Hetty's sleigh was sliding, a dim moving shadow, round a bend in the rise
when Breckenridge touched his comrade, who stood gazing silently across
the prairie.
"It's abominably cold, Larry," he said, with a shiver. "Hadn't we better
get on?"
Grant said nothing as he took his place on the driving-seat, and the team
had plodded slowly along the trail for at least five minutes before he
spoke.
"You heard what Miss Torrance told me?" he said.
"Yes," Breckenridge said. "I notice, however, we are still heading for the
bridge. Can't you cross the ice, Larry?"
"If I wanted to I fancy I could."
"Then why don't you?"
Grant laughed. "Well," he said, "there's only one trail through the bluff,
and it's not the kind I'm fond of driving over in the dark."
Breckenridge twisted in his seat, and looked at him. "Pshaw!" he said. "It
would be a good deal less risky than meeting the Sheriff at the bridge.
You are not going to do anything senseless, Larry?"
"No; only what seems necessary."
Breckenridge considered. "Now," he said slowly, "I can guess what you're
thinking, and, of course, it's commendable; but one has to be reasonable.
Is there anything that could excite the least suspicion that Miss Torrance
warned you?"
"There are two or three little facts that only need putting together."
"Still, if we called at Muller's and drove home by the other trail it
wouldn't astonish anybody."
"It would appear a little too much of a coincidence in connection with the
fact that Miss Torrance and I were known to be good friends, and the time
she left Cedar. As the cattle-men have evidently found out, I have crossed
the bridge at about the same time every Wednesday; and two of the cow-boys
saw us near Harper's."
"Larry," said Breckenridge, "if you were merely one of the rest your
intentions would no doubt become you, but the point is that every
homesteader round here is dependent on you. If you went down, the
opposition to the cattle-men would collapse, or there would be general
anarchy, and that is precisely why Torrance and the Sheriff are anxious to
get their hands on you. Now, doesn't it strike you that it's your plain
duty to keep clear of any unnecessary peril?"
Grant shook his head. "No," he said. "It seems to me that argument has
quite frequently accounted for a good deal of meanness. It is tolerably
presumptuous for any man to consider himself indispensable."
"Well," said Breckenridge, divided between anger and approval, "I have
found out already that it's seldom any use trying to convince you, but
each time you made this round I've driven with you, and it's quite obvious
that if one of us crossed the bridge it would suit the purpose. Now, I
don't think the Sheriff could rake up very much against me."
Grant laid his hand on the lad's shoulder. "I'm going to cross the bridge,
but I don't purpose that either of us should fall into the Sheriff's
clutches," he said. "You saw what Jardine's glass had gone down to?"
Breckenridge nodded. "It dropped like that before the last blizzard we
had."
Grant turned and looked about him, and Breckenridge shivered as he
followed his gaze. They had driven out from behind the rise now and a
bitter wind met them in the face. There was not very much of it as yet,
but all feeling seemed to die out of the lad's cheeks under it, and it
brought a little doleful moaning out of the darkness. Behind them stars
shone frostily in the soft indigo, but elsewhere a deepening obscurity was
creeping up across the prairie, and sky and snow were blurred and merged
one into the other.
"There's one meaning to that," said Grant. "We'll have snow in an hour or
two, and when it comes it's going to be difficult to see anything. In the
meanwhile, we'll drive round by Busby's and get our supper while the
cow-boys cool. The man who hangs around a couple of hours doing nothing in
a frost of this kind is not to be relied upon when he's wanted in a
hurry."
He flicked the horses, and in half an hour the pair were sitting in a
lonely log-house beside a glowing stove while its owner prepared a meal.
Two other men with bronzed faces sat close by, and Breckenridge fancied he
had never seen his comrade so cheerful. His cares seemed to have fallen
from him, his laugh had a pleasant ring, and there was something in his
eyes which had not been there for many weary months. Breckenridge wondered
whether it could be due to anything Miss Torrance had said to him, but
kept his thoughts to himself, for that was a subject upon which one could
not ask questions.
In the meanwhile, Clavering and the Sheriff found the time pass much less
pleasantly--on the bluff. The wind that whistled through it grew colder as
one by one the stars faded out, and there was a mournful wailing amidst
the trees. Now and then, a shower of twigs came rattling down from
branches dried to brittleness by the frost, and the Sheriff brushed them
off disgustedly, as, huddling lower in the sleigh from which the horses
had been taken out, he packed the robes round him. He had lived softly,
and it would have suited him considerably better to have spent that bitter
evening in the warmth and security of Clavering's ranch.
"No sign of him yet?" he said, when Christopher Allonby and Clavering came
up together. "Larry will stay at home to-night. He has considerably more
sense than we seem to have."
"I have seen nothing," said Allonby, who, in the hope of restoring his
circulation, had walked up the trail. "Still, the night is getting
thicker, and nobody could make a sleigh out until it drove right up to
him."
