The Night Riders

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  The sun had set when Tresler separated himself from his companions. Making his way down past the lower corrals he took himself to the ford. Joe thoughtfully watched him go.

  Seated on a fallen tree-trunk Tresler pondered long and deeply. He was thinking of Joe’s information that the sheriff had at last set up a station at Forks. Why should he not carry his story to him? Why should he not take this man into his confidence, and so work out the trapping of the gang? And, if Jake were——

  He had no time to proceed further. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of wheels, followed, a moment later, by the splash of a horse crossing the ford. He turned in the direction whence the sound came, and beheld Bessie hauling a buckboard up the bank of the river; at the same instant he recognized the only occupant of the vehicle. It was Diane returning from her errand of mercy.

  Tresler sprang to his feet. He doffed his prairie hat as the buckboard drew abreast of him. Nor was he unmindful of the sudden flush that surged to the girl’s cