by Unknown
With the Ranger at their head, they went out of town at a fast trot. If there had been anybody there to notice it, he would have seen that the clock on the wall at the Bird Cage registered the time as twenty-seven minutes past three.
CHAPTER XXII
THE TEST
When Ridley heard the faint plop of the Ranger's body as it dropped into the water, his heart died under the fifth rib. He was alone--alone with a wounded man in his care, and five hundred fiends ravenous for his blood. For a moment the temptation was strong in him to follow Roberts into the water. Why should he stay to let these devils torture him? Dinsmore had betrayed him, to the ruination of his life. He owed the fellow nothing but ill-will. And the man was a triple-notch murderer. It would be a good riddance to the country if he should be killed.
But the arguments of the young fellow did not convince him. He had showed the white feather once on impulse, without a chance to reason out the thing. But if he deserted this wounded man now he would be a yellow coyote--and he knew it. There was something in him stronger than fear that took him back to the helpless outlaw babbling disjointed ravings.
He bathed the man's fevered body with cold water from the river and changed the bandages on the wound. He listened, in an agony of apprehension, for the sound of a shot. None came, but this did not bring certainty that the Ranger had escaped. He had left behind all his arms, and it was quite possible that they had captured him without first wounding him.
Arthur reasoned with himself about his terror. Of what use was it? Why fear, since he had to face the danger anyhow? But when he thought of the morning and what it would bring forth he was sick with the dread he could not crush.
The hours lagged endlessly. He had his watch out a thousand times trying to read its face. Occasionally he crept around the island to make sure the Kiowas were not trying to surprise him. Hope began to grow in him as the night grew old, and this alternated with terror; for he knew that with the coming of dawn, the redskins would begin an attack.
His mind followed the Ranger on his journey. By this time he must surely be halfway to Tascosa if he had escaped the Kiowas.... Now he might have reached the cottonwood clump beyond Big Ford.... Perhaps he might jump up a camp outfit with horses. If so, that would cut down the time needed to reach town.
Five o'clock by Ridley's watch! He made another circuit of his little island, and at the head of it stopped to peer into the lessening darkness. A log, traveling down the river from some point near its headwaters in New Mexico, was drifting toward the island. His attention was arrested by the way it traveled. A log in a stream follows the line of least resistance. It floats in such a way as to offer the smallest surface to the force of the current. But this log was going down at a right angle to the bank instead of parallel to it. Was it being propelled by the current alone, or by some living power behind it?
Ridley posted himself behind a cottonwood, his repeater ready for action. In another moment he would know, because if the log was adrift in the river, it would miss the point of the island and keep on its way.
Straight to the point of land the log came. There it stuck against the nose of the island. A head followed by a naked body drew itself from behind the log and climbed across it to the bank above. A second head and body appeared, a third and a fourth.
Ridley's fear was gone. He had a job to do, and he went at it in a workmanlike manner. His first shot dropped the brave on the bank. His second missed, his third went hissing up the river. But the fourth caught full in the throat one of the Kiowas on the log. The painted warrior shot headfirst into the water and dropped as though he had been a stone. Before Arthur could fire again, the passengers astride the dead tree dived into the stream. Slowly the log swung around and was sucked into the current. Here and there a feathered head bobbed up. The boy fired at them from a sense of duty, but he did not flatter himself that he had scored another hit.
But the immediate danger of being rushed was past. Ridley circled the island again to make sure that the attack at the head had not been a feint to cover one in the rear.
During the night Arthur had not been idle. Behind a large rock he had scooped out a small cave in which he and the wounded man might lie protected. Now the Indians, in the full light of day, were spraying the spot with bullets. Fortunately they were notoriously poor shots, and their guns were the worst ever made. For hours the fusillade continued. Occasionally the defender answered with a shot or two to discourage any further attempt at storming his position.
The most welcome sound in Ridley's life was a scattering volley of shots that came from back of the Kiowa camp. There was a sudden rush for horses by the braves and the scurry of pounding hoofs as they fled across the prairie. A moment later came the whoop of the cowboys in the rescue party.
Arthur, in an ecstasy of relief, ran to the edge of the water and waved his hat. Across the river came in answer the "Yip-yip, yippy-yip-yip" of the line-riders in the company. Several of them plunged into the stream and swam their horses across to the island. Among these were Jumbo Wilkins and Tex Roberts.
"I see you done held the fort, son," said the fat man. "Fine and dandy! How's Dinsmore?"
"Quieter. He slept a good deal in the night. How are we going to get him across the river?"
The Ranger joined them. He nodded a friendly greeting at Ridley.
"Our luck held up all right. I see you been doin' some fancy shootin'."
Arthur looked at him. The eyes of the Easterner were full of timid doubt. What did this game Texan think of him who had proposed to leave a wounded man to his fate? The Ranger beamed a kindly comradeship, but the other young fellow wondered what was passing in the back of his mind.
