A RIDE TO SANCTUARY.
The Texan had only a confused idea of the events that followed
immediately after he had been shot. He knew that the wound was
serious, for the impact of the bullet had fairly staggered him. Yet
he managed to find his feet steadily enough, and the young woman, who
ran toward him, had no idea that he was hurt.
To Bertram it seemed as if the girl floated toward him on a billowing
sea of ether, instead of running swiftly, as she did, across the
sparse verdure of the clearing. Also, in the young Texan’s eyes, she
seemed more lovely and more unattainable than before. He had caught
only fleeting glimpses of her during their previous meetings, and one
of those meetings had been under a very poor brand of artificial
light. But now, in the bright Wyoming day, he caught the full beauty
of her youthful color, the regularity of her features and her grace of
movement. Her lithe figure was outlined in all its charm against the
green of the thicket from which she had sprung. She had dropped her
hat and tossed aside her riding gauntlets, and her spurs jingled at
the heels of her small riding boots, as she ran.
“By all the gods!” thought the wounded and dazed Bertram, “this
country up here was made as a background for her.”
Horror and questioning were written on the girl’s features, as she
reached Caldwell’s side and flung herself on her knees beside the
body. One glance told her what had happened, and she buried her face
in her hands.
Meantime Bertram’s wavering attention had been attracted by another
figure, following closely behind the girl. It was the figure of a
youth, hardly taller than Alma Caldwell and nearly as slender. Yet,
for all the newcomer’s youthfulness and slenderness, there was
something so threatening in his attitude, as he approached more slowly
than had the girl, that Bertram half raised his revolver. The boy, who
was carrying a rifle, hesitated a moment, as if to bring the weapon to
his shoulder.
“Stop!” said the girl, looking up. “Jimmy Coyle, put down that gun.
You had no business to fire in the first place, without my telling
you.”
“So that’s the person who shot at me, is it?” asked Bertram, lowering
his weapon and turning toward the girl. “I’m glad you’ve stopped him
from doing it any more, as it seems to me there’s been quite enough
shooting around here to-day.”
The spreading crimson stain on the young Texan’s shirt front caught
the girl’s eye. With an exclamation of concern she rose to her feet.
“It’s nothing worth bothering about,” the Texan said. “You’ve got
sorrow enough on your hands, for I take it this man must have been
your father. I just want to tell you that I don’t--I don’t----”
Bertram intended to say that he did not take her advice about quitting
the expedition in Denver, and he had therefore been compelled to do so
when it was a matter of more personal difficulty, but the words
refused to shape themselves. The young Texan wiped the cold beads of
agony from his forehead. His words came haltingly, and he swayed and
fell in a faint beside the body of the man whom Swingley had dubbed
the “king of the rustlers.”
The touch of cool water on his forehead revived the young Texan. He
was lying on his back, with bis head comfortably pillowed on a
rolled-up blanket. He was in the shade, and the branches of a tree
waved between him and the sky. Then he found himself looking into the
face of Alma Caldwell. He thought it was much pleasanter than looking
at the sky or at trees, and he did not even blink for fear the vision
would vanish.
The girl smiled at him faintly and said: “Your shoulder--how does it
feel? Do you think you can ride?”
Bertram felt of his shoulder. To his surprise it was neatly bandaged,
and the stained part of his shirt had been cut away. The numb
sensation was gone from his side. He sat up.
“I’ll be all right in a minute,” he said. Then he saw that he was down
by the spring, where the first man at the cabin had started to go when
the work of assassination began.
“How did you get me down here by the spring?” asked the Texan.
“Jimmy carried you down,” replied the girl. “He’s strong. Of course I
had to help him a little.”
The events of the morning rushed into the Texan’s memory. Again he
saw the beleaguered cabin, heard the firing, saw the slain men. “Your
father?” he asked. “What’s become of his body? I must help you with
it. And the other man who was killed?”
“There’s nothing to do. After we brought you down here and fixed up
your shoulder, some men came--men we knew. They took Nate and my
stepfather--for the man you saw killed wasn’t my father, as you
thought--and have arranged for their burial.”
“Why didn’t the men find me?”
