It was a rugged and barren setting for love's interchange, and yet these
two young souls faced each other, across the disabled old man, with
spirits fused in mutual understanding. Helen's face softened and her
eyes expressed the gratitude she felt. At the moment the ranger's sturdy
frame and plain, strong-featured face were altogether admirable to her.
She relied upon him mentally and physically, as did Kauffman, whose head
was bewildered by his fall.
Hanscom roused himself with effort. "Well, now, let's see what's to be
done next. One of your horses appears to be unhurt, but the other is
down." He went to the team and after a moment's examination came back to
say: "One is dead. I'll harness my own saddler in with the other, and in
that way we'll be able to reach my cabin. You must stay there for the
present."
Quickly, deftly, he gathered the scattered goods from the ground,
restored the seat to the wagon, untangled the dead beast from its
harness, and substituted his own fine animal, while Helen attended to
Kauffman. He recovered rapidly, and in a very short time was able to
take his seat in the wagon, and so they started down the road toward the
valley.
"It's a long way round by the wagon road," Hanscom explained. "But we
can make the cabin by eleven, and then we can consider the next move."
To this Helen now made objection. "We must not bring more trouble upon
you. They will resent your giving us shelter. Take us to the railway.
Help us to leave the state. I am afraid to stay in this country another
night. I want to get away from it all to-day."
A shaft of pain touched the ranger's heart at thought of losing her so
soon after finding her, and he said: "I don't think that is necessary.
They won't attempt another assault--not while you are under my
protection. I'd like the pleasure of defending you against them," he
added, grimly.
"But I'm afraid for daddy. I'm sure he wounded one of them, and if he
did they may follow us. You are very good and brave, but I am eager to
reach the train. I want to get away."
To this Kauffman added his plea. "Yes, yes, let us go," he said,
bitterly. "I am tired of these lawless savages. We came here, thinking
it was like Switzerland, a land inhabited by brave and gentle people,
lovers of the mountains. We find it a den of assassins. If you can help
us to the railway, dear friend, we will ask no more of you and we will
bless you always."
The ranger could not blame them for the panic into which they had
fallen, and frankly acknowledged that it was possible for Kitsong to
make them a great deal of trouble. Reluctantly he consented.
"I am sorry to have you go, but I reckon you're justified. There is a
way to board the northbound train without going to town, and if nothing
else happens we'll make the eastbound express. That will take you out of
the state with only one stop."
Conditions were not favorable for any further expression of the deep
regret he felt, for the road was rough, and with only one seat in the
wagon he was forced to perch himself on his up-ended saddle, and so,
urging the team to its best, he spoke only to outline his plan.
"I'll drive you to the Clear Creek siding," he explained. "All trains
stop there to take on water, and No. 3 is due round about one. We can
make it easily if nothing happens, and unless the Kitsong gang get word
from some of these ranches we pass, you will be safely out of the
country before they know you've gone."
They rode in silence for some time, but as they were dropping down into
the hot, dry, treeless foot-hills the ranger turned to explain: "I'm
going to leave the main road and whip out over the mesa just above the
Blackbird Ranch, so don't be surprised by my change of plan. They are a
dubious lot down there at the Blackbird, and have a telephone, so I'd
just as soon they wouldn't see us at all. They might send word to Abe.
It'll take a little longer, and the road is rougher, but our chances for
getting safely away are much better."
"We are entirely in your hands," she answered, with quiet confidence.
Her accent, her manner, were as new to him as her dress. She no longer
seemed a young girl masquerading, but a woman--one to whom life was
offering such stern drama that all her former troubles seemed suddenly
faint and far away.
Kauffman was still suffering from his fall, and it became necessary for
Helen to steady, him in his seat. Her muscles ached with the strain, but
she made no complaint, for she feared the ranger might lessen the speed
of their flight.
Upon turning into the rough road which climbed the mesa, the horses fell
into a walk, and the ranger, leaping from the wagon, strode alongside,
close to the seat on which the girl sat.