They held a committee on ways and means about Dinsmore.
"We can't stay here--got to get him to town where he can be fixed up," Jumbo said.
"We'll take him over to the other bank and send for a buckboard," decided Jack.
The wounded man was carried to the head of the island, and strapped to the back of a horse. Jumbo, Roberts, and Ridley guided the horse into the current and helped it fight through to the shallow water beyond.
Twenty-four hours later Dinsmore was in bed in Tascosa. Dr. Bridgman said, with the usual qualification about complications, that the man probably would get well. The bullet had not punctured his lungs.
CHAPTER XXIII
A SHY YOUNG MAN DINES
Ramona met Arthur Ridley face to face just outside of the post-office.
"You dandy boy!" she cried, and held out both hands to him. Her eyes were shining. The gifts of friendship and admiration were in them.
He could not find a word to say. A lump rose in his throat and choked him.
"It was just fine of you--fine!" she told him. "I was so glad to hear that a friend of mine did it. You are still my friend, aren't you?"
"If you'll let me be," he said humbly. "But--I haven't done anything to deserve it."
"Everybody's praising you because you stayed with that Dinsmore man and saved his life at the risk of your own--after he had treated you so mean too. I'm so proud of you."
"You needn't be," he answered bluntly. "I wanted to slip away and leave him. I--I proposed it to Jack Roberts. But he wouldn't have it. He laid the law down. One of us had to go, one stay. I hadn't the nerve to go, so I stayed."
"I don't believe it--not for a minute," came her quick, indignant response. "And if you did--what of it? It isn't what we want to do that counts. It's what we really do!"
He shook his head wistfully. He would have liked to believe her, but he felt there was no credit due him.
"I fought because I had to if I was going to save my own skin. I haven't told any one else this, but I can't have you thinking me game when I know I'm not."
"Was it to save yourself you flung yourself down in front of father and let that awful man Dinsmore shoot at you?" she demanded, eyes flashing.
"A fellow can't stand by and see some one murdered without lifting a hand. I didn't have t
ime to get frightened that time."
"Well, all I've got to say is that you're the biggest goose I ever saw, Art Ridley. Here you've done two fine things and you go around trying to show what a big coward you are."
He smiled gravely. "I'm not advertising it. I told you because--"
"--Because you're afraid I'll think too well of you."
"Because I want you to know me as I am."
"Then if I'm to know you as you are I'll have to get a chance to see what you really are. Dad and Auntie and I will expect you to supper to-morrow night."
"Thank you. I'll be there."
Casually she enlarged her invitation. "I don't suppose you'll see that very shy young man, Mr. Roberts."
"I might."
"Then, will you ask him to come too? I'm going to find out whether you acted as scared as you say you did."
"Jack knows how scared I was, but he won't tell. Sure I'll get word to him."
He did. At precisely six o'clock the two young men appeared at the home of Clint Wadley's sister. The Ranger was a very self-conscious guest. It was the first time he had dined with ladies at their home since he had lost his own mother ten years earlier. He did not know what to do with his hands and feet. The same would have been true of his hat if Ramona had not solved that problem by taking it from him. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He felt a good deal warmer than the actual temperature of the room demanded.
But Ramona noticed from the background that as soon as she and her aunt retired from the scene his embarrassment vanished. This slim, brown young man was quite at his ease with Clint Wadley, much more so than young Ridley. He was essentially a man's man, and his young hostess liked him none the less for that.
She made a chance to talk with him alone after supper. They were standing in the parlor near the window. Ramona pressed the end of her little finger against a hole in the pane.
"I wonder if you'd like me to sing 'Swanee River' for you, Mr. Roberts?" she asked.
He did not mind being teased. By this time he had regained his confidence. He had discovered that she would not bite even though she might laugh at him in a friendly way.
"You sing it fine," he said.
"I wasn't singing it for you the other time, but for Mr.--what's-his-name, Gurley?"
"I couldn't very well have you keep shoutin' out, 'I'm a girl,' so I figured--?"
"I know what you figured, sir. You wanted to take all the chances that were taken. Father says it was the quickest-witted thing he ever knew." She shot another dart at him, to his confusion. "Do you like my voice?"
"Well, ma'am, I--"
"You don't have to tell any stories. I see you don't."
Jack took heart. "If you're fishin' for a compliment--"
"What a tactful thing to tell a girl," she said, smiling.
"--I'll tell you that I never heard you sing better."
"Or worse, for that matter," she added; and with one of her swift changes of mood switched the topic of conversation. "How do you like Art Ridley?"
"He'll do to take along."
"That's not the way he talks. He says he--he wanted to run away from the island and leave that man Dinsmore, but you wouldn't let him." Her eyes met his very directly.
"He's a great lad for imaginin' things. I never want to see any one hold up his end better."
"You mean that he didn't say he wanted to leave Dinsmore?"
With her gaze searching him so steadily, it had to be an out-and-out lie to serve. Jack lied competently. "Not a word."
