of a solitary star, to find a single point in the vastness of the
prairie.
He made the three hours of Billy and the tenderfoot in a little over an
hour, because it was mostly down hill. So the agent had apparently four
hours the start of him, which discrepancy was cut down, however, by the
time consumed in breaking open the strong-box after Billy and the stage
had surely departed beyond gunshot. The exact spot was easily marked by
the body of Buck, the express messenger. Alfred convinced himself that
the man was dead, but did not waste further time on him: the boys would
take care of the remains next day. He remounted and struck out sharp for
the east, though, according to Billy's statement, the agent had turned
north.
"He is alone," said Alfred to himself, "so he ain't in that Black Hank
outfit. Ain't nothin' to take him north, an' if he goes south he has to
hit way down through the South Fork trail, which same takes him two
weeks. Th' greenbacks in that plunder is numbered, and old Wells-Fargo
has th' numbers. He sure has to pike in an' change them bills afore he
is spotted. So he goes to Pierre."
Alfred staked his all on this reasoning and rode blindly eastward.
Fortunately the roll of the country was sufficiently definite to enable
him to keep his general direction well enough until about three o'clock,
when the snow ceased and the stars came out, together with the waning
moon. Twenty minutes later he came to the bed of a stream.
"Up or down?" queried Alfred, thoughtfully. The state of the weather
decided him. It had been blowing all night strongly from the northwest.
Left without guidance a pony tends to edge more or less away from the
wind, in order to turn tail to the weather. Alfred had diligently
counteracted this tendency all night, but he doubted whether, in the
hurry of flight, the fugitive had thought of it. Instead of keeping
directly east toward Pierre, he had probably fallen away more or less
toward the south. "Down," Alfred decided.
He dismounted from his horse and began to lead the animal parallel to
the stream, but about two hundred yards from it, first taking care to
ascertain that a little water flowed in the channel. On discovering that
there did, he nodded his head in a satisfied manner.
"He doesn't leave no trail till she begins to snow," he argued, "an' he
nat'rally doesn't expect no mud-turkles like me a followin' of him
eastward. _Consequently_ he feeds when he strikes water. This yere is
water."
All of which seemed satisfactory to Alfred. He walked on foot in order
to discover the trail in the snow. He withdrew two hundred yards from
the bank of the stream that his pony might not scent the other man's
horse, and so give notice of approach by whinnying. After a time he came
across the trail. So he left the pony and followed it to the
creek-bottom on foot. At the top of the bluff he peered over cautiously.
"Well, you got nerve!" he remarked to himself. "If I was runnin' this
yere game, I'd sure scout with my blinders off."
The fugitive evidently believed himself safe from pursuit, for he had
made camp. His two ponies cropped browse and pawed for grass in the
bottom land. He himself had prepared a warm niche and was sleeping in it
with only one blanket over him, though by now the thermometer was well
down toward zero. The affair had been simple. He had built a long, hot
fire in the L of an upright ledge and the ground. When ready to sleep he
had raked the fire three feet out from the angle, and had lain down on
the heated ground between the fire and the ledge. His rifle and revolver
lay where he could seize them at a moment's notice.
Alfred could stalk a deer, but he knew better than to attempt to stalk a
man trained in the West. Instead, he worked himself into a protected
position and carefully planted a Winchester bullet some six inches from
the man's ear. The man woke up suddenly and made an instinctive grab
toward his weapons.
"Drop it!" yelled Alfred.
So he dropped it, and lay like a rabbit in its form.
"Jest select that thar six-shooter by the end of the bar'l and hurl her
from you some," advised the sheriff. "Now the Win_ches_ter. Now stand up
an' let's look at you." The man obeyed. "Yo' don't really need that
other gun, under th' circumstances," pursued the little man. "No, don't
fetch her loose from the holster none; jest unbuckle th' whole outfit,
belt and all. Good! Now, you freeze, and stay froze right whar you are."
So Alfred arose and scrambled down to the bottom.
"Good-mornin'," he observed, pleasantly.
He cast about him and discovered the man's lariat, which he picked up
and overran with one hand until he had loosened the noose.
"You-all are some sizable," he remarked, in conversational tones, "an'
like enough you eats me up, if I gets clost enough to tie you. Hands
up!"
