The Night Riders

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  His pipe burned out, and he recharged and lit it afresh; then he extended his peregrinations. He moved out of the deeper shadows of the bunkhouse and turned the corner in the direction of the western group of corrals.

  Now he saw the foreman’s hut beyond the dark outline of the great implement shed, and a light was still shining in the window. Turning away he passed to the left of the shed, and strolled leisurely on to the corrals. He had no desire in the world to meet Jake Harnach; not that he thought such a contingency likely, but still there was always the chance if the man had not yet gone to bed. He had already decided that the less he saw of Jake the better it would be for both of them. He remained for some minutes seated on the top of the corral fence, but the mosquitoes were too thick, and drove him to further wanderings.

  Just as he was about to move away, he saw the door of the foreman’s hut open, and in the light that shone behind, the small figure of the choreman, Joe Nelson, come out. Then the light was shut out as the great figure of Jake blocked the doorway. Now he distinctly heard them speaking.

  “I shall want it first thing in the morning,” said the foreman, in his great hoarse voice.

  “Guess I’ll see to it,” replied Joe; “but ’tain’t the saddle fer anybody who ain’t used to it.”

  “That’s o’ no consequence. Your business is to have it there.”

  Then Jake retired, and the door was shut. A moment later the waiting man saw Joe emerge from the shadow and stump off in the direction of the bunkhouse. A few yards from the foreman’s hut he halted and turned about. Then Tresler witnessed something that made him smile, while it raised a lively feeling of satisfaction in his heart. Joe slowly raised one arm in the direction of the hut, and, although the light was insufficient for him to see it, and he could hear no words, he felt sure that the fist was clenched, and a string of blasphemous invective was desecrating the purity of the night air. A moment later Joe passed leisurely on his way, and the light went out in Jake’s dwelling.

  And now, without concerning himself with his direction, Tresler continued his walk. He moved toward an open shed crowded with wagons. This he skirted, intending to avoid the foreman’s hut, but just as he moved out from the shadow, he became aware that Jake’s door had opened again and some one was coming out. He waited for a moment listening. He fancied he recognized the foreman’s heavy tread. Curiosity prompted him to inquire further, but he checked the impulse. After all, the bully’s doings were no concern of his. So he waited until the sound of receding footsteps had died out, and then passed round the back of the shed and strolled on.

  There was nothing now in front of him but the dense black line of the boundary pinewoods. These stretched away to the right and left as far as the darkness permitted him to see. The blackness of their depths was like a solid barrier, and he had neither time nor inclination to explore them at that hour. Therefore he skirted away to the right, intending to leave the forest edge before he came to the rancher’s house, and so make his way back to his quarters.

  He was approaching the house, and it loomed dark and rigid before him. Gazing upon it, his mind at once reverted to its blind owner, and he found himself wondering if he were in bed yet, if Diane had retired, and in which portion of the house she slept.

  His pipe had gone out again, and he paused to relight it. He had his matches in his hand, and was about to strike one, when suddenly a light flashed out in front of him. It came and was gone in a second. Yet it lasted long enough for him to realize that it came from a window, and the window, he knew, from its position, must be the window of Julian Marbolt’s bedroom.

  He waited for it to reappear, but the house remained in darkness; and, after a moment’s deliberation, he realized its meaning. The door of the blind man’s room must be opposite the window, and probably it was the opening of it that had revealed the lamplight in the hall. The thought suggested the fact that the rancher had just gone to bed.

  He turned his attention again to his pipe; but he seemed destined not to finish his smoke. Just as he had the match poised for a second time, his ears, now painfully acute in the stillness about him, caught the sound of horses’ hoofs moving through the forest.

  They sounded quite near; he even heard the gush of the animals’ nostrils. He peered into the depths. Then, suddenly realizing the strangeness of his own position lurking so near the house and under cover of the forest at that hour of the night, he dropped down in the shadow of a low bush. Nor was it any too soon, for, a moment or two later, he beheld two horsemen moving slowly toward him out of the black depths. They came on until they were within half a dozen yards of him, and almost at the edge of the woods. Then they drew up and sat gazing out over the ranch in silent contemplation.

