DANGER AND DIGNITY
"Did you carry her that way all the way home?"
Frances asked the question abruptly, like one throwing down some
troublesome and heavy thing that he has labored gallantly to conceal.
It was the first word that she had spoken since they had taken refuge
from their close-pressing pursuers in the dugout that some old-time
homesteader had been driven away from by Chadron's cowboys.
Macdonald was keeping his horse back from the door with the barrel of
his rifle, while he peered out cautiously again, perplexed to
understand the reason why Dalton had not led his men against them in a
charge.
"Not all the way, Frances. She rode behind me till she got so cold and
sleepy I was afraid she'd fall off."
"Yes, I'll bet she put on half of it!" she said, spitefully. "She
looked strong enough when you put her down there at the gate."
This unexpected little outburst of jealousy was pleasant to his ears.
Above the trouble of that morning, and of the future which was charged
with it to the blackness of complete obscuration, her warrant of
affection was like a lifting sunbeam of hope.
"I can't figure out what Dalton and that gang mean by this," said he,
the present danger again pressing ahead of the present joy.
"I saw a man dodge behind that big rock across there a minute ago,"
she said.
"You keep back away from that door--don't lean over out of that
corner!" he admonished, almost harshly. "If you get where you can see,
you can be seen. Don't forget that."
He resumed his watch at the little hole that he had drilled beside the
weight-bowed jamb of the door in the earth front of their refuge. She
sat silent in her dark corner across from him, only now and then
shaking her glove at the horses when one of them pricked up his ears
and shewed a desire to dodge out into the sunlight and pleasant
grazing spread on the hillside.
It was cold and moldy in the dugout, and the timbers across the roof
were bent under the weight of the earth. It looked unsafe, but there
was only one place in it that a bullet could come through, and that
was the open door. There was no way to shut that; the original battens
of the homesteader lay under foot, broken apart and rotting.
"Well, it beats me!" said he, his eye to the peephole in the wall.
"If I'd keep one of the horses on this side it wouldn't crowd your
corner so," she suggested.
"It would be better, only they'll cut loose at anything that passes
the door. They'll show their hand before long." He enlarged the hole
to admit his rifle barrel. She watched him in silence. Which was just
as well, for she had no words to express her admiration for his
steadiness and courage under the trying pressure of that situation.
Her confidence in him was so entire that she had no fear; it did not
admit a question of their safe deliverance. With him at her side, this
dangerous, grave matter seemed but a passing perplexity. She left it
to him with the confidence and up-looking trust of a child.
While she understood the peril of their situation, fear, doubt, had no
place in her mind. She was under the protection of Alan Macdonald, the
infallible.
No matter what others may think of a man's infallibility, it is only a
dangerous one who considers himself endowed with that more than human
attribute. Macdonald did not share her case of mind as he stood with
his eye to the squint-hole that he had bored beside the rotting jamb.
"How did you find her? where was she?" she asked, her thoughts more on
the marvel of Nola's return than her own present danger.
"I lost Thorn's trail that first day," he returned, "and then things
began to get so hot for us up the valley that I had to drop the search
and get those people back to safety ahead of Chadron's raid. Yesterday
afternoon we caught a man trying to get through our lines and down
into the valley. He was a half-breed trapper who lives up in the
foothills, carrying a note down to Chadron. I've got that curious
piece of writing around me somewhere--you can read it when this blows
by. Anyway, it was from Thorn, demanding ten thousand dollars in gold.
He wanted it sent back by the messenger, and he prescribed some
picturesque penalties in case of failure on Chadron's part."
"And then you found her?"
"I couldn't very well ask anybody else to go after her," he admitted,
with a modest reticence that amounted almost to being ashamed. "After
I made sure that we had Chadron's raiders cooped up where they
couldn't get out, I went up and got her. Thorn wasn't there, nobody
but the Indian woman, the 'breed's wife. She was the jailer--a regular
wildcat of a woman."
That was all there was to be told, it seemed, as far as Macdonald was
concerned. He had the hole in the wall--at which he had worked as he
talked--to his liking now, and was squinting through it like a
telescope.
"Nola wasn't afraid to come with you," she said, positively.
"She didn't appear to be, Frances."
"No; she _knew_ she was safe, no matter how little she deserved any
kindness at your hands. I know what she did--I know how she--how
she--_struck_ you in the face that time!"