With a deft twist and flip he tossed the open noose over his prisoner's
upheld wrists and jerked it tight.
"Thar you be," he observed, laying aside his rifle.
He loosened one of his revolvers suggestively and approached to tie the
knot.
"Swing her down," he commanded. He contemplated the result. "Don't like
that nohow--tied in front. Step through your hands a whole lot." The man
hesitated. "Step, I say!" said Alfred, sharply, at the same time
pricking the prisoner with his long knife.
The other contorted and twisted awkwardly, but finally managed to thrust
first one foot, then the other, between his shackled wrists. Alfred
bound together his elbows at the back.
"You'll do," he approved, cheerfully. "Now, we sees about grub."
Two flat stones placed a few inches apart improvised a stove when fire
thrust its tongue from the crevice, and a frying-pan and tin-cup laid
across the opening cooked the outlaw's provisions. Alfred hospitably
ladled some bacon and coffee into their former owner.
"Not that I needs to," he observed, "but I'm jest that tender-hearted."
At the close of the meal, Alfred instituted a short and successful
search for the plunder, which he found in the stranger's saddle-bag,
open and unashamed.
"Yo're sure a tenderfoot at this game, stranger," commented the sheriff.
"Thar is plenty abundance of spots to cache such plunder--like the
linin' of yore saddle, or a holler horn. Has you any choice of cayuses
for ridin'?" indicating the grazing ponies.
The man shook his head. He had maintained a lowering silence throughout
all these cheerful proceedings.
Alfred and his prisoner finally mounted and rode northwest. As soon as
they had scrambled up the precipitous side of the gully, the affair
became a procession, with the stranger in front, and the stranger's
second pony bringing up an obedient rear. Thus the robber was first to
see a band of Sioux that topped a distant rise for a single instant. Of
course, the Sioux saw him, too. He communicated this discovery to
Alfred.
"Well," said Alfred, "they ain't hostile."
"These yere savages is plenty hostile," contradicted the stranger, "and
don't you make no mistake thar. I jest nat'rally lifts that pinto offen
them yisterday," and he jerked his thumb toward the black-and-white pony
in the rear.
"And you camps!" cried Alfred, in pure astonishment. "You must be plumb
locoed!"
"I ain't had no sleep in three nights," explained the other, in apology.
Alfred's opinion of the man rose at once.
"Yo' has plumb nerve to tackle a hold-up under them circumstances," he
observed.
"I sets out to git that thar stage; and I gits her," replied the agent,
doggedly.
The savages appeared on the next rise, barely a half-mile away, and
headed straight for the two men.
"I reckon yere's where you takes a hand," remarked Alfred simply, and,
riding alongside, he released the other's arms by a single slash of his
knife. The man slipped from his horse and stretched his arms wide apart
and up over his head in order to loosen his muscles. Alfred likewise
dismounted. The two, without further parley, tied their horses' noses
close to their front fetlocks, and sat down back to back on the surface
of the prairie. Each was armed with one of the new 44-40 Winchesters,
just out, and with a brace of Colt's revolvers, chambering the
same-sized cartridge as the rifle.
"How you heeled?" inquired Alfred.
The stranger took stock.
"Fifty-two," he replied.
"Seventy for me," vouchsafed Alfred. "I goes plenty organised."
Each man spread a little semicircle of shells in front of him. At the
command of the two, without reloading, were forty-eight shots.
When the Indians had approached to within about four hundred yards of
the white men they paused. Alfred rose and held his hand toward them,
palm outward, in the peace sign. His response was a shot and a chorus of
yells.
"I tells you," commented the hold-up.
Alfred came back and sat down. The savages, one by one, broke away from
the group and began to circle rapidly to the left in a constantly
contracting spiral. They did a great deal of yelling. Occasionally they
would shoot. To the latter feature the plainsmen lent an attentive ear,
for to their trained senses each class of arm spoke with a different
voice--the old muzzle-loader, the Remington, the long, heavy Sharp's 50,
each proclaimed itself plainly. The mere bullets did not interest them
in the least. Two men seated on the ground presented but a small mark to
the Indians shooting uncleaned weapons from running horses at three or
four hundred yards' range.
"That outfit is rank outsiders," concluded Alfred. "They ain't over a
dozen britch-loaders in the lay-out."
"Betcher anything you say I drops one," offered the stranger, taking a
knee-rest.
