RIDERS OF THE NIGHT
Stamford, softly lifting the screen from his window, with the thrills
of a conspirator, climbed through and looked about. Once before he
had stood in the midst of the darkened prairie, with no thought then
than that he was temporarily but not dangerously lost. What lay
before him now he thought he had seen under every aspect from his
bedroom window. But there was a difference--a very disturbing
difference.
Now, in the eeriest part of the vast prairies he was stepping into an
eery and illegitimate adventure. Deliberately he was involving
himself in a situation that could bring no satisfaction but that of
counter-plotting, and, were he discovered, would expose him to even
worse suspicion than he deserved. Most of the exhilaration fled with
the touch of the cold night air on his face; the rest of it went
before the vividness of his imagination. He marvelled that a mere
key should have uplifted him so much, that a prospective ride at such
an hour should have gratified one to whom riding was at best nothing
more than an unpleasant education.
Had his knees not trembled he would probably have climbed back
through the window with a grin of shame at his foolhardiness, but
with terror tingling his scalp---- He closed his teeth and struck
out stubbornly round the corner of the house, avoiding the noisy
gravel walk. Up the slope diagonally he crept, pointing above the
stables. A sense of the necessity of concealment, and a dim thought
of future needs, impressed him so strongly that he scouted about for
a long time back and forth in search of the deepest of the scarcely
visible rolls he knew to mark the prairie everywhere.
Dropping down the slope then from above the stables, he applied the
key to the padlock. His heart was beating fast, his fingers
trembling. The night was crammed with terrors, and anxiety about the
fit of the key made him wonder what kink in his brain clothed an
adventure like this in attraction.
The key fitted. He realised then that there was no honourable escape
but to go on. Fate was a funny thing. He looked back once toward
his window in the ranch-house, took a long breath, and stepped into
the utter blackness of the stable. The horses sniffed, and for a
moment he tried to convince himself that he had accomplished all he
wished.
He knew Hobbles' stall, and, speaking gently, advanced in the
darkness. By the light of a sulphur match which he struck under the
cover of his coat he found saddle and bridle and clumsily fastened
them in place. Once off the wooden floors, the horse's feet met only
hard, soundless clay, and when he emerged into the night, leading
Hobbles, he was satisfied that he could not have wakened the cookie,
who alone, he thought, remained in the ranch buildings. Pushing back
the loop of the padlock without locking it, he led off to the
south-east, avoiding bunk-house and ranch-house.
In the saddle he was more satisfied. No longer was he alarmed, but
the exhilaration of exercising a new art alone in the night
determined him on one burst of speed. Stopping suddenly at the end
of a few hundred yards, he turned his ear back with tingling veins.
Back there somewhere in the darkness he imagined the beat of a
horse's hoofs--and then sudden silence. Twice more he repeated it
with the same result.
Convinced now that he was really frightened into foolish fancies, he
rode on.
Out before him a strange lightness in the sky attracted his
attention. Five minutes later he could see dimly the lines of dead
grass on the crest of a ridge. Riding slowly up a slope, he looked
over.
Four hundred yards away, in a deep coulee, a fire was burning. The
bottom in which it was kindled was carefully chosen for concealment,
and Stamford thrilled with excitement. Between him and the flames a
bunch of cattle was kept in hand by a temporary corral, two
silhouetted cowboys seated on the top rail. About the fire more
cowboys were struggling with a steer that lay on its side, and the
smell of burning hair carried to Stamford's nose the work of the
branding irons.
He wondered what mystic night rites he was invading.
Seeking a nearer approach than was possible from that direction, he
rode back down the slope and skirted about to the opposite side.
That side, the south, suited him better, too, for the reason that, if
he were detected, he would not seem to have come from the ranch.
Leaving Hobbles with dropped rein in another coulee, he climbed to
the ridge. There he could see everything. Though he knew next to
nothing of branding, and nothing whatever of its dishonest forms, the
hour of the deed, the silence of the operations, and the choice of
location, convinced him that it was intended only for the eyes of
those immediately concerned.
He had just settled down to watch the thing through, when from only a
few yards away rose the startling howl of a coyote. The sound
galvanised more startling life into the group of cowboys. Those at
the fire dropped their branding irons and rushed for their horses,
and the two at the corrals were in their saddles as the howl ceased.
Stamford tumbled down the slope and raced for Hobbles. As he
clambered into the saddle he realised with a gasp how hopeless flight
was. Even with such a short start he had confidence that Hobbles
could hold her own in the dark--but _he_ couldn't at such a speed.
