THE LATE VISITOR TO THE LADIES.
While Lieutenant Joe was so boldly spying upon his superior and
managing to get a look at him, notwithstanding his precautions to
preserve his incognito, there were other important events happening in
and about Doña Rosario's tent full worthy of record.
After Captain Kidd left them the prisoner had held a long conversation
with her fellow captive Ulla. They arranged that the latter should not
for once go and be confined for the night with the late prizes of the
Half-breeds, but keep with the Southerner, whether the captain approved
or not.
Rosario was a great deal more agitated than the Scotch girl, though it
was a question of receiving a call from Ranald Dearborn.
They were both ignorant at what hour he would come, and whether he
could get back into the encampment secretly. But as it was a promise,
Ulla assured her friend that he would not be easily impeded.
With the help of Leon, the girls lined the tent with rugs, furs, and
mats, so that the doubly thickening the wall not only increased the
warmth, which was no inconvenience, but prevented the least ray of
light filtering. This would have betrayed that Rosario was awake, and
not asleep, for the camp curfew was set at ten o'clock at the farthest.
That was one of the points Kidd made when he went round before going to
sleep himself.
The silver hanging lamp was muffled in gauze round its reflecting shade
so as to diminish the gleam, the while it added a mysterious green tint
to the soft twilight. Very little more than a pleasant glow arose from
the brazier, which burnt pine knots, diffusing an agreeable odour.
At length Drudge was sent away. The two girls sat on cushions, like the
beauties of the harem, too anxious to chat to pass the time away, and
glancing ever and anon at a French clock on a stand.
On this evening, as we know, Captain Kidd received the sentries and
ferreted about, but he came across none breaking his orders. Doña
Rosario's habitation, along with the rest, appeared to be plunged in
utter darkness.
As no doubt his captive reposed, the leader rubbed his hands gladly,
and went to shut himself in his tent, so that Old Nick could not get at
him, as the men playfully said.
We know by the foregoing chapter how the Carcajieu had made a mock of
his contrivances.
After quitting the lieutenant, Drudge, with the passive obedience he
showed, and the cunning he well concealed under seeming stupidity,
began carrying out the order received.
It was then about half after ten.
It was a black night, the fine rain never ceased to fall, and, whisked
under the natural vault by a rising wind, appeared to come from all
quarters at once. There was no evading it; but Leon seemed quite
heedless, though it must have pierced his insufficient garments. He
stole away like an eel along the rocky edge, crossing the whole camp
longwise till he attained the spot where the platform ended, and the
cliff formed an unfathomable gulf where darkness deepened. He stopped
short, and looked well about him to make sure he was alone.
Whether alone or not, neither he nor another could see any object
though at touching distance. Reasoning that any watcher would,
therefore, be perplexed to perceive him, the youth swiftly unwound a
leather rope from about his middle. A giant pine leaned out from the
precipice. To this he fastened one end of the lasso; coiling the slack
up clear for running out in one hand, he attached the loop around a
good-sized stone muffled with grass, which even frost had not killed,
in a cranny.
He leaned over the gulf, and imitated with rare perfection the
inquiring and rather mockingly intoned hiss of the whip snake calling
for a mate. Any listener would have imagined that the reptile Don Juan,
drowned out of his hole by the icy rain, was seeking with equal relish
to taunt a rival or a ladylove to leave its burrow and respond to his
challenge or advances. After having repeated this call several times,
but without impatience, a similar answer came from below--short, sharp,
shrill, angry, as if the rival snake was aroused and climbed up for a
fight.
Most of the sentries were asleep, we know; and the others, whether
experienced woodmen or not, would pay no attention to what seemed an
ordinary incident of the night.
On receiving his reply, though, the youth flung the stone and coils out
from him. Softened by the grassy matting, the stone could not be heard
to land; but the snake hissed afresh, and the lariat was drawn taut.
The Drudge exhaled a long breath, as one delivered from mortal anguish.
In fact, it had not been an easy task in the perfect gloom, and guided
by sound alone in a damp atmosphere, to swing a weighted cord to the
very hand of a man expecting it. If, instead of his catching it, it had
struck him in the face, he must have been full of fortitude not to have
cried out. But chance had favoured the plotters.
Very soon, indeed, a figure loomed up, pulling the cord as well as
clambering daringly up the cliff face, and with joyfulness leaped over
the edge on solid ground.
"Thanks, my boy!" he muttered.
"Thank our Father above, Mr. Dearborn--it is He who did it all!"
responded the youth.
"I beg your pardon, you have said the proper thing. It makes a fellow
religiously inclined to be in such straits and miraculously pulled
through them. Lead on, Leon, it is late--but first, let us undo the
lasso, and efface the marks of my coming up and over."
"Are you not going back this way?"
