Yseulte Santorex was conscious of a new and unwonted sensation. She
felt nervous.
Yet why should she have felt so, seeing that this was by no means the
first time she had undertaken an expedition _a deux_ under her present
escort? But somehow it seemed to her that his tone had conveyed a
peculiar significance when he suggested this early morning
antelope-stalk at the time of making up his mind to remain.
It was a lovely morning. The sun was not an hour high, and the air was
delicious. But their success had been _nil_. To account for the
absolute lack of game was a puzzle to Vipan, but it could hardly be the
cause of his constrained taciturnity.
Yseulte felt nervous. Why had he induced her to come out like this
to-day? Instinctively she felt that he was on the eve of making some
revelation. Was he about to confide to her the history of his past?
Her nervousness deepened as it began to dawn upon her what an
extraordinary fascination this adventurer of the Western Plains, with
his splendid stature and magnificent face, was capable of exercising
over her. A silence had fallen between them.
"I want you to see this," said Vipan suddenly as they came upon the
ruins of what had once been a strong and substantial building. "It's an
old stage-station which was burnt by the reds in '67."
There was eloquence in the ruins of the thick and solid walls which even
now stood as high as ten or twelve feet in places, and which were still
spanned by a few charred and blackened beams, like the gaping ribs of a
wrecked ship. The floor was covered with coarse herbage, sprouting
through a layer of _debris_, whence arose that damp, earthy smell which
seems inseparable from ancient buildings of whatever kind. Standing
within this relic of a terrible epoch, Yseulte could not repress a
shudder. What mutilated human remains might they not actually be
walking over? Even in the cheerful daylight the flap of ghostly wings
seemed to waft past her.
"If these old walls could speak they'd tell a few queer yarns," said her
companion. "Look at these loop-holes. Many a leaden pill have they
sent forth to carry `Mr Lo' to the Happy Hunting-Grounds. I don't know
the exact history of this station, but it's probably that of most others
of the time. A surprise--a stiff fight--along siege in the `dug-out'
when the reds had set the building on fire--then either relief from
outside, or the defenders, reduced by famine or failure of ammunition,
shooting each other to avoid capture and the stake."
"Horrible!" she answered, with a shiver. "But what is a `dug-out'?"
"Let's get outside, and I'll tell you all about it. Look--you see that
mound of earth over there," pointing to a round hump about a score of
yards from the building, and rising three or four feet above the ground.
"Well, that is a roof made of earth and stones, and therefore bullet
and fire proof. It is loop-holed on a level with the ground, though
it's so overgrown with buffalo-grass that the holes'll be choked up, I
reckon. This roof covers a circular hole about ten or twelve feet in
diameter, and just high enough for a man to stand up in. It is reached
by a covered way from the main building, and its object was this:--When
the reds were numerous and daring enough they had not much difficulty in
setting the building on fire by throwing torches and blazing arrows on
the roof, just as they threw them into our camp the other day. Then the
stage people got into the `dug-out,' and with plenty of rations and
ammunition could hold their own indefinitely against all comers. The
`dug-out' was pretty nearly an essential adjunct to every stage-station,
and a good many ranches had them as well. And now, if you feel so
disposed, we will try and explore this one, and then it will be time to
start camp-wards."
She assented eagerly. First going to the mound, the removal of the
overgrowth of grass revealed the loop-holes.
"It is like looking into the _oubliettes_ of a mediaeval castle," said
Yseulte, striving to peer through the apertures into the blackness
beneath.
"Now come this way," said her companion, leading the way into the
building once more.
A moment's scrutiny--then advancing to a corner of the building he
wrenched away great armfuls of the thick overgrowth. A hole stood
revealed--a dark passage slanting down into the earth.
"Wait here a moment," he said. "I'll go in first and see that the way
is clear."
The tunnel was straight and smooth. Once inside there was not much
difficulty in getting along. But it suddenly occurred to Vipan that he
might be acting like a fool. What if he were to encounter a snake in
this long-closed-up _oubliette_, or foul air? Well, for the latter, the
matches that he lighted from time to time burnt brightly and clear. For
the former--he was already within the "dug-out" when the thought struck
him.
He glanced around in the subterranean gloom. It was not unlikely that
the floor of the tomb-like retreat might be strewn with the remains of
its former owners, who had perished miserably by their own hands rather
than fall into the power of their savage foe. But no grim death's-head
glowered at him in the darkness. The place was empty. Quickly he
returned to his companion.
"It's pretty dark in there," he said. "Think you'd care to undertake
it? It may try your nerves."
But Yseulte laughingly disclaimed the proprietorship of any such
inconvenient attributes. She was resolved to see as much wild adventure
as she could, she declared. Nevertheless, when she found herself buried
in the earthy darkness as she crawled at her companion's heels, she
could not feel free from an inclination to turn back there and then.