Her little finger tapped the hole in the pane gently while she reflected. "He told me--"
"That boy's still worryin' about losin' that money for Mr. Wadley, don't you reckon? He's got it tucked in his mind that a game man never would have been robbed. So he's decided he must be yellow. Nothin' to it a-tall. No quitter ever would have stood off those Kiowas like he did."
"That's what I think." She turned to the Ranger again, nodding agreement. "You've relieved my mind. I shouldn't like to think that--"
She let her sentence trail out to nothing. Jack Roberts guessed its conclusion. She wouldn't like to think that the man she loved was not game.
CHAPTER XXIV
TEX BORROWS A BLACKSNAKE
Dinsmore recovered from his wound and was held prisoner by Captain Ellison for a month after he was well. Then the ranger captain dismissed the man with a warning.
"Skedaddle, you damn jayhawker," was his cavalier farewell. "But listen. If ever I get the deadwood on you an' yore outfit, I'll sure put you through. You know me, Dinsmore. I went through the war. For two years I took the hides off'n 'em.[5] I'm one of the lads that knocked the bark off this country. An' I've got the best bunch of man-hunters you ever did see. I'm not braggin'. I'm tellin' you that my boys will make you look like a plugged nickel if you don't get shet of yore meanness. They're a hell-poppin' bunch of jim-dandies, an' don't you ever forget it."
Homer Dinsmore spat tobacco-juice on the floor by way of expressing his contempt. "Hell!" he sneered. "We were doin' business in this neck of the woods before ever you come, an' we'll be here after you've gone."
The Ranger Captain gave a little shrug to his shoulders. "Some folks ain't got any more sense than that hog rootin' under the pecan tree, Dinsmore. I've seen this country when you could swap a buffalo-bull hide for a box of cartridges or a plug o' tobacco. You cayn't do it now, can you? I had thirty wagons full of bales of hides at old Fort Griffin two years ago. Now I couldn't fill one with the best of luck. In five years the buffaloes will be gone absolutely--mebbe in less time. The Indians are goin' with the buffaloes-an' the bad-men are a-goin' to travel the same trail. Inside of three years they'll sure be hard to find outside of jails. But you got to go yore own way. You're hard to curry, an' you wear 'em low. Suits me if it does you. We'll plant you with yore boots on, one of these days."
Dinsmore swaggered from the jail and presently rode out of town to join his companions. Three days later an acquaintance stopped Jack Roberts on the street.
"Seen Cap Ellison this mo'nin'? He was down at the shippin'-pen an' wanted to see you. The old man's hot as a ginger-mill about somethin'."
The Ranger strolled down toward the cattle-yards. On the way he met Arthur Ridley. They had come to be pretty good friends in the past month. The standards of the Texan were undergoing revision. He had been brought up in an outdoor school which taught that the rock-bottom factor of a man's character is gameness. Without it nothing else counted. This was as vital for a man as virtue for a woman. But it had begun to reach him that pluck is largely a matter of training. Arthur had lived soft, and his nerve, like his muscles, needed toughening. Were his gayety, his loyalty, his fundamental decency, the affectionate sweetness of his disposition, to count for nothing? He had a dozen advantages that Jack had not, and the cowboy admired him even though he was not hard as a rock.
"Have you spoken to Captain Ellison yet?" asked Ridley eagerly.
"Says he's thinkin' about it, Art. There's goin' to be a vacancy on the force soon. My notion is that you'll get the appointment."
It was a part of Ridley's charm for the Texan that he would not give up to his timidity. The young fellow meant to fight it out to a finish. That was one of the reasons why he wanted to join the Rangers, to be put in places that would force him to go through to a fighting finish. He had one other reason. Arthur wanted to settle a score with the Dinsmores.
Captain Ellison was listening to the complaint of a drover.
"I aim to drive a clean herd, Cap, but you know how it is yore own self. I start to drive in the spring when the hair's long an' the brand's hard to read. By the time I get here, the old hair is fallin' out an' the brand is plain. But what's a fellow to do? I cayn't drop those off-brands by the way, can I? The inspector--"
"That's all right, Steel. The inspector knows you're on the level. Hello, Jack! I been lookin' for you."
The Captain drew his man to one side. "Steve Gurley's in town. He came as a spokesman for the D
insmores an' went to see Clint Wadley. The damn scoundrel served notice on Clint that the gang had written evidence which tied Ford up with their deviltry. He said if Clint didn't call me off so's I'd let 'em alone, they would disgrace his son's memory. Of course Wadley is all broke up about it. But he's no quitter. He knows I'm goin' through, an' he wouldn't expect me not to do the work I'm paid for."
"Do you want me to arrest Gurley?"
"Wouldn't do any good. No; just keep tabs on the coyote till he leaves town. He ought to be black-snaked, but that's not our business, I reckon."
Ridley walked back with the Ranger toward the main street of the town. From round a corner there came to them a strident voice.