THE NIGHT RIDE
Hugh McClintock drew his horse to a walk and skirted the base of a hill.
He patted the shiny neck of the bay affectionately. The boy loved the
mounts he rode. His life depended on their stamina and speed, and they
had never failed him.
“Good old Nevada Jim,” he whispered. “We got a long trail before us
through these red devils, but I reckon we’re good for it, me ’n you.”
He was swinging well to the south of the Silver Mountains, riding
through country covered with brush. He had been travelling at a rapid
pace as he wound in and out among the sage and greasewood. Now he had
reached the hills that marked the limit of the range. His intention was
to go by way of Alkali Flat, circle Walker Lake, and cross the Walker
River range. This plan was subject to change, for at any minute he might
run into the Piutes. On the other hand, which was more likely, he might
reach Carson without having had a glimpse of them.
Boy though he was, he knew Indians. His father was one of the earliest
pioneers in Eagle Valley. Hugh’s first recollection was of the trip from
Salt Lake through the desert. He recalled that a cow had worked side by
side in the wagon with an ox. The first plough that had broken a furrow
in Nevada had been made by his father from discarded wagon tires picked
up on the overland road to California. He remembered the days when
Captain Jim in beads and buckskin and his breech-clothed tribe had hung
around the settlers in pretended friendship. Tame coyotes instead of
dogs had followed them. There hung in his mind the memory of a morning
when he had gone to the stable to find the horses run off and the cows
stuck full of arrows.
One adventure he would never forget. His mother had wakened him at
midnight and dressed him hurriedly. He and his younger brother had been
packed in apple boxes slung on the opposite sides of a mule. Rifle in
hand, his father had walked beside a second mule upon which Hugh’s
mother rode. So they had crossed the Sierras from Mormon Station into
California, driven from home by the news that the Indians were raiding
the valleys. In his young life he could recall a hundred such memories
of the dangers and hardships of pioneering.
While he was still in the hills the brilliant reds and crimsons of
sunset gave way to the soft violet of dusk, which in turn melted into
the deep purple of falling night. Sometimes, as he wound forward in the
chaparral, he heard the faint rustling of wild shy creatures scurrying
to safety.
The stars had long been out before he reached Alkali Flat. He was far
from any road, but the unerring instinct of the frontiersman took him,
with many twists and turns, in the direction he had chosen. Not long
after midnight he struck Walker Lake. He followed the shore line around
the southern point. On a little peninsula he unsaddled, picketed Nevada
Jim, and slept for nearly two hours.
Darkness was still heavy over the land when he saddled and retied the
mail sacks. He crossed Cat Creek, turned northwest, and began the hill
trek into the Walker River Range.
Light began to filter into a sky that grew less opaque. The hills took
vague outlines. A meadow lark’s piping heralded the advent of the young
day.
He put Nevada Jim at the saddle of a hill and reached the brow that
formed part of the lip of a small saucer-shaped valley beyond. A score
of morning camp-fires shone like glowworms in the misty hollow. By
chance he had stumbled on a party of Piutes who had probably raided a
ranch and come down here to revel undisturbed. Very likely it was the
same bunch that had waylaid and shot Tim. There rose to the express
rider the pungent smell of burning meat, and he guessed that the Indians
were indulging in their favourite feast of roasted horseflesh.
McClintock made to turn back, but as he did so a slim breech-clothed
figure shot up from the sage almost at his stirrup. The rider,
silhouetted against the skyline, was a mark hardly to be missed at such
close range even by a Piute with a trade gun. Hugh dragged Nevada Jim
round with fore feet in air, drove home his spurs, and charged straight
at the brave.
A red-hot stab seared McClintock’s side. A moment, and he felt the shock
of impact. The sentry was flung headlong before the weight of the horse,
which staggered over the naked body, trod it under, and went plunging
down the hill.
Hugh heard guttural shouts of alarm from the valley. Presently, riding
along the arroyo below, he saw horsemen urging their mounts over the
brow of the hill. A shout of triumph told him that he had been seen by
his pursuers.
As the long strides of the horse carried him down the arroyo, the boy’s
brain functioned to meet the emergency. He might turn to the right,
circle the lake, make for Alkali Flat, and from there across the hills
on the long stretch for the station. The alternative was to keep going
north, strike across the range, and point for Carson. Even in this
desperate emergency the morale of the service was the deciding factor.
The mail was due at Carson in a few hours. With a pressure of his right
knee he guided Nevada Jim up the gulch toward a mountain pass he knew
above.
