CHAPTER XV
THE HORSE RAID
Patty did not know how long she had slept when she awoke, tense andlistening, sitting bolt upright in bed. Moonlight flooded the roomthrough the windows thrown wide to admit the chill night air. Beyondthe valley floor, green with the luxuriant second crop of alfalfa, shecould see the mountains looming dim and mysterious in the half-light.
The whole world seemed silent as the grave--and yet, something musthave awakened her. She shuddered, partly at the chill that struck ather thinly clad shoulders, and partly at the recollection of some ofthe scenes those selfsame mountains had witnessed, during theuprisings, and which her hostess had so vividly recounted. The girlsmiled, and gazing toward the mountains, pictured long lines of nakedhorsemen stealing silently into the valley. She started violently.Through the open window came sounds, the muffled thud of hoofs uponthe soft ground, the low rattle of bit-chains and spur-rowels, and thecreak of saddle leather. There _were_ horsemen in the valley, and thehorsemen were passing almost beneath her windows--and they were movingstealthily.
For a moment her heart raced madly--the fancy of those conjuredhorsemen, and then the mysterious sounds from the night that were notfancy, combined in just the right proportion to overcome her with amomentary terror. She realized that the sounds were passing--growingfainter, and leaping from the bed, rushed to the window and peeredout. Only silence--profound, unbroken silence, and the moonlight. Invain she strained her ears to catch a repetition of the faint sounds,and in vain she peered into the dark shadows cast by the bunk houseand the pole horse-corral. Her windows commanded the eastern wall ofthe valley, and its upper reaches. Had there actually been horsemen,or were the sounds part of her vivid vision of the long ago? "No," shemuttered, "those sounds were real," and she leaned far out of thewindow in a vain effort to catch a glimpse of the trail that led downthe creek toward Pierce's.
For some time she remained at the window and then, shivering, creptback to bed, where she lay speculating upon the identity of thesehorsemen who passed in the night. She knew that a horse raid had beenexpected. Could these raiders have had the audacity to pass throughthe very dooryard of the ranch, knowing as they must have known, thatfour armed and determined cowboys occupied the bunk house?
And who were these raiders? At Thompson's she had heard Monk Bethune'sname mentioned in connection with possible horse-thieving. Bethune hadspoken of hurried trips, "to the northward." She remembered that uponthe occasion of their first meeting, she had heard him dickering withWatts for the rent of his horse pasture, and she recollected theincident of the changed name. Then, again, only a few days before, shehad parted with him when he struck off the trail to the eastward withthe excuse that he was going over onto the east slope on a matterhaving to do with some horses. Bill had mentioned, in talking to Mrs.Samuelson, that he had been riding through the horses on the eastslope. Could it be possible that the suave Bethune was a horse-thief?On the other hand, Bethune had openly hinted that Vil Holland was ahorse-thief--and yet, these other people all believed that he waspersistently on the trail of the horse-thieves.
For a long time she lay thinking, guessing, trying to recall littlescraps of evidence that would bear upon the case. Again, a slightsound brought her to a sitting posture. This time it was the openingof a door across the hall from her room. The sound was followed by thesoft padding of slippered feet in the hall, the low tapping, evidentlyat another door, a few low-voiced words, and a return of the paddingsteps. A few moments later other steps hurried along the hall past herdoor and rapidly descended the stairs. Patty heard the opening of anoutside door, and once more stealing to the window she saw theChinaman hurry across the moonlit yard to the bunk house and throwopen the door. He entered to emerge a moment later and rush to thehorse-corral, where he peered between the poles for a moment and thenmade his way swiftly back to the house.
Without lighting the lamp Patty dressed hurriedly. Was the Samuelsonranch a place of mystery? What was the meaning of the lightsounds--the soft tramp of horses, and the padding of feet upon thestairs? The footsteps paused at the door across the hall. Therefollowed a whispered colloquy and the steps retreated rapidly to thelower regions. Patty opened her door to see Mrs. Samuelson, her faceexpressing the deepest agitation, and one thin hand catching togetherthe folds of a lavender kimono.
"What is the matter?" asked the girl. "What has happened?"
