CHAPTER XLI
DICKSIE'S RIDE
When Lance Dunning entered the room ten minutes later, Dicksie stoodat the telephone; but the ten minutes of that interval had made quiteanother creature of his cousin. The wires were down and no one fromany quarter gave a response to her frantic ringing. Through thereceiver she could hear only the sweep of the rain and the harshcrackle of the wind. Sometimes praying, sometimes fainting, andsometimes despairing, she stood clinging to the instrument, ringingand pounding upon it like one frenzied. Lance looked at her inamazement. "Why, God a'mighty, Dicksie, what's the matter?"
He called twice to her before she turned, and her words almost stunnedhim: "Why did you not detain Sinclair here to-night? Why did you notarrest him?"
Lance's sombrero raked heavily to one side of his face, and one end ofhis mustache running up much higher on the other did not begin toexpress his astonishment. "Arrest him? Arrest Sinclair? Dicksie, areyou crazy? Why the devil should I arrest Sinclair? Do you suppose I amgoing to mix up in a fight like this? Do you think _I_ want to getkilled? The level-headed man in this country, just at present, is theman who can keep out of trouble, and the man who succeeds, let me tellyou, has got more than plenty to do."
Lance, getting no answer but a fierce, searching gaze from Dicksie'swild eyes, laid his hand on a chair, lighted a cigar, and sat downbefore the fire. Dicksie dropped the telephone receiver, put her handto her girdle, and looked at him. When she spoke her tone wasstinging. "You know that man is going to Medicine Bend to kill hiswife!"
Lance took the cigar from his mouth and returned her look. "I know nosuch thing," he growled curtly.
"And to kill George McCloud, if he can."
He stared without reply.
"You heard him say so," persisted Dicksie vehemently.
Lance crossed his legs and threw back the brim of his hat. "McCloud isnobody's fool. He will look out for himself."
"These fiendish wires to Medicine Bend are down. Why hasn't this linebeen repaired?" she cried, wringing her hands. "There is no way togive warning to any one that he is coming, and you have let him go!"
Lance whirled in his chair. "Damnation! Could I keep him from going?"
"You did not want to; you are keeping out of trouble. What do you carewhom he kills to-night!"
"You've gone crazy, Dicksie. Your imagination has upset your reason.Whether he kills anybody to-night or not, it's too late now to make arow about it," exclaimed Lance, throwing his cigar angrily away. "Hewon't kill us."
"And you expect me to sit by and fold my hands while that wretch shedsmore blood, do you?"
"It can't be helped."
"I say it can be helped! I can help it--I will help it--as you couldhave done if you had wanted to. I will ride to Medicine Bend to-nightand help it."
Lance jumped to his feet, with a string of oaths. "Well this is thelimit!" He pointed his finger at her. "Dicksie Dunning, you won't stirout of this house to-night."
Her face hardened. "How dare you speak in that way to me? Who are you,that you order me what to do, where to stay? Am I your cowboy, to bedefiled with your curses?"
He looked at her in amazement. She was only eighteen; he would stillface her down. "I'll tell you who I am. I am master here, and you willdo as I tell you. You will ride to Medicine Bend to-night, will you?"He struck the table with his clinched fist. "Do you hear me? I say, byGod, not a horse shall leave this ranch in this storm to-night to goanywhere for anybody or with anybody!"
"Then I say to you this ranch is my ranch, and these horses are myhorses! From this hour forth I will order them to go and come when andwhere I please!" She stepped toward him. "Henceforward I am mistresshere. Do you hear me? Henceforward _I_ give orders in Crawling StoneHouse, and every one under this roof takes orders from me!"
"Dicksie, what do you mean? For God's sake, you're not going to try toride----"
She swept from the room. What happened afterward she could neverrecall. Who got Jim for her or whether she got the horse up herself,what was said to her in low, kindly words of warning by the man atJim's neck when she sprang into the saddle, who the man was, she couldnot have told. All she felt at last was that she was free and outunder the black sky, with the rain beating her burning face and herhorse leaping fearfully into the wind.
No man could have kept the trail to the pass that night. The horsetook it as if the path flashed in sunshine, and swung into thefamiliar stride that had carried her so many times over the twentymiles ahead of them. The storm driving into Dicksie's face cooled her.Every moment she recollected herself better, and before her mind allthe aspects of her venture ranged themselves. She had set herself to arace, and against her rode the hardest rider in the mountains. She hadset herself to what few men on the range would have dared and what noother woman on the range could do. "Why have I learned to ride," wentthe question through her mind, "if not for this--for those I love andfor those who love me?" Sinclair had a start, she well knew, but notso much for a night like this night. He would ride to kill those hehated; she would ride to save those she loved. Her horse already wason the Elbow grade; she knew it from his shorter spring--a lithe,creeping spring that had carried her out of deep canyons and up longdraws where other horses walked. The wind lessened and the rain droveless angrily in her face. She patted Jim's neck with her wet glove,and checked him as tenderly as a lover, to give him courage andbreath. She wanted to be part of him as he strove, for the horror ofthe night began to steal on the edge of her thoughts. A gust droveinto her face. They were already at the head of the pass, and thehorse, with level ground underfoot, was falling into the long reach;but the wind was colder.
