THE STORM STRIKES SILVER BEND.
Morning showed as peaceful a scene at Silver Bend as could have been
found in all the long and winding reaches of that tawny river. The
sun came up and gilded the silver of the young cottonwood trees. The
dogwood was in bloom along with many other shrubs and wild flowers. A
hundred mingled scents of sweetness were in the warm, damp air.
A great peace was over the world, but it was the calm before such a
storm as Silver Bend had never known in all the more than thirty years
that old Railroad Ross had struggled there. The elements that were to
battle in that bottle and concoct a mess "unfit for human consumption,"
as Sankey had said at the outset, were rapidly fermenting for the
mixture.
When Cliff returned home he found his father, Lav and Zella waiting
together in the judge's bedroom.
"Well, what did you find out?" asked Lav.
"Just what I expected to find; that the young fellow who was here told
the truth. There is no doubt that Bell Holderness shot Ben in the back,
in order to make us think the Railroad outfit did it, and draw us into
the quarrel on the side of the H Bar."
"Did you see Randy?" asked Zella.
"No; I was afraid to see him."
"Afraid!" rumbled the judge. "No Tarleton ever was afraid of any man."
"It wasn't the man I was afraid of. It was the result of what we had
done. Lav sent Randy word that we would kill him on sight. I know what
I'd do, and you know what you'd do, if a man sent you such a message. I
don't want to kill Randy Ross, and I don't want him to kill me. One or
the other will happen if he meets any of us before he is satisfied that
we have learned the truth and changed our attitude toward him."
"Why, nonsense!" growled the judge. "If this trouble between the
Railroad and the H Bar goes on, Randy ought to be glad to have you two
boys on his side of the fight."
"That's true enough, but we can't go to him now. Dolly says he's as
bitter against us as he is against the H Bar. That we all look alike to
him."
"Why, I don't understand that attitude," said the judge.
"I do," declared Zella. "I'm to blame for part of it. You can't go to
Randy, but I can. I'll crawl on hands and knees to him and beg him to
forget what has happened."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," snapped Lav imperiously. "I've told
you to keep out of this. No Tarleton is going to beg anybody to do
anything. Go to bed. We'll decide what to do."
Zella went to her room, but not to bed. Gray dawn found her sitting at
the window, looking down the river toward Silver Bend, as if she hoped
to see Randy and what was happening to him. If she had seen him at that
moment, she would have seen him still asleep. At sunrise she did see
her two brothers mount and ride away toward Willow Mills.
"Where are the boys going?" she asked her father.
"To hunt Bell Holderness. He is a double traitor. He not only murdered
my son, but accepted my hospitality and claimed to be my friend
afterward. It would be a disgrace if my sons didn't hunt him down,
since I am crippled and can't go myself."
If Lav and Cliff were to shoot it out with Bell that day, they'd have
to go much farther than Willow Mills. Indeed, they meant to go farther
than that, if they didn't find Bell in his usual haunts.
Quite unintentionally they were putting themselves where they could not
help Randy.
Failing to find Bell in the little town, they took the road north
toward the H Bar. The river was low, and they took the shallow ford and
crossed to the other side, hoping to meet Bell as he came to town.
No man should say they were afraid. They didn't know it, but there was
nothing to be afraid of in that neighborhood, unless it were the grim
fruit that still hung from a limb over the road.
At daylight, even as Zella sat looking toward Silver Bend, Bell
Holderness had left the H Bar with his men. Where they were going, the
men didn't know, except that they were not going toward Willow Mills.
* * * * *
Randy and his father finished breakfast and stepped out of the house to
start the men on their day's work, when they met Dolly. "Mr. Ross, I
got to talk to you and Randy some," Dolly remarked.
"What about?"
"Why, I went to Willow Mills last night, and--"
"Went to Willow Mills!" exclaimed Randy. "Didn't you know it was
dangerous for any of our outfit to go there just now?"
"Yes, it was sorty shaky, but I found out something. Bell Holderness
has gone back to the H Bar. He's got forty killers there with him. He
knows Sam and Steve are dead, and he'll play his last card at once."
"What do you mean by his last card?" demanded Railroad.
"Why, he's got himself where he ain't safe as long as you and Randy are
alive. He's desperate, at the last ditch, and he'll come here with his
gang and kill you."
"How do you know all this?"
Dolly told him what Alec Thomas had said.