The old lady closed the door from beyond which came sounds of heavybreathing. "I am afraid he is worse," she whispered. "Wong Yie went tothe bunk house to send the boys for the doctor and for Mrs. Pierce,and he says they are gone! Their horses are not in the corral. I don'tunderstand it," she cried. "I told them not to go away. They know,that with my husband sick, we are in momentary danger from thehorse-thieves, and they know that their place is right here."
"You told Bill to stay until he heard from Vil Holland," remindedPatty. "Maybe they heard from him, and left without disturbing you."
"That's it, of course!" cried the woman. "I ought to have known Icould trust them. But, for a moment it seemed that--" She stoppedabruptly and glanced anxiously into the girl's face, "But what in theworld will we do? Wong Yie can't ride a step, and if he could, I needhim here----"
"I'll ride to Pierce's!" exclaimed Patty. "And get Mr. Pierce to gofor the doctor, and bring Mrs. Pierce back with me. My horse is in thecorral, and I can get down there in no time."
"Oh, can you? Will you? And you are not afraid--alone at night in thehills? Under any other circumstances I wouldn't think of letting youdo it, child--especially with the horse-thieves about. But, it seemsthe only way----"
"Of course it's the only way! And I'm not a bit afraid."
Hurrying to the corral, Patty saddled her horse, and a few momentslater swung into the trail that led down the creek. She glanced at herwatch; it was one o'clock. The moon floated high in the heavens andthe valley was almost as light as day. Urging her horse into a run,she found a wild exhilaration in riding through the night, splashingacross shallows and shooting across short level stretches to plungethrough the water again.
After what seemed an interminable wait, Pierce himself appeared at thedoor in answer to her persistent pounding. Patty thought he eyed hercuriously as he stood aside and motioned her into the kitchen. Verydeliberately he lighted the lamp and listened in silence until she hadfinished. Then, coolly, he eyed her from top to toe: "'Pears to meI've saw you before," he announced. "Over on the trail, a while back.An' you was a-ridin' with--Monk Bethune."
"Well?" asked the girl, angered by the man's tone.
"Well," mocked Pierce. "So to-night's the night yer figgerin' onpullin' the raid, is it?"
"I'm figuring on pulling the raid! What do you mean?"
"I mean you, an' Bethune, an' yer gang. You be'n up a-spottin' thelay, so's to tip 'em off, an' now you come down here an' tell me theOld Man's worst so's I'll take out to town fer the doc--an' one lessposse-man in the hills. Yer a pretty slick article, Miss, but ithain't a-goin' to work."
Patty listened, speechless with rage. When the man finished she foundher tongue. "You--you accuse me of being a--a horse-thief?" shechoked.
"Yup," answered the man. "That's it--an' not so fur off, neither.Don't you s'pose I know that if the Old Man was worst one of his ownboys would of be'n a foggin' it fer town hisself? I'd ort to take an'lock you up in the root cellar an' turn you over to Vil Holland, but Iguess if we get all the he ones out of yer gang we kin leave youloose. 'Tain't likely you could run off no horses single-handed."
A woman whose appearance showed an evident hasty toilet had steppedfrom an inner room, and stood listening to the man. Patty was about toappeal to her when, from the outside came a thunder of hoofs, andsuddenly a man burst into the room. Patty recognized him as Bill, ofthe Samuelson ranch. "Come on, Jack, quick! Git yer gun, while I slamthe kak on yer cayuse. The raid's on, they've cut out a bunch of themthree an' four-year-olds offen the east slope an' they're a-foggin''em off."
"Bill! Oh, Bill!
" cried the girl, in desperation. But the man hadplunged toward the corral, followed by Pierce, buckling on hiscartridge belt as he ran. A moment later both men were in the saddle,and the sound of pounding hoofs grew far away.
In tears, Patty turned to the woman. "Oh, why couldn't he havebelieved me?" she cried. "He thinks I'm one of that detestable gang ofthieves! But, you--surely you don't think I'm a horse-thief?" Inbroken sentences she related the facts to the woman, and finished bybegging her to go up to the Samuelson ranch. "I'll ride on to townfor the doctor myself!" she exclaimed. "And surely you can do thatmuch for your neighbor."