"All this is not precisely in the Service Book," he remarked, with a
touch of returning humor, "but I reckon it will be accounted 'giving aid
and succor to settlers in time of need.'"
She was studying him minutely at the moment, and it pleased her to
observe how closely his every action composed with the landscape. His
dusty boots, clamped with clinking spurs, his weather-beaten gray hat,
his keen glance flashing from point to point (nothing escaped him), his
every word and gesture denoted the man of outdoor life, self-reliant yet
self-unconscious; hardy, practical, yet possessing something that was
reflective as well as brave. Her heart went out to him in tenderness and
trust. Her shadow lifted.
He had no perception of himself as a romantic figure; on the contrary,
while pacing along there in the dust he was considering himself a sad
esquire to the woman in whose worshipful service he was enlisted. He was
eager to know more about her, and wondered if she would answer if he
were to ask her the cause of her exile. Each moment of her company, each
glimpse of her face, made the thought of losing her more painful. "Will
I ever see her again?" was the question which filled his mind.
At the top of the mesa he again mounted to his seat on the upturned
saddle, and kept the team steadily on the trot down the swiftly
descending road. The sun was high above them now, and every mile carried
them deeper into the heat and dust of the plain, but the girl uttered no
word of complaint. Her throat was parched with thirst, but she did not
permit him to know even this, for to halt at a well meant delay. They
rode in complete silence, save now and again when the ranger made some
remark concerning the character of the ranches they were passing.
"We are down among the men of the future now," he said--"the farmers who
carry spades instead of guns."
Once they met a boy on horseback, who stared at them in open-mouthed,
absorbed interest, and twice men working in the fields beckoned to them,
primitively curious to know who they were and where they were going.
But Hanscom kept his ponies to their pace and replied only by shouting,
"Got to catch the train!" In such wise he stayed them in their tracks,
reluctant but helpless. At last, pointing to a small, wavering speck far
out upon the level sod, he called with forceful cheerfulness: "There's
the tank. We'll overhaul it in an hour." Then he added: "I've been
thinking. What shall I do about the cabin? Shall I pack the furniture
and ship it to you?"
"No, no. Take it yourself or give it away. I care very little for most
of the things, except daddy's violin and my guitar. Those you may keep
until we send for them."
"I shall take good care of the guitar," he asserted, with a look which
she fully understood. "What about the books?"
"You may keep them also. We'd like you to have them--wouldn't we,
daddy?"
"Yes, yes," said Kauffman. "There is nothing there of much value, but
such as they are they are yours."
"I shall store everything," the young fellow declared, firmly, "in the
hope that some day you will come back."
"That will never be! My life here is ended," she asserted.
"You will not always feel as you do now," he urged. "All the people of
the county are not of Watson's stripe."
"That is true," she said. "I shall try not to be unjust, but I see now
that in seeking seclusion in that lonely canyon we thrust ourselves among
the most lawless citizens of the state, and cut ourselves off from the
very people we should have known. However, I have had enough of
solitude. My mind has changed. This week's experience has swept away the
fog in my brain. I feel like one suddenly awakened. I see my folly and I
shall go back to my people--to the city."
The ranger, recognizing something inflexible in this, made no further
appeal.
There was nothing at the tank but a small, brown cottage in which the
wife of the Mexican section boss lived, and to her Hanscom committed his
charges and turned to the care of his almost exhausted team. The train
was late, the guard at the tank said, and in consequence the ranger was
torn between an agony of impatience and a dread of parting.
It was probable that some of the Kitsongs were in the raiding party, and
if they were hurt the Kauffmans were not safe till the state line was
passed. It would be easy to head them off by a wire. It was a hideous
coil to throw about a young girl seeking relief from some unusual
sorrow, and though he longed even more deeply to keep her under his
protection, he made no objection to her going.
Returning to the section-house, he shared with her the simple meal which
the reticent, smiling little Mexican woman had prepared, and did his
best to cheer Kauffman with a belief in the early arrival of the train.
"It will be here soon, I am sure," he said.