"I know Thomas," said Railroad. "He's a good, square man, and he
knows the signs about such outfits as the H Bar. I never thought the
Holderness boys would pull a thing like this, though. I knew it was
a rough outfit, and I've heard some talk about 'em, but this is too
rough."
"They're not the only rough ones," snapped Randy. "If they jump us in
front, the Tarleton wing of their dirty outfit will stab us in the
back."
"I don't think so," said Dolly.
Randy shot him a sharp glance, but said nothing.
"We'll keep the men all here at the ranch to-day, anyway," said
Railroad. "I don't think they'll come across the river in the daytime,
but our boys will need to be rested whenever they do come."
"I guess that's right," said Randy, thoughtfully. "No use in them
riding the bend. They'll only get shot from the brush. Come on, Dolly.
If they come into Silver Bend, they'll cross at the ford below the
narrows. We'll go over there and watch."
Old Railroad stood watching them as they rode off. There went his last
boy, riding into danger. It was the brave and manly thing to do, but
he wished he could have gone himself, instead. Never had he seen such
a change in any man as there had been in Randy, but he was too bitter,
too venturesome. If the H Bar outfit did come that way, they'd get the
boy sure.
"No work to-day, boys," Railroad told them. "Have the boys saddle and
have their guns ready and loaded, but don't ride. Dolly says Bell
Holderness is apt to come across, and jump us. He's got about forty
killers. There's only twenty-two of us, without Dolly and Randy.
They've gone to watch the ford. Don't any of the rest of you ride into
the bottom. If they're in there, you'll just get shot from the brush,
without having a chance. If they jump us here at the ranch, we'll have
the advantage. Just get ready for anything that happens, but keep
quiet."
Poor old Railroad. He had thought that battles of this sort were long
past for him. He felt that this would be the last one if it came. He
hoped it wouldn't come, but gamely oiled and loaded his guns. His old
heart would beat rapidly for a moment, skip a beat, then slow down for
a minute, keeping up an endless cycle of change in its working.
* * * * *
Meantime, Randy and Dolly had ridden on to the river and ensconced
themselves in a thicket, where they could watch the ford without being
seen. Randy had not spoken since they left the ranch. Now he turned to
Dolly and said:
"Where'd you go last night and what for?"
Dolly had been expecting that question, and dreading it. He was going
to have to lie, or at least not tell all the truth, and he didn't like
that sort of thing. He pulled himself together and plunged into the
task.
"Why, I went to Willow Mills, like I told you."
"I know, but why? You didn't take a chance like that just for fun."
"No, I took it for you," and the earnestness of the little puncher's
voice rang true. "I talked to that fellow Turk last night, and he told
me what Bell would do in a showdown. I knew what we had done to the
H Bar. I knew there was nobody but Bell left to ramrod the outfit. I
wanted to know if Bell had gone to the H Bar, so I went to the Mills,
and found out what I told you."
"All right. I never have caught you in a lie. I'll be sorry if Bell
gets killed. I wanted him to marry Zella first."
"Randy, you oughtn't to be so bitter."
"Hell I oughtn't! Didn't she throw me cold? Hasn't Bell been there with
her through all this mess? Ain't her brothers hunting me to kill me?"
Dolly wanted to tell him the Tarleton boys were no longer hunting him.
He wanted to tell him that Zella was still true to him and suffering
intensely for her part in the matter, but he didn't dare. Instead, he
said:
"Randy, you're too hard on Miss Zella. I tell you she didn't
understand--"
"And I want to tell you that she, or anybody else, will have one hell
of a job making me understand that she didn't understand. I'm not a
sucker any longer. Thanks to you, I'm a man now. I had to be mighty
near killed to make me see sense. I had to lose about everything on
earth that I loved, but thank God, the price shan't be paid in vain.
I've still got my old daddy and mother, and I still have Silver Bend.
It don't make much difference whether I come out of this mess alive or
not, but if I do--"
Randy stopped. The thought was too bitter to express. It had to do
with what he believed to be the unfaithfulness of Zella, and with his
jealousy of Bell Holderness, which he refused to admit. At that moment,
he thought there was no feeling in his heart for Zella, except to see
her suffer in return for the pain she had given him.
Dolly offered no word. He was thinking again that he had tried to make
a man, and made a monster. He had changed Randy from a shrinking boy to
a fearless, even a desperate man. A man who could watch the quivering
death throes of his enemies without a quiver. A man who could be a
terrible enemy, even to a woman.