"Do that much fer 'em!" the woman exclaimed. "I reckon they ain'tnothin' I wouldn't do fer _them_. Mebbe Jack's right, an' mebbe he'swrong. I've saw him be both, 'fore now. Anyways, it ain't a-goin' todo Samuelsons no harm, nor the horse-thieves no good fer me to go upthere. You hit the trail fer town, an' I'll ride up the crick." Thewoman cut short the girl's thanks. "You better take straight on downPorky 'til it crosses the trail," she advised. "It's a little longerbut you won't git lost that way, an' chances is you would if I triedto tell you the short cut. Thompsons is great friends withSamuelsons," called the woman, as Patty mounted. "Better change horsesthere! Or, mebbe Thompson'll go on to town fer you."
Below the Pierce ranch the trail was not so good but, unheeding, thegirl held her horse to his pace. In her heart now was no wildexhilaration of moonlight, nor was there any lurking fear of unknownhorsemen, only a mighty rage--a rage engendered by Pierce'saccusation, but which expanded with each leap of her horse until itincluded Vil Holland, Bethune, the Samuelson cowboys, and even LenChristie and the Samuelsons themselves--a senseless, consuming ragethat caused the blood to throb hotly to her temples and found viciousexpression in driving the rowels into her horse's sides until theanimal tore down the rough, half-lit trail at a pace that sent theloose stones flying from beneath his hoofs in rattling volleys.
Possibly, it was the rattling of loose stones, possibly her angerdulled her sensibilities to the point where they were incapable oftaking note of her surroundings, but the fact remains that as sheapproached the mouth of a wide coulee that gave into the valley fromthe eastward, she did not hear the rumble of hundreds of poundinghoofs that each second grew louder and more ominous, until as shereached the mouth of the coulee a rider swept into the valley, hishorse straining every muscle to keep ahead of the herd that thunderedin his wake.
Apparently the horseman did not notice her, and the next moment Pattywas engulfed in the herd. The girl lived one wild moment of terror. Infront, behind, upon each side were madly plunging horses, eyesstaring, mouths agape exposing long white teeth that flashed wickedlyin the moonlight, manes tossing wildly, and air whistling throughwide-flaring nostrils. On and on they swept down the valley. The roarof hoofs rose to a mighty crescendo of thunder, above which, now andthen, the terrified girl caught fierce yells from the flank of theherd. So close were the terrorized horses running that it wasimpossible for the girl to see the ground before her. Sweating,plunging bodies surged against her legs threatening each moment toscrape her feet from the stirrups. Gripping the horn with both handsshe rode in a sort of daze.
Glancing over her shoulder, she caught an occasional flash of white asthe men on the flanks waved sheets above their heads, whose flapping,fluttering folds urged the maddened horses into a perfect frenzy ofaction.
In front, and a little to one side of Patty, a horse went down, a bigroan colt, and she got one horrible glimpse of a grotesquely twistedneck, and a tangle of thrashing hoofs as another horse plunged ontohis fallen comrade. A horrible scream split the air as he, too, wentdown, and the sudden side-surge of the herd all but unseated theclinging girl. In a second it was over and the herd thundered on.Patty closed her eyes, and with white, tight-pressed lips, wonderedwhen her horse would go down. She pictured the bloody, battered_thing_ that had been herself, lying flattened and gruesome, in themoonlight when the pounding hoofs swept past.
Time and distance ceased to be. Patty was carried helplessly on, apart of that frenzied flood of flesh, muscles rigid, braintense--waiting for the inevitable moment--the horrible moment that wasto mark the climax of this ride of horrors. She wondered if it wouldhurt, or would merciful unconsciousness come with the first impact ofthe fall.