"Don't be so plumb fancy," advised Alfred, "but turn in and help."
He was satisfied with the present state of affairs, and was hacking at
the frozen ground with his knife. The light snow on the ridge-tops had
been almost entirely drifted away. The stranger obeyed.
On seeing the men thus employed, the Indians turned their horses
directly toward the group and charged in. At the range of perhaps two
hundred yards the Winchesters began to speak. Alfred fired twice and the
stranger three times. Then the circle broke and divided and passed by,
leaving an oval of untrodden ground.
"How many did you get?" inquired Alfred, with professional interest.
"Two," replied the man.
"Two here," supplemented Alfred.
A commotion, a squeal, a thrashing-about near at hand caused both to
turn suddenly. The pinto pony was down and kicking. Alfred walked over
and stuck him in the throat to save a cartridge.
"Move up, pardner," said he.
The other moved up. Thus the men became possessed of protection from one
side. The Indians had vented a yell of rage when the pony had dropped.
Now as each warrior approached a certain point in the circle, he threw
his horse back on its haunches, so that in a short time the entire band
was once more gathered in a group. Alfred and the outlaw knew that this
manoeuvre portended a more serious charge than the impromptu affair
they had broken with such comparative ease. An Indian is extremely
gregarious when it comes to open fighting. He gets a lot of
encouragement out of yells, the patter of many ponies' hoofs, and the
flutter of an abundance of feathers. Running in from the circumference
of a circle is a bit too individual to suit his taste.
Also, the savages had by now taken the measure of their white opponents.
They knew they had to deal with experience. Suspicion of this must have
been aroused by the practised manner in which the men had hobbled their
horses and had assumed the easiest posture of defence. The idea would
have gained strength from their superior marksmanship; but it would have
become absolute certainty from the small detail that, in all this hurl
and rush of excitement, they had fired but five shots, and those at
close range. It is difficult to refrain from banging away for general
results when so many marks so loudly present themselves. It is equally
fatal to do so. A few misses are a great encouragement to a savage, and
seem to breed their like in subsequent shooting. They destroy your own
coolness and confidence, and they excite the enemy an inch nearer to
that dead-line of the lust of fighting, beyond which prudence gives
place to the fury of killing. An Indian is the most cautious and wily
of fighters before he goes mad: and the most terribly reckless after. In
a few moments four of their number had passed to the happy
hunting-grounds, and they were left, no nearer their prey, to
contemplate the fact.
The tornado moved. It swept at the top jump of ponies used to the chase
of the buffalo, as sudden and terrible and imminent as the loom of a
black cloud on the wings of storm, and, like it, seeming to gather speed
and awfulness as it rushed nearer. Each rider bent low over his pony's
neck and shot--a hail of bullets, which, while most passed too high,
nevertheless shrieked and spun through the volume of coarser sound. The
ponies stretched their necks and opened their red mouths and made their
little feet go with a rapidity that twinkled as bewilderingly as a
picket-fence passing a train. And the light snow swirled and eddied
behind them.
The two men behind the dead horse were not deceived by this excitement
into rising to their knees. They realised that this was the critical
point in the fight, and they shot hard and fast, concentrating all the
energy of their souls into the steady glare of their eyes over the
sights of the smoking rifles. In a moment the foremost warrior was
trying to leap his pony at the barrier before him, but the little animal
refused the strange jump and shied to the left, cannoning and plunging
into the stream of braves rushing in on that side. Into the confusion
Alfred emptied the last two shots of his Winchester, and was fortunate
enough merely to cripple a pony with one of them. The kicking,
screaming, little beast interposed a momentary but effective barrier
between the sheriff and his foes. A rattling fire from one of his
six-shooters into the brown of the hesitating charge broke it. The
self-induced excitement ebbed, and the Indians swerved and swept on by.
On the other side, the outlaw had also managed to kill a pony within a
few feet of the impromptu breastwork, and, direct riding-down being thus
prevented in front, he was lying stretched on his side, coolly letting
off first one revolver then the other in the face of imminent ruin.
Alfred's attentions, however, and the defection of the right wing, drove
these savages, too, into flight. Miraculously, neither man was more than
scratched, though their clothes and the ground about them showed the
marks of bullets. Strangely enough, too, the outlaw's other pony stood
unhurt at a little distance whither the rush of the charge had carried
him. Alfred arose and drove him back. Then both men made a triangular
breastwork of the two dead horses and their saddles.