Looking down the river, as they watched the ford, Dolly was picturing
in his mind the great bottle formed by Silver Bend. At the bottom
of the bottle, and three miles north of the ranch house, the ground
sloped up from the stream to a considerable height and formed a sort of
plateau of a hundred yards in extent. There was no timber on it. The
soil was loose sand.
In the middle of the plateau was a mound, on which grew an immense
mustang grapevine. The vine was old and gnarled, supported by its own
twisted stems, and a few stunted trees, it covered as much ground as
a large house, and at a distance looked as much like a hay rick as
anything else.
Dolly had eaten grapes at that vine many a time, squeezing the pulp
from the grape into his mouth, without letting the skin, with its
burning acid, touch his lips. He had no thought of any part that
grapevine might play in the day's events. It was merely a vagary of his
mind that it halted there a moment, in a mental journey from the bottom
of the bottle to the ranch house.
The plateau, with its lone grapevine, was the sediment in the bottom of
the bottle. To the south of the plateau, the ground sloped down sharply
into a strip a quarter of a mile wide, filled with switch-cane and
grass, with occasional trees in it. The strip was little higher than
the river banks. Railroad Ross called it his winter horse pasture.
There was always green stuff there in the winter. It had not been
burned over for several years, and was a mass of dead canes and grass,
which protected the greenery under it in the winter. The swale ran
across the bend from the river on the west to the river on the east.
Beyond that, the ground rose sharply into thick timber that was on high
ground and extended on to the prairie valley in which the ranch house
stood.
* * * * *
Dolly was trying to picture in his mind what might happen, and where it
would most likely happen. He started when Randy said:
"Dolly, you've done a lot for me, but there's one more favor I want to
ask. If the Holderness and Tarleton gang does come into Silver Bend,
let me have Bell Holderness."
"All right," replied Dolly, absently. "They can come in most anywhere
now. I never saw the river any lower. Listen! What's that?"
"Wind," replied Randy. "It's a spring norther. I noticed when it struck
awhile ago."
They listened and the roaring increased.
"That ain't wind," said Dolly. "Look at the river!"
A wall of water ten feet high came rolling down the stream and
thundered on by them.
"Huh! That closes the gate against the H Bar for awhile anyway," said
Randy. "Most too early for a big head-rise, but that's big enough to
stop them from crossing," and shaking his bridle reins, he led the way
back toward the ranch.
They had almost reached the edge of the prairie at the round-up
grounds, when Dolly said:
"I smell smoke! Looky how hazy it is," and then as they came out in the
open: "Yonder it is! Somebody's fired the winter horse pasture. It'll
burn the ranch!"
Randy's jaws set with a click, as his spurs went in and he thundered
away toward the ranch house, with Dolly at his side. The men were
mounting as they rode up.
"Come on, fellows!" shouted Randy. "We've got 'em in the open now.
They'll have to fight. They can't get back across the river."
"Hold the deal!" roared Railroad, who had mounted his horse and had
forgotten he had a heart. "They've set a trap for you if you go in
there. Plenty of time to fire against that and save the house, if we
have to. Wait till they make a move."
There was no long wait. Bell Holderness had come across with his forty
killers. He didn't know yet that his retreat had been cut off by the
high water. In his desperation he had but one thought. He was going to
get Randy and old Railroad Ross.
When no one came from the ranch to fight the fire, he pushed on at
the head of thirty of his men, intent on cleaning up the Railroad and
burning the house. All he wanted was the land. The burned house would
cover his crime. As they came out on the prairie, Randy whirled his
horse and Dolly whirled with him.
"Come on, boys!" called Railroad. "They're ridin' straight into hell!"
and dashed for the fray.
The battle was fought in the open this time. The hired killers had
to fight or run. The Railroad riders had scores to settle and needed
no urging. Four of them went from their saddle at the first crash of
battle, but they were being terribly avenged. A dozen riderless horses
of the invaders dashed across the prairie.
Bell's forces broke and scattered. He, with French Clauson, had been in
the lead. Bullets had fairly rained around them, but they escaped. At
last, seeing the battle lost, they turned and started for the bottom
of the bottle, with their pursuers almost on them, for Randy and Dolly
were riding with bloody spurs to overtake them.
The horse pasture was no longer burning. Instead, Bell and Clauson
splashed through water almost to their saddle girths. They knew what
had happened, and that retreat was cut off, but they didn't dare try to
go back the other way now.