Suddenly she opened her eyes. She sensed a change in the rumble ofhoofs. Horses surged together and the pace slackened from a wild rushto a wilder thrashing of uncertainty. In the forefront a thin redspurt of flame leaped forth and above the pounding hoofs rang thereport of a shot. The leaders seemed to have stopped and the main bodyof the herd pressed and struggled against the unyielding front. Otherspurts of flame pierced the night, and shots rang viciously from allsides. The horses were milling, churning, about in a huge maelstrom,in which Patty found herself being slowly forced to the outside as theunencumbered free horses crowded to the center away from theterrifying stabs of flame and the crack of guns. She could see amounted form before her. Evidently it was the man who had ridden inthe forefront of the herd. The rider was very close, now, his horsekeeping pace with her own which had nearly reached the outer rim ofthe churning mass of animals. The brim of his hat shadowed his facebut Patty could see that the gauntleted hand held a six-gun. A shiftof position brought the moonlight full upon the man's front--upon ascarf of robin's-egg blue caught together at the throat with thepolished tip of buffalo horn. No other horsemen were in sight, but anoccasional sharp report sounded from the opposite side of the herd."Vil!" she screamed. "Vil Holland!" The form stiffened in the saddleand the girl caught the flash of his eyes beneath the hat brim. Thenext instant the gun had given place to a heavy quirt in his hand, histall, rangy horse plunged straight toward her, the wild horses,crowding frenziedly to escape the blows as the rider lashed furiouslyto the right and to the left as he forced his mount to her side.
"Good God! Girl, what are you doing here? I thought you were one ofthem--and I nearly--" The man leaned suddenly forward and grasped thebit-chain of her bridle. As if knowing exactly what was expected ofthem, side by side the two horses fought their way free of the herd,the big buckskin with ears laid back, snapping viciously at thecrowding horses. A six-gun roared twice. Patty felt a sudden brush ofair against her cheek and the next instant the two horses plunged downthe steep side of a narrow ravine. In the bottom the man released herbridle. "You stay here!" he commanded gruffly.
"But, the Samuelsons! Mr. Samuelson is--" The words were drowned in ashower of gravel as the rangy buckskin scrambled up the bank anddisappeared over the top. The rapid transition from anger to terror,and from terror to relief, proved too much for the girl's nerves andshe burst into a violent fit of sobbing. The tears enraged her and sheshouted at the top of her voice. "I won't stay here!" but the wordssounded puny and weak, and she knew that they had not penetratedbeyond the rim of the ravine. "I won't do it! I won't stay here!" shekept repeating, the sentences broken by the hysterical sobbing.Nevertheless, stay there she did, until with a mighty rumble of hoofsand a scattering volley of shots, the horse herd swept northward, andwhen finally she succeeded in gaining the upper level, the sounds cameto her ears faint and far away.
Hurriedly she glanced about her. What was that stretching to thesouthward, a long ribbon of white in the moonlight? "The trail!" shecried. "The trail to town--and to Thompson's!" Just beyond the trail,upon the brown-yellow buffalo grass a dark object lay motionless.Patty stared at it in horror. It was the body of a man. Her firstimpulse was to put spurs to her horse and fly down that long whiteribbon of trail--to place distance between herself and the thing thatlay sprawled upon the grass. Then a thought flashed into her brain.Suppose it were he? Vil Holland, the man whom everybody trusted--theman who had calmly braved the shots of the horse-thieves to rescue herfrom that churning maelstrom of horror.
Unconsciously, but surely, under the influence of those upon whosejudgment she knew she could rely, her suspicion and distrust of himhad weakened. She had half-realized the fact days ago, when at thoughtof him she foun
d herself forced to enumerate his apparent offensesover and over again to keep the distrust alive. She thought of him nowas he had fought his way to her, lashing the infuriated horses fromhis path. He had appeared, somehow--different. She closed her eyes andclean cut as though chiseled upon her brain was the picture of him ashe forced his way to her side. Like a flash the detail of differencebroke upon her--The jug was missing! And close upon the heels of thediscovery came the memory of the strange thrill that had shot throughher as his leg pressed hers when their horses had been forced togetherby the milling herd, and the sense of security and well being thatreplaced the terror in her heart from the moment she had called hisname. A sudden indescribable pain gripped her breast, as though icyfingers reached up and slowly clutched her heart. With staring eyesand breath coming heavily between parted lips, she rode toward thething on the ground. As she drew near, her horse stopped, sniffingnervously. She attempted to urge him forward, but he quivered, shiedsidewise, and, snorting his fear, circled the sprawling object withnostrils a-quiver.
