ONE ROAD
Twenty-four hours after Banjo's departure a messenger arrived at the
ranchhouse. It was one of the cowboys attached to the ranch, and he
came with his right arm in a sling. He was worn, and beaten out by
long hours in the saddle and the pain of his wound.
He said they had news of Nola, and that Chadron sent word that she
would be home before another night passed. This intelligence sent Mrs.
Chadron off to bedroom and kitchen to make preparations for her
reception and restoration.
As she left the room Frances turned to the messenger, who stood
swinging his big hat awkwardly by the brim. She untied the sling that
held his wounded arm and made him sit by the table while she examined
his injury, concerning which Mrs. Chadron, in her excitement, had not
even inquired.
The shot had gone through the forearm, grazing the bone. When Frances,
with the aid of Maggie, the Mexican woman with tender eyes, had
cleansed and bound up the wound, she turned to him with a decisive air
of demand.
"Now, tell me the truth," she said.
He was a bashful man, with a long, sheepish nose and the bluest of
harmless eyes. He started a little when she made that demand, and
blushed.
"That's what the boss told me to say," he demurred.
"I know he did; but what's happening?"
"Well, we ain't heard hide nor hair of her"--he looked round
cautiously, lest Mrs. Chadron surprise him in the truth--"and them
rustlers they're clean gone and took everything but their houses and
fences along--beds and teams and stock, and everything."
"Gone!" she repeated, staring at him blankly; "where have they gone?"
"Macdonald's doin' it; that man's got brainds," the cowboy yielded,
with what he knew to be unlawful admiration of the enemy's parts.
"He's herdin' 'em back in the hills where they've built a regular
fort, they say. Some of us fellers caught up to a few of the
stragglers last night, and that's when I got this arm put on me."
"Have any of the rustlers been killed?"
"No," he admitted, disgustedly, "they ain't! We've burnt all the
shacks we come to, and cut their fences, but they all got slick and
clean away, down to the littlest kid. But the boss's after 'em," he
added, with brisk hopefulness, "and you'll have better news by
mornin'."
Chadron himself was the next rider to arrive at that anxious house,
and he came as the messenger of disaster. He arrived between midnight
and morning, his horse spur-gashed, driven to the limit, himself
sunken-eyed from his anxiety and hard pursuit of his elusive enemy.
Mrs. Chadron was asleep when he entered the living-room where Frances
was keeping lonely watch before the chimney fire.
"What's happened?" she asked, hastening to meet him.
Chadron stood there gray and dusty, his big hat down hard on his head,
his black eyes shooting inquiry into the shadowed room.
"Where is she?" he whispered.
"Upstairs, asleep--I've only just been able to persuade her to lie
down and close her eyes."
"Well, there's no use to wake her up for bad news."
"You haven't found Nola?"
"I know right where she is. I could put my hand on her if I could
reach her."
"Then why--?"
"Hell!" said Chadron, bursting into a fire of passion, "why can't I
fly like an eagle? Young woman, I've got to tell you I've been beat
and tricked for the first time in my life! They've got my men hemmed
in, I tell you--they've got 'em shut up in a cañon as tight as if they
was nailed in their coffins!"
If Chadron had been clearer of sight and mind in that moment of his
towering anger, he would have seen her cheeks flush at his words, and
her nostrils dilate and her breath come faster. But he was blind; his
little varnish of delicacy was gone. He was just a ranting, roaring,
dark-visaged brute with murder in his heart.
"That damned Macdonald done it, led 'em into it like they was blind!
He's a wolf, and he's got the tricks of a wolf, he skulked ahead of
'em with a little pack of his rustlers and led 'em into his trap, then
the men he had hid there and ready they popped up as thick as grass.
They've got fifty of my men shut up there where they can't git to
water, and where they can't fight back. Now, what do you think of
that?"
"I'll tell you what I think," she said, throwing up her head, her eyes
as quick and bright as water in the sun, "I think it's the judgment of
God! I glory in the trick Alan Macdonald played you, and I pray God he
can shut your hired murderers there till the last red-handed devil
dies of thirst!"
Chadron fell back from her a step, his eyes staring, his mouth open,
his hand lifted as if to silence her. He stood so a moment, casting
his wild look around, fearful that somebody else had heard her
passionate denunciation.