"If Larry did come, you could hear him," said the Sheriff.
Allonby lifted his hand, and, as if to supply the answer, with a great
thrashing of frost-nipped twigs the birches roared about them. The blast
that lashed them also hurled the icy dust of snow into the Sheriff's
face.
"I don't know," said the lad. "Nobody could hear very much through that."
"Ugh!" said the Sheriff. "We will have a blizzard on us before long, and
Government pay doesn't warrant one taking chances of that kind. Aren't we
playing a fool's game, Clavering?"
Clavering laughed somewhat unpleasantly. "There are other emoluments
attached to your office which should cover a little inconvenience," he
said. "Now, I fancy I know Larry Grant better than the rest of you, and it
would take quite a large-sized blizzard to keep him at home when he had
anything to do. Once you put him out of the way it will make things a good
deal more pleasant for everybody. Larry is the one man with any brains the
homesteaders have in this part of the country, and while they would make
no show without him, we can expect nothing but trouble while he's at
liberty. It seems to me that warrants our putting up with a little
unpleasantness."
"Quite improving!" said Allonby, who was not in the best of temper just
then. "One could almost wonder if you had any personal grudge against the
man, Clavering. You are so astonishingly disinterested when you talk of
him. Now, if I didn't like a man I'd make an opportunity of telling him."
Clavering laughed. "You're young, Chris, or you wouldn't worry about
folks' motives when their efforts suit you. What are the men doing?"
"Freezing, and grumbling!" said Allonby. "They've made up their minds to
get Larry this time or we wouldn't have kept them here. It's the horses
I'm anxious about. They seem to know what is coming, and they're going to
give us trouble."
"A fool's game!" repeated the Sheriff, with a shiver. "Got any of those
cigars with you, Clavering? If I'm to stay here, I have to smoke."
Clavering threw him the case and turned away with Allonby. They went down
through the bluff together and stood a few moments looking up the trail.
It led downwards towards them, a streak of faintly shining whiteness,
through the gloom of the trees, and the wind that set the branches
thrashing whirled powdery snow into their faces, though whether this came
down from the heavens or was uplifted from the frozen soil they did not
know. With eyes dimmed and tingling cheeks, they moved back again amidst
the birches; but even there it was bitterly cold, and Allonby was glad to
turn his face from the wind a moment as they stopped to glance at the
tethered horses. They were stamping impatiently, while the man on watch,
who would have patted one of them, sprang backwards when the beast lashed
out at him.
"If Larry doesn't come soon, I guess we're going to find it hard to keep
them here," he said. "They're 'most pulling the branches they're hitched
to off the trees."
Allonby nodded. "Larry would be flattered if he knew the trouble you and I
were taking over him, Clavering," he said. "It's also the first time I've
seen you worry much about this kind of thing."
"What kind of thing?"
"Citizen's duty! I think that's the way you put it?"
Clavering laughed. "If you want to be unpleasant, Chris, can't you try a
different line? That one's played out. It's too cold to quarrel."
"I don't feel pleasant," said Allonby. "In fact, I don't like this thing,
any way. Before Larry got stuck with his notions he was a friend of
mine."
"If the boys don't get too cold to shoot it's quite likely he will be
nobody's friend to-morrow," said Clavering cruelly. "We'll go round and
look at them."
They went back into the trail once more, and the icy gusts struck through
them as they plodded up it; but they found no man keeping watch beside it,
as there should have been. The cow-boys had drawn back for shelter among
the trees, and Clavering, who found them stamping and shivering, had some
difficulty in getting them to their posts again. They had been there two
hours, and the cold was almost insupportable.
"I guess it's no use," said Allonby. "As soon as we have gone on every boy
will be back behind his tree, and I don't know that anybody could blame
them. Any way I'm 'most too cold for talking."
They went back together, and, while the cow-boys, who did as Allonby had
predicted, slowly froze among the trees, rolled themselves in the
sleigh-robes and huddled together. It was blowing strongly now, and a
numbing drowsiness had to be grappled with as the warmth died out of them.
At last when a few feathery flakes came floating down, the Sheriff shook
himself with a sleepy groan.
"There is not a man living who could keep me here more than another
quarter of an hour," he said. "Are the boys on the look-out by the trail,
Allonby?"
"They were," said the lad drowsily. "I don't know if they're there now,
and it isn't likely. Clavering can go and make sure if he likes to, but if
anyone wants me to get up, he will have to lift me."
Neither Clavering nor the Sheriff appeared disposed to move, and it was
evident that both had abandoned all hope of seeing Larry Grant that night.
Ten minutes that seemed interminable passed, and the white flakes that
whirled about them grew thicker between the gusts and came down in a
bewildering rush. The Sheriff shook the furs off him and stood up with a
groan.
"Tell them to bring the horses. I have had quite enough," he said.
Allonby staggered to his feet, and reeled into the wood. There was a
hoarse shouting, and a trampling of hoofs that was drowned in a roar of
wind, and when that slackened a moment a faint cry went up.