Bell knew some of his gang had gone the other way. He didn't know how
many, but he cursed himself for not following them. His only hope was
that his pursuers would founder in that quarter-mile morass that he had
just passed.
* * * * *
They didn't founder, but came doggedly on, though the water all but
swam their horses the last few paces, and a strong current was setting
across the bend.
"Now," said Randy, as they gained the plateau and their horses shook
the water from their coats, "we'll have it out. Remember, you promised
to let me have Bell. Let's go!"
Began then a battle to the death on that narrow plateau, which was now
an island and gradually growing smaller.
Old Railroad and half a dozen of his men who had not been hurt in the
battle came thundering down to the edge of the water, and stopped.
They could see by the trees which they knew that they'd have to swim
to reach the island. Across that strip of muddy water they could see
the four men on the island. They watched, spellbound, as if they were
looking at a play.
They heard the roar of shots, saw the island grow smaller and smaller,
as the water rose around. They saw Randy's horse go down. Saw Randy
rise on his elbow and fire at Bell, who was charging down on him. Saw
Bell's horse fall, and saw him retreat to the other side of the little
island, as Randy regained his feet and limped after him. A few yards
away Dolly and Clauson met and shot it out. Both horses and both men
went down.
Clauson lay still. Dolly struggled up, took a few steps toward Randy,
and fell.
The final moment had come. With his back to the swirling water that had
entrapped him, Bell made his last stand. He couldn't afford to miss
this time. It was his last cartridge. He fired, but fired a second too
late. Randy's bullet had found his heart, and Bell Holderness slipped
into the swirling flood.
As if enraged at the pollution, the water, with a mighty surge, swept
over the island, washing onto Dolly, who lay on the ground. Randy
splashed to where the little puncher lay, and caught him up.
"Hit bad, Dolly?" he panted.
"No. Just in the leg, but we're going to get wet. I can't make it, but
you got a chance. Swim for the tree."
"I won't leave you," declared Randy, splashing waist-deep toward the
old grapevine.
Watching from the other side, Railroad and his men saw him gain the
vine and push Dolly to safety, then, with the water already at his
shoulders, pull himself up, and help Dolly to the highest point.
"Good God! Can't we do anything?" cried Railroad. "It'll go over 'em in
a few minutes!"
"These little broncs couldn't swim it," said old Con, and the others
knew it was true.
"I'd give everything I got for one big horse," declared Railroad, in a
frenzy of anxiety.
"There's a chance for a trade," growled Con, as a powerful yellow
horse came storming through the bottom toward them. It was old Judge
Tarleton's big claybank saddle horse, and Zella was bestride him. It
was a vicious brute of Arabian strain, deep-chested, and powerful of
limb.
"Where's Randy?" she cried, as the horse skidded to a stop.
For answer they pointed to the grapevine and the two men clinging to
the top of it.
"Let one of the boys have your horse," pleaded Railroad.
If she heard him, she didn't heed. In went her spurs. Open-mouthed, the
great beast reared, lunged, and went out of sight in the water until
only Zella's head and shoulders could be seen. He rose and headed out
into that swirling sea.
[Illustration: _The stallion rose and headed out into that swirling
sea._]
Railroad Ross watched with his heart in his mouth, and choked, as he
cried: "What a woman!"
* * * * *
They cheered as the great horse drifted against the up river side of
the grapevine and stopped, but they couldn't hear what was being said,
out there on that hopeless, swaying island, that was likely at any
moment to uproot itself and float away.
"Take Dolly to a tree if you can," said Randy, grimly. "It won't make
any difference about me."
"Oh, Randy!" cried Zella. "Please, please come on. There's a chance
yet."
"No! We can't both go, and I won't leave Dolly."
"Go on, Randy, you damn fool!" stormed Dolly. "I don't count. Nobody'll
miss me."
"No! I tell you I won't leave you!"
The big horse could just keep its head out of water and stand on the
ground. Soon it would be swimming where it stood.
"Come on then, Dolly!" called the girl. "I'll take you to a tree and
come back for Randy. Jump!"
Pushed by Randy, Dolly scrambled behind the saddle. At the same
instant, Zella sprang out of it and landed on the grapevine.
"Go on, Dolly," she cried, "and God help you to win through."
"Zella!" Randy cried. "Don't make it any harder for me. Get back in
that saddle."
"Not without you!"
"Then go on. I'll try--"
"You first. Catch a stirrup."
"No. I'll hold to the horse's tail."
"Go ahead."
