THE LAST WARNING
Thrown down by a sounding-board of inky clouds, the alarm shots at
Brannon, the shouting, the reports of the Gatlings, and the
trumpet-calls fell sharp and clear upon the shack. Dallas, watching into
the blackness from her bench by the door, was up and armed on the
instant, and leaning far over the sill, as if to see the better through
the dark. Soon she made out something--a glimmer--that, in the
beginning, was redder than the flare of the lightning, fainter, and more
fixed; but which, growing as the din grew, swiftly deepened in colour,
spread wide, and rose, throwing into relief the intervening grove of
cottonwoods, and the form of a man who was racing riverward from the
swale. He disappeared, swelling the distant clamour with a cry--a dread
cry she had never heard before--of "Fire!"
She shut the door behind her and waited a moment. She was no longer
merely watchful. She was uncertain and troubled.
Presently she went in and bent over Marylyn, touching her gently, and
speaking low to save her a fright. "Honey, dear, honey. Hop up and see
what's happ'ning at the Fort."
The younger girl scrambled to her feet, putting out nervous hands to her
sister. Dallas quieted her. And they stood together in the door.
And, now, across the Missouri, the guns and trumpets suddenly stilled,
and the shouting lessened. While the glow rapidly thickened into a
roaring press of flame, before which darted the troopers, like flies in
the light of a lamp.
"My! my!" whispered Marylyn, her voice quavering with sorrow and awe.
She found her clothes and, keeping in line with the door, began to
dress.
"Looks pretty bad," said Dallas, soberly. The silencing of the guns
augured well, however; and she added thankfully, "It could be a lot
worse, though."
"I'll put on my shoes, and we can go down a ways, so's to see close.
Shall I, Dal----"
"Sh!" Dallas was leaning out again, her head lowered as if to listen.
All at once she turned and, kneeling, felt about on the floor for her
cartridge-belt. "Yes, yes," she answered; "put 'em on--quick!"
"Are we going down to watch?"
"No."
The barracks and the stables were high, cherry-hued pyres, terrible
enough to the eye, with their tops crooking northward in the wind. To
Dallas' ear, they were far more terrible, telling of awful
suffering--hinting of direful intent. For the nearer pyre sent proof of
a sacrifice. She could hear the screams of a horse.
The belt found, she stepped back to the door. "Hurry, hurry," she said.
The old iron resolve never to desert the shack was fusing in the heat of
a panic. Her unfailing instinct was hardening a new one, that ruled for
immediate flight.
Marylyn was working with her shoe-thongs, not stopping to thread them,
only to wind and tie them around her ankles. She heard her sister
exclaim. Then she was seized and brought forward by a trembling hand.
"Marylyn! Marylyn! The boat! She's going!"
They looked, and saw a black-funnelled bulk floating across the watery
strip mantled by the blaze.
"Maybe they thought it'd burn," suggested Marylyn. "See, there's sparks
flying that way."
Dallas leaned back against the door. "I guess--that's it," she said
slowly. Then after a moment, "But why didn't they bring her straight
across? There's no place to tie up downstream."
"Why, there's fire breaking out all over now," cried the younger girl,
forgetting to be afraid in her wonder and excitement. "See! One of the
little houses is caught!"
It was the first cabin of Clothes-Pin Row. Two or three men were near
it. At that distance they seemed gaily posturing to each other in a
dance.
"If anything _is_ wrong," Dallas said, "Mr. Lounsbury'll come back."
"Mr. Lounsbury!" repeated Marylyn. "Was he here?"
"On this side, by the grove. I saw him start for the Fort."
And so their going was delayed.
Nevertheless, Dallas' sense of coming danger was acute; and when, before
long, she heard the trumpet again, and saw the troopers fall away from
the pyres, leaving the flames to their work, she lit the lantern and
held it to where were stored her treasures--a lock of her mother's hair,
her father's pipe, the letter she had received from Lounsbury.
"You take the cartridge-belt," she called to Marylyn.
The other obeyed.
"Ready?" said Dallas, and lifted the lantern to shake it.
She got no reply. Instead, gasping in alarm, Marylyn came headlong to
her, pinioning her arms with wildly clinging ones. "Dallas! oh,
help----"
Outside there was a sound of rapid running. Dallas flung herself against
the door, driving it shut. A second, and a weight was hurled against the
outer battens. Then came four raps.
"Don't open! don't!" cried Marylyn. "Maybe it ain't Charley!"
But Dallas, undoubting, swung the door back, and into the room leaped a
stooping figure.
It _was_ The Squaw.
He crouched, and moved his head from side to side, as if expecting a
blow or a bullet from behind. His right hand held a bow; his left, a
bundle of arrows. With these he beckoned violently, shaking the water
from his tattered clothes and pointing over his shoulder to the west.
"We're coming, Charley. Dearie, stand up. Now, _now_!" Marylyn was
dragged to her feet. The light was quenched. The outcast faced about.
And the three headed for the river, with The Squaw leading at a trot.
As they crossed the plowed land rimming the yard, sleepy birds fluttered
up in front of them with startled cheeps and a whistle of wings. They
swerved to find the shack road, along which the way was freer and more
quiet, and the pace easy. Charley glanced back now and then to see if
they were close; or, halted them, when they listened, holding their
breath.
They paused for the last time near the river end of the corn, and close
to the coulee crossing. From there Dallas saw that the pyres were lower,
and that other buildings of the Row were ablaze; the roof of a scout
hut, too; and the prairie, over which travelled widening crescents of
gold. But the fire was the only thing that was moving. For not a single
man was in sight.
Charley was not watching toward Brannon, only along the nearer bank, to
the south.
Of a sudden, as their eyes followed his, a gun-shot rang out from the
cottonwood grove.
"Mr. Lounsbury!" cried Dallas, starting forward.
"No--he's gone----"
That moment they saw between them and the landing the silhouette of a
figure.
It was not Lounsbury's; it was too short and thick-set for his.
Moreover, it seemed to be casting aside clothes as it ran.
Like one, The Squaw and Marylyn bolted for the coulee. Dallas
hesitated--then followed. Near the brink, they missed the steep road,
and went slipping, sliding, and rolling down the sumach-grown side. Then
they struck the bristling bottom--righted--turned their feet up it--and
fled.