But when she stood upright within the underground fortress, and her eyes
became accustomed to the half-light, she forgot her misgivings.
"How ingenious!" she cried, looking first around the earthy cell and
then out through the loop-holes. "Now, let's imagine we are beleaguered
here, and that the savages are wheeling and circling around us. We
could `stand them off'--isn't that the expression?--till next week."
"And then if nobody came to get us out of our fix next week?"
"Oh, then we could hold out until the week after."
"You think that would be fun, eh?"
"Of course," she answered, her eyes dancing with glee in response to his
queer half-smile.
"H'm. Well I'm very glad there's no chance of your undergoing the
actual experience," he answered drily, turning away to gaze out on the
surrounding country, but really that she should not see the expression
that swept across his face. For it had come to this. Rupert Vipan--
adventurer, renegade, freebooter--a stranger, for many a year, to any
softening or tender feeling--a man, too, who had already attained middle
age--thought, as he listened to her words, how willingly he would give
the remainder of his life for just that experience. To be besieged here
for days with this girl--only they two, all alone together--himself her
sole protector, with a violent and horrible death at the end of it, he
admitted at that moment would be to him Paradise. Yet a consciousness
of the absurdity of the idea struck him even then. Who was he in her
eyes, in the eyes of those around her, her friends and protectors? An
unknown adventurer--a mere commonplace border ruffian. And--at his time
of life, too!
"Were you ever besieged in one of these places?" asked Yseulte.
Her voice recalled him to himself.
"Once," he answered. "In '67, on the Smoky Hill route, four stagemen
and myself. The reds burnt us out the first night, and we got into the
dug-out. It was wearisome work, for they preserved a most respectful
distance once we were down there. They wouldn't haul off, though. So
one man kept a look-out at the loop-holes, while the rest of us played
poker or varied the tedium by swapping lies."
"Doing what?"
"Oh, exchanging `experiences.' Tall twisters some of them were, too.
Well, by the third night we got so sick of it that we made up our minds
to try and quit. The reds were still hanging around. We needn't have,
for we had plenty of rations and ammunition, but the business was
becoming so intolerably monotonous. Well, we started, and the upshot
was that out of the five, three of us fell in with a cavalry patrol the
next evening, having dodged the reds all day, each of us with an arrow
or two stuck more or less badly into him, and the Cheyennes went home
with a brace of new scalps. Otherwise the affair was tame enough."
"Tame, indeed? But you tell it rather tamely. Now, how did the Indians
first come to attack you? You left that out."
"Did I? Oh, well, I happened to discover their propinquity, and
concluded to warn the stage people. The red brother divined my
intention afar off, and came for me--and them."
"You ought to be called the Providence of the Plains," she said, with a
laugh that belied the seriousness of her face. "There, I christen you
that on the spot."
"That would be a good joke to tell them over in Henniker City! But to
be serious, in these latter days I never go out of my way to spoil the
red brother's fun. None of my business, any way."
"But you made an exception in favour of us. I don't believe you are
talking seriously at all."
"You don't?" he echoed, turning suddenly upon her, and there was that in
his tones which awed her into wonder and silence. "You don't? Well,
let me tell you all about it. It was you, and you alone, who saved
every soul in that outfit from the scalping-knife and the stake. I
sighted your party straggling along just anyhow, and I'd already been
watching the Sioux preparing to ambush it. Then while promising my self
a good time lying up there on the butte, and looking on at the fun, I
chanced to catch sight of--you. That decided the business. Instead of
assisting at a grand pitched battle in the novel character of a
spectator, I elected to warn your people. Otherwise--ambling along
haphazard as they were--they'd have lost their head-coverings to a dead
certainty. That is how you saved them."
"What! You would have done nothing to warn them? I cannot believe it."
"Wouldn't have lifted a finger. Why should I?" he broke off, almost
angrily. "What interest had I in a few ranchmen and bullwhackers more
or less? They were no more to me than the painted savages lying in wait
to scalp them. Stop, you were going to say something about colour,
religion, and all that sort of thing. But a white skin as often as not
covers as vile a nature as a red one, and for the other consideration
look at its accredited teachers. About as good Christians as the
average Sioux medicine-man, neither better nor worse. It was a blessed
good thing, though, that I had a first rate field-glass on that
occasion."
She raised her eyes to his as if expecting him to continue, and they
seemed to grow soft and velvety. But he did not continue. Instead, he
had taken a rigid attitude, and appeared to be listening intently.
"What can you hear?" she began, wonderingly.
But the words died away on her lips, and she grew ashy pale as her
dilated glance read her companion's face in the gloomy half-light of the
"dug-out." No need to pursue her enquiry now.
For, audible to both, came a dull muffled roar, distant, faint, but of
unmistakable import. Even Yseulte did not require her companion to
explain the sound. Even she recognised in the long, dropping roll the
heavy discharge of firearms.