If his horse had been fresh McClintock would have had small fear of the
result. The Indians had no such ponies as the one he was astride. Their
stock was inferior, just as their rifles were. Moreover, at their best
they were wretched marksmen. But all the natural advantages of the white
man were neutralized. Nevada Jim was far from fresh. Any rifle was
better than none, and the pony express rider had to depend on a
revolver, good for fast-short-range work but useless now. He was one
against many, and already he could feel a wet splash on his shirt when
he pressed his hand to his side. How bad the wound was he did not know,
but it was certain that the long hard ride before him would not add to
his strength.
A boy of his age, trained in any other school except the hard outdoor
one of the frontier, might have been forgiven for getting panicky under
the circumstances. But Hugh wasted no nerve force in fear surges or in
self-pity. He had a job to do. He must do it. That was the simple A B C
of his reasoning. Quite coolly he set his mind to work on the problem of
_how_ it was to be done, given the conditions that confronted him. One
trouble was that he did not know those conditions. How long could Nevada
Jim, after the hard hours of travel that lay between him and the
station, keep going at the pace required? Was he himself likely to
collapse suddenly from loss of blood?
His best chance, he decided, lay in the speed of the bay. As soon as he
had crossed the range—if he ever got across—he would try to run the
Indian ponies off their legs. If they found they could not catch him,
the Piutes would give up the chase after a few miles.
The boy looked back. The Indians had swept out of the arroyo and were
following him up the gulch. A dozen of them were bunched, with three or
four trailing behind. But well in front of the group and going strong
was a young brave mounted on a buckskin. At every stride his horse
lengthened the distance between him and his companions.
“Big Chief Heap-in-a-Hurry aims to collect me,” the boy told himself
aloud. “Me, I got different notions. Get a hustle on you, Jim. This is
one race where I don’t aim to throw down on myself.”
The bay answered the call gallantly. With every ounce of bone and muscle
Nevada Jim flung forward at the steep trail. The horse gave all it had
to give, breathing heavily as it ploughed up the divide.
McClintock had changed his plans. The young Piute on the buckskin was a
factor he could not ignore. It would never do to drop down from the
hills with this enemy at his heels. The fresher mount would close in on
the bay and the Indian would pick Hugh off at his leisure. It would be
better to risk all on a bolder, more decisive stroke.
With voice and knee and the gentle caress of hand he urged Nevada Jim to
his best. “I know, old-timer, it’s breakin’ yore heart,” he pleaded.
“But I got to ask it of you—just for a mile or two more, Jim—till we
get to the pass; then that’ll be all, if our luck stands up.”
Hugh felt his side again and was alarmed at the sogginess of the flannel
shirt. The pain of the wound was insistent, but he had no time to worry
about that. What troubled him was the loss of blood. He might fall out
of the saddle from sheer weakness before he reached safety.
He looked back and faintly grinned. The Indians were beginning to string
out, and the gap between the buckskin and the other horses had widened.
This was exactly what he wanted.
“Come on, you Buckskin,” he shouted softly down the wind. “Don’t you
stick around with them broomtails.”
Nevada Jim’s lungs were pumping hard, but the clean long legs of the
horse still reached with long strides for the rising ground, the
muscular shoulders moved smoothly and automatically.
The head of the divide was close now, scarcely a quarter of a mile in
front of the fugitives. Hugh looked back as he galloped up into the
pass. The buckskin was far in advance of the other pursuers.
The pass was short and narrow. At the very summit a huge boulder
outcropped from the ridge. McClintock swung his labouring horse back of
this, and at the same instant leaped to the ground. Swiftly he
unclinched and drew the bay close to the flat face of the great rock.
For the first time since the wild race had begun he took from its
scabbard the navy revolver he carried.
He had not long to wait. There came the sound of a hoof striking the
hard quartz of the ridge, then the thud of galloping feet. The express
rider tensed his muscles. He was like a coiled spring as he crouched
back of the boulder, a menace to life as deadly as a rattlesnake about
to strike.
Smoothly he slid round the edge of the rock. The Piute, taken by
surprise, jerked the buckskin sideways and tried to raise his rifle.
Lightning flashed from McClintock’s six-shooter—once, twice. He dived
forward and caught the bridle just as the redskin tumbled from the
horse. The rifle clattered to the ground.
Hugh took one look at the Indian. It was enough. He would never steal
another horse from the whites. The buckskin, frightened, tried to jerk
away. Its new owner spoke gently, soothingly. He coaxed the startled
animal to the rock and transferred the saddle from the back of Nevada
Jim.
Already he could hear approaching horses. As rapidly as possible he
cinched and swung astride. Yet an instant, and he was galloping down the
western slope.
