AN ESCAPADE
The night was still and clear when Thorne rode out of the ravine, in the
hollow of which he had left his wagon and one hobbled horse. Reaching
the level, he drew bridle and sat still in his saddle for a minute or
two looking about him. The dew was settling heavily on the short, wiry
grass, which shone faintly in the elusive light, with patches of darker
color where his horse's hoofs had passed. Ahead, the prairie rolled
away, a vast dimly lighted plain, to the soft dusky grayness which
obscured the horizon, and he knew that somewhere beyond the dip of the
latter stood the mountain, a broken stretch of higher ground covered
with birches and willows, where if Corporal Slaney held on so long he
must endeavor to evade him.
Volador seemed fit and fresh, for which he was thankful, for it was
nearly twenty miles to the mountain, and he was, after all, a little
uncertain about the speed of the policeman's horse, though the
appearance of the beast, which he had seen in the hotel stable, did not
suggest any great powers in this respect. It was, however, not the one
Slaney usually rode, which he fancied might, perhaps, be significant. At
length he leaned down and patted Volador's neck.
"You'll have to go to-night, old boy," he said.
The beast responded to his voice and a shake of the bridle, and they set
off southward at a trot. The moon already hung rather low in the
western sky, and he calculated that in another couple of hours it would
have dipped beneath the grassland's rim. By then he should reach the
mountain, and the darkness would be in his favor if he had not already
outdistanced his pursuer. It was in a singularly buoyant mood that he
rode quietly on, and it was reluctantly that he checked the horse which
once or twice attempted to gallop. After the last few months of prosaic
and unremitting toil, the prospect of a mad night ride, and the zest of
the hazard attached to it, proved strangely exhilarating to one of his
temperament. He admitted that, as Winthrop was not a particular friend
of his, there was no reason why he should have undertaken the thing at
all; but he remembered the appeal in Lucy Calvert's eyes, and that and
the lust of a frolic was sufficient for him. There are men of his kind
who, in their hearts, at least, never grow old.
He had covered two or three miles when he saw a mounted man following
the trail to the settlement, and he rode on across the trail with a wave
of his hat. He did not feel inclined for conversation, and everything
had already been arranged. The mounted figure presently sank out of
sight again, and he pulled Volador up to a slow walk. He would give
Baxter half an hour to reach the settlement and put Slaney on his trail,
and there was no use in wasting his horse's strength in the meanwhile.
It was nearly an hour later, and he was riding slowly, a lonely, moving
speck in the center of a great level waste whose boundaries steadily
receded before him, when a faint drumming of hoofs came out of the
silence. Then he pulled Volador up altogether, and sat still,
listening, for a while, until he felt sure that his pursuer, who was
apparently riding hard, would hear him. He did not wish the man to draw
too close, but it would, on the other hand, serve no purpose if he rode
south unless Slaney followed him. It seemed only reasonable to suppose
that once the police decided that Winthrop had got safely away to Dakota
they would abandon the search for him in western Canada.
Then something in the sound, which was rapidly growing louder, struck
him as curious, and he listened more closely with a frown, for it was
now becoming evident that instead of one pursuer he had two to deal
with, which was certainly not what he had desired or expected. Touching
Volador with his heels, he let him go, and for five or six minutes they
fled south at a fast gallop with a thud of hoofs on sun-baked sod
ringing far behind them. Then he pulled the horse up with a struggle,
and listened again. He was at length certain that the police had heard
him and were following as fast as possible. There was no cover until he
reached the mountain; nothing but an open wilderness, unbroken by even a
ravine or a clump of willows, and he must ride.
Once more he let Volador go, and the cool night air streamed past him,
whipping his hot face and bringing the blood to it, while long billowy
rises came back to him, looking in the uncertain moonlight like the vast
undulations of a glassy sea underrun by the swell of a distant gale.
Each time he swung over the gradual crest of one, a rhythmic staccato
drumming became sharply audible, and sank again as he dipped into the
great grassy hollows. Volador seemed fresh still, which was consoling,
for there was no doubt that the sound of the pursuit was as clear as it
had been. This was a fresh surprise.
Half an hour passed, and they swung out upon a wide, high level, where
for the first time he twisted in his saddle and looked behind him. He
could see, rather more plainly than he cared about, two dim figures,
spread out well apart on the verge of the plateau, and it was evident
that they were not dropping behind. It would, he recognized, lead to
unpleasant complications if they overtook him. He raised a quirt he had
borrowed, but, reflecting, he let his arm drop again. After all, it
might be desirable to let Volador keep a little in hand. Then he glanced
to the westward, and was pleased to see that the moon was rapidly
nearing the rim of the plain. It would be dark when he reached the
mountain.