"Cyan't do that more'n once," observed the outlaw, taking a long breath.
"They don't want her more'n once," replied Alfred, sagely.
The men tried to take score. This was not easy. Out of the hundred and
twelve cartridges with which they had started the fight, there remained
sixty-eight. That meant they had expended thirty-nine in the last charge
alone. As near as they could make out, they had accounted for eight of
the enemy, four in the melee just finished. Besides, there were a number
of ponies down. At first glance this might seem like poor shooting. It
was not. A rapidly moving figure is a difficult rifle-mark with the best
of conditions. In this case the conditions would have rendered an
Easterner incapable of hitting a feather pillow at three yards.
And now began the most terrible part of this terrible day. A dozen of
the warriors dismounted, made a short circle to the left, and
disappeared in a thin growth of dried grasses, old mulliens, and
stunted, scattered brush barely six inches high. There seemed hardly
cover enough to hide a man, and yet the dozen were as completely
swallowed up as though they had plunged beneath the waters of the sea.
Only occasionally the top of a grass tuft or a greasewood shivered. It
became the duty of Alfred and his companion to shoot suddenly and
accurately at these motions. This was necessary in order to discourage
the steady concealed advance of the dozen, who, when they had approached
to within as few yards as their god of war would permit, purposed to
rush in and finish their opponents out of hand. And that rush could
never be stopped. The white men knew it perfectly well, so they set
conscientiously to work with their handful of cartridges to convince the
reds that it is not healthy to crawl along ridge-tops on an autumn day.
Sundry outlying Indians, with ammunition to waste, took belly and knee
rests and strengthened the thesis to the contrary.
The brisk fighting had warmed the contestants' blood. Now a cold wind
penetrated through their woollens to the goose-flesh. It was impossible
to judge of the effect of the shots, but both knew that the accuracy of
their shooting was falling off. Clench his teeth as he would, hold his
breath as steadfastly as he might, Alfred could not accomplish that
steady, purposeful, unblinking pressure on the trigger so necessary to
accuracy. In spite of himself, the rifle jerked ever so little to the
right during the fall of the hammer. Soon he adopted the expedient of
pulling it suddenly which is brilliant but uncertain. The ground was
very cold. Before long both men would have felt inclined to risk
everything for the sake of a little blood-stimulating tramp back and
forth. The danger did not deter them. Only the plainsman's ingrained
horror of throwing away a chance held them, shivering pitiably, to their
places.
Still they managed to keep the dozen at a wary distance, and even, they
suspected, to hit some. This was the Indians' game--to watch; to wait;
to lie with infinite patience; to hitch nearer a yard, a foot, an inch
even; and then to seize with the swiftness of the eagle's swoop an
opportunity which the smallest imprudence, fruit of weariness, might
offer. One by one the precious cartridges spit, and fell from the
breech-blocks empty and useless. And still the tufts of grass wavered a
little nearer.
"I wish t' hell, stranger, you-all hadn't edged off south," chattered
Alfred. "We'd be nearer th' Pierre trail."
"I'm puttin' in my spare wishin' on them Injins," shivered the other; "I
sure hopes they aims to make a break pretty quick; I'm near froze."
About two o'clock the sun came out and the wind died. Though its rays
were feeble at that time of year, their contrast with the bleakness that
had prevailed during the morning threw a perceptible warmth into the
crouching men. Alfred succeeded, too, in wriggling a morsel of raw bacon
from the pack, which the two men shared. But the cartridges were running
very low.
"We establishes a dead-line," suggested Alfred. "S' long as they slinks
beyond yonder greasewood, they lurks in safety. Plug 'em this side of
her."
"C'rrect," agreed the stranger.
This brought them a season of comparative quiet. They even made out to
smoke, and so were happy. Over near the hill the body of Indians had
gone into camp and were taking it easy. The job of wiping out these
troublesome whites had been sublet, and they wasted no further anxiety
over the affair. This indifference irritated the outlaw exceedingly.
"Damn siwashes!" he grumbled.
"Look out!" warned Alfred.