"Oh," said he, as if reminded of a trifle that he had forgotten.
"Did she--put her arms around your neck that way _many_ times while
you were carrying her home?"
"She did _not_! Many times! why, she didn't do it even once."
"Oh, at the gate--I saw her!"
He said nothing for a little while, only stood with head bent, as if
thinking it over.
"Well, she didn't get very far with it," he said, quite seriously.
"Anyway, she was asleep then, and didn't know what she was doing. It
was just the subconscious reaching up of a falling, or dreaming,
child."
She was not a little amused, in a quick turn from her serious bent of
jealousy, at his long and careful explanation of the incident. She
laughed, and the little green cloud that had troubled her blew away on
the gale of her mirth.
"Oh, well!" said she, from her deep corner across the bright oblong of
the door, tossing it all away from her. "Do you think they'll go away
and let us come out after a while?"
"I don't believe they've got any such intention. If it doesn't come to
a fight before then, I believe we'll have to drive the horses out
ahead of us after dark, and try to get away under the confusion. You
should have gone on, Frances, when I told you."
The horses were growing restive, moving, stamping, snorting, and
becoming quarrelsome together. Macdonald's little range animal had a
viciousness in it, and would not make friends with the chestnut
cavalry horse. It squealed and bit, and even tried to use its heels,
at every friendly approach.
Macdonald feared that so much commotion might bring the shaky, rotten
roof down on them. A hoof driven against one of the timbers which
supported it might do the trick, and bring them to a worse end than
would the waiting bullets of Dalton and his gang.
"I'll have to risk putting that horse of yours over on your side," he
told her. "Stand ready to catch him, but don't lean a hair past the
door."
He turned the horse and gave it a slap. As it crossed the bar of light
falling through the door, a shot cracked among the rocks. The bullet
knocked earth over him as it smacked in the facing of the door. The
man who had fired had shot obliquely, there being no shelter directly
in front, and that fact had saved the horse.
Macdonald peered through his loophole. He could not see the smoke, but
he let them know that he was primed by answering the shot at random.
The shot drew a volley, a bullet or two striking the rear wall of the
cave.
After that they waited for what might come between then and night.
They said little, for each was straining with unpleasant thoughts and
anxieties, and put to constant watchfulness to keep the horses from
slewing around into the line of fire. Every time a tail switched out
into the streak of light a bullet came nipping in. Sometimes Macdonald
let them go unanswered, and again he would spring up and drive away at
the rocks which he knew sheltered them, almost driven to the point of
rushing out and trying to dislodge them by storm.
So the day wore by. They had been in the dugout since a little after
sunrise. Sunset was pale on the hilltops beyond them when Macdonald,
his strained and tired eyes to the loophole, saw Dalton and two of his
men slipping from rock to rock, drawing nearer for what he expected to
be the rush.
"Can you shoot?" he asked her, his mouth hot and dry as if his blood
had turned to liquid fire.
"Yes, I can shoot," she answered, steadily.
He tossed one of his revolvers across to her, dimly seen now in the
deepening gloom of the cave, and flung a handful of cartridges after
it.
"They're closing in on us for the rush, and I'm going to try to stop
them. Keep back there where you are, and hold your horse under cover
as long as you hear me shooting. If I stop first, call Dalton and tell
him who you are. I believe in that case he'll let you go."
"I'm going to help you," she said, rising resolutely. "When you--stop
shooting--" she choked a little over the words, her voice caught in a
dry little sob--"then I'll stop shooting, too!"
"Stay back there, Frances! Do you hear--stay back!"
Somebody was on the roof of the dugout; under his weight clods of
earth fell, and then, with a soft breaking of rotten timber, a booted
foot broke through. It was on Frances' side, and the fellow's foot
almost touched her saddle as her frightened horse plunged.
The man was tugging to drag his foot through the roof now, earth and
broken timber showering down. Macdonald only glanced over his
shoulder, as if leaving that trapped one to her. He was set for their
charge in front. She raised her revolver to fire as the other leg
broke through, and the fellow's body dropped into the enlarged hole.
At that moment the men in front fired a volley through the gaping
door. Frances saw the intruder drop to the ground, torn by the heavy
bullets from his companions' guns.
The place was full of smoke, and the turmoil of the frightened horses,
and the noise of quick shots from Macdonald's station across the door.
She could not make anything out in the confusion as she turned from
the dead man to face the door, only that Macdonald was not at his
place at the loophole now.