As he looked back, McClintock saw an Indian’s head and the upper part of
his body rising and falling with the stride of a horse. He was the first
of the pursuers coming up into the pass. There was a shout and the sound
of a shot. A bullet struck a spurt of sand from the ground some yards
ahead of the express rider. Other shots came, a scattering volley of
them. Hugh had thrust his smoking revolver back into the scabbard. He
did not attempt to draw it again. The primary business of the moment was
to get the buckskin into its stride and widen the distance between him
and his enemies.
Soon he was out of range. Bullets were still falling, but they struck
the dust behind him. The buckskin was fast and willing. Nevada Jim, like
many of the company horses, had a cross of Morgan blood. This horse was
a mustang, but it had unusual speed and power. Hugh wondered whether the
ranchman who had owned it had been killed when his place was raided.
The pursuit continued for several miles, but the Indians fell always
farther to the rear. At last they dropped out. At least Hugh saw them no
more.
It was time. McClintock was faint and dizzy. He could barely stick to
the saddle by clinging with both hands to the pommel. His wound,
irritated by the constant motion, hurt a great deal. The fever mounted
in his blood.
The amber dawn gave place to clear day. The sun climbed high in the
heavens. It was noon when the buckskin picked its way through the East
Walker River to the west bank.
The boy could go no farther. He slid down, tied the horse, and staggered
to the water. An odd lightheaded feeling lifted him from the ground, it
seemed. He floated, imponderable, on waves of air resonant with music.
Then he passed out of all sensation whatever into unconsciousness.
He came to life again placidly and without energy. When he roused
himself to think about it his body was singularly inert. It was almost
as though it were a thing apart from himself, did not belong to him at
all. He tried heavily with his hand to brush away the cobwebs from his
mind. Then slowly he remembered what had taken place.
The buckskin was still standing patiently beside the willow to which he
had tied it. The sun was beginning to slant from the west.
Slowly he undressed himself in part, washed the wound with clean water,
and tied it up with a bandage torn from his clothing. His fever was
high, and he bathed his face in the cold water fresh from the mountain
snows.
He was in no condition to travel, but he knew he would have to stick to
the saddle till he reached a settlement. Even if the Indians had given
up the chase, he could not lie here without food, shelter, or attention
to his wound. When he rose to drag himself to the horse it took all his
grit to set his teeth on the pain that went through him like a knife
thrust. He could not hold his body erect without agony.
Somehow he reached the buckskin and pulled himself to the saddle. He
held the pony to a walk, because this jolted his side less than any
other gait. His mind refused to consider the long hours he must spend on
the rack of torture. Every moment was sufficient to itself. He would set
landmarks for himself. That scrub cottonwood by the river must be
passed. When that had been reached a bunch of greasewood ahead became
his goal. So, mile by mile, in a growing delirium, he kept going till he
was far up in the Pine Nut Range.
He lost count of time and of distance. He forgot where he was travelling
or why. He remembered only Indians, and the fear he had resolutely
repressed—which no doubt had been uppermost all the time in the boy’s
subconscious mind—expressed itself in the babbling of his delirious
talk.
“They’re roostin’ up there in the hills somewheres. Sure are. Want my
topknot for to decorate their tepees. Hump yoreself, you Nevada Jim. I
feel right spindlin’, an’ I want Mother to fix me up some sage
tea. . . . They’re after me full jump. See ’em come lickety split.
Aimin’ to scalp me, all on account that I didn’t stop to say ‘Howdy.’”
His laughter jangled in the empty desert, fear for the moment forgotten.
“We ce’tainly lit a-runnin’, me an’ you, Jim, when we jumped up them
Piutes. Clumb for the tall timber, didn’t we, _amigo viego_? . . . Never
did see mountains dance before. S’lute yore pardners. Grand right an’
left. Alemane . . . Here the devils come, hell for leather. Better not
crawl our humps, eh, Jim? We’ll sure show ’em what for.”
It was the buckskin that saved him, that and the terror which had become
an obsession. He clung to the saddle desperately, long after he no
longer knew the reason for it, long after he had ceased to guide his
mount. Just before nightfall the horse took him to a Mormon ranch.
A comfortable-looking matron, feeding her chickens, looked up to see the
horse and its load motionless before her.
“Lands sake!” she ejaculated, amazed; then raised her voice in a shout
to her husband. “Father, come here. Buckskin has come home, and——”
She broke off to run to McClintock’s aid. He had slid from the saddle to
the ground.
“The poor boy,” she cried. “He’s all shot up. He’s dead, I guess. It’s
them Piutes. Help me get him into the house, Father.”
With a ghost of a smile the wounded boy reassured her.