by Zane Grey
Then Molly espied thin strands of black moving across the river. Buffalo swimming to the southern bank! These were several miles away, yet she saw them distinctly, and line after line they extended, like slender bridges, across the river until they too vanished in the curtain of dust. South of the river the boundless plain showed irregular ragged areas of black, and meandering threads, leading into the haze of distance. Eastward Molly gazed over a green river-bottom jungle, thick and impenetrable, to the level prairie blackened with buffalo. Here were straggling lines moving down toward the river. Altogether then the surrounding scene was one of immense openness, infinite waving green prairie, crossed at widely separated streams, and made majestic by the domination of buffalo—everywhere buffalo, countless almost as the grasses of the prairie.
“What a pity they must die,” murmured Molly. For in the banging of the guns she heard the death knell of this multiplicity of beasts. She had seen the same in the hard greedy strong faces of Jett, and buffalo hunters like him. Nature with its perfect balance and adjustment of the wild beasts was nothing to Jett. He would kill every buffalo on the plains for the most he could get, if it were only a bottle of rum.
Molly pondered over vague ideas in her developing mind. God might have made the buffalo to furnish the Indians and white man with meat and fur, but surely not through the sordidness of a few to perish from the earth.
Above Molly, in the blue sky, and westward till her sight failed, were huge black birds, buzzards, sailing high and low, soaring around and around, till the upper air seemed filled with them. Buzzards! Birds of prey they were—carrion eaters, vultures that were enticed from their natural habits, from the need for which Nature created them, to fall foul on this carnage left by the hunters.
Some of these uncanny birds of prey swooped down over Molly, and several alighted in a tree not far distant. Solemn, repulsive, they inspired in Molly a fear of the thing called Nature. Were they necessary?
She did not long remain up there in her perch, and she discovered that descent was not so easy as it had been to climb. Nevertheless she got by the worst of it without mishap, and once again on the easy branches of the lower tree she breathed easier.
The thud of hoofs below caused her to stop abruptly. Horse-men were riding somewhere close at hand. Owing to the thick foliage she could not see what or where they were. Circling the trunk of the tree with her arm, she leaned against it, making sure of her balance. She was forty feet from the ground, adequately hidden by bushy leaves, unless someone looked upward from directly beneath her. It was natural to suppose these riders were buffalo hunters. Presently she espied them, indistinctly through the network of branches. They were riding from the north, evidently having come along the stream. To Molly’s consternation they halted their horses almost directly under her. Then she made out that they were soldiers. She need have no fear of them, yet she did not like the idea of being discovered.
“Captain,” spoke up one, “there’s a good spring down this trail. I’d like a drink of fresh cold water. . . . Here, one of you men take some canteens down, and fill them. The trail leads to the spring.”
One of the half dozen soldiers dismounted, and, collecting several canteens from his companions, he lounged off out of sight.
“Ellsworth, you know this Red River country?” spoke up another soldier.
“Reckon I do, though not so very well down this far,” came the reply. “This is God’s country compared to the Staked Plains. I know that well enough.”
“Well, I figure we’re on a wild-goose chase,” said another, evidently an officer. He had dismounted to fling himself under one of the trees. He removed his sombrero to reveal a fine, strong, weather-beaten face, with mustache slightly gray. “We can never persuade these hide hunters to go to the fort on account of Indian raids.”
“Reckon not. But we can persuade them to send their women to a place of safety. Some of the fools have their womenfolk. For my part I’d like to see these hunters band together against the Indians.”
“Why?”
“Well, they’re a hard lot and Lord only knows how many there are of them. They’ll do what us soldiers never could do . . . whip that combination of redskin tribes.”
“Better not say that in the colonel’s hearing,” said the officer with a laugh.
“I wouldn’t mind. Reckon I’ve hinted as much. I’m serving on scout duty, you know. But one thing’s sure, these hide hunters have started a bloody mess. And it’s a good thing. This section of Texas is rich land. It’s the stamping ground of the Indians. They’ll never give it up till the buffalo are gone. Then they’ll make peace. As it is now, they are red-headed as hell. They’ll ambush and raid . . . then run back up into that devil’s place, the Staked Plains.”
