The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  "We'd best be going, I expect," said Yesler at last. "We've got a right heavy bit of work cut out for us, and the horses are through feeding. We can't get started any too soon for me."

  Ridgway nodded silently. He knew that the stockman was dubious, as he himself was, about being able to make the return trip in safety. The horses were tired; so, too, were the men who had broken the heavy trail for so many miles, with the exception of Sam himself, who seemed built of whipcord and elastic. They would be greatly encumbered by the woman, for she would certainly give out during the journey. The one point in their favor was that they could follow a trail which had already been trodden down.

  Simon Harley helped his wife into the boy's saddle on the back of the animal they had led, but his inexperience had to give way to Yesler's skill in fitting the stirrups to the proper length for her feet. To Ridgway, who had held himself aloof during this preparation, the stockman now turned with a wave of his hand toward his horse

  "You ride, Waring."

  "No, I'm fresh."

  "All right. We'll take turns."

  Ridgway led the party across the gulch, following the trail that had been swept by the slide. The cowboys followed him, next came Harley, his wife, and in the rear the cattleman. They descended the draw, and presently dipped over rolling ground to the plain beyond. The procession plowed steadily forward mile after mile, the pomes floundering through drifts after the man ahead.

  Chinn, who had watched him breasting the soft heavy blanket that lay on the ground so deep and hemmed them in, turned to his companion.

  "On the way coming I told you, Husky, we had the best man in Montana at our head. We got that beat now to a fare-you-well. We got the two best in this party, by crickey."

  "He's got the guts, all right, but there ain't nothing on two legs can keep it up much longer," replied the other. "If you want to know, I'm about all in myself."

  "Here, too," grunted the other. "And so's the bronc."

  It was not, however, until dusk was beginning to fall that the leader stopped. Yesler's voice brought him up short in his tracks.

  "Hold on, Waring. The lady's down."

  Ridgway strode back past the exhausted cowboys and Harley, the latter so beaten with fatigue that he could scarce cling to the pommel of his saddle.

  "I saw it coming. She's been done for a long time, but she hung on like a thoroughbred," explained Yesler from the snow-bank where Aline had fallen.

  He had her in his arms and was trying to get at a flask of whisky in his hip-pocket.

  "All right. I'll take care of her, Sam. You go ahead with your horse and break trail. I don't like the way this wind is rising. It's wiping out the path you made when you broke through. How far's the ranch now?"

  "Close to five miles."

  Both men had lowered their voices almost to a whisper.

  "It's going to be a near thing, Sam. Your men are played out. Harley will never make it without help. From now on every mile will be worse than the last."

  Yesler nodded quietly. "Some one has got to go ahead for help. That's the only way."

  "It will have to be you, of course. You know the road best and can get back quickest. Better take her pony. It's the fittest."

  The owner of the C B hesitated an instant before he answered. He was the last man in the world to desert a comrade that was down, but his common sense told him his friend had spoken wisely. The only chance for the party was to get help to it from the ranch.

  "All right. If anybody plays out beside her try to keep him going. If it comes to a showdown leave him for me to pick up. Don't let him stop the whole outfit."

  "Sure. Better leave me that bottle of whisky. So-long."

  "You're going to ride, I reckon?"

  "Yes. I'll have to."

  "Get up on my horse and I'll give her to you. That's right Well, I'll see you later."

  And with that the stockman was gone. For long they could see him, plunging slowly forward through the drifts, getting always smaller and smaller, till distance and the growing darkness swallowed him.

  Presently the girl in Ridgway's arms opened her eyes.

  "I heard what you and he said," she told him quietly.

  "About what?" he smiled down into the white face that looked up into his.

  "You know. About our danger. I'm not afraid, not the least little bit."

  "You needn't be. We're coming through, all right. Sam will make it to the ranch. He's a man in a million."

  "I don't mean that. I'm not afraid, anyway, whether we do or not."

  "Why?" he asked, his heart beating wildly.

  "I don't know, but I'm not," she murmured with drowsy content.

  But he knew if she did not. Her fear had passed because he was there, holding her in his arms, fighting to the last ounce of power in him for her life. She felt he would never leave her, and that, if it came to the worst, she would pass from life with him close to her. Again he knew that wild exultant beat of blood no woman before this one had ever stirred in him.

  Harley was the first to give up. He lurched forward and slipped from the saddle to the snow, and could not be cursed into rising. The man behind dismounted, put down his burden, and dragged the old man to his feet.

  "Here! This won't do. You've got to stick it out."

  "I can't. I've reached my limit." Then testily: "'Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone,'" he added wearily, with his everready tag of Scripture.

  The instant the other's hold on him relaxed the old man sank back. Ridgway dragged him up and cuffed him like a troublesome child. He knew this was no time for reasoning.