  Tresler strained his eyes to obtain a knowledge of their appearance, but the darkness thwarted him. He could see the vague outline of the man nearest him, but it was so uncertain that he could make little of it. One thing only he ascertained, and that was because the figure was silhouetted against the starlit sky. The man seemed to have his face covered with something that completely concealed his profile.

  The whole scene passed almost before he realized it. The horsemen had appeared so suddenly, and were gone so swiftly, returning through the forest the way they had come, that he was not sure but that the whole apparition had been a mere trick of imagination. Rising swiftly, he gazed after the vanished riders, and the crunching of the pine cones under the horses’ hoofs, dying slowly away as they retreated, warned him that the stealthy, nocturnal visit was no illusion, but a curious fact that needed explanation.

  Just for an instant it occurred to him that it might be two of the hands out on night work around the cattle, then he remembered that the full complement were even now slumbering in the bunkhouse. Puzzled and somewhat disquieted, he turned his steps in the direction of his quarters, fully intending to go to bed; but his adventures were not over yet.

  As he drew near his destination he observed the figure of a man, bearing something on his back, coming slowly toward him. A moment later he was looking down upon the diminutive person of Joe Nelson in the act of carrying a saddle upon his shoulder.

  “Hello, Nelson, where are you going at this hour of the night?” he asked, as he came face to face with the little man.

  The choreman deposited the saddle on the ground, and looked his man up and down before he answered.

  “Wher’ am I goin’?” he said, as though he were thinking of other things. “I guess I’m doin’ a job in case I git fergittin’ by the mornin’. Jake reckons to want my saddle in the mornin’ over at the hoss corrals. But, say, why ain’t you abed, Mr. Tresler?”

  “Never mind the ‘mister,’ Joe,” Tresler said amiably.

  A moment later he beheld two horsemen

  “If you’re going to the horse corrals now I’ll go with you. I’m so beastly wide awake that I can’t turn in yet.”

  “Come right along, then. Guess I ain’t feelin’ that ways, sure.”

  Joe jerked his saddle up and slung it across his back again, and the two men walked off in silence.

  And as they walked, Joe, under cover of the darkness, eyed his companion with occasional sidelong glances, speculating as to what he wanted with him. He quite understood that his companion was not walking with him for the pleasure of his company. On his part Tresler was wondering how much he ought to tell this man—almost a stranger—of what he had seen. He felt that some one ought to know—some one with more experience than himself. He felt certain that the stealthy visit of the two horsemen was not wholesome. Such espionage pointed to something that was not quite open and aboveboard.

  They reached the corrals, and Joe deposited his burden upon the wooden wall. Then he turned sharply on his companion.

  “Wal, out wi’ it, man,” he demanded. “Guess you got something you’re wantin’ to git off’n your chest.”

  Tresler laughed softly. “You’re pretty sharp, Joe.”

  “Pretty sharp, eh?” returned the litt
le man. “Say, it don’t need no razor to cut through the meanin’ of a ‘tenderfoot.’ Wal?”

  Tresler was looking up at the saddle. It was a small, almost skeleton saddle, such as, at one time, was largely used in Texas; that was before the heavier and more picturesque Mexican saddles came into vogue among the ranchmen.

  “What does Jake want that for?” he asked.

  His question was an idle one, and merely put for the sake of gaining time while he arrived at a definite decision upon the other matter.

  “Guess it’s fer some feller to ride to-morrow—eh? Whew!”

  The choreman broke off and whistled softly. Something had just occurred to him. He measured Tresler with his eye, and then looked at the short-seated saddle with its high cantle and tall, abrupt horn in front. He shook his head.

  Tresler was not heeding him. Suddenly he stopped and sat on the ground, propping his back against the corral wall, while he looked up at Joe.

  “Sit down,” he said seriously; “I’ve got something rather particular I want to talk about. At least, I think it’s particular, being a stranger to the country.”

  Without replying, Joe deposited himself on the ground beside his new acquaintance. His face was screwed up into the expression Tresler had begun to recognize as a smile. He took a chew of tobacco and prepared to give his best attention.

  “Git goin’,” he observed easily.

  “Well, look here, have we any near neighbors?”