"Dear, no; much obliged. In that little climb I nearly broke my neck
a hundred times, short measure! Besides, it is not the getting out of
the camp that will worry me. Make haste--the young ladies must be just
dying from uneasiness."
Drudge unloosed the lasso and coiled it round him in a few minutes.
"Ready, sir?" he said.
"Show me the way. I am not able to get about--I cannot see at all."
"You need not fear, I know the road very well by this time."
"Where is Joe?"
"Don't know--want to see him?"
"Well, I should like to speak with him."
"_¿Quién sabe?_--who knows but we may run up against him?"
"Rather against him than a stranger. I feel like a housebreaker
somehow; I suppose it is the night time, for our motive is good--even
holy!"
"Come along. Take the bend of the lasso, and not a sound!"
"I am as mute as a statue."
Leon led the Englishman by the loop in the same direction he had taken
to come. Dearborn stared and listened, but seemed to be the blind man
in the game for all he perceived. On the other hand, the Drudge knew
his path instinctively. In daylight he could hardly have gone more
straight. After the still blundering march had continued some ten
minutes, the leader halted.
"Here we are!" he whispered.
"Near the ladies' tent?" inquired the other.
"Within a step or two of Doña Rosario's tent; yes. Now, the rest is
your affair."
"I suppose it is. But what can I do? I have never been further in than
the dining room, so to flatter it. If I stumble over anything and make
a noise, there will be an alarm, and all will be spoilt."
"That's true. I am sorry not to have thought of your having other eyes
than mine. Follow me still, therefore."
"Good again. But, half a minute, my boy--where am I to find you in case
I should require you?"
"Right here, sir, where we are standing. Must I not keep a lookout for
your retreat?"
"So you must. You are right every time. I hardly know what I am about
in saying or doing. The mere thought of speaking with the young lady
freely unhinges me so that I--I fluctuate like a door in the wind."
"Be a man, sir; remember that on what you arrange in this interview is
risked, not only your life, of which I do not know the value, but those
of the two young ladies, one of which is as precious to me, sir, as the
other, I daresay, to you."
"You touch my very heart, boy!--The idea terrifies me! But still it
gives me the pluck which was oozing out at my fingers' ends. I feel up
to the mark again. Come what may, I shall behave like a man, I believe.
On again."
"Come on, but, more than before, silently! Hush, hush!"
They penetrated the marquee, the thick curtain, made heavier by the
rain, falling behind them with a dull sound so sinister as to make them
shudder. So does a pall flap on the bier in a sepulchral vault.
For over half an hour the two girls had not exchanged a syllable. The
whizz and strokes of the timepiece bestirred them at last.
"Eleven," muttered Doña Rosario, impatiently and mournfully. "Oh, your
friend will never come."
"Stop, stop; he is here!" ejaculated Ulla, rising, and restraining her
deep joy from loud expression.
The pretended guide stood in the doorway, holding up the screen, and
contemplating the two lovely creatures, whose fate might be determined
by his mission, with as much love for one as pity for the other. After
his great excitement and the strain on his nerves, he was pale. His
right hand came round upon his heart to compress its throbbings; but
his eyes flashed brightly with bravery, and his manly face was covered
with gladness. His gaze centred on Miss Maclan, and approaching the
cushion which she quitted, he seemed about to fall on his knees,
thankful that they were met again. Rosario drew herself away into the
corner, smiling and thoughtful at this knightly reverence.
"I am afraid this captivity is chafing upon you," he said,
clear-sighted as a lover is to the least trace of sorrow on beloved
features.
"It is true," she answered softly, "but my misfortunes have but begun.
Think rather of what this poor young lady must have endured for a year,
all alone in misery with not one to share her burden; friendless, in a
strange, desolate region, far from all that makes living sweet. She
has to believe that she is absolutely ignored."
"No more than you has she been forgotten," returned Dearborn, though
without looking away from the person he addressed.
"Alas, sir, this being true," observed the Spanish girl gently, "at
least, grant that it is so much misfortune that makes me unjust. It
makes anyone hard, though with the best of tempers. I daresay I am
wilful, petulant. Oh, I am! And all that--but look at my having to keep
up the struggle all the time with misfortune. And I am only a girl
too--a child, they say in the North, whose early years were passed in
joyous, happy peace, surrounded by dear schoolmates, very kind to me.
When the storm unexpectedly burst upon me, I felt as if I should never
outlive it."
"Don't talk so, dear," cried Miss Maclan, with that proneness of
distressed females to forget the tangible danger in order to condole
over a sentimental grievance, which, in this case, simply maddened the
male bystander. "Your sorrows are well nigh at an end, I feel assured.
You are going to save her, are you not, Mr. Dearborn; and I love you,
Rosie, I love you very much."