"Hallo!" said the Sheriff; "he's coming."
Then, nobody quite remembered what he did. Here and there a man struggled
with a plunging horse in the darkness of the wood, and one or two
blundered into each other and fell against the trunks as they ran on foot.
They were dazed with cold, and the snow, that seemed to cut their cheeks,
was in their eyes.
Allonby, however, saw that Clavering was mounted, and the horse he rode
apparently going round and round with him, while by and by he found
himself in the saddle. He was leaning low over the horse's neck, with one
moccasined foot in the stirrup and the other hanging loose, while the
branches lashed at him, when something dark and shapeless came flying down
the trail.
He heard a hoarse shout and a rifle flashed, but the wind drowned the
sound and before he was in the trail the sleigh, which was what he
supposed the thing to be, had flashed by. One cannot handily fit spurs to
moccasins, and, as his hands were almost useless, it was some time before
he induced the horse, which desired to go home uphill, to take the
opposite direction. Then, he was off at a gallop, with a man whom he
supposed to be Clavering in front of him, and the Sheriff, who seemed to
be shouting instructions, at his side. Allonby did not think that anybody
heard them, but that was of no great moment to him then, for the trail was
narrow and slippery here and there, and he was chiefly concerned with the
necessity of keeping clear of his companion. He could not see the sleigh
now and scarcely fancied that anybody else did, but he could hear the beat
of hoofs in front of him when the wind sank a trifle, and rode on
furiously down-hill at a gallop. The horse had apparently yielded to its
terror of the storm, and Allonby had more than a suspicion that, had he
wanted to, he could neither have turned it nor pulled it up.
Clavering still held in front of him, but the Sheriff was dropping back a
little, and the lad did not know whether any of the rest were following.
He was, however, certain that, barring a fall, a mounted man could
overtake a sleigh, and that the up grade beyond the bridge would tell on
the beasts that dragged a weight behind them. So while the snow whirled
past him and the dim trees flashed by, he urged on the beast until he
heard the bridge rattle under him and felt the pace slacken--the trail had
begun to lead steeply up out of the hollow.
The horse was flagging a little by the time they reached the crest of the
rise, and for a few moments Allonby saw nothing at all. The roar of the
trees deafened him, and the wind drove the snow into his eyes. Then, as he
gasped and shook it from him when the gust had passed, he dimly made out
something that moved amidst the white haze and guessed that it was
Clavering. If that were so, he felt it was more than likely that the
sleigh was close in front of him. A few minutes later he had come up with
the man whose greater weight was telling, and while they rode stirrup to
stirrup and neck by neck, Allonby fancied there was something dim and
shadowy in front of them.
Clavering shouted as he dropped behind, and Allonby who failed to catch
what he said was alone, blinking at the filmy whiteness, through which he
had blurred glimpses of the object ahead, now growing more distinct. He
could also, when the wind allowed it, hear the dull beat of hoofs. How
long it took him to overtake it he could never remember; but at last the
sleigh was very close to him, and he shouted. There was no answer; but
Allonby, who could scarcely hear his own voice, did not consider this
astonishing, and tried again. Still no answer came back, and, coming up
with the sleigh at every stride, he dragged the butt of his sling rifle
round and fumbled at the strap with a numbed and almost useless hand.
He could see the back of the sleigh, but nothing else, and lurching
perilously in the saddle he got the rifle in his hand; but, cold and
stiffened as he was, he dared not loose his grasp on the bridle, and so,
with the butt at his hip, he raced up level with the sleigh. Then, the
horse, perhaps edged off the beaten trail into the snow outside it,
blundered in its stride, and the rifle, that fell as the lad swayed, was
left behind. He had both hands on the bridle the next moment, and leaning
down sideways fancied there was nobody in the sleigh. It took him a second
or two to make quite sure of it, and at least a minute more before he
brought the horse to a standstill in the trail. By that time the sleigh
had swept on into the sliding whiteness. Wheeling his horse, Clavering
rode out of the snow and pulled up in evident astonishment.
"Have you let him get away?" he gasped.
"He wasn't there," said Allonby.
"Not there! I saw him and another man when they drove past us in the
bluff."
"Well," said Allonby, "I'm quite certain there's nobody in that sleigh
now."
The wind that roared about them cut short the colloquy, and a minute or
two later Allonby became sensible that Clavering was speaking again.
"Larry and the other man must have dropped into the soft snow when the
team slowed up on the up grade, knowing the horses would go on until they
reached their stable," he said. "Well, they'll be away through the bluff
now, and a brigade of cavalry would scarcely find them on such a night. In
fact, we will have to trust the beasts to take us home."
Just then the Sheriff, with one or two cow-boys, rode up, and Allonby, who
did not like the man, laughed as he signed him to stop.
"You can go back and get your driving horses in. We have been chasing a
sleigh with no one in it," he said. "Larry has beaten us again!"