Fighting a terrible dread, the girl forced her eyes to focus upon thegruesome form, and the next instant she uttered a quick little cry ofrelief. The man's hat had fallen off and lay at some distance from thebody. She could see a shock of thick black hair, and noticed that hewore a cheap cotton shirt that had once been white. There were nochaps. One leg of his blue overalls had rolled up and exposed sixinches of bare skin which gleamed whitely in the moonlight above thetop of his shoe. The sight sickened, disgusted her, and whirling herhorse she dashed southward along the trail forgetting for the momentthe Samuelsons, the doctor, and everything else in a wild desire toput distance between herself and that awful thing on the ground.
Not until her horse's hoofs rang upon the hard rock of the canyonfloor, did Patty slacken her pace. Thompson's was only a few milesfarther on. It was dark in the high walled canyon and she slowed herhorse to a walk. He stopped to drink in the shallow creek and the girlglanced over the back trail. Where was he now! Thundering along withthe recaptured horse herd, or following the thieves in a mad flightthrough the devious fastnesses of the mountains. Was it possible thateven at this moment he was lying upon the yellow-brown grass, or amongthe broken rock fragments of some coulee, twisted, and shapeless, andstill--like that other who lay repulsive and ugly, with his bare legshining white in the moonlight? She shuddered. "No, no, no!" she criedaloud, "they can't kill him. They're cowards--and he is brave!" Hervoice rang hollow and thin in the rocky chasm, and she started at thesound of it. Her horse moved on, tongueing the bit contentedly. "Theywere right, and I was wrong," she muttered. "And--and, I'm _glad_."
The canyon was left behind and before her the trail wound among thefoothills that rolled away to the open bench. She noticed that themoon had sunk behind the mountains, yet it was not dark. Glancingtoward the east, she realized that it was morning. She urged her horseinto a lope, and reached Thompson's just as the ranchman and his twohands were starting for the barn.
"Well, dog my cats, if it ain't Miss Sinclair!" exclaimed the man, andstood silent for a second as if trying to remember something. Herushed toward her excitedly. "You want that horse?" he cried, andwithout waiting for an answer, turned to the astonished ranch hands:"You, Mike, throw the shell onto Lightnin', an' git him out here, an'don't lose no time about it, neither!
"Pete, git that rifle an' lay along the trail! An' if anyone comesa-foggin' along towards town shoot his horse out from in under him!Never mind chawin'--you git! Shoot his horse, an' I'll pay the bill.Any skunk that would try fer to beat a lady out of her claim ain'ta-goin' to expect nothin' but what he gits around this outfit. An'say, Pete--if it should be Monk Bethune--an' you happen to shoot aleetle high fer to hit the horse--don't worry none--git, now!
"You come right along of me, an' git a snack from Miz T. while Mike'sa-saddlin' up. It's a long drag to town, even on Lightnin', an' youain't et yet. If the coffee ain't hot, you can wait a couple o'minutes--that there Pete--he won't let nothin' git by--he kin cut asage hen's head off twenty rod with that rifle!" Patty had madeseveral unsuccessful attempts to speak--attempts to which Thompsonpaid no attention whatever. At last, she managed to make himunderstand. "No, no! It isn't the claim, Mr. Thompson--but, let himsaddle the horse just the same. Mr. Samuelson is worse and I'm ridingfor the doctor."
"You!" exclaimed the astonished Thompson. "What's the matter with Billor some of Samuelson's riders?"
"They're after the horse-thieves. They ran off a lot of Mr.Samuelson's horses last night, and they're after them. And they caughtthem, and had a battle, and I was in it, and there is a dead man lyingback there beside the trail." Patty talked rapidly, and Thompsonstared open-mouthed.
"Run off Samuelson's horses--battle--dead man--you was in it!" herepeated, in bewilderment. "Who run 'em off? Where's Vil Holland?Who's dead?"
"I don't know who's dead. A horse-thief, I guess. And Vil Holland'swith them--with the Samuelson cowboys and that horrid Pierce, andthat's why I had to ride for the doctor--because the cowboys were withVil Holland, and Pierce thought I was one of the horse-thieves."