“I’ll bet you we get a taste of it before this summer ends.”
“Like as not. If so, you’ll remember the campaign,” said the other grimly.
Presently the soldier returned with the canteens, which manifestly were most welcome.
“There’s a camp below, sir,” said the soldier.
“Buffalo outfit, of course?”
“Yes. Three wagons.”
“Did you ask whose outfit it is?”
“No one about camp, sir.”
The officer got to his feet, and, wiping his heated face, he stepped to his horse. “Ellsworth, we’ve passed a good many camps of hide hunters, all out in the open or along the edge of the timber. What do you make of an outfit camped way down out of sight? That’s a hard pull for loaded wagons.”
“Hunters have notions, same as other men,” replied the scout. “Maybe this fellow wants as much protection as possible from storm and dust. Maybe he’d rather get out of the beaten track.”
“Colonel’s orders were to find trace of hide thieves,” said the officer thoughtfully. “That stumps me. There’re hundreds of these outfits, all traveling, killing, skinning together. How on earth are we going to pick out thieves among them?”
“You can’t, Captain,” returned the scout decidedly. “That’ll be for the hunters themselves to find. As I said, they’re a hard lot and a jumbled one. Outlaws, ex-soldiers, adventurers, desperadoes, tenderfeet, plainsmen, and pioneers looking for new ground, and farmers out on a hunt to make money. I reckon most of them are honest men. This hide hunting is something like the gold rush of ’Forty-Nine and ’Fifty-One, of course on a small scale. Last summer and fall there were hide thieves operating all through the Panhandle. A few of them got caught, too, and swung for it. This summer they’ll have richer picking and easier. For with the Indian raids to use as cover for their tracks, how can they be apprehended, unless caught in the act?”
“But, man, you mean these robbers waylay an outfit, kill them, steal the hides, burn the camp, and drive off to let the dirty work be blamed on Indians?”
“Reckon that’s exactly what I do mean,” replied Ellsworth. “It’s my belief a good many black deeds laid to the Indians are done by white men.”
“Did you tell the colonel that?”
“Yes, and he scouted the idea. He hates Indians. Got a bullet in him somewhere. I reckon he’d rather have bad white men on the plains than good Indians.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the officer, and, mounting his horse, he led the soldiers west along the edge of the timber.
Molly waited a good while before she ventured to descend from her perch, and, when she reached the ground, she ran down into the woods, slowing to a walk when within sight of camp. She repaired to her tent, there to lie down and rest and think. She had something to ponder over. That conversation of the scout and officer had flashed grave conjectures into her mind. Could her stepfather be one of the hide thieves? She grew cold and frightened with the thought, ashamed of herself, too, but the suspicion would not readily down. Jett had some queer things against him, that might, to be sure, relate only to his unsociable disposition, and the fact, which he had mentioned, that he did not want men to see her. Molly recalled his excuse on this occas
ion, and in the light of the soldiers’ conversation it did not ring quite true. Unless Jett had a personal jealous reason for not wanting men to see her! Once she had feared that. Of late it had seemed an exaggeration.
Fearful as was the thought she would rather it be that which made him avoid other camps and outfits, than that he be a hide thief and worse. But her woman’s instinct had always prompted her to move away from Jett. She was beginning to understand it. She owed him obedience, because he was her stepfather, and was providing her with a living. Nothing she owed, however, or tried to instill into her vacillating mind, quite did away with that insidious suspicion. There was something wrong about Jett. She settled that question for good. In the future she would listen and watch, and spy if chance offered, and use her wits to find out whether or not she was doing her stepfather an injustice.
* * * * *
The moon took an unconscionably long time to rise that night, Molly thought. But at last she saw the brightening over the river and, soon after, the round gold rim slide up into the tree foliage.
Her task of safely leaving camp this evening was rendered more hazardous by the fact that Jett and his men were near the camp, engaged in the laborious work of stretching and pegging hides. They had built a large fire in a wide cleared space to the left of the camp. Molly could both see and hear them—the dark moving forms crossing to and fro before the blaze, and the deep voices. As she stole away under the trees, she heard the high beat of her heart and felt the cold prickle of her skin; yet in the very peril of the moment—for Jett surely would do her harm if he caught her—there was an elation at her daring and her revolt against his rule.
