RIDERS OF PORTENT
Minnie Pine could get from one place to another more quickly and
with less noise than any one at Sky Line.
When Rod Stone came in at dusk she came running to him in the
shadows to whisper in his ear.
“The Sun Woman from the flats on Nameless,” she said, “has thrown
their words back in the faces of the Master and the Boss—and they
have given her to Sud to guard—in Rainbow’s Pot with Big Basford at
the Flange. It’s devil’s work.”
There was little or no expression on the half-breed’s placid face,
but there was plenty of it in her low voice.
“Good God!” said the boy, “are you sure, Minnie?”
“I heard—and I saw,” she answered, “and my heart is heavy for the
pretty one with the eagle’s eyes. She does not fear—but she does not
know.”
Rod Stone put out an arm and hugged the girl gently.
“You’re a real woman, kid, if your skin is brown,” he said
admiringly, “and after all, it’s heart that counts. Now tell me
about this.”
They stood close together in the shadows of the fir beside the
corral and the girl talked swiftly, recounting with almost flawless
accuracy what had taken place in the Inner Room.
The boy was silent but his lips were tightly compressed and his blue
eyes shone with wrath.
“I came,” said Minnie frankly, “to you, because you are the only man
at Sky Line. The rest are skunks. Josefa says you have the heart of
a Pomo chief.”
Stone stood for a long time considering.
Then he drew a deep breath and flung up his head.
The motion was full of portent, as if something in him which had
long bowed down sprang aloft with vigor, like a young tree, bent to
earth, released.
“You’re right,” he said, “it’s devil’s work and something must be
done. I am the one to do it, too.”
He was silent for another space. Then he turned to the girl.
“Kid,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about you lately—about making a
get-a-way down the Pipe some night and striking across the desert
for Marston—we could find a parson there and drop over the Line into
Mexico. Arnold hasn’t much on me—perhaps less than on anyone at Sky
Line—and we could make a new start——”
There was the soft sound of an indrawn breath and Minnie Pine’s hand
went to her shapely throat.
Stone went on.
“If I do this—if I hit down for Cordova tonight—you know, of course,
that it is very likely to be the end of me one way or another, in
the general stir-up that will follow. I want you to know any way
before I start—that I’d like that new beginning—with you.”
For a long moment there was no sound save the myriad voices of the
conifers talking mysteriously with the winds of night.
Then the Pomo girl put her hands on the white man’s shoulders.
“A chief,” she said, “does what must be done—without fear—and a
chief’s woman follows him—even to death. Saddle two horses.”
* * * * *
At Sheriff Price Selwood’s ranch an anxious circle watched the still
form on the bed. The doctor from Bement had not left his station for
seven hours. Outside cowboys, all armed, walked here and there, and
on the deep veranda sat the prospector, Smith, smoking innumerable
cigarettes and waiting on destiny.
Though he was filled with inner excitement his dark face gave no
sign. He sat tilted back against the wall, his booted feet on the
round of his chair, his hat pulled low over his eyes, and his keen
vision sweeping the stretch of meadow that lay before the ranch
house.
“It may be an hour—it may be ten—but something is going to happen
soon,” the doctor had said at dusk, “he will either rally or sink.
If he speaks he will be rational, I think.”
And on that chance the stranger waited to ask one question, namely:
“What is the secret of Sky Line? Where is the other end of the
passage?”
For all the hours that Price Selwood had lain unconscious fourteen
men under Bossick had camped in a glade under the flaring skirts of
Mystery’s western end, ready to answer Fair’s summons.
Diamond waited in Selwood’s stable, saddled and fit, and everything
waited on the intrepid sheriff himself who had done such valiant
work “to get the goods” on Sky Line.
A late round moon was rising above the distant rimrock of Rainbow
Cliff, a great golden disc that promised full light, and all the
little winds, born in the cañons of the Deep Heart hills, frolicked
like elves among the trees.
Fair’s thoughts were of the girl on Nameless—of her long blue eyes
with their steady light, of her smiling lips and the golden crown of
her braided hair.
He drifted away, as lovers have done since time was, and it was the
low-toned voice of the doctor which recalled him.
“Mr. Smith,” it said without a change of inflection, “come in
carefully.”
He rose and, tossing away his cigarette, stepped softly across the
sill.
In the faint light of the oil lamp on a stand Sheriff Selwood looked
up into the face of his wife, bending above him.
“Sally,” he said weakly.
Then he turned his head and looked slowly around at the others.
“Hello, Doc,” he whispered, then—“they didn’t get me—after all!
Smith—Smith——” a sudden light leaped into the dazed eyes, “I
saw—them drive Bossick’s—Bossick’s steers into the face of—Rainbow
Cliff a mile west—of Sky Line——”
“That’s plenty,” said Fair quickly, “you mustn’t talk, Selwood—mind
the doctor—I’m leaving now.”
And with a gentle touch on the sick man’s shoulder he was gone.
He ran to the stable and got Diamond.
Five of Selwood’s riders were throwing saddles on horses.
In less time than seemed possible the six men were riding for the
rendezvous on Nameless.
All along the flowing river there was the seeming of portent, a
strange sense of impending tragedy, for many riders were abroad in
the quiet night.