  "Are you going to lie down and quit, you old loafer? I tell you the ranch is only a mile or two. Here, get into the saddle."

  By sheer strength the younger man hoisted him into the seat. He was very tired himself, but the vital sap of youth in him still ran strong in his blood. For a few yards farther they pushed on before Harley slid down again and his horse stopped.

  Ridgway passed him by, guiding his bronco in a half-circle through the snow.

  "I'll send back help for you," he promised.

  "It will be too late, but save her--save her," the old man begged.

  "I will," called back the other between set teeth.

  Chinn was the next to drop out, and after him the one he called Husky. Both their horses had been abandoned a mile or two back, too exhausted to continue. Each of them Ridgway urged to stick to the trail and come on as fast as they could.

  He knew the horse he was riding could not much longer keep going with the double weight, and when at length its strength gave out completely he went on afoot, carrying her in his arms as on that eventful night when he had saved her from the blizzard.

  It was so the rescue-party found him, still staggering forward with her like a man in a sleep, flesh and blood and muscles all protestant against the cruelty of his indomitable will that urged them on in spite of themselves. In a dream he heard Yesler's cheery voice, gave up his burden to one of the rescuers, and found himself being lifted to a fresh horse. From this dream he awakened to find himself before the great fire of the living-room of the ranch-house, wakened from it only long enough to know that somebody was undressing him and helping him into bed.

  Nature, with her instinct for renewing life, saw to it that Ridgway slept round the clock. He arose fit for anything. His body, hard as nails, suffered no reaction from the terrific strain he had put upon it, and he went down to his breakfast with an appetite ravenous for whatever good things Yesler's Chinese cook might have prepared for him.

  He found his host already at work on a juicy steak.

  "Mornin'," nodded that gentleman. "Hope you feel as good as you look."

  "I'm all right, barring a little stiffness in my muscles. I'll feel good as the wheat when I've got outside of the twin steak to that one you have."

  Yesler touched a bell, whereupon a soft-footed Oriental appeared, turned almond eyes on his proprietor, took orders and padded silently ba
ck to his kingdom--the kitchen. Almost immediately he reappeared with a bowl of oatmeal and a pitcher of cream.

  "Go to it, Waring."

  His host waved him the freedom of the diningroom, and Ridgway fell to. Never before had food tasted so good. He had been too sleepy to cat last night, but now he made amends. The steak, the muffins, the coffee, were all beyond praise, and when he came to the buckwheat hot cakes, sandwiched with butter and drenched with real maple syrup, his satisfied soul rose up and called Hop Lee blessed. When he had finished, Sam capped the climax by shoving toward him his case of Havanas.

  Ridgway's eyes glistened. "I haven't smoked for days," he explained, and after the smoke had begun to rise, he added: "Ask what you will, even to the half of my kingdom, it's yours."

  "Or half of the Consolidated's," amended his friend with twinkling eyes.

  "Even so, Sam," returned the other equably. "And now, tell me how you managed to round us all up safely."

  "You've heard, then, that we got the whole party in time?"

  "Yes, I've been talking with one of your enthusiastic riders that went out with you after us. He's been flimflammed into believing you the greatest man in the United States. Tell me how you do it."

  "Nick's a good boy, but I reckon he didn't tell you quite all that."

  "Didn't he? You should have heard him reel off your praises by the yard. I got the whole story of how you headed the relief-party after you had reached the ranch more dead than alive."

  "Then, if you've got it, I don't need to tell you. I WAS a bit worried about the old man. He was pretty far gone when we reached him, but he pulled through all right. He's still sleeping like a top."

  "Is he?" His guest's hard gaze came round to meet his. "And the lady? Do you know how she stood it?"

  "My sister says she was pretty badly played out, but all she needs is rest. Nell put her in her own bed, and she, too, has been doing nothing but sleep."

  Ridgway smoked out his cigar in silence then tossed it into the fireplace as he rose briskly.

  "I want to talk to Mesa over the phone, Sam."

  "Can't do it. The wires are down. This storm played the deuce with them."

  "The devil! I'll have to get through myself then."

  "Forget business for a day or two, Waring, and take it easy up here," counseled his host.

  "Can't do it. I have to make arrangements to welcome Simon Harley to Mesa. The truth is, Sam, that there are several things that won't wait. I've got to frame them up my way. Can you get me through to the railroad in time to catch the Limited?"

  "I think so. The road has been traveled for two or three days. If you really must go. I hate to have you streak off like this."

  "I'd like to stay, Sam, but I can't. For one thing, there's that senatorial fight coming on. Now that Harley's on the ground in person, I'll have to look after my fences pretty close. He's a good fighter, and he'll be out to win."

  "After what you've done for him. Don't you think that will make a difference, Waring?"

  His friend laughed without mirth. "What have I done for him? I left him in the snow to die, and while a good many thousand other people would bless me for it, probably he has a different point of view."

