LEFEVER TO THE RESCUE
Lefever, chafing in the aspen grove under the restraint of waiting in
the storm, was ready long before daylight to break orders and ride in
to find de Spain.
With the first peep of dawn, and with his men facing him in their
saddles, Lefever made a short explanation.
"I don't want any man to go into the Gap with me this morning under
any misunderstanding or any false pretense," he began cheerfully. "Bob
Scott and Bull will stay right here. If, by any chance, de Spain makes
his way out while the rest of us are hunting for him, you'll be here
to signal us--three shots, Bob--or to ride in with de Spain to help
carry the rest of us out. Now, it's like this," he added, addressing
the others. "You, all of you know, or ought to know--everybody 'twixt
here and the railroad knows--that de Spain and Nan Morgan have
fastened up to each other for the long ride down the dusty trail
together. That, I take it, is their business. But her uncle, old
Duke, and Gale, and the whole bunch, I hear, turned dead sore on it,
and have fixed it up to beat them. You all know the Morgans. They're
some bunch--and they stick for one another like hornets, and all hold
together in a fight. So I don't want any man to ride in there with me
thinking he's going to a wedding. He isn't. He may or may not be going
to a funeral, but he's _not_ going to a shivaree."
Frank Elpaso glanced sourly at his companions. "I guess everybody here
is wise, John."
"I know _you_ are, Frank," retorted Lefever testily; "that's all
right. I'm only explaining. And I don't want _you_ to get sore on me
if I _don't_ show you a fight." Frank Elpaso grunted. "I am under
orders." John waved his hand. "And I can't do anything----"
"But talk," growled Frank Elpaso, not waving his hand.
Lefever started hotly forward in his saddle. "Now look here, Frank."
He pointed his finger at the objecting ranger. "I'm here for business,
not for pleasure. Any time I'm free you can talk to me----"
"Not till somebody gags you, John," interposed Elpaso moodily.
"Look here, Elpaso," demanded Lefever, spurring his horse smartly
toward the Texan, "are you looking for a fight with me right here and
now?"
"Yes, here and now," declared Elpaso fiercely.
"Or, there and then," interposed Kennedy, ironically, "some time,
somewhere, or no time, nowhere. Having heard all of which, a hundred
and fifty times from you two fellows, let us have peace. You've pulled
it so often, over at Sleepy Cat, they've got it in double-faced,
red-seal records. Let's get started."
"Right you are, Farrell," assented Lefever, "but----"
"Second verse, John. You're boss here; what are we going to do? That's
all we want to know."
"Henry's orders were to wait here till ten o'clock this morning.
There's been firing inside twice since twelve o'clock last night. He
told me to pay no attention to that. But if the whole place hadn't
been under water all night, I'd have gone in, anyway. This last time
it was two high-powered guns, picking at long range and, if I'm any
judge of rifles and the men probably behind them, some one must have
got hurt. It's all a guess--but I'm going in there, peaceably if I
can, to look for Henry de Spain; if we are fired on--we've got to
fight for it. And if there's any talking to be done----"
"You can do it," grunted Elpaso.
"Thank you, Frank. And I will do it. I need not say that Kennedy will
ride ahead with me, Elpaso and Wickwire with Tommie Meggeson."
Leaving Scott in the trees, the little party trotted smartly up the
road, picking their way through the pools and across the brawling
streams that tore over the trail toward Duke Morgan's place. The
condition of the trail broke their formation continually and Lefever,
in the circumstances, was not sorry. His only anxiety was to keep
Elpaso from riding ahead far enough to embroil them in a quarrel
before he himself should come up.
Half-way to Duke's house they found a small bridge had gone out. It
cut off the direct road, and, at Elpaso's suggestion, they crossed
over to follow the ridge up the valley. Swimming their horses through
the backwater that covered the depression to the south, they gained
the elevation and proceeded, unmolested, on their way. As they
approached Sassoon's place, Elpaso, riding ahead, drew up his horse
and sat a moment studying the trail and casting an occasional glance
in the direction of the ranch-house, which lay under the brow of a
hill ahead.
When Lefever rode up to him, he saw the story that Elpaso was reading
in the roadway. It told of a man shot in his tracks as he was running
toward the house--and, in the judgment of these men, fatally
shot--for, while his companions spread like a fan in front of him,
Lefever got off his horse and, bending intently over the sudden page
torn out of a man's life, recast the scene that had taken place, where
he stood, half an hour earlier. Some little time Lefever spent
patiently deciphering the story printed in the rutted road, and marked
by a wide crimson splash in the middle of it. He rose from his study
at length and followed back the trail of the running feet that had
been stricken at the pool. He stopped in front of a fragment of rock
jutting up beside the road, studied it a while and, looking about,
picked up a number of empty cartridge-shells, examined them, and
tossed them away. Then he straightened up and looked searchingly
across the Gap. Only the great, silent face of El Capitan confronted
him. It told no tales.