Halfway up the trail she met her lover who was slowly coming down. To his eager whispered—“Molly.”—she responded with an eager—“Tom.”—and as well she returned his kiss.
Tom led her to a grassy spot at the foot of a tree that was in shadow. They sat there for a while, hand in hand, as lovers who were happy and unafraid of the future, yet who were not so obsessed by their dream that they forgot everything else.
“I can’t stay long,” said Tom presently. “I’ve two hours pegging out to do yet tonight. Let’s plan to meet here at this very spot every third night, say a half hour after dark.”
“All right,” whispered Molly. “I always go to my tent at dark. Sometimes, though, it might be risky to slip out at a certain time. If I’m not here, you wait at least an hour.”
So they planned their meetings and tried to foresee and forestall all possible risks, and from that drifted to talk about when they were married. Despite Tom’s practical thought for her and tenderness of the moment, Molly sensed a worry on his mind.
“Tom, what’s troubling you?” she asked.
“Tell me, do you care anything for this stepfather of yours?” he queried in quick reply.
“Jett? I hate him. . . . Perhaps I ought to be ashamed. He feeds me, clothes me, though I feel I earn that. Why do you ask me?”
“Well, if you cared for him, I’d keep my mouth shut,” said Tom. “But as you hate him, what I say can’t hurt you. . . . Molly, Jett has a bad name among the buffalo outfits.”
“I’m not surprised. Tell me.”
“I’ve heard hints made often regarding the kind of outfits that keep to themselves. On the way south some freighter who had passed Jett ahead of us gave Pilchuck a hunch for us to steer clear of him. He gave no reason, and, when I asked Pilchuck why we should steer clear of such an outfit, he just laughed at me. Well, today Pilchuck found Jett skinning a buffalo that had been killed by a Big-Fifty bullet. Pilchuck knew it because he killed the buffalo and he remembered. Jett claimed he had shot the buffalo. Pilchuck told him that he was using a needle gun, and no needle bullet ever made a hole in a buffalo such as the Big Fifty. Jett didn’t care what Pilchuck said and went on skinning. At that Pilchuck left, rather than fight over one hide. But he was mad clear through. He told Hudnall that hunters who had been in the Panhandle last summer gave Jett a bad name.”
“For that sort of thing,” inquired Molly as Tom paused.
“I suppose so. Pilchuck made no definite charges. But it was easy to see he thinks Jett is no good. These plainsmen are slow to accuse anyone of things they can’t prove. Pilchuck ended up by saying to Hudnall . . . ‘Some hunter will mistake Jett for a buffalo one of these days.’”
“Someone will shoot him,” wondered Molly.
“That’s what Pilchuck meant,” rejoined Tom seriously. “It worries me, Molly dear. I don’t care a hang what happens to Jett. But you’re in his charge. If he is a bad man, he might do you harm.”
“There’s danger of that, Tom, I’ve got to confess,” whispered Molly. “I’m afraid of Jett, but I was more so than I am now. He’s so set on his hide hunting that he never thinks of me.”
“Someone will find out about you and me, or he’ll catch us. Then what?” muttered Tom gloomily.
“That would be terrible. We’ve got to keep anyone from knowing.”
“Couldn’t you come to Hudnall’s camp to live? I know he’d take you in. And his wife and daughter would be good to you.”
Molly pondered this idea with grave concern; it appealed powerfully to her, yet seemed unwise at this time.
“Tom, I could come. I’d love to. But it surely would mean trouble. He could take me back, as I’m not of age. Then he’d beat me.”
“Then I’d kill him,” returned Tom with passion.
“He might kill you,” whispered Molly. “Then where would I be? I’d die of a broken heart. No, let’s wait a while. As long as he’s so set on this hunting I have little to fear. Besides, the women out here with these buffalo hunters are going to be sent to the fort.”
“Where’d you hear that?” demanded Tom, in amaze.