  "I was thinking of what you did for his wife."

  "You've said it exactly. I did it for her, not for him. I'll accept nothing from Harley on that account. He is outside of the friendship between her and me, and he can't jimmy his way in."

  Yesler shrugged his shoulders. " All right. I'll order a rig hitched for you and drive you over myself. I want to talk over this senatorial fight anyhow. The way things look now it's going to be the rottenest session of the legislature we've ever had. Sometimes I'm sick of being mixed up in the thing, but I got myself elected to help straighten out things, and I'm certainly going to try."

  "That's right, Sam. With a few good fighters like you we can win out. Anything to beat the Consolidated."

  "Anything to keep our politics decent," corrected the other. "I've got nothing against the Consolidated, but I won't lie down and let it or any other private concern hog-tie this State--not if I can help it, anyhow."

  Behind wary eyes Ridgway studied him. He was wondering how far this man would go as his tool. Sam Yesler held a unique position in the State. His influence was commanding among the sturdy old-time population represented by the non-mining interests of the smaller towns and open plains. He must be won at all hazards to lend it in the impending fight against Harley. The mine-owner knew that no thought of personal gain would move him. He must be made to feel that it was for the good of the State that the Consolidated be routed. Ridgway resolved to make him see it that way.

  CHAPTER 7.

  BACK FROM ARCADIA

  The president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company stepped from the parlor-car of the Limited at the hour when all wise people are taking life easy after a good dinner. He did not, however, drive to his club, but took a cab straight for his rooms, where he had telegraphed Eaton to meet him with the general superintendent of all his properties and his private secretary, Smythe. For nearly a week his finger had been off the pulse of the situation, and he wanted to get in touch again as soon as possible. For in a struggle as tense as the one between him and the trust, a hundred vital things might have happened in that time. He might be coming back to catastrophe and ruin, brought about while he had been a prisoner to love in that snow-bound cabin.

  Prisoner to love he had been and still was, but the business men who met him at his rooms, fellow adventurers in the forlorn hope he had hitherto led with such signal success, could have read nothing of this in the marble, chiseled face of their sagacious general, so indomitable of attack and insatiate of success. His steel-hard eyes gave no hint of the Arcadia they had inhabited so eagerly a short twenty-four hours before. The intoxicating madness he had known was chained deep within him. Once more he had a grip on himself; was sheathed in a cannonproof plate armor of selfishness. No more magic nights of starshine, breathing fire and dew; no more lifted moments of exaltation stinging him to a pulsating wonder at life's wild delight. He was again the inexorable driver of men, with no pity for their weaknesses any more than for his own.

  The men whom he found waiting for him at his rooms were all young Westerners picked out by him because he thought them courageous, unscrupulous and loyal. Like him, they were privateers in the seas of commerce, and sailed under no flag except the one of insurrection he had floated. But all of them, though they were associated with him and hoped to ride to fortune on the wave that carried him there, recognized themselves as subordinates in the enterprises he undertook. They were merely heads of departments, and they took orders like trusted clerks with whom the owner sometimes unbends and advises.

  Now he heard their reports, asked an occasional searching question, and swiftly gave decisions of far-reaching import. It was past midnight before he had finished with them, and instead of retiring for the sleep he might have been expected to need, he spent the rest of the night inspecting the actual workings of the properties he had not seen for six days. Hour after hour he passed examining the developments, sometimes in the breasts of the workings and again consulting with engineers and foremen in charge. Light was breaking in the sky before he stepped from the cage of the Jack Pot and boarded a street-car for his rooms. Cornishmen and Hungarians and Americans, going with their dinner-buckets to work, met him and received each a nod or a word of greeting from this splendidly built young Hermes in miners' slops, who was to many of them, in their fancy, a deliverer from the slavery which the Consolidated was ready to force upon them.

  Once at his rooms, Ridgway took a cold bath, dressed carefully, breakfasted, and was ready to plunge into the mass of work which had accumulated during his absence at the mining camp of Alpine and the subsequent period while he was snowbound. These his keen, practical mind grasped and disposed of in crisp sentences. To his private secretary he rapped out order sharply and decisively.

  "Phone Ballard and Dalton I wan
t to see them at once. Tell Murphy I won't talk with him. What I said before I left was final. Write Cadwallader we can't do business on the terms he proposes, but add that I'm willing to continue his Mary Kinney lease. Dictate a letter to Riley's lawyer, telling him I can't afford to put a premium on incompetence and negligence; that if his client was injured in the Jack Pot explosion, he has nobody but himself to blame for it. Otherwise, of course, I should be glad to pension him. Let me see the letter before you send it. I don't want anything said that will offend the union. Have two tons of good coal sent up to Riley's house, and notify his grocer that all bills for the next three months may be charged to me. And, Smythe, ask Mr. Eaton to step this way."