so curious to
see the interior of _his_ house--or anyone's else."
"I'll bet they're just eatin' supper," said Ned hungrily.
"All the better," replied Hope; "there will be no one around to see us
then. I wonder how much closer we'll have to go?"
"Not much further," answered the soft-voiced twin wisely. "See, there's
the barns, an' the road ain't a great ways off." He led the way, while
Hope and the boy, Dave, followed close, and the youngest boy trailed
along somewhere in the rear. They passed between the stables and the
house, then, aided by the fitful moon, found the road, along which they
made better time.
Hope felt a great relief as they began to leave the house in the
distance, though why, she could scarcely have explained. She said to
herself that she was in a hurry to reach home, but as they neared the
huge, flat-roofed sheep-sheds she slowed up her horse, which had gone
on ahead of the others, and glanced back at her approaching scouts. The
twins came up with her, then she stopped and looked behind.
"Where's Ned?" she asked sharply, a sudden suspicion entering her head.
"What's keeping him?"
"He went up to the house to see what's goin' on," replied Dave. "I saw
him start for that way."
"How dared he do it! He will be seen and then what will they think! We
will wait for him here." Then angrily to the boy: "If you knew he was
going to do that Indian trick why didn't you stop him?"
"I didn't know nothin' till I missed him," replied the boy.
"No, we didn't know he was goin', but when we saw he was gone for sure
it wouldn't 'a' done no good to 'a' gone after him. Anyway, we wouldn't
'a' left _you_ alone!" The soft-voiced twin was a genius at finding
explanations. He was never at a loss.
The girl recovered her temper instantly. "You did quite right, my brave
scout," she cried. "I see you have learned the first and greatest
principle of your vocation. _Never desert a lady, no matter what danger
she may be in._ But what a temptation it must have been to you to follow
him and bring him back to me!" There is no doubt but that the sarcasm
was wasted upon the breed boys, who waited stolidly with her near some
sheltering brush for the truant Ned, whose mischievousness had led him
off the trail.
At last he rode up with them, surprised out of breath to find them there
waiting for him. The girl took him by the sleeve. "You're a bad boy.
Next time ask me when you have an inclination to do anything like that.
Now give an account of yourself. What did you see?"
"I just wanted to see what they had to eat, so I peeked in," apologized
the youngster. "There was two men eatin' their supper. The boss wasn't
there. I heard old Morris tell another fellow that he was out helpin'
put in the sheep."
"But here are the sheds, and surely there are no sheep here," she
exclaimed anxiously.
"They're keepin' 'em in the open corrals down the road a piece,"
explained the soft-voiced twin. "They don't keep no sheep here in the
sheds now."
The commanding officer breathed easier. "That's good; come on then," she
said, riding ahead. They had not proceeded fifty yards when the low
tones of men's voices reached them. Simultaneously they stopped their
horses and listened, but nothing save an indistinct murmur could be
heard. One of the twins slipped from his horse and handed the bridle
reins to the girl, then crept forward. In the darkness she could not
tell which one it was, nor did she care. She was filled with excitement
and the longing for adventure which the time and place aggravated. Had
they not that day formed a band of secrecy--she and her three brave
scouts? It occurred to her that it might be the sheep-man returning with
a herder, but if so he had no right to stand at such a distance and talk
in guarded tones. The very atmosphere of the place felt suspicious.
They drew their horses to one side of the roadway, waiting in absolute
silence for the return of the scout. The voices reached them
occasionally from the opposite side of a clump of brush not a stone's
throw away.
They waited several minutes, which seemed interminable, then a dark form
appeared and a voice whispered softly: "Somethin's up! Let's get the
horses over by the fence so's they can't hear us." The twin led the way,
taking a wide circuit about the spot from where the sound of voices
came. They reached the fence quickly without noise, securing their
horses behind a screen of scrubby willows.
"Now, go on," said the girl. "What did you hear?"
"When I crawled up close I saw two men. One of 'em said, 'Shut up.
You're makin' too much noise! Do you want 'em to hear you up to the
house?' The other said he didn't give a damn, that they might just as
well make a good job of it an' kill off Livingston while they were
getting rid of his sheep. These two fellers have just come over to
guard the road from the house to keep the men there from interferin',
but the mob's down there at the corral waitin' to do the work. I found
that much out an' then I sneaked back. I reckon they're goin' to drive
the sheep over the cut-bank."
"The devils!" cried Hope, under her breath. "They're going to pile up
the sheep and kill him if he interferes, are they? _We'll show them!_"
"We can't do anything," said the boy. "There's more'n a dozen men out
there at the corrals, an' it's darker'n pitch."
"So we'll just have to stand here and see that crime committed!" she
burst out. "No, not on your life! You boys have got to stand by me.
Surely you're just as brave as a girl? We're going over there where we
can see what's going on, and the first man that tries to drive a sheep
out of that corral gets one of these!" She patted the barrel of her
rifle as she pulled it from its saddle case. "Get your guns and come
along." But they were not far behind her in getting their weapons. The
older boys had revolvers, and little Ned was armed with a Winchester
repeating shotgun.
The twins were never seen without their guns, and had the reputation of
sleeping with them at night. For wildness those two boys were the terror
of the country. Their hearts sang a heathenish song of joy at this new
adventure. Surely they were as brave as a girl! Her taunt rankled some.