Dicksie lowered her head and gave Jim the rein. She realized how wetshe was; her feet and her knees were wet. She had no protection buther skirt, though the meanest rider on all her countless acres wouldnot have braved a mile on such a night without leather and fur. Thegreat lapels of her riding-jacket, reversed, were buttoned tightacross her shoulders, and the double fold of fur lay warm and dryagainst her heart and lungs; but her hands were cold, and her skirtdragged leaden and cold from her waist, and water soaked in upon herchilled feet. She knew she ought to have thought of these things. Sheplanned, as thought swept in a moving picture across her brain, howshe would prepare again for such a ride--with her cowboy costume thatshe had once masqueraded in for Marion, with leggings of buckskin and"chaps" of long white silken wool. It was no masquerade now--she wasriding in deadly earnest; and her lips closed to shut away a creepyfeeling that started from her heart and left her shivering.
She became conscious of how fast she was going. Instinct, made keen bythousands of saddle miles, told Dicksie of her terrific pace. She wasriding faster than she would have dared go at noonday and withoutthought or fear of accident. In spite of the sliding and the plungingdown the long hill, the storm and the darkness brought no thought offear for herself; her only fear was for those ahead. In suprememoments a horse, like a man when human efforts become superhuman, putsthe lesser dangers out of reckoning, and the faculties, set on asingle purpose, though strained to the breaking-point, never break.Low in her saddle, Dicksie tried to reckon how far they had come andhow much lay ahead. She could feel her skirt stiffening about herknees, and the rain beating at her face was sharper; she knew thesleet as it stung her cheeks, and knew what next was coming--thesnow.
There was no need to urge Jim. He had the rein and Dicksie bent downto speak to him, as she often spoke when they were alone on the road,when Jim, bolting, almost threw her. Recovering instantly, she knewthey were no longer alone. She rose alert in her seat. Her strainingeyes could see nothing. Was there a sound in the wind? She held herbreath to listen, but before she could apprehend Jim leaped violentlyahead. Dicksie screamed in an agony of terror. She knew then that shehad passed another rider, and so close she might have touched him.
Fear froze her to the saddle; it lent wings to her horse. The speedbecame wild. Dicksie knit herself to her dumb companion and a prayerchoked in her th
roat. She crouched lest a bullet tear her from herhorse; but through the darkness no bullet came, only the sleet,stinging her face, stiffening her gloves, freezing her hair, chillingher limbs, and weighting her like lead on her struggling horse. Sheknew not even Sinclair could overtake her now--that no living mancould lay a hand on her bridle-rein--and she pulled Jim in down thewinding hills to save him for the long flat. When they struck it theyhad but four miles to go.
Across the flat the wind drove in fury. Reflection, thought, andreason were beginning to leave her. She was crying to herself quietlyas she used to cry when she lost herself, a mere child, riding amongthe hills. She was praying meaningless words. Snow purred softly onher cheeks. The cold was soothing her senses. Unable at last to keepher seat on the horse, she stopped him, slipped stiffly to the ground,and, struggling through the wind as she held fast to the bridle andthe horn, half walked and half ran to start the blood through herbenumbed veins. She struggled until she could drag her mired feet nofarther, and tried to draw herself back into the saddle. It was almostbeyond her. She sobbed and screamed at her helplessness. At last shemanaged to climb flounderingly back into her seat, and, bending herstiffened arms to Jim's neck, she moaned and cried to him. When againshe could hold her seat no longer, she fell to the horse's side,dragged herself along in the frozen slush, and, screaming with thepain of her freezing hands, drew herself up into the saddle.
She knew that she dare not venture this again--that if she did so shecould never remount. She felt now that she should never live to reachMedicine Bend. She rode on and on and on--would it never end? Shebegged God to send a painless death to those she rode to save, andwhen the prayer passed her failing senses a new terror awakened her,for she found herself falling out of the saddle. With excruciatingtorment she recovered her poise. Reeling from side to side, she foughtthe torpor away. Her mind grew clearer and her tears had ceased. Sheprayed for a light. The word caught between her stiffened lips and shemumbled it till she could open them wide and scream it out. Then camea sound like the beating of great drums in her ears. It was the crashof Jim's hoofs on the river bridge, and she was in Medicine Bend.
A horse, galloping low and heavily, slued through the snow from FortStreet into Boney, and, where it had so often stopped before, dashedup on the sidewalk in front of the little shop. The shock was too muchfor its unconscious rider, and, shot headlong from her saddle, Dicksiewas flung bruised and senseless against Marion's door.