Helen detected the lack of elation in his tone, and understood in some
degree the sense of loss which made him heartsick, and yet she could not
bring herself to utter words of comfort.
At the close of the meal, as they set out to walk across the sand to the
switch, he said to her: "Am I never to see you again?"
"I hope so--somewhere, somehow," she replied, evasively.
"I wish you'd set a time and place," he persisted. "I can't bear to see
you go. You can't realize how I shall miss you."
A fleeting gleam of amusement lighted her face. "You have known me only
a few days."
"Oh yes, I have. I've known you all summer. You kept me busy thinking
about you. The whole country will seem empty now."
She smiled. "I didn't know I filled so much space in the landscape. I
thought I was but a speck in it." She hesitated a moment, then added: "I
came out to lose myself in nature. I had come to hate men and to despise
women. I was sick of my kind. I wanted to live like a savage, a part of
the wild, and so--forget."
"Animals sometimes live alone; savages never do," he corrected, "unless
they are outlawed from their tribe."
"That's what I tried to do--outlaw myself from my tribe. I wanted to get
away from foolish comment, from malicious gossip."
"Are you ready to go back to it now--I mean to the city?"
"No, not quite; and yet this week's experience has shaken me and helped
me. You have helped me, and I want to thank you for it. I begin to
believe once more in good, brave, simple manhood. You and daddy have
revived my faith in men."
"Some man must have hurt you mighty bad," he said, simply. Then added:
"I can't understand that. I don't see how any man could do anything but
just naturally _worship_ you."
She was moved by the sincerity of his adoration, but she led him no
farther in that direction. "At first I thought I had won a kind of
peace. I was almost content in a benumbed way. Then came my arrest--and
you. It was a rough awakening, but I begin to see that I still live,
that I am young, that I can become breathless with excitement. This
raid, this ride, has swept away all that deathlike numbness which had
fallen upon me. I've had my lesson. Now I can go back. I must get away
from here."
Under the spell of her intense utterance the ranger's mind worked
rapidly, filling in the pauses. "Yes, you'd better go away, but I'm not
going to let you pass out of my life--not if I can help it! I'm going to
resign and go where you go--"
She laid a protesting hand upon his arm. "No, no!" she said. "Don't do
that. Don't resign. Don't change your plans on my account. I'm not worth
such a sacrifice, such risk."
"You're worth any risk," he stoutly retorted, with some part of her own
intensity in his voice. "I can't think of letting you go. I need you in
my business." He smiled wanly. "I'm only a forest ranger at ninety
dollars per month, but I'm going to be something else one of these days.
I won't mind a long, rough trail if I can be sure of finding you at the
end of it."
The far-away whistle of the train spurred him into fierce demand.
"You'll let me write to you, and you will reply once in a while, won't
you? It will give me something to look forward to. You owe me that
much!" he added.
"Yes, I will write," she promised. "But I think it better that you
should forget me. I hope we have not involved you in any trouble with
your neighbors or with the coroner."
"I am not worrying about that," he answered. "I am only concerned about
you. I would go to jail in a minute to save you any further worry."
"You are putting me so deeply in your debt that I can never repay you,"
she replied.
"A letter now and then will help," he suggested.
The train, panting, wheezing, hot with speed, came to a creeping halt,
and the conductor, swinging out upon the side track, greeted the ranger
pleasantly. "Hello, Hans! What are you doing here?"
Hanscom returned his greeting gravely. "Billy, here are some friends of
mine, just down from the hills. Take good care of them for me, will
you?"
"Sure thing, major," said the conductor. He helped Kauffman aboard, then
turned to Helen. "Now, lady," he said, holding out a hand, "I'm sorry
the step is so high, but--"
The ranger, stooping, took the girl in his arms and set her feet on the
lower step. "Good-by," he said, huskily. Then added: "For now. Write me
soon."
She turned and looked down upon him with a faint smile on her lips and a
tender light in her eyes. "I promise. Good-by," she said, and entered
the car.