He dropped into the flood, and ran his fingers into the mass of hair
that floated on the water, just as Zella dropped to the saddle, and set
the horse swimming toward shore. They had won about fifty feet when
the watchers on the shore saw the old grapevine loose its moorings and
float away.
They saw the logs and trash that swept over the spot, as a boom of
drift gave way somewhere above it, but in tense silence, they watched
the yellow head of that matchless horse, as he battled on with his
double load. They saw the two heads above the water, as the horse
submerged, all but his head, from time to time. Randy, they couldn't
see, but never in all his life had Randy Ross wanted so much to live.
"God! I can't stand this!" said Sankey, as he threw off his boots,
chaps, and hat. "Tie your ropes to me! I'm going in there."
Half a minute later, old Sankey pushed his mount into the water. No one
there knew that it was not to save Zella and Randy that he breasted the
flood on a small horse. It was to save that little blue-eyed puncher
that he loved like a brother.
The watchers saw him win slowly on into the current, as they paid out
the rope. Almost he had reached the trio, when the yellow horse went
down. It came up, and went down again, came up, and fought feebly on.
"Don't let 'em tangle in the rope!" roared Railroad.
Sankey quit his spent pony, and with the rope in his teeth, battled for
the bobbing yellow head. He gained it, and both he and the head went
under, it seemed like for ages. Then Sankey floated clear and raised a
hand. Railroad had hold of the rope, the yellow head was barely above
the water. He felt a tug at the rope, as the gallant horse, spent to
the last ounce of its strength, floated with the current.
"He made the rope fast to the bridle!" yelled Railroad. "Pull! Oh, damn
you, pull!"
"Gimme the end of it," said old Con, and taking a half hitch on his
saddle horn, set his horse to pulling.
A few minutes later, up to their armpits in the red water, Railroad
and his men bore the rescued three to dry land. The great yellow horse
scrambled out, stood for a moment quivering, and fell in his tracks,
just as old Sankey gained the shore a hundred yards below them.
* * * * *
It was late in the afternoon of the same day. The big yellow horse had
revived, and had been taken to the Railroad pens, where he stood, gaunt
and drawn, eating a light feed.
"He'll pull through now," opined Con, whose knowledge of horses was
unquestioned.
"I hope he does," said Railroad. "He's worth about a million."
* * * * *
On the gallery of the old ranch house, where they had been together
since they had reached the house and changed to dry clothing, sat Randy
and Zella. Neither of them had spoken for a long time.
"How did you ever happen to be in the bend, and riding that horse?"
asked Randy.
"Why, I--Some people don't believe it, but when a woman loves a man
as I have loved you, she knows when he is in danger. Lav and Cliff
went away this morning, to hunt for Bell, they said. Pompey went off
somewhere, and there was no one about the place. I got the feeling that
you were in danger. It grew into a fear that Bell would talk Lav and
Cliff into coming here to kill you. I decided to come and warn you.
When I got to the barn there was no horse except father's big saddle
horse, that no one but himself ever tried to handle. I don't know how I
managed to put saddle and bridle on it, for it bit at me, and snorted
terribly. I fought it, and mounted it, then I came like the wind over
the prairie road.
"As I came into the bottom, I met two men who seemed to be flying for
their lives. They checked, and one of them called: 'Don't go in there,
lady. Hell's raging down there,' and they went storming on. If it was
hell, and you were there, it was where I wanted to be, so I came on,
and--you know the rest."
"Yes, I know the rest, Zella, up to now; and I'll do my best to make
the rest more happy for you from now on. I'll never give you up again,"
and he took her in his arms.
* * * * *
Out at the bunkshack, little Dolly was lying on a bunk, the doctor
having dressed his wounds, along with those of several punchers who had
been hurt in that first mad charge.
"What became of Turk and Bud?" he asked.
"Old man turned 'em loose," replied Sankey, who sat beside him. "Said
Zella had proved what he wanted to prove by them, and that was that
Zella and Randy would marry."
"Fine! Bully! I told you Randy was a thoroughbred, and all he needed
was a little bustin'!"
"Yes," drawled Sankey, "but it took a woman to bust him. Lay down there
and behave yourself. Randy has got him a side-partner now, and I'll
need you as soon as you're able to ride."
"Workin' on the Railroad, workin' life away,
Workin' on the Railroad, for mighty little pay!"
"Shut up, Dolly, you make my head ache, and besides that you'll burst
something, and start bleeding again."
THE END.