"If this was Henry de Spain," muttered Elpaso, when Lefever rejoined
his companions, "he won't care whether you join him now, or at ten
o'clock, or never."
"That is not Henry," asserted Lefever with his usual cheer. "Not
within forty rows of apple-trees. It's not Henry's gun, not Henry's
heels, not Henry's hair, and thereby, not Henry's head that was hit
that time. But it was to a finish--and blamed if at first it didn't
scare me. I thought it _might_ be Henry. Hang it, get down and see for
yourselves, boys."
Elpaso answered his invitation with an inquiry. "Who was this fellow
fighting with?"
"That, also, is a question. Certainly not with Henry de Spain, because
the other fellow, I think, was using soft-nosed bullets. No white man
does that, much less de Spain."
"Unless he used another rifle," suggested Kennedy.
"Tell me how they could get his own rifle away from him if he could
fire a gun at all. I don't put Henry quite as high with a rifle as
with a revolver--if you want to split hairs--mind, I say, if you want
to split hairs. But no man that's ever seen him handle either would
want to try to take any kind of a gun from him. Whoever it was,"
Lefever got up into his saddle again, "threw some ounces of lead into
that piece of rock back there, though I don't understand how any one
could see a man lying behind it.
"Anyway, whoever was hit here has been carried down the road. We'll
try Sassoon's ranch-house for news, if they don't open on us with
rifles before we get there."
In the sunshine a man in shirt sleeves, and leaning against the jamb,
stood in the open doorway of Sassoon's shack, watching the invaders
as they rode around the hill and gingerly approached. Lefever
recognized Satt Morgan. He flung a greeting to him from the saddle.
Satt answered in kind, but he eyed the horsemen with reserve when they
drew up, and he seemed to Lefever altogether less responsive than
usual. John sparred with him for information, and Satterlee gave back
words without any.
"Can't tell us anything about de Spain, eh?" echoed Lefever at length.
"All right, Satt, we'll find somebody that can. Is there a bridge over
to Duke's on this trail?"
Satt's nose wrinkled into his normal smile. "There is a bridge--" The
report of three shots fired in the distance, seemingly from the mouth
of the Gap, interrupted him. He paused in his utterance. There were no
further shots, and he resumed: "There is a bridge that way, yes, but
it was washed out last night. They're blockaded. Duke and Gale are
over there. They're pretty sore on your man de Spain. You'd better
keep away from 'em this morning unless you're looking for trouble."
Lefever, having all needed information from Scott's signal, raised his
hand quickly. "Not at all," he exclaimed, leaning forward to emphasize
his words and adding the full orbit of his eye to his sincerity of
manner. "Not at all, Satt. This is all friendly, all friendly. But,"
he coughed slightly, as if in apology, "if Henry shouldn't turn up all
right, we'll--ahem--be back."
None of his companions needed to be told how to get prudently away. At
a nod from Lefever Tommie Meggeson, Elpaso, and Wickwire wheeled their
horses, rode rapidly back to the turn near the hill and, facing about,
halted, with their rifles across their arms. Lefever and Kennedy
followed leisurely, and the party withdrew leaving Satterlee, unmoved,
in the sunny doorway. Once out of sight, Lefever led the way rapidly
down the Gap to the rendezvous.
Of all the confused impressions that crowded Nan's memory after the
wild night on Music Mountain, the most vivid was that of a noticeably
light-stepping and not ungraceful fat man advancing, hat in hand, to
greet her as she stood with de Spain, weary and bedraggled in the
aspen grove.
A smile flamed from her eyes when, turning at once, he rebuked de
Spain with dignity for not introducing him to Nan, and while de Spain
made apologies Lefever introduced himself.
"And is this," murmured Nan, looking at him quizzically, "really Mr.
John Lefever whom I've heard so many stories about?"
She was conscious of his pleasing eyes and even teeth as he smiled
again. "If they have come from Mr. de Spain--I warn you," said John,
"take them with all reserve."
"But they haven't all come from Mr. de Spain."
"If they come from any of my friends, discredit them in advance. You
could believe what my enemies say," he ran on; then added ingenuously,
"if I had any enemies!" To de Spain he talked very little. It seemed
to take but few words to exchange the news. Lefever asked gingerly
about the fight. He made no mention whatever of the crimson pool in
the road near Sassoon's hut.