"What in the hell do you mean?" he asked, crouching as he spoke, his
teeth clenched, his voice smothered in his throat.
"I mean that I know you're a murderer--and worse! You hired those men,
like you hired Mark Thorn, to come here and murder those innocent men
and their families!"
"Well, what if I did?" he said, standing straight again, his composure
returning. "They're thieves; they've been livin' off of my cattle for
years. Anybody's got a right to kill a rustler--that's the only cure.
Well, they'll not pen them men of mine up there till they crack for
water, I'll bet you a purty on that! I'm goin' after soldiers, and
this time I'll git 'em, too."
"Soldiers!" said she, in amazement. "Will you ask the United States
government to march troops here to save your hired assassins? Well,
you'll not get troops--if there's anything that I can say against you
to keep you from it!"
"You keep out of it, my little lady; you ain't got no call to mix up
with a bunch of brand-burnin' thieves!"
"They're not thieves, and you know it! Macdonald never stole an animal
from you or anybody else; none of the others ever did."
"What do you know about it?" sharply.
"I know it, as well as I know what's in your mind about the troops.
You'll go over father's head to get them. Well, by the time he wires
to the department the facts I'm going to lay before him, I'd like to
see the color of the trooper you'll get!"
"You'll keep your mouth shut, and hold your finger out of this pie
before you git it burnt!"
"I'll not keep my mouth shut!" She began moving about the room,
picking up her belongings. "I'm going to saddle my horse and go to the
post right now, and the facts of your bloody business will be in
Washington before morning."
"You're not goin'--to the--post!" Chadron's words were slow and hard.
He stood with his back to the door. "This house was opened to you as a
friend, not as a traitor and a spy. You're not goin' to put your foot
outside of it into any business of mine, no matter which way you
lean."
All day she had been dressed ready to mount and ride in any emergency,
her hat, gloves and quirt on the table before the fireplace. In that
sober habit she appeared smaller and less stately, and Saul Chadron,
with his heavy shoulders against the closed door, towered above her,
dark and angrily determined.
"I'm going to get my horse," said she, standing before him, waiting
for him to quit the door.
"You're goin' to stay right in this house, there's where you're goin'
to stay; and you'll stay till I've cleaned out Macdonald and his gang,
down to the last muddy-bellied wolf!"
"You'll answer for detaining me here, sir!"
"There ain't no man in this country that I answer to!" returned
Chadron, not without dignity, for power undisputed for so long, and in
such large affairs, had given him a certain manner of imperialism.
"You'll find out where your mistake is, to your bitter cost, before
many days have gone over your head. Your master is on the way; you'll
meet him yet."
"You might as well ca'm down, and take that hat off and make yourself
easy, Miss Frances; you ain't goin' to the post tonight."
"Open that door, Mr. Chadron! For the memory of your daughter, be a
man!"
"I'm actin' for the best, Miss Frances." Chadron softened in speech,
but unbent in will. "You must stay here till we settle them fellers. I
ain't got time to bring any more men up from Cheyenne--I've got to
have help within the next twenty-four hours. You can see how your
misplaced feelin's might muddle and delay me, and hold off the
troopers till they've killed off all of my men in that cañon back
yonder in the hills. It's for the best, I tell you; you'll see it that
way before daylight."
"It's a pity about your gallant cutthroats! It's time the rest of this
country knew something about the methods of you cattlemen up here, and
the way you harass and hound and murder honest men that are trying to
make homes!"
"Oh, Miss Frances! ca'm down, ca'm down!" coaxed Chadron, spreading
his hands in conciliatory gesture, as if to smooth her troubled
spirits, and calm her down by stroking her, like a cat.
"Now you want to call out the army to rescue that pack of villains,
you want to enlist the government to help you murder more children!
Well, I'm a daughter of the army; I'm not going to stand around and
see you pull it down to any such business as yours!"
"You'd better make up your mind to take it easy, now, Miss Frances.
Put down your hat and things, now, and run along off to bed like a
good little girl."
She turned from him with a disdainful toss of the head, and walked
across to the window where Mrs. Chadron's great chair stood beside her
table.
"Do you want it known that I was forced to leave your house by the
window?" she asked, her hand on the sash.