  “None nigher than Forks—’cep’ the Breeds, an’ they’re nigh on six mile south, out toward the hills. How?”

  Then Tresler told him what he had seen at the edge of the pinewoods, and the choreman listened with careful attention. At the end of his story Tresler added—

  “You see, it’s probably nothing. Of course, I know nothing as yet of prairie ways and doings. No doubt it can be explained. But I argued the matter out from my own point of view, and it struck me that two horsemen, approaching the ranch under cover of the forest and a dark night, and not venturing into the open after having arrived, simply didn’t want to be seen. And their not wishing to be seen meant that their object in coming wasn’t—well, just above suspicion.”

  “Tol’ble reasonin’,” nodded Joe, chewing his cud reflectively.

  “What do you make of it?”

  “A whole heap,” Joe said, spitting emphatically. “What do I make of it? Yes, that’s it, a whole heap. Guess that feller you see most of had his face covered. Was that cover a mask?”

  “It might have been.”

  “A red mask?”

  “I couldn’t see the color. It was too dark. Might have been.”

  Joe turned and faced his companion, and, hunching his bent knees into his arms, looked squarely into his eyes.

  “See here, pard, guess you never heard o’ hoss thieves? They ain’t likely to mean much to you,” he said, with some slight contempt. Then he added, by way of rubbing it in, “You bein’ a ‘tenderfoot.’ Guess you ain’t heard tell of Red Mask an’ his gang, neither?”

  “Wrong twice,” observed Tresler, with a quiet smile. “I’ve heard of both horse thieves and Red Mask.”

  “You’ve heard tell of hoss thieves an’ Red Mask? Wal, I’m figgerin’ you’ve seen both to-night, anyway; an’ I’ll further tell you this—if you’d got the drop on him this night an’ brought him down, you’d ’a’ done what most every feller fer two hundred miles around has been layin’ to do fer years, an’ you’d ’a’ been the biggest pot in Montana by sundown to-morrow.” He spoke with an accent of triumph, and paused for effect. “Say, ther’ wouldn’t ’a’ been a feller around as wouldn’t ’a’ taken his hat off to you,” he went on, to accentuate the situation. “Say, it was a dandy chance. But ther’, you’re a ‘tenderfoot,’” he added, with a sigh of profound regret.

  Tresler was inclined to laugh, but checked himself as he realized the serious side of the matter.

  “Well, if he were here to-night, what does it portend?” he asked.

  “If he was here to-night it portends a deal,” said Joe, sharply. “It portends that the biggest ‘tough,’ the biggest man-killer an’ hoss thief in the country, is on the war-path, an’ ther’ll be trouble around ’fore we’re weeks older.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Who is he? Wal, I ’lows that’s a big question. Guess ther’ ain’t no real sayin’. Some sez he’s from across the border, some sez he’s a Breed, some sez he’s the feller called Duncan, as used to run a bum saloon in Whitewater, an’ shot a man in his own bar an’ skipped. No one rightly knows, ’cep’ he’s real ‘bad,’ an’ duffs nigh on to a thousand head o’ stock most every year.”

  “Then what’s to be done?” Tresler asked, watching the little man’s twisted face as he munched his tobacco.

  “What’s to be done? Wal, I don’t rightly know. Say, what wus you doin’ around that house? I ain’t askin’ fer cur’osity. Ye see, if you got tellin’ Jake as you wus round ther’, it’s likely he’d git real mad. Y’ see, Jake’s dead sweet on Miss Dianny. It gives him the needle that I’m around that house. O’ course, ther’ ain’t nuthin’ wi’ me an’ Miss Dianny, ’cep’ we’re kind o’ friendly. But Jake’s that mean-sperrited an’ jealous. She hates him like pizen. I know, ’cos I’m kind o’ friendly wi’ her, so to speak, meanin’ nuthin’, o’ course. But that ain’t the point. If you wus to tell him he’d make your head swim.”

  “Oh, hang Jake!” exclaimed Tresler, impatiently; “I’m sick to death of hearing of his terrorizing. He can’t eat me——”

  “No, but he’ll make you wish he could,” put in the choreman, quietly.

  “He’d find me a tough mouthful,” Tresler laughed.

  “Mebbe. How came you around that house?”