“None of them came down here, and we didn’t tell them there was any
one at the spring. They were in a hurry to get on the trail of the
invaders. Other men will be coming from every direction. The whole
countryside is being aroused. The ranchmen are furious, and there will
be more fighting. Oh, why couldn’t I have arrived in time!”
“How could you have stopped it?” asked the Texan.
“Easily enough. I could have had such an army of men at the railroad
that the invaders never would have come this way. I was visiting near
the station, where I first met you. It was my stepfather’s old home. I
received a hint of the invasion when it was being planned. Finally, a
day or two before the invaders started, I learned the whole truth--that
Swingley was raising a body of freebooters under the guise of
punishing rustlers. I wrote, and then I telegraphed. Then I thought
that probably neither my letters nor my telegrams would be delivered.
I determined to come in person, and I expected to arrive ahead of
Swingley’s train, if it were possible.
But every effort was made to stop me. I was robbed of my
transportation, as you know, and I would not have reached Denver if
you had not helped me.”
“They didn’t bother you after you left Denver, did they?” asked the
Texan.
“I was called from the train at a little station, not far from the
end of the line. The station agent said he had a telegram for me.
Then he said he could not find it--that he must have been mistaken.
Meantime the train would have gone on without me, if I had not been
watching for such a move. I frightened the conductor by telling him
that I knew there was a plot to get me off the train. He did not dare
try any more such tricks, and I reached the terminus. The telegraph
agent there did not know about any of my telegrams. The place was full
of strange men, and I saw the wagons there, ready for the use of the
invaders. I tried to get a horse, but the town was practically under
martial law, with one of Swingley’s lieutenants in command.
“I could get nothing in the way of a conveyance. I went to the hotel,
where I had put my hand baggage, and I changed to my riding dress,
thinking that I would be ready when the opportunity came. I heard the
invaders’ train, as it came in, and then the horse train. I saw the
preparations for the start. I knew they were setting out to kill
relatives and friends of mine. I thought I would go out to plead with
Swingley to give up the expedition, but I was stopped at the foot of
the stairs and given to understand that I was a prisoner in the hotel.
Nobody offered to molest me. I saw the men start out--you with them.
When they had gone some time the hotel proprietor brought in Jimmy, my
cousin, who had been concealed in the barn. He found horses for us,
and we followed the trail of the invaders. Evidently Swingley did not
care to detain me further, after he and his men were on their way.”
“He didn’t think he would be held up here at this cabin so long,”
observed Bertram.
“My stepfather made a great fight,” said the girl, her eyes glowing
with pride. “There was not a better shot in the State than Nick
Caldwell.”
“He was a brave man, too,” said Bertram, “brave and cool. In fact, he
was the gamest man I ever heard of. Did you find the diary that was in
his belt? I glanced through it, just before you came. Any man who
could write that under fire has my admiration.”
“Yes,” responded the girl, “and it shows that they would never have
beaten him if they had not used unfair means. Whoever made that
go-devil was the means of killing my stepfather. I’ll find out who it
was, and that man shall pay and pay!”
The girl’s eyes flashed, and her hands clenched. Bertram did not tell
her that he had been called upon to fashion the go-devil in the first
place, and that he had destroyed it, only to have it refashioned by
some one else. Nor did he say anything about the letters which he had
found on Caldwell’s body, which indicated that the “king of the
rustlers” was identified with both sides in the range war. Those
letters, the Texan made sure, were still in his pocket, undisturbed.
He did not want to destroy the girl’s faith in her stepfather, after
her heroic efforts to save him.
The conversation was interrupted by the youthful Jimmy Coyle, who,
with his rifle still clutched in his right hand, came scrambling into
the hollow from the clearing, his flapping leather chaparajos looking
absurdly wide for his slim and boyish figure.
“We’ve gotta git outa here,” remarked Jimmy, without preliminary words
of any sort. “You can’t tell what side’s goin’ to stray in here next.
The invaders might even be comin’ back.”
“You’re right, son,” replied the Texan, getting to his feet. “It’s
dangerous for you to be here with me. If you’ll just bring my horse
down here where I can get him, I’ll be obliged. Then you folks had
better be riding on.”
“You’re going with us,” replied Alma.