"It won't do you any good if you do," Chadron growled, turning and
throwing the door open with gruff decision. He stood a moment
glowering at her, his shoulders thrust into the room. "You can't leave
here till I'm ready for you to go--I'm goin' to put my men on the
watch for you. If you try it afoot they'll fetch you back, and if you
git stubborn and try to ride off from 'em, they'll shoot your horse.
You take my word that I mean it, and set down and be good."
He closed the door. She heard his heavy tread, careless, it seemed,
whether he broke the troubled sleep of his wife, pass out by way of
the kitchen. She returned to the fire, surging with the outrage of it,
and sat down to consider the situation.
There was no doubt that Chadron meant what he had said. This was only
a mild proceeding to suppress evidence compared to his usual methods,
as witnessed by the importation of Mark Thorn, and now his wholesale
attempt with this army of hired gunslingers. But above the anger and
indignation there was the exultant thought of Macdonald's triumph over
the oppressor of the land. It glowed like a bright light in the
turmoil of her present hour.
She had told Chadron that his master was on the way, and she had seen
him swell with the cloud of anger that shrouded his black heart. And
she knew that he feared that swift-footed man Macdonald, who had
outgeneraled him and crippled him before he had struck a blow. Well,
let him have his brutal way until morning; then she would prevail on
Mrs. Chadron to rescind his order and let her go home.
There being nothing more to be hoped or dreaded in the way of news
that night, Frances suppressed her wrath and went upstairs and to bed.
But not to sleep; only to lie there with her hot cheeks burning like
fever, her hot heart triumphing in the complete confidence and
justification of Macdonald that Chadron's desperate act had
established. She glowed with inner warmth as she told herself that
there would be no more doubting, no more swaying before the wind of
her inclination. Her heart had read him truly that night in the garden
close.
She heard Chadron ride away as she watched there for the dawn, and saw
the cowboy guard that he had established rouse themselves while the
east was only palely light and kindle their little fires. Soon the
scent of their coffee and bacon came through her open window. Then she
rose and dressed herself in her saddle garb again, and went tiptoeing
past Mrs. Chadron's door.
Since going to bed Mrs. Chadron bad not stirred. She seemed to have
plunged over the precipice of sleep and to be lying stunned at the
bottom. Frances felt that there was no necessity for waking her out of
that much-needed repose, for the plan that she had formulated within
the past few minutes did not include an appeal for Mrs. Chadron's
assistance in it.
Experience told her that Mrs. Chadron would accept unquestioningly the
arrangements and orders of her husband, in whom her faith was
boundless and her confidence without bottom. She would advance a
hundred tearful pleas to take the edge off Frances' indignant anger,
and weep and implore, but ten to one remain as steadfast as a ledge in
her fealty to Saul. So Frances was preparing to proceed without her
help or hindrance.
She went softly into the room where she had faced Chadron a few hours
before, and crossed to the fireplace, where the last coals of the fire
that had kept her company were red among the ashes. It was dark yet,
only a little grayness, like murky water, showing under the rim of the
east, but she knew where the antlers hung above the mantel, with the
rifle in its case, and the two revolvers which Alvino had brought to
his mistress from the wounded foreman in the bunkhouse.
But the antlers were empty. She felt them over with contracting heart,
then struck a match to make sure. The guns were gone. Saul Chadron had
removed them, foreseeing that they might stand her in the place of a
friend.
She lit a lamp and began a search of the lower part of the house for
arms. There was not a single piece left in any of the places where
they commonly were a familiar sight. Even the shotgun was gone from
over the kitchen door. She returned to the sitting-room and laid some
sticks on the coals, and sat leaning toward the blaze in that sense of
comradeship that is as old between man and fire as the servitude of
that captive element.
Her elbows were on her knees, and her gloved hands were clasped, and
the merry little fire laughed up into her fixed and thoughtful eyes.
Fire has but one mood, no matter what it cheers or destroys. It always
laughs. There is no melancholy note in it, no drab, dull color of
death such as the flood comes tainted with. Even while it eats away
our homes and possessions, it has a certain comfort in its touch and
glow if we stand far enough away.
Dawn broadened; the watery light came in like cold. Frances got up,
shivering a little at the unfriendly look of the morning. She thought
she heard a cautious foot stealing away from the window, and turned
from it with contemptuous recollection of Chadron's threat to set
spies over her.