One of these was Bud Allison, his young face set and awful, his
Pappy’s old rifle grasped in a steady hand, pushing Big Dan to an
unaccustomed limit of speed toward Sheriff Selwood’s ranch.
The boy was praying that he might find Brand there—and the old gun
was destined for action.
But within the narrow margin of a mile Fair was passing toward the
north as he went south—and thus Bud missed him with the news of
Nance’s disappearance. Had they met, the happenings of that night
might have had a different ending, for Fair would have stormed the
citadel of Sky Line like a fury, forgetting all things in his fear
for the woman he loved—the ends of justice which he sought to serve,
Bossick’s steers and everything else.
And in the shadow of Rainbow Cliff Rod Stone and Minnie Pine waited
patiently for the ranch to settle down that they might slip away.
It was a dark night, soft and soundless, with all things waiting in
a mysterious hush.
At the camp on the skirts of Mystery, Fair found Bossick ready.
“Selwood’s conscious,” he told him quickly, “and his first thought
was of his race for life. He said ‘they didn’t get me after all,’
and ‘I saw them driving Bossick’s steers into the face of Rainbow
Cliff a mile from Sky Line.’ That’s the secret he discovered and for
which they tried to kill him.
“There’s some sort of opening in the rock face which connects with
the subterranean passage that leads to Blue Stone Cañon, the desert
range beyond, and finally to Marston on the railroad. That,
gentlemen, is the secret of your disappearing cattle. Selwood said
they always vanished at the same time Kate Cathrew drove her stock
down to Cordova and out to the station—do you see?
“The drive, coming down to the river, obliterated all tracks of
those going up. Now that we know I think we’ve got the Sky Line
rustlers dead to rights. There are twenty-one of us.
“We’ll divide you; you, Bossick, going with your party up to Rainbow
Cliff, and I striking up through the mysterious passage. This trip
will take a long hard grill, for it is far up Blue Stone to the
south, and none of us know the length of the underground way.
“However, it must lead to some pocket not far from the cliff itself
and on the inside. A gun-shot will locate us when we are ready for
each other. Lord knows what we’ll find, or what the outcome will be.
Let’s go.”
And so it was that some time later Brand Fair with his posse passed
close along the upper edge of Nance Allison’s ruined field and
thought tenderly of the blue-eyed girl with her dogged courage and
her simple faith, little dreaming that she was not safe in her bed
in the cabin.
The hours of the night wore on.
Far down in the open reaches poor Dan was loping gallantly with open
mouth and laboring lungs while the boy on his back drove him
relentlessly on in a desperate attempt to overtake Fair, whom the
sentries at Selwood’s ranch had described as on the way to Mystery
Ridge.
Crossing diagonally down, Rod Stone, safe away from Sky Line at
last, made for Cordova with Minnie Pine behind him.
Bossick, having the shortest journey of all, sat in a clump of pines
with his men around him, and waited in strained silence for a
distant shot.
It was well after midnight when two things took place at almost the
same moment—Brand Fair rode in behind the clump of willows that were
always _blowing out_ from the cañon’s wall with his men in single
file behind him—and Rod Stone got off his horse at Cordova. He
handed his rein to the Pomo girl and went swiftly up the steps,
opening the door upon the lighted room where a group of men were
playing. They were mostly from the Upper Country, though one or two
were Cordovans. Among them were the bearded man who had sat on
McKane’s porch that day in spring and watched Cattle Kate come
riding in on Bluefire, and the young cowboy with whom he had spoken
concerning them.
Stone, a Sky Line man, received cold glances from the faces raised
at his entrance. All Nameless knew and disapproved of Sky Line. But
the boy was made of courageous stuff and he tackled the issue
promptly.
“Men,” he said sharply, “I’m from Sky Line, as you all know, and you
may class me now as a traitor to my outfit. Perhaps I am. That’s
neither here nor there. I don’t give a damn whether I am or not. I’d
have stood true in all cases but one. That one has happened. There’s
a good girl—a Bible girl, like I used to know back in the middle
west—shut up in a secret spot with Sud Provine—and I’ve got to have
help to save her and that quick. She’s a fighter, I think, and is
strong—but—you all know Provine. I don’t know what I’m stirring up
and I don’t care. Will you come?”
Every chair at the dirty canvas-covered table but one shot back and
outward as the players rose.
“Where’s this here spot—an’ who’s th’ girl?” said the cowboy. “Lead
us to ’em.”
“In Rainbow Cliff—and the Allison girl from the homestead on the
River.”
“Th’ hell you say! Ain’t that poor kid had enough trouble?”
But McKane the trader spoke from where he sat, frowning.
“Ain’t you all taking a lot for granted?” he asked, “and mussing in
Kate Cathrew’s business?”
The bearded man turned on him.
“Damn Kate Cathrew’s business! She can’t give a decent girl to that
slimy rep-tile Provine and get by with it in this man’s country—not
by a damn sight! Get your horses, boys!”
As the players surged out, McKane, obeying some apprehensive
instinct which pulled at his heart like a cold hand, rose and
followed.
“Wait till I get mine!” he shouted as he ran.