"I am easier," said the Mexican girl, "ever since this gentleman came
into the camp; but still, you must not be too confident! The men you
are matched with are very wicked ones, and there are ever so many of
them too."
"Well, my friends count up to a good number. I have not started on this
errand without knowing what may be my support. Our friends are brave
and strong, and having their promise to help, I could be confident. To
say nothing of the remains of your father's company, Miss Maclan, there
is one man, the leader of the trappers--"
"You mean Mr. Ridge," exclaimed Rosario, sharply.
"Yes; they call him the Yager of the Yellowstone. He's an American--"
"That's the one! If he is on your side, you need not much fear."
"So you know him?"
"So does Ulla there, from my talking to her about him as a devoted
friend of my family. With that man on the lookout to save me, together
with his companion, the Cherokee, Mr. Williams, I do look up again with
the hope that I shall be rescued from this wretch, the Captain."
"Well, things stand thus. Before morning I expect to see Ridge, and to
concert with him on hurrying on the time for the removal of all you
ladies from this camp."
"Heaven hears you! I pray it will help you."
"It is possible we may find assistance among Kidd's men too."
"Have a care, sir! All I have seen are very hangdog fellows," and Ulla
shuddered.
"I know that. Be sure that I shall make no friends without the greatest
prudence. I only trust, too, so far the Captain's right-hand man."
"Oh, you mean Joe?" broke in Rosario, joyfully.
"He worked this round so that we are in communion. He suggested my
seeing you too. I do not know how he managed it, but he has levelled
off obstacles. Besides, he brought me into relations with a young
fellow, almost a boy, who has been most useful to me, I assure you.
Without his helping hand, I could not have gained this place."
"Ah! You allude to poor Drudge now," said the two girls, with the same
affectionate pity.
"That's the boy. But allow me to ask you, Doña, if you have had a long
knowledge of them?"
"Ever since I quitted the borders in charge of these ruffians."
"Well, what is your opinion of them; your cold drawn opinion of them,
as they say? You will readily understand that I am too much of a
stranger to this part of the world, and such queer uncommon persons as
I meet, to judge quickly."
"They bewilder me too," added Miss Maclan.
"They both have done me great services. They say they are devoted to
you, Doña Rosario, but as nothing proves to me yet that this devotion
is not assumed, I fear to be cheated, and even that I am cheated in
trusting them so far. Nothing more closely resembles a good servant
than a hypocritical one, and between ourselves, I must own that Corky
Joe has no winning countenance, better ones have hung a man."
The girls laughed, Rosario the heartier.
"Poor Joe!" she exclaimed, "His face is not a good passport, but he is
not to blame for that."
"I do not blame him for that, certainly," returned the Englishman, "and
I do not say that is sufficient grounds for mistrusting him."
"You would make a mistake in that case, Señor Dearborn," said the
Mexican, becoming serious. "He's a fine fellow, and I place my
confidence in him."
"What do you think, Miss Maclan?"
"I agree with my friend; she has the proof in her hands that the
Carcajieu stays near her to help her in case of dire need."
"Yes, but how and why? Do you mean to say he is placed near you by
someone?"
"By that Mr. Ridge, perhaps?" suggested Miss Maclan.
"That may be," answered Rosario, contemplatively.
"Ridge is an extraordinary man," said Ranald, thoughtful himself. "He
has a wonderful influence over the white trappers and hunters, wild
Indians, and these Red River Half-breeds, who hate the Canadians and
Americans alike, and yet respect him. They tell me that important
quarrels have been decided by his plain word, and never any murmuring
from the party who lost."
"But to return to the lieutenant," said Ulla.
"Yes," took up her friend, "of his true faithfulness I have ample
evidence. It is a secret which I have promised to keep. Please do not
doubt him any more."
"Here's another mystery! They talk of the plain, straight men of the
wild frontier life, and, on the contrary, every other man seems to
be a hero of romance or of the Newgate Calendar. This Joe makes me
uneasy, like the gentleman, spruce, trim, quiet, with a sharp eye, whom
one sees as a boy about one's father's house, and whom one imagines
fearfully to be a detective to arrest the butler for stealing spoons;
or a sheriff's officer to arrest papa, and who turns out to be a
picture dealer come to see if the smoky old picture, so long our target
for puffballs, in the library is a genuine Snyders or not. It is clear
for me that your lieutenant wears a mask, and no pretty one either!"
"Perhaps the better to suit the faces around us, sir," replied Ulla,
forcing a laugh. "These are white men's, but, really, the red Indian's,
painted for war, is not more intolerable!"
"_¡Dios mío!_" interjected Rosario, "What's the odds! Are we not all
other than what we seem here? Is not every one of us wearing a mask
from Captain Kidd down?"