Fifty yards convinced him of it--fifty yards of giving Hobbles her
head and concentrating on the horn in front.
He was considering what would happen when they caught him, when a
horse raced out of the darkness behind him and shot past--so close
that a skirt blew against his legs and he could hear a woman's voice
whispering to her mount.
So Mary Aikens, too, was out that night! He forgot his fears and
raced on.
But escape was hopeless. From the ridge came the thunder of the
pursuing cowboys--and then, close behind him, another horse. It was
gaining rapidly, the quirt lashing again and again--Stamford could
hear its gushing breath at his hip.... And then he felt himself
pushed from the saddle with a force that threw him clear of Hobbles'
flying heels. Over and over on the soft earth he rolled, uninjured
but too mystified and angry to appreciate it. He was rising to his
feet to face his captor, when he realised that the rider who had
unhorsed him had not even paused in his pace. Twice he heard the
quirt fall, and he remembered that as he left the saddle that quirt
had lashed over Hobbles' flank. Without a rider Hobbles would make
the ranch.
A short hundred yards back pounded the feet of the pursuing horses.
Stamford crept swiftly out of their path and lay still.
When they were past he rose and started on the run for the ranch.
Vaguely he felt that in the speed of his return lay safety. Reaching
the trail, he ran until his heart threatened to collapse; but he
would not stop to rest.
It was still dark when he topped the rise overlooking the ranch
buildings and crept carefully down toward the house. Though there
seemed little danger of discovery, he kept to the depressions,
zig-zagging downward. He was thankful to his instinct for
concealment when he suddenly became aware of someone standing before
the ranch-house looking up the trail--a woman. He could make out no
more than the outline, but it must, of course, be Mary Aikens. He
knew that she could have no desire to be discovered by him, and he
moved more slowly, waiting for her to go.
His foot struck an unexpected mound and landed him on his face. As
he lay in the grass he saw her move swiftly away round the corner of
the house. Both the front door and the window of the Aikens' bedroom
were in plain sight, but she did not enter either. He ran on openly
then.
On the other side of the house no one was in sight. He hastened to
the back, but the peg left by the cookie on the outside of the screen
door when he departed after his evening's work proved that no one had
entered there since.
Stamford leaned against the wall, completely mystified. He looked
around, poking in the grass, yet without hope. The woman had
vanished.
He remembered Hobbles and, gulping down a desire to cuddle into the
bedclothes, hurried to the stable. The mysteries increased--_the
stable was locked_. From the bunk-house came the noisy snoring of
the cookie. With his duplicate key he let himself into the stable
and found Hobbles--_unsaddled_--as if she had never been out, though
her sides were still slightly warm.
Stamford crept out. It was uncanny.
The soft padding of a horse down the slope to the east, far from the
trail, brought him to a sense of his exposure. Diving between two
buildings, he waited. The rider turned off toward the corrals,
evidently moving with caution, and a few minutes later Cockney Aikens
came round the corner of one of the buildings that concealed
Stamford, stopped a moment to listen to the snoring of the cook, and
passed on to the house.
His steps were still audible when another horse came along the same
course, but it did not turn off to the corrals. Stamford slunk
further into his hiding-place as Dakota Fraley rode past and drew up
before the bunk-house.
To Stamford's amazement Bean Slade came out.
"Who in h--l's been riding about here to-night?" Dakota demanded.
"Nobody--not that I've heard," returned Bean in a whisper.
"You been sleeping so tight, I guess, it ud take a kick on the ear to
wake you."
"I heard _you_ far enough," returned Bean sharply.
"Bring the lantern."
Dakota dismounted. Bean was a long time with the lantern, striking
several matches in vain.
"No ile," he growled, with a curse.
"Never mind. I have matches."
Dakota tried the padlock, unlocked it, and entered the stable.
Stamford heard a match scratch and saw a momentary flare through the
cracks where the mud had dropped out.
"That shore beats me," muttered Dakota, as they came out. "They're
all there. Let's take a look at the corrals."
They went off around the stable, and Stamford, creeping out, slunk up
to the depressions in the slope that had become in one night such
good friends to him, and returned to the house. He discovered that
he had left his screen out, and a few hardy mosquitoes that defied
the chilly night were buzzing within. Imp's snuffling grunt came
from beneath the door and he opened it noisily and let the little
terrier in. As he did so he thought he heard a gentle creak of
Cockney's door. He smiled into the darkness and crept into bed, the
dog curled up at his feet.