  “I simply wandered there by chance. I was smoking and taking a stroll. I’d been all round the ranch.”

  “That wouldn’t suit Jake. No.” Joe was silent for a moment.

  Tresler waited. At last the little man made a move and spat out his chew.

  “That’s it,” he said, slapping his thigh triumphantly—“that’s it, sure. Say, we needn’t to tell Jake nuthin’. I’ll git around among the boys, an’ let ’em know as I heerd tell of Red Mask bein’ in the region o’ the Bend, an’ how a Breed give me warnin’, bein’ scared to come along to the ranch lest Red Mask got wind of it an’ shut his head lights fer him. Ther’ ain’t no use in rilin’ Jake. Meanin’ for you. He’s layin’ fer you anyways, as I’m guessin’ you’ll likely know. Savee? Lie low, most as low as a dead cat in a well. I’ll play this hand, wi’out you figgerin’ in it; which, fer you, I guess is best.”

  Tresler got up and dusted his clothes. There was a slight pause while he fingered the leather-capped stirrups of the stock saddle on the wall.

  Joe grew impatient. “Wal?” he said at last; “y’ ain’t bustin’ wi’ ’preciation.”

  “On the contrary, I appreciate your shrewdness and kindly interest on my behalf most cordially,” Tresler replied, dropping the stirrup and turning to his companion; “but, you see, there’s one little weakness in the arrangement. Jake’s liable to underestimate the importance of the nocturnal visits unless he knows the real facts. Besides——”

  “Besides,” broke in Joe, with an impatience bred of his reading through Tresler’s lame objection, “you jest notion to rile Jake some. Wal, you’re a fool, Tresler—a dog-gone fool! Guess you’ll strike a snag, an’ snags mostly hurts. Howsum, I ain’t no wet-nurse, an’ ef you think to bluff Jake Harnach, get right ahead an’ bluff. An’ when you bluff, bluff hard, an’ back it, or you’ll drop your wad sudden. Guess I’ll turn in.”

  Joe moved off and Tresler followed. At the door of the bunkhouse they parted, for Joe slept in a lean-to against the kitchen of the rancher’s house. They had said “good-night,” and Joe was moving away when he suddenly changed his mind and came back again.

  “Say, ther’ ain’t nothin’ like a ‘tenderfoot’ fer bein’ a fool, ’less it’s a settin’ hen
,” he said, with profound contempt but with evident good-will. “You’re kind o’ gritty, Tresler, I guess, but mebbe you’ll be ast to git across a tol’ble broncho in the mornin’. That’s as may be. But ef it’s so, jest take two thinks ’fore settin’ your six foot o’ body on a saddle built fer a feller o’ five foot one. It ain’t reason’ble, an’ it’s dangerous. It’s most like tryin’ to do that as isn’t, never wus, and ain’t like to be, an’ if it did, wouldn’t amount to a heap anyway, ’cep’ it’s a heap o’ foolishness.”

  Tresler laughed. “All right. Two into one won’t go without leaving a lot over. Good-night, Joe.”

  “So long. Them fellers as gits figgerin’ mostly gits crazed fer doin’ what’s impossible. Guess I ain’t stuck on figgers nohow.”

  And the man vanished into the night, while Tresler passed into the bunkhouse to get what little sleep his first night as a ranchman might afford him.

  * * *

  CHAPTER V

  TRESLER BEGINS HIS EDUCATION

  But the story of the nocturnal visit of the horse thieves did not reach the foreman next morning. Jake hailed Tresler down to the corrals directly after breakfast. He was to have a horse told off to him, and this matter, and the presence of others, made him postpone his purpose to a more favorable time.

  When he arrived at the corrals, three of the boys, under Jake’s superintendence, were cutting out a big, raw-boned, mud-brown mare from a bunch of about sixty colts.

  She stood well over sixteen hands—a clumsy, big-footed, mean-looking, clean-limbed lady, rough-coated, and scored all over with marks of “savaging.” She was fiddle-headed and as lean as a hay-rake, but in build she was every inch a grand piece of horse-flesh. And Tresler was sufficient horseman to appreciate her lines, as well as the vicious, roving eye which displayed the flashing whites at every turn.