The ranger stood for a long time gazing after the train, then languidly
walked away toward his team.
* * * * *
Hanscom turned his face toward the forest with a full knowledge that
his world had suddenly lost its charm. At one moment his thought went
anxiously forward with the fugitives, at another it returned to confront
the problem of his own desires. His act in thus assisting the main
witness to escape might displease the court and would undoubtedly
intensify the dislike which Kitsong had already expressed toward him.
"My stay in the district is not likely to be as quiet as it has been,"
he said to himself.
However, his own safety was not a question of grave concern. The mystery
of Watson's death yet remained, and until that was solved Helen was
still in danger of arrest. His mind at last settled to the task of
discovering and punishing the raiders. Who was Watson's assassin? What
fierce desire for revenge had prompted that savage assault?
There was no necessary connection between that small footprint and the
shooting, and yet, until it was proved to be the work of another,
suspicion would point to Helen as the only woman of the vicinity who had
the motive for the deed. To some the coroner's failure to hold her was
almost criminal.
His return to the hills was equivalent to running the gantlet. From
every ranch-gate men and boys issued, wall-eyed with curiosity. They, of
course, knew nothing of the raiding-party of the morning, but they
understood that something unusual had taken place, for was not the
ranger's saddle in his wagon, and his saddle-horse under harness, not to
mention a streak of blood along the flanks of its mate? The eyes of
these solitary cattlemen are as analytical as those of trained
detectives. Nothing material escapes them. Being taught to observe from
infancy, they had missed little of the ranger's errand.
"Who were you taking to the train?" they asked.
Hanscom's defense was silence and a species of jocular, curt evasion,
and he succeeded at last in getting past them all without resort to
direct and violent lying. As he had reason to suspect that one, at
least, of the riflemen of the morning belonged to the Blackbird outfit,
he decided to avoid that ranch altogether.
It would be absurd to claim that his nerves were perfectly calm and his
heart entirely unhurried as he crept across the mesa and dropped into
the wooded canyon just above the pasture fence. Although sustained by his
authority as a Federal officer, he was perfectly well aware that it was
possible for him to meet with trouble when the gang found out what he
had done.
Another disturbing thought began to grow in his mind. "If those raiders
watched me go down the hill, they may consider it a clever trick to drop
in on the Kauffman place and loot the house. They know it is unguarded.
Perhaps I ought to throw the saddle on old Baldy and ride over there to
make sure about it."
The more he considered this the more uneasy he became. "They're just
about sure to run off the stock, or be up to some other devilment," he
said. "They might set fire to the house." In the end he roped his extra
horse and set out.
Even by the cut-off it was a stiff ride, and it was nearly midnight as
he topped the last ridge and came in sight of the cabin. "Hello!" he
exclaimed. "Somebody _has_ moved in. I'm just in time."
A light was gleaming from the kitchen window, and the ranger's mind
worked quickly. No one but members of the raiding-party would think of
taking possession of this cabin so promptly. No one else would know that
the Kauffmans were away. "That being the case," he said, musingly, "it
stands me in hand to walk light and shifty." And he kept on above the
ranch in order to drop down through the timber of the canyon.
After tethering his horse upon a little plot of grass just west of the
garden, he adjusted his revolver on his thigh at the precise point where
it was handiest, and moved forward with care. "They mustn't have time
even to _think_ fight," he decided.
As he rounded the corner of the stable he heard the voice of a girl
singing, and the effect of this upon him was greater than any uproar. It
was uncanny. It made him wonder what kind of woman she could be who
could carol in the midst of the band of raiders. She might be more
dangerous than the men. She certainly added another complication to the
situation.
Listening closely, he was able to detect the voices of at least two men
as they joined discordantly in the refrain of the song. It was evident
that all felt entirely secure, and the task to which the ranger now
addressed himself was neither simple nor pleasant. To take these raiders
unaware, to get the upper hand of them, and to bring them to justice was
a dangerous program, but he was accustomed to taking chances and did not
hesitate very long.