Frances left the house with no caution to conceal her movements, and
went to the barn. Alvino was hobbling about among the horses with his
lantern. He gave her an open and guileless good-morning, and she told
him to saddle her horse.
She was determined to ride boldly out of the gate and away, hardly
convinced that even those seasoned ruffians would take a chance of
hitting her by firing at her horse. None of the imported shooters was
in sight as she mounted before the barn door, but two of them lounged
casually at the gate as she approached.
"Where was you aimin' to go so early?" asked one of them, laying hand
on her bridle.
"I'm the daughter of Colonel Landcraft, commanding officer at
Fort Shakie, and I'm going home," she answered, as placidly and
good-humoredly as if it might be his regular business to inquire.
"I'm sorry to have to edge in on your plans, sissy," the fellow
returned, familiarly, "but nobody goes away from this ranch for some
little time to come. That's the boss's orders. Don't you know them
rustlers is shootin' up the country ever' which way all around here?
Shucks! It ain't safe for no lady to go skylarkin' around in."
"They wouldn't hurt me--they know there's a regiment of cavalry at the
post standing up for me."
"I don't reckon them rustlers cares much more about them troopers than
we do, sis."
"Will you please open the gate?"
"I hate to refuse a lady, but I dasn't do it." He shook his head in
exaggerated gravity, and his companion covered a sputtering laugh with
his hand.
Frances felt her resolution to keep her temper dissolving. She shifted
her quirt as the quick desire to strike him down and ride over his
ugly grinning face flashed through her. But the wooden stock was light
under the braided leather; she knew that she could not have knocked a
grunt out of the tough rascal who barred her way with his insolent
leer in his mean squint eyes. He was a man who had nothing to lose,
therefore nothing to fear.
"If it's dangerous for me to go alone, get your horse and come with
me. I'll see that you get more out of it than you make working for
Chadron."
The fellow squinted up at her with eyes half-shut, in an expression of
cunning.
"Now you trot along back and behave you'self, before I have to take
you down and spank you," he said.
The other three men of the ranch guard came waddling up in that
slouching gait of saddle-men, cigarettes dangling from their lips.
Frances saw that she would not be allowed to pass that way. But they
were all at that spot; none of them could be watching the back gate.
She wheeled her long-legged cavalry horse to make a dash for it, and
came face to face with Mrs. Chadron, who was hurrying from the house
with excited gesticulations, pointing up the road.
"Somebody's comin', it looks like one of the boys, I saw him from the
upstairs winder!" she announced, "Where was you goin', honey?"
"I was starting home, Mrs. Chadron, but these men--"
"There he comes!" cried Mrs. Chadron, hastening to the gate.
A horseman had come around the last brush-screened turn of the road,
and was drawing near. Frances felt her heart leap like a hare, and a
delicious feeling of triumph mingle with the great pride that swept
through her in a warm flood. Tears were in her eyes, half-blinding
her; a sob of gladness rose in her breast and burst forth a little
happy cry.
For that was Alan Macdonald coming forward on his weary horse, bearing
something in his arms wrapped in a blanket, out of which a shower of
long hair fell in bright cascade over his arm.
Mrs. Chadron pressed her lips tight. Neither cry nor groan came out of
them as she stood steadying herself by a straining grip on the gate,
watching Macdonald's approach. None of them knew whether the burden
that he bore was living or dead; none of them in the group at the gate
but Frances knew the rider's face.
One of the cowboys opened the gate wide, without a word, to let him
enter. Mrs. Chadron lifted her arms appealingly, and hurried to his
side as he stopped. Stiffly he leaned over, his inert burden held
tenderly, and lowered what he bore into Mrs. Chadron's outstretched
arms.
With that change of position there was a sharp movement in the
muffling blanket, two arms reached up with the quick clutching of a
falling child, and clasped him about the neck. Then a sharp cry of
waking recognition, and Nola was sobbing on her mother's breast.
Alan Macdonald said no word. The light of the sunrise was strong on
his face, set in the suffering of great weariness; the stiffness of
his long and burdened ride was in his limbs. He turned his dusty
horse, with its head low-drooping, and rode out the way that he had
come. No hand was lifted to stop him, no voice raised in either
benediction or curse.