"If you know what you're talkin' about it's more'n what I do," sighedThompson, resignedly, as the girl concluded the somewhat muddledexplanation. "If the raid's come off, why wasn't I in on it--an' mekeepin' Lightnin' up an' ready fer it's goin' on three months? They'sa thing or two I do know, though. For one, you've rode fer enough." Hecalled to Pete, who, rifle in hand, was making for the trail. "Hey,Pete, come back here with that gun, an' quick as Mike gits the hullcinched onto Lightnin', you fork him an' hightail fer town an' fetchDoc Mallory out to Samuelson's. Tell him the Old Man's worse. Betterfetch Len Christie along, too. If there's a dead man, even if he's ahorse-thief, it's better he was buried accordin' to the book. TakeMiss Sinclair's horse to the stable an' tell Mike to onsaddle him an'give him a feed." He turned to Patty: "You come along in an' rest up'til Miz T. gits breakfast ready. Then when you've et, you kin beginat the beginnin' an' tell what's be'n a-goin' on in the hills."
A couple of hours later when Patty concluded her detailed narrative,Thompson leaned back in his chair. "I got a crow to pick with VilHolland, all right, fer not lettin' me in on that there raid."
"Maybe he didn't have time," suggested the girl, and suppressed adesire to smile at the readiness with which she sprang to the defenseof her "guardian devil of the hills."
Protesting that she needed no rest after her night of wild adventure,Patty refused the pressing invitation of the Thompsons to remain atthe ranch, and mounting her horse, headed for the cabin on Monte'sCreek.
Once through the canyon, she turned abruptly into the hills and as herhorse, unguided, topped low divides, and threaded mile after mile ofnarrow valleys, her thoughts wandered from the all-absorbing topic ofher father's location, to the man for whom she had so recentlyexperienced such a signal revulsion of feeling. "How could I ever havebeen deceived by that disgusting Monk Bethune?" she muttered."Especially after he warned me against him. It's a wonder I couldn'thave seen him for the sleek oily devil that he is. I must have beencrazy." She shuddered at the recollection of that day in the littlevalley when he boldly made love to her. "It's just blind luckthat--that something _awful_ didn't happen. I could see the lurkingdevil in his eyes! And I saw it again, when he sneered at Mr.Christie. And when Pierce showed very plainly what he thought of him,he cursed everybody in the hills, and then offered his glaringly falseexplanation as to why people hate and distrust him." At the top of alow divide, she turned her horse into a valley that was not, by anymeans, the most direct route to the little cabin on Monte's Creek. Ahalf hour later she came out onto the plateau, upon the edge of whichVil Holland's little tent nestled against its towering rock fragment.
For just an instant she hesitated, then, blushing, rode boldly acrossthe open space toward the little patch of white that showed throughthe scrub timber. Pulling up before the tent door the girl glancedabout her. Everything was in its place. Her eyes rested approvinglyupon the well-scoured cooking utensil
s that hung in an orderly row.Evidently the camp had not been used the night before. She drew offher glove and, leaning over, felt the blankets that were thrown overthe ridgepole. They were still wet with the heavy dew, and thedampened ashes showed that no fire had been built that morning. "Oh,where is he?" whispered the girl, glancing wildly about, "Surely, hehas had time to reach here--if he's--all right." After a few momentsof silence she laughed nervously: "He's all right," she assuredherself with forced cheerfulness. "Of course, he wouldn't return hereright away. He probably had to help drive those horses back, or--orhelp bury that man, or something. I wonder what he thinks of me?Pierce will tell him his suspicions, and then--finding me mixed inwith those horses--he'll think I've 'thrown in' with Bethune, as hewould say. I must see him. I must!"
Deciding to return later in the day, Patty headed her horse for thedivide and soon found herself at the much trampled notch in the hills.For some moments she sat staring down at the ground. She glancedtoward the cabin that showed so distinctly in the valley below. "Hecertainly watches from here," she mused. "And not just occasionallyeither." Suddenly, she straightened in her saddle, and her eyesglowed: "I wonder if--if he has been watching--Monk Bethune? Watchingto see that no harm comes to--me? Oh, if I only knew--if I only knewthe real meaning of this trampled grass!" Resolutely, she gathered upher reins. "I _will know_!" she muttered. "And I'll know before verylong, too. That is, I _hope_ I will," she qualified, as the bay cayusebegan to pick his way carefully down the steep descent to Monte'sCreek.