The dead-line was overpassed. Swaying tufts of vegetation marked the
rapid passage of eel-like bodies. The Indians had decided on an advance,
being encouraged probably by the latter inaccuracy of the plainsmen's
fire. Besides, the day was waning. It was no cat-and-mouse game now; but
a rush, like the other except that all but the last twenty or thirty
yards would be made under cover. The besieged turned their attention to
it. Over on the hill the bucks had arisen from their little fires of
buffalo chips, and were watching. On the summit of the farther ridge
rode silhouetted sentinels.
Alfred selected a tuft and fired just ahead of it. A _crack_ at his side
indicated that the stranger, too, had gone to work. It was a
discouraging and nervous business. The shooter could never tell whether
or not he had hit. The only thing he was sure of was that the line was
wriggling nearer and nearer. He felt something as though he were
shooting at a man with blank cartridges. This test of nerve was probably
the most severe of the fight.
But it was successfully withstood. Alfred felt a degree of steadiness
return to him with the excitement and the change of weather. The
Winchester spat as carefully as before. Suddenly it could no longer be
doubted that the line was beginning to hesitate. The outlaw saw it, too.
"Give it to 'em good!" he cried.
Both men shot, and then again.
The line wavered.
"Two more shots will stop 'em!" cried the road-agent, and pulled the
trigger. The hammer clicked against an empty chamber.
"I'm done!" he cried, hopelessly. His cartridges were gone.
Alfred laid his own Winchester on the ground, turned over on his back,
and puffed a cloud of smoke straight up toward the sky.
"Me, too," said he.
The cessation of the shooting had put an end to the Indians'
uncertainty. Another moment would bring them knowledge of the state of
affairs.
"Don't get much outen my scalp, anyway," said Alfred, uncovering his
bald head.
The sentinel on the distant ridge was riding his pony in short-looped
circles and waving a blanket in a peculiar way above his head. From the
grass nine Indians arose, stooped, and scuttled off like a covey of
running quail. Over by the fires warriors were leaping on their ponies,
and some were leading other ponies in the direction of the nine. An air
of furtive but urgent haste characterised all these movements. Alfred
lent an attentive ear.
"Seems a whole lot like a rescue," he remarked, quietly. "I reckon th'
boys been followin' of my trail."
The stranger paused in the act of unhobbling the one remaining pony. In
the distance, faintly, could be heard cheers and shots intended as
encouragement.
"They's comin' on th' jump," said Alfred.
By this time the stranger had unfastened the horse.
"I reckon we quits," said he, mounting; "I jest nat'rally takes this
bronc, because I needs him more'n you do. So long. I may 's well confide
that I'm feelin' some glad jest now that them Injins comes along."
And then his pony fell in a heap, and began to kick up dirt and to snort
blood.
"I got another, so you just subside a lot," commanded Alfred, recocking
his six-shooter.
The stranger lay staring at him in astonishment.
"Thought you was busted on catridges!" he cried.
"You-all may as well know," snapped Alfred, "that's long as I'm an
officer of this yere district, I'm a sheriff first and an Injin-fighter
afterward."
"What the hell!" wondered the road-agent, still in a daze.
"Them's th' two catridges that would have stopped 'em," said Alfred.
IV
THE RACE
This story is most blood-and-thundery, but, then, it is true. It is one
of the stories of Alfred; but Alfred is not the hero of it at all--quite
another man, not nearly so interesting in himself as Alfred.
At the time, Alfred and this other man, whose name was Tom, were
convoying a band of Mexican vaqueros over to the Circle-X outfit. The
Circle-X was in the heat of a big round-up, and had run short of men. So
Tom and Alfred had gone over to Tucson and picked up the best they could
find, which best was enough to bring tears to the eyes of an
old-fashioned, straight-riding, swift-roping Texas cowman. The gang was
an ugly one: it was sullen, black-browed, sinister. But it, one and all,
could throw a rope and cut out stock, which was not only the main
thing--it was the whole thing.
Still, the game was not pleasant. Either Alfred or Tom usually rode
night-herd on the ponies--merely as a matter of precaution--and they
felt just a trifle more shut off by themselves and alone than if they
had ridden solitary over the limitless alkali of the Arizona plains.
This feeling struck in the deeper because Tom had just entered one of
his brooding spells. Tom and Alfred had been chums now for close on two
years, so Alfred knew enough to leave him entirely alone until he should
recover.