Volador was flagging a little when at length they swept up the slope of
another rise. On crossing the top of this Thorne was conscious of a
difference in the drumming of hoofs behind. One of the pursuers was
clearly falling back, which was satisfactory, though he fancied that the
other man was still holding his own. Then he saw away in front of him a
blurred mass with an uneven crest which cut dimly black against the sky.
It stretched broad across his course, and he struck Volador with the
quirt, for he recognized it as the mountain, and knew that he must ride
in earnest now. A mounted man would make a good deal of noise descending
the ravines which seamed it and smashing through the undergrowth beneath
the birches, and it was desirable that he should reach their shelter
well ahead of the troopers.
The horse responded gallantly, but the beat of hoofs which he longed to
get away from grew no fainter, and when five minutes had flown by he
plied the quirt again. He was very hot, and somewhat anxious, but the
moon was now near the verge of the prairie. It was large and red, and
already the light was failing, though a long black shadow still fled
beside him across the dewy grass.
At last he fancied he was drawing ahead, and a mad fit came upon him as
they went flying down a rugged and broken slope to a water-course, while
the mountain rose higher and blacker ahead. Stones clattered and rattled
under them, clouds of light soil flew up, and then there was a great
splashing as the horse plunged through the creek. After that the pace
grew slower as they faced the ascent; and he swung low in the saddle
when they sped in among the birches. A branch struck him in the face and
swept his hat away, but it had done its work and he decided that he was
better rid of it.
A semblance of a trail that dipped into hollows and swung over rises led
through the mountain, though as a rule any one riding south skirted
this. Thorne had already decided that he must leave it somewhere as
quietly as possible and let Corporal Slaney go by. He could not hear the
trooper now, and this was reassuring, for he would have to stop soon and
he did not wish his pursuer to notice that the noise in front of him had
suddenly ceased.
Two or three minutes later, however, the sound he was beginning to dread
once more reached him, breaking in upon the crackle of dry sticks under
his horse's hoofs and the crash he made as he now and then blundered
into a brake or thicket. It was very dark in the bluff; he could
scarcely see the spectral trunks of the flitting trees, and to pick the
way or avoid the obstacles around which the trail here and there twisted
was out of the question. He faced the hazards as they came and rode
savagely; but the thud of pursuing hoofs and the smashing and crackling
which mingled with it sounded very close when he reached the brink of a
ravine which he understood it was almost impossible to descend on
horseback. To dismount would, however, as he realized, entail his
capture; and setting his lips tight he drove the failing horse at the
almost precipitous gully. They plunged down with soil and stones sliding
and rattling after them, splashed into a creek, and were half-way up the
opposite side when a second clatter of falling stones was followed by a
heavy downward rush of loosened soil. Then there was a dull thud and
afterward a curiously impressive silence.
Thorne pulled up his badly blown horse and, twisting in his saddle,
looked back across the ravine. He could see nothing but a shadowy mass
of trees which stood out dimly against a strip of soft blue sky. He
could feel his heart beating, and the deep silence troubled him. Indeed,
it was with difficulty that he refrained from shouting to the fallen
man, but he reflected that as he had now and then spoken to Slaney, the
latter would probably recognize his voice. Then he heard the man get up,
and the sounds which followed indicated that he was urging his horse to
rise. Thorne once more tapped Volador with his quirt.
A hoarse cry rang after him, commanding him to stop, but this was on the
whole a consolation, for it did not seem likely that Slaney was badly
hurt if he could shout, and Thorne rode on with a laugh. He scarcely
supposed the policeman's horse would be fit for much after a heavy fall,
but there was another trooper somewhere behind who might turn up at any
moment. He purposely rode through a brake or two in order that the
crackle of undergrowth might make it clear that he was going on, and
then, when some time had passed and there was no sign of any pursuit, he
turned sharply off the trail and headed into the bush. It soon became
necessary to dismount and lead his horse, and finally he looped the
bridle round a branch and sat down wearily.