“Where?” asked Bertram. “There’s no place in this part of the country
where they won’t hang my hide on the barn door, after the thing that’s
happened right here.”
“Yes, there is. We’re not all savages here. I don’t dare take you back
to the home ranch, up Powderhorn River, but Jimmy and I have a hiding
place all arranged for you, where it won’t be necessary to explain
things to folks.”
“Yes, I reckon most people here will be inclined to shoot first and
listen to explanations afterward,” said Bertram. “But you can’t afford
to put yourself in a questionable light by sheltering one of
Swingley’s rustlers. I can’t hide the fact that I’m a Texan.”
“Nobody wants you to,” answered the girl with a smile. “Jimmy will
have the horses at the edge of the draw in a moment, and we’ll start
on a nice quiet trail back into the hills, where we won’t meet a
soul.”
“But--but I haven’t any claim on you,” stammered Bertram.
“Oh, yes you have--two claims. Didn’t you help me on my way, once when
I started home, and once in Denver?”
“But those things didn’t amount to anything. And you know I came in
here with this invading crowd that killed your stepfather. How do you
know that I didn’t have a hand in shooting him?”
“Those things can be straightened out later. Right now you’re badly
hurt, and the one thing is to get you cared for.”
“That’s putting it impersonally enough,” ventured Bertram.
“Why should I put it otherwise? I wouldn’t leave even a known enemy
under such circumstances, and I don’t know that you are an enemy--not
yet.”
The young Texan smiled quizzically. “Since you put it on that basis,”
he replied, “I’ll accept your offer. I admit that I’m too wabbly to
put up much of an argument with any man who might stop me, orally or
with a gun.”
Just how “wabbly” Bertram was, he did not comprehend until he had
climbed to the top of the draw, where Jimmy had brought the horses.
Even though Jimmy assisted him on one side and Alma on the other, he
had difficulty in negotiating the steep trail. But he managed to get
into the saddle without aid.
“It’s queer how just the grip of a saddle horn puts life in you,” he
remarked, as they started out of the clearing, with backward glances
at the still smoking cabin. “That’s a right smart gun you’re carrying,
Jimmy. I never got a worse knock in my life.”
“It’s only a .38,” said Jimmy modestly, though a flush of pride
overspread his freckled features at this tribute to his weapon and his
marksmanship. “It’s jest drilled a little hole in you, as far as we
could see when we was bandagin’ you up. Purty quick I’m goin’ to git a
.45. If I’d have been packin’ the gun I want, it would have torn your
whole shoulder off.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re still sticking to small horses,” replied the
Texan genially. “You and I are going to be on a permanent peace
footing before you get that .45. I reckon I’ll take no further chances
with you.”
Jimmy’s reserve and suspicion had melted away before they had more
than caught a last glimpse of the cabin smoke through the trees on the
foothills. He chatted with the Texan, who did not indicate, by word or
facial expression, how much pain the journey was causing him, even
though the horses went no faster than a walk.
To Bertram’s disappointment Alma Caldwell rode ahead, apparently with
a view of being the first to meet any travelers on the trail. But the
little procession continued on its way for two hours or more without
meeting any one.
“It’s lucky we didn’t go by the main road,” said Jimmy, “or we’d have
been stopped every mile or so. I’ll bet every man in the county is in
the saddle now. But leave it to Alma to find a way out of a
difficulty. She’s a wonder, but”--here Jimmy’s voice sank to a
confidential murmur--“I’m goin’ to skip off and help fight these
invaders, as soon as we git you took care of at Uncle Billy’s.”
“Who is Uncle Billy?”
“Oh, he belongs to the Coyle side of the family--the side that I’m
from. Only he ain’t a fightin’ man like the rest of the Coyles and all
the Caldwells. He jest believes in lettin’ everybody do what they
want--and the animals, too. He’s queer, but everybody likes him, and
you’ll be safe there because nobody bothers Uncle Billy. There’s his
place now.”
The Texan, who was wondering how many rods farther he could ride
without falling from the saddle, looked ahead, past the slim figure of
Alma Caldwell, and saw a tiny cabin nestled in an opening in the pine
forest. In the doorway stood a tall, white-bearded man, watching from
beneath a shading hand.