Mrs. Chadron was soothing her daughter, who was incoherent in the joy
of her delivery, holding her clasped in her arms. Beyond that bright
head there was no world for that mother then; save for the words which
she crooned in the child's ears there was no message in her soul.
Frances felt tears streaking her face in hot rivulets as she sat in
her saddle, struck inactive by the great admiration, the boundless
pride, that this unselfish deed woke in her. She never had, in her
life of joyousness, experienced such a high sense of human admiration
before.
The cowboy who had opened the gate still held it so, the spell of
Macdonald's dramatic arrival still over him. With his comrades he
stood speechless, gazing after the departing horseman.
Frances touched her horse lightly and rode after him. Mother and
daughter were so estranged from all the world in that happy moment of
reunion that neither saw her go, and the guards at the gate, either
forgetful of their charge or softened by the moving scene, did not
interpose to stop her.
Macdonald raised his drooping head with quick start as she came
dashing to his side. She was weeping, and she put out her hand with a
motion of entreaty, her voice thick with sobs.
"I wronged you and slandered you," she said, in bitter confession,
"and I let you go when I should have spoken! I'm not worthy to ride
along this road with you, Alan Macdonald, but I need your protection,
I need your help. Will you let me go?"
He checked his horse and looked across at her, a tender softening
coming into his tired face.
"Why, God bless you! there's only one road in the world for you and
me," said he. His hand met hers where it fluttered like a dove between
them; his slow, translating smile woke in his eyes and spread like a
sunbeam over his stern lips.
Behind them Mrs. Chadron was calling. Frances turned and waved her
hand.
"Come back, Frances, come back here!" Mrs. Chadron's words came
distinctly to them, for they were not more than a hundred yards from
the gate, and there was a note of eagerness in them, almost a command.
Both of them turned.
There was a commotion among the men at the gate, a hurrying and loud
words. Nola was beckoning to Frances to return; now she called her
name, with fearful entreaty.
"That's Chance Dalton with his arm in a sling," said Macdonald,
looking at her curiously. "What's up?"
"Chadron has made them all believe that you stole Nola for the sole
purpose of making a pretended rescue to win sympathy for your cause,"
she said. "Even Nola will believe it--maybe they've told her. Chadron
has offered a reward of fifty dollars--a bonus, he called it, so maybe
there is more--to the man that kills you! Come on--quick! I'll tell
you as we go."
Macdonald's horse was refreshed in some measure by the diminishing of
its burden, but the best that it could do was a tired, hard-jogging
gallop. In a little while they rounded the screen of brush which hid
them from the ranchhouse and from those who Frances knew would be
their pursuers in a moment. Quickly she told him of her reason for
wanting to go to the post, and Chadron's reason for desiring to hold
her at the ranch.
Macdonald looked at her with new life in his weary eyes.
"We'll win now; you were the one recruit I lacked," he said.
"But they'll kill you--Mrs. Chadron can't hold them back--she doesn't
want to hold them back--for she's full of Chadron's lies about you.
Your horse is worn out--you can't outrun them."
"How many are there besides the five I saw?"
"Only Dalton, and he's supposed to be crippled."
"Oh, well," he said, easily, as if only five whole men and a cripple
didn't amount to so much, taken all in the day's work.
"Your men up there need your leadership and advice. Take my horse and
go; he can outrun them."
He looked at her admiringly, but with a little reproving shake of the
head.
"There's neither mercy nor manhood in any man that rides in Saul
Chadron's pay," he told her. "They'd overtake you on this old plug
before you'd gone a mile. The one condition on which I part company
with you is that you ride ahead, this instant, and that you put your
horse through for all that's in him."
"And leave you to fight six of them!"
"Staying here would only put you in unnecessary danger. I ask you to
go, and go at once."
"I'll not go!" She said it finally and emphatically.
Macdonald checked his horse; she held back her animal to the slow pace
of his. Now he offered his hand, as in farewell.
"You can assure them at the post that we'll not fire on the
soldiers--they can come in peace. Good-bye."
"I'm not going!" she persisted.
"They'll not consider you, Frances--they'll not hold their fire on
your account. You're a rustler now, you're one of us."
"You said--there--was--only--one--road," she told him, her face turned
away.
"It's that way, then, to the left--up that dry bed of Horsethief
Cañon." He spoke with a lift of exultation, of pride, and more than
pride. "Ride low--they're coming!"