"In his case, it has slipped aside a minute," broke in a deep voice.
The girls started back in alarm.
"Who's that?" cried Ranald, turning round, and putting his hand to his
belt, none too swiftly if there had been danger.
It was the subject of their former conversation, the Carcajieu.
"I mean to say," continued he, in a cold, stern voice, more
authoritative than they had ever heard before, "that though your
disguise and my own still preserve our identity, it is no longer so
with our good Captain Kidd. I have succeeded in having an unimpeded
look at his phiz."
"Can it be true?" ejaculated Rosario, clasping her hands.
"You have succeeded?" repeated Ranald.
"Yes; thanks to the clue you placed for me. Thank you very much."
"So you have fairly viewed him?"
"Yes; face to face--free from paint and feather--for upwards of half an
hour, without his having the faintest warrant for imagining that I had
him under the lens."
"Ah! That's why you announced yourself in that rather theatrical manner
you use out here?"
"Theatrical, eh? Well, if you mean tragic, you are right, sir. By the
way you were worried about who placed me on guard over this young
lady? I heard that too. Nothing to apologise for. Well; it is not over
the young lady that I am placed, and it is not Jim Ridge that orders
me here and there. I am _attached_ to Captain Kidd, ladies, and Mr.
Guide," said Joe, with an ominous smile, "and it is Uncle Sam that set
me on him. That is all I can say. As for listening to your talk, I did
it because of a powerful interest. It is only then I do play the spy, I
hope."
"It does not matter a bit, sir!" cried Rosario, in her impulsive way.
"This time, as a listener, you have heard good of yourself--but I shall
never have done praising you; but go on and tell us about that dreadful
man!"
"I came for that, and I waste no time, for it is valuable. To be
brief--the commander of these scoundrels, calling himself Kidd, is not
Kidd at all, but a younger man--looking thirty, but may be more. He's
dark enough to be taken for an Indian or Mexican. He's a handsome man
for those that like the King of the Gambler's type. I know that under
the name of 'Hank,' which is Harry, Brown, rather notorious down South,
he has been outlawed by the Government. Folks laugh at the District
Courts, but as their warrant commands the military to lend hand for an
arrest, I guess Mr. Brown thought it judicious to leave civilization.
But even that name may not be his original one, or really his. It may
conceal something blacker in the past. For one, may not Hank Brown be
Corvino, or Cornelio Bustamente, whose portrait you traced, señorita?"
"As you spoke the same idea struck me, I do not know why. The more I
think it over, the more solid the impression becomes. Besides, this
Cornelio Bustamente was the bounden friend of Don Miguel Tadeo de
Castel Leon."
"His agent in the shameful scheme to which you fell a victim," added
the lieutenant quickly; "but where is Don Miguel, then, the infernal
fiend who wrought out the plot? How is it he has contrived to get away
without leaving any traces? It is important to learn that. Well, well,
this is not interesting to you," he continued, looking over to Ulla
and Ranald, who were not engrossed in this turn of the conversation.
"We shall discover him, too, Heaven helping us! I have a clue that
satisfies me, and sooner or later the whole skein must be in my grip.
Ladies, have faith in me and in Jim Ridge; both, on our sides, are
going to see this game out, or our bones shall whiten the mountains."
"Mr. Joe, I have entire faith in you."
"And I!"
"I, too!"
In his hands the lieutenant pressed the three held out to him with the
same sincerity, Rosario's warmest with gratitude.
"Thank you all. But time is up! Say good bye, Mr. Dearborn, and follow
me close."
"Aren't we to know any more?"
"Nothing to tell," returned Joe, bluntly. "Mr. Dearborn, five minutes
to take your leave of the ladies. In your place, I should want ten!" he
added, gallantly.
Luckily, Ulla was not a weakling, and into whatever danger her friend
was about to plunge, she would not indulge in any demonstration of
emotion before the Mexican. After her kind, the Scotch girl was as calm
as an Indian. But the young man had been brought up in similar society,
and comprehended what was under the ice. He felt her hand quiver in
his, and noticed a faintly jealous glance when, in what he thought
obligatory courtesy in the Spanish mode, he kissed Rosario's little
hand.
"Six minutes!" said Joe at the door flap, in a railing tone.
Guided with brotherly care through the camp, Dearborn was taken to an
outlet where he went away unnoticed. Joe watched his figure melt into
the darkness, and muttered:
"That young man is awfully in love with the Scotch girl. They make a
good pair. We must save them as well as this fiery spark of a Mexican.
She's more my style. This would be no kind of a world if such as they
were tormented, and a vile creature like Brown had a good time of it in
the big cities."
Getting back to Rosario's tent, he relieved the Drudge for the last
time, and, throwing himself down in the damp, slept or pondered, which
none could say, till the peep of day.