They would show her that they were not cowards! She had begun to worry
already!
"Oh, what if it should be too late! What if we should be too late! Oh,
it can't be! Let's go faster!" she cried.
The breed boys crept along close to the ground, making altogether much
less noise than the girl, who seemed to think that speed and action were
all that was necessary.
"Sh! Keep quieter. You musn't let them know anyone's 'round. Those
fellers by the road 're just over there, an' they'll hear us," whispered
Dan.
Then slower, more stealthily, they crept around the two men who guarded
the road, and with less caution approached the corrals, the girl
meanwhile recovering her composure to a great degree, though her heart
still beat wildly. The night seemed a trifle lighter now to her
straining eyes. What if the moon should come out, revealing them to the
men waiting beyond the corrals? She grasped her rifle firmly, and her
heart beat quicker at the thought. The soft-voiced twin must have felt
the same fear, for he came close and whispered in her ear: "The corrals
ain't more'n a rod, right over there. We'd better make a run for that
bush there on this side of it, for the moon's comin' out--see!" He
pointed upward. A rift had come in the black cloud from which the moon
shone dimly, growing momentarily brighter. Before them the corral loomed
up like a great flat patch of darkness, and to one side of this dark
patch something taller stood in dim relief--a small clump of brush,
toward which the odd little scouting party ran in all haste. Safe within
its shelter, a fierce joy, savage in its intensity, filled the girl.
"Come on, Moon, come on in all your glory!" she whispered; then, as if
in answer to her command, it came in full splendor from behind its veil
of black. It might have been a signal. Back in the hills a coyote called
weirdly to its mate, but before the last wailing note had died away a
sharp report sounded on the still air, followed by the groans of a man
in mortal agony. Hope, upon her knees in the brush, clasped her hands to
her throat to stifle a cry.
"Now drive his damn'd sheep into the gulch!" commanded a gruff voice.
Following the pain, a fierce light came into the girl's eyes. Over
tightly closed teeth her lips parted dryly. Instinctively the breed boys
crept behind her, leaving her upon one knee before the heap of brush. A
man leaped into the corral among the stupid sheep, and as he leaped a
bullet passed through his hand.
"God, I'm killed!" he cried, as he sank limply out of sight among the
sheep. For a few moments not a sound came except the occasional bleating
of a lamb, then the gate of the corral, which was ajar, opened as by
some invisible hand, and the great body of animals crowded slowly toward
the entrance.
"They think there's only one man here, and they're not going to be
bluffed by one," whispered Hope. "See, they must be coaxing the leaders
with hay, and there's something going on back there that will make them
stampede in a moment, and then the cut-bank! But we'll bluff them; make
them think there's a whole regiment here. There's four of us. Now get
your guns ready. Good; now when I start, all of you shoot at once as
fast as you can load. Aim high in that direction. Shoot in the air, not
_anywhere_ else. Now do as I tell you. Now, all together!" For two or
three minutes those four guns made music. The hills gathered up the
noise and flung it back, making the air ring with a deafening sound.
"Shoot up! Shoot higher, or you'll be hitting someone," she admonished,
as dark forms began to rise from the ground beyond the corral and run
away.
"They're crawling away like whipped dogs," exclaimed a twin in glee.
"I'd like to shoot one for luck!"
"Shame on you," cried the girl softly. "That would be downright murder
while they're running."
"I reckon there's been murder already to-night," said the soft-voiced
twin. Hope turned upon him fiercely: "That wasn't murder! I shot him
through the hand. Murder? Do you call it murder to kill one of those
beasts? You mean--you mean that they killed _him_! I forgot for a
minute! Oh, it couldn't be that they killed _him_--Mr. Livingston! Are
you sure he wasn't up at the house, Ned? I must find out." She started
toward the corral. Dave pulled her back roughly.
"See there! Those fellers that was on guard down there 're comin' back.
They must have left their horses down by that rock. They'll ketch us
sure!" She drew back into the brush again, waiting until the two men,
whose voices first brought suspicion to their minds, had passed by,
skirting the corral in diplomatic manner.
Hope, who had been so eager to search the scene of bloodshed, crept from
the brush and took the opposite direction, followed closely by the breed
boys. When they reached their horses she spoke:
"Now you boys go home. Go in from the back coulee and sneak into bed.
Don't let anyone see you, whatever you do, for if this was ever found
out----" She waited for their imaginations to finish the sentence.
"We can sneak in all right," exclaimed Dave. "We know how to do that!
They'll never find it out in ten years!"
"Then go at once. Ride fast by the Spring coulee and get there ahead of
the men--if there should be any that belong there. I will come later. If
they ask, say that I'm in bed, or taking a walk, or anything that comes
into your head. But you won't be questioned. You mustn't be! Now hurry
up!"
"But why won't you come along with us?" asked Dave.
"Because if we should be caught together they would know who did the
shooting. If they see you alone they will not suspect you, and if they
see me alone they will never think of such a thing. It is the wisest
way, besides I have other reasons. Now don't stand there all night
talking to me, but go, unless you want to make trouble." She watched
them until they were lost to sight, then mounted her horse and rode back
over the road that she had come, straight up to the sheep-man's house.