The dusk Hetty had anxiously waited for was creeping across the prairie
when she and Miss Schuyler pulled up their horses in the gloom of the
birches where the trail wound down through the Cedar bluff. The weather
had grown milder and great clouds rolled across the strip of sky between
the branches overhead, while the narrow track amidst the whitened trunks
was covered with loose snow. There was no frost, and Miss Schuyler felt
unpleasantly clammy as she patted her horse, which moved restively now and
then, and shook off the melting snow that dripped upon her; but Hetty
seemed to notice nothing. She sat motionless in her saddle with the
moisture glistening on her furs, and the thin white steam from the
spume-flecked beast floating about her, staring up the trail, and when she
turned and glanced over her shoulder her face showed white and drawn.
"He must be coming soon," she said, and Miss Schuyler noticed the strained
evenness of her voice. "Yes, of course he's coming. It would be too
horrible if we could not find him."
"Jake Cheyne and his cavalry boys would save the bridge," said Flora
Schuyler, with a hopefulness she did not feel.
Hetty leaned forward and held up her hand, as though to demand silence
that she might listen, before she answered her.
"There are some desperate men among the homestead-boys, and if they found
out they had been given away they would cut the track in another place,"
she said. "If they didn't and Cheyne surprised them, they would fire on
his troopers and Larry would be blamed for it. He would be chased
everywhere with a price on his head, and anyone he wouldn't surrender to
could shoot him. Flo, it is too hard to bear, and I'm afraid."
Her voice failed her, and Miss Schuyler, who could find no words to
reassure her, was thankful that her attention was demanded by her restive
horse. The strain was telling on her, too, and, with less at stake than
her companion, she was consumed by a longing to defeat the schemes of the
cattle-men, who had, it seemed to her with detestable cunning, decided not
to warn the station agent, and let the great train go, that they might
heap the more obloquy upon their enemies. The risk the engineer and
brakesmen ran was apparently nothing to them, and she felt, as Hetty did,
that Larry was the one man who could be depended on to avert bloodshed.
Yet there was still no sign of him.
"If he would only come!" she said.
There was no answer. Loose snow fell with a soft thud from the birch
branches, and there was a little sighing amidst the trees. It was rapidly
growing darker, but Hetty sat rigidly still in her saddle, with her hand
clenched on the bridle. Five long minutes passed. Then, she turned
suddenly, exultation in her voice.
"Flo," she said, "he's coming!"
Miss Schuyler could hear nothing for another minute or two, and then, when
a faint sound became audible through the whispering of the trees, she
wondered how her companion could be sure it was the fall of hoofs, or that
the horse was not ridden by a stranger. But there was no doubt in Hetty's
face, and Flora Schuyler sighed as she saw it relax and a softness creep
into the dark eyes. She had seen that look in the faces of other women and
knew its meaning.
The beat of hoofs became unmistakable, and she could doubt no longer that
a man was riding down the trail. He came into sight in another minute, a
shadowy figure swinging to the stride of a big horse, with the line of a
rifle-barrel across his saddle, and then, as he saw them, rode up at a
gallop, scattering the snow.
"Hetty!" he said, a swift flush of pleasure sweeping his face, and Miss
Schuyler set her lips as she noticed that he did not even see her.
Hetty gathered up her bridle, and wheeled her horse. "Ride into the
bluff--quick," she said. "Somebody might see us in the trail."
Larry did as he was bidden, and when the gloom of the trees closed about
them, sprang down and looped his bridle round a branch. Then, he stood by
Hetty's stirrup, and the girl could see his face, white in the faint light
the snow flung up. She turned her own away when she had looked down on
it.
"I have had an anxious day, but this makes up for everything," he said.
"Now--and it is so long since I have seen you--can't we, for just a few
minutes, forget our troubles?"
He held out his hand, as though to lift her down, but the girl turned her
eyes on him and what he saw in them checked him suddenly.
"No," she said, with a tremor in her voice, "we can't get away from them.
You must not ask any question until you have heard everything!"
She spoke with a swift conciseness that omitted no point and made the
story plain, for there was a high spirit in the girl, and a tangible peril
that could be grappled with had a bracing effect on her. Grant's face grew
intent as he listened, and Hetty, looking down, could see the firmer set
of his lips, and the glint in his eyes. The weariness faded out of it, and
once more she recognized the alert, resourceful, and quietly resolute
Larry she had known before the troubles came. He turned swiftly and
clasped her hand.
"I wonder if you know how much you have done for me?"
Hetty smiled and allowed her fingers to remain in his grasp. "Then, you
have heard nothing of this?" she said.
"No," said the man. "But Hetty----"
Again the girl checked him with a gesture. "And I need not ask you whether
you would have had a hand in it?"
Grant laughed a little scornful laugh that was more eloquent than many
protestations. "No," he said, "you needn't. I think you know me better
than that, Hetty?"
"Yes," said the girl softly. "You couldn't have had anything to do with
that kind of meanness. Larry, how was it they did not tell you?"
She felt the grasp of the man's fingers slacken and saw his arm fall to
his side. His face changed suddenly, growing stern and set, until he
turned his head away. When he looked round again the weariness was once
more plain in it, and she almost fancied he had checked a groan.
"You have brought me back to myself," he said. "Only a few seconds ago I
could think of nothing but what you had done for me. I think I was almost
as happy as a man could be, and now----"