Keeping close to the shadow, he crept from the corral to the garden
fence and from the covert of a clump of tall sunflowers was able to peer
into the cabin window with almost unobstructed vision. A woman was
seated on a low chair in the middle of the floor, playing a guitar and
singing a lively song. He could not see the men. "I wonder if that door
is locked?" he queried. "If it isn't, the job is easy. If it is, I'll
have to operate through a screen window."
He remembered that both doors, front and back, were very strong, for
Kauffman had been careful to have them heavily hinged and double-barred.
They could not be broken except with a sledge. The screen on the windows
could be ripped off, but to do that would make delay at the precise
moment when a quarter of a second would be worth a lifetime. "No, I've
got to gamble on that door being unlocked," he concluded, with the
fatalism of the mountaineer, to whom danger is an ever-present
side-partner.
With his revolver in his hand, he slid through the garden and reached
the corner of the house unperceived. The woman was now playing a dance
tune, and the men were stamping and shouting; and under cover of their
clamor the ranger, stooping low, passed the window and laid his hand on
the knob. The door yielded to his pressure, and swiftly, almost
soundlessly, he darted within and stood before the astounded trio like a
ghost--an armed and very warlike ghost.
"What's going on here?" he demanded, pleasantly, as with weapon in
complete readiness he confronted them.
He had no need to command quiet. They were all schooled in the rules of
the game he was playing, and understood perfectly the advantage which he
held over them. They read in his easy smile and jocular voice the deadly
determination which possessed him.
The woman was sitting in a low chair with the guitar in her lap and her
feet stretched out upon a stool. Her companions, two young men, hardly
more than boys, were standing near a table on which stood a bottle of
liquor. All had been stricken into instant immobility by the sudden
interruption of the ranger. Each stared with open mouth and dazed eyes.
Hanscom knew them all. The girl was the wilful daughter of a Basque
rancher over on the Porcupine. One of the boys was Henry Kitsong, a
nephew of Abe, and the other a herder named Busby, who had been at one
time a rider for Watson.
"Having a pleasant time, aren't you?" the ranger continued, still
retaining his sarcastic intonation. From where he stood he could see the
bottom of the girl's upturned shoes, and his alert brain took careful
note of the size and shape of the soles. A flush of exultation ran over
him. "Those are the shoes that left those telltale footprints in the
flour," he said to himself.
"You lads had better let me have your guns," he suggested. "Busby, I'll
take yours first."
The young ruffian yielded his weapon only when the ranger repeated his
request with menacing intonation. "You next, Henry," he said to Kitsong,
and, having thus cut the claws of his young cubs, his pose relaxed. "You
thought the owners of the place safely out of reach, didn't you? You saw
me go down in the valley with them? Well, I had a hunch that maybe you'd
take advantage of my absence, so I just rode over. I was afraid you
might drop down here and break things up. You see, I'm responsible for
all these goods, and I don't want to see them destroyed. That music-box,
for instance" (he addressed the girl); "I happen to know that's a
high-priced instrument, and I promised the owner to take good care of
it. That bottle you fellows dug up I didn't know anything about, but I
guess I'll confiscate that also. It ain't good for little boys." He
turned sharply on Kitsong. "Henry, was your father in that band of
sharpshooters this morning?"
"No, he wasn't," blurted the boy. "And I wasn't, either."
"We'll see about that in the morning. Which of you rode a blaze-faced
sorrel?" Neither answered, and Hanscom said, contentedly: "Oh, well,
we'll see about _that_ in the morning."
Hanscom had drawn close to the girl, who remained as if paralyzed with
fright. "Senorita, I reckon I'll have to borrow one of your shoes for a
minute." As he stooped and laid hold of her slipper Busby fell upon him
with the fury of a tiger.
Hanscom was surprised, for he had considered the fellow completely cowed
by the loss of his revolver. He could have shot him dead, but he did
not. He shook him off and swung at him with the big seven-shooter which
he still held in his hand. The blow fell upon the young fellow's
cheek-bone with such stunning force that he reeled and fell to the
floor.