She called him, but her voice was nothing in the sound of firing. A
choking volume of smoke was packing the cave. She saw Macdonald's
horse lower its head and dash out, with a whip of its tail like a
defiance of her authority. Then in a moment everything was still out
there, with a fearful suddenness.
She flung herself into the cloud of smoke that hung in the door,
sobbing Macdonald's name; she stumbled into the fresh sweet air,
almost blind in her anxiety, and the confusion of that quickly enacted
scene, her head bent as if to run under the bullets which she
expected.
She did not see how it happened, she did not know that he was there;
but his arm was supporting her, his cool hand was on her forehead,
stroking her face as if he had plucked her drowning from the sea.
"Where are they?" she asked, only to exclaim, and shrink closer to him
at the sight of one lying a few rods away, in that sprawling limp
posture of those who fall by violence.
"There were only four of them--there the other two go." He pointed
down the little swale where the tall grass was still green.
Macdonald's horse had fallen to grazing there, his master's perils and
escapes all one to him now. It threw its head up and stood listening,
trotted a little way and stopped, ears stiff, nostrils stretched.
"There's somebody coming," she said.
"Yes--Chadron and a fresh gang, maybe."
He sprang to the dugout door, where Frances' horse stood with its head
out inquiringly.
"Jump up--quick!" he said, bringing the horse out. "Go this time,
Frances; don't hang back a second more!"
"Never mind, Alan," she said, from the other side of the horse, "it's
the cavalry--I guess they've come after me."
Major King was at the head of the detail of seven men which rode up,
horses a lather of sweat. He threw himself from the saddle and hurried
to Frances, his face full of the liveliest concern. Macdonald stepped
around to meet him.
"Thank heaven! you're not hurt," the major said.
"No, but we thought we were in for another fight," she told him,
offering him her hand in the gratefulness of her relief. He almost
snatched it in his eagerness, and drew her toward him, and stood
holding it in his haughty, proprietary way. "Mr. Macdonald--"
"The scoundrels heard us coming and ran--we got a glimpse of them down
there. Chadron will have to answer for this outrage!" the major said.
"Major King, this is Mr. Macdonald," said she, firmly, breaking down
the high manner in which the soldier persisted in overlooking and
eliminating the homesteader.
Major King's face flushed; he drew back a hasty step as Macdonald
offered his hand, in the frank and open manner of an equal man who
raised no thought nor question on that point.
"Sir, I've been hearing of the gallant _rescue_ that you made of
another young lady this morning," he said, with sneering emphasis.
"You are hardly the kind of a man I shake hands with!"
The troopers, sitting their blowing horses a rod away, made their
saddles creak as they shifted to see this little dash of melodrama.
Macdonald's face was swept by a sudden paleness, as if a sickness had
come over him. He clenched his lean jaw hard; the firmness of his
mouth was grimmer still as his hand dropped slowly to his side.
Frances looked her indignation and censure into Major King's hot
eyes.
"Mr. Macdonald has defended me like a gallant gentleman, sir! Those
ruffians didn't run because they heard you coming, but because he
faced them out here in the open, single-handed and alone, and drove
them to their horses, Major King!"
The troopers were looking Macdonald over with favor. They had seen the
evidence of his stand against Chadron's men.
"You're deceived in your estimation of the fellow, Miss Landcraft,"
the major returned, red to the eyes in his offended dignity. "I
arrived at the ranch not an hour ago, detailed to escort you back to
the post. Will you have the kindness to mount at once, please?"
He stepped forward to give her a hand into the saddle. But Macdonald
was before him in that office, urged to it by the quick message of her
eyes. From the saddle she leaned and gave him her warm, soft hand.
"Your men need you, Mr. Macdonald--go to them," she said. "My prayers
for your success in this fight for the right will follow you."
Macdonald was standing bareheaded at her stirrup. Her hand lingered a
moment in his, her eyes sounded the bottom of his soul. Major King,
with his little uprising of dignity, was a very small matter in the
homesteader's mind just then, although a minute past he had fought
with himself to keep from twisting the arrogant officer's neck.
She fell in beside Major King, who was sitting grim enough in his way
now, in the saddle, and they rode away. Macdonald stood, hat in hand,
the last sunbeams of that day over his fair tangled hair, the smoke of
his conflict on his face, the tender light of a man's most sacred fire
in his eyes.