Molly told him of the impulse that had resulted in her climbing the tree, and how the soldiers had halted beneath her, and the conversation that had taken place. She told it briefly, remembering especially the gist and substance of what the officer and scout had said.
“Well! That’s news. I wonder how Hudnall will take it. I mustn’t give way where I heard it, eh, little girl? It’d be a fine thing, Molly. I hope the soldiers take all you women to the fort quick. I wouldn’t get to see you, but I could endure that, knowing you were safe.”
“I’d like it, too, and, Tom, if I am taken, I’ll stay there until I’m eighteen.”
“Your birthday is to be our wedding day,” he said.
“Is it?” she whispered shyly.
“Didn’t you say so? Are you going back on it?”
His anxiety and reproach were sweet to her, yet she could not wholly surrender her new-found power or always give in to her tenderness.
“Did I say so? Tom, would you quit murdering these poor buffalo for me, if I begged you?”
“What!” he ejaculated, amazed.
“Would you give up this hide-hunting business for me?”
“Give it up? Why, of course I would,” he responded. “But you don’t mean that you will ask it.”
“Tom dear . . . I might.”
“But, you child,” he expostulated. “The buffalo are doomed. I may as well get rich as the other men. I’m making big money. Molly, by wintertime . . . next year, surely, I can buy a ranch, build a house, stock a farm . . . for you.”
“It sounds silly of me, Tom. But you don’t understand me. Let’s not talk of it any more now.”
“All right. Only tell me you’ll never go back on me.”
“If you only knew how I need you . . . and love you . . . you’d not ask that.”
* * * * *
Molly, upon her stealthy approach to camp, made the observance that the men had finished their tasks, and were congregated about the fire, eating and drinking. The hour must have been late. Molly sank noiselessly down in her tracks and crouched there, frightened, and for the moment unable to fight off a sense of disaster. She could do nothing but remain there until they went to bed. What if Jett should walk out there? He and h
is comrades, however, did not manifest any activity.
“No . . . not yet. We’ll wait till that Huggins outfit has more hides,” declared Jett, in a low vice of finality.
“All right, boss,” rejoined Follonsbee, “but my hunch is the sooner the better.”
“Aw, to hell with buffalo hides,” yawned Pruitt. “I’m about daid. Heah it’s midnight an’ you’ll have us out at sunup. Jett, shore I’m sore, both body an’ feelin’. If I’d knowed you was goin’ to work me like this heah, I’d never’ve throwed in with you.”
“But, man, the harder we work, the more hides, an’ the less danger. . . .”
“Don’t talk so loud,” interrupted Follonsbee.
“It shore ain’t me shoutin’,” replied Pruitt sullenly. “If I wanted to shout, I’d do it. What’s eatin’ me is that I want to quit this outfit.”
Jett shook a brawny fist in Pruitt’s face that showed red in the campfire light.
“You swore you’d stick, an’ you took money in advance, now, didn’t you?” demanded Jett in a fierce whisper.
“I reckon I did. I’m square an’ don’t you overlook that,” retorted Pruitt. “It’s you who’s not square. You misrepresented things.”
“Ahuh! Maybe I was a little keen in talkin’,” admitted Jett.
“But not about what money there is in this deal. I know. You’ll get yours. Don’t let me hear you talk quit any more or I’ll know you’re yellow.”
For answer Pruitt violently threw a chip or stick into the fire, to send the sparks flying, and then rising, with one resentful red flash of face on Jett, he turned and swaggered away toward his tent, without a word.
“Bad business,” said Follonsbee, shaking his head passionately. “You’ve no way with men, Rand. You’d get more out of them if you’d be easy an’ patient, an’ argue them into your opinions.”
“Reckon so, but I can’t stand much more from that damned Rebel,” growled Jett.
“He’s harder to handle than Catlee,” went on Jett. “He’s begin-nin’ to see a hell of a risk in your way of hide huntin’. Catlee ain’t wise yet. He’s as much of a tenderfoot as Huggins or a lot more of these jayhawkers who’re crazy to get rich off the buffalo. I was afraid of these two fellars, an’ I said so. We had to have men. We’d lost a week waitin’.”