He fancied that half an hour had passed when he heard an increasing
sound which suggested that two mounted men were riding cautiously along
the trail some distance away. He could hear an occasional sharp snapping
of rotten branches and the crash of trodden undergrowth as well as the
beat of hoofs. Listening carefully, he decided that the riders were
pushing straight on, and he was sure of it later, when the sound began
to die away. He sat still, however, for almost another hour, and then
succeeded with some difficulty in finding the trail. Following it back
until it led him out of the mountain, he stripped off his duck jacket
and flung it where anybody who passed that way could not well help
seeing it, and then he took out a soft gray hat he had carried rolled up
in his belt. Clad in blue shirt and trousers, he rode on slowly into the
prairie. The dawn found him some miles from the mountain and at least as
far from any trail, in the open waste. Reaching a ravine, he lay down at
the bottom of it beside a creek and ate the breakfast he had brought
with him, while Volador cropped the grass. Then he went quietly to
sleep.
It was midday when he awakened, and falling dusk when he eventually
reached the ravine near the settlement, where he had left his wagon and
the other horse. There was nothing to suggest that anybody had visited
the place in his absence, and after making an excellent supper he lay
down again inside the vehicle with a sigh of content. Everything had
gone satisfactorily, and it was most unlikely that Winthrop would be
further troubled by the police. He did not know much about the
extradition laws, but it was generally believed that when a man once got
across the frontier the troopers contented themselves with notifying the
authorities and nothing further was heard of the matter, unless the
fugitive were guilty of some very serious offense. A good deal of the
boundary then ran through an empty wilderness, and it was difficult to
trace any one who managed to reach the settlements on its southern side.
Indeed, it was seldom that a determined attempt was made.
Early on the following morning Thorne set out for his holding, and on
the day after he got there he set about cutting prairie hay. As a rule,
nobody sows artificial grasses when taking up new land, but as some
fodder for the teams is required it is generally cut in a dried-up sloo
where the water gathers in the thaw. In such places the grass grows
tall, and as it rapidly ripens and whitens in the sun all the farmer
need do is to cut it and carry it home.
Thorne was stripped to shirt and trousers, besides being grimed all over
with dust, when looking around for a moment he saw Mrs. Farquhar and
Alison in a wagon not far away. A black cloud of flies hovered about his
head and followed his plodding horses, while a thick haze of dust rose
from the grass that went down before the clanging mower. He stopped,
however, and looked around with a tranquil smile when Mrs. Farquhar
pulled up her team.
"You seem astonished to see me," he said.
Mrs. Farquhar turned and pointed to the long rows of fallen grass.
"I'm certainly astonished to see all that hay down."
"I wonder," quizzed Thorne, "if you intended that to be complimentary.
You see, I rather cling to the idea that I can do as much as other
people when I'm forced to it."
"You must have had the team out at sunup and have made the most of every
minute since," laughed Mrs. Farquhar.
"It looks like it, unless I had them out the previous evening."
"You hadn't," declared Alison, and her companion broke in again.
"She is quite right. You were not here yesterday. It was partly to
satisfy her curiosity that Harry drove round to see."
Thorne fancied that Alison was not exactly pleased with this statement,
but she made no attempt to contradict it.
"What strikes me most," she said, "is the fact that you look as if you
had never been away."
"That," returned Thorne, "is the impression I wished to give people. Now
that I've had my frolic, I want to forget it. It's a natural desire. On
the whole, I'm sorry you took the trouble to ascertain that I've just
come back."
"The question is, what have you been doing while you were absent?" asked
Mrs. Farquhar severely.
"Selling things most of the time. It's another example of what you can
do if you try. I'd given up half a case of tarnished mirrors as quite
unsalable, and somehow or other I got rid of every one of them."
"Anything else?"
"Well," replied Thorne with a thoughtful air, "I had a rather pleasant
ride. In fact, I feel so braced up by the whole trip that I expect I
shall be able to go on steadily for another few months, at least."
"And then?" Alison inquired.
Thorne looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Oh," he said, "if any of my friends make too persistent attempts to
reform me it's quite possible I shall go off on the trail again."
"I don't think you need anticipate any further trouble of that kind,"
Alison assured him.
Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar.
"May I drive over to supper to-morrow evening? I'd like a talk with
Harry--among other things."
"Of course," responded Mrs. Farquhar. "As a matter of fact, though I
don't suppose it would have much result, I should like a talk with you.
In the meanwhile we'll get on. It wouldn't be considerate to keep you
back when you're seized by a fit of sensible activity."
She drove away with the clang of the mower following her and a few
minutes later she smiled at Alison.
"He's very far from perfect, and that's probably why he has so many
friends," she observed. "I should very much like to hear an unvarnished
account of all his doings since he went away."
Alison, though she would not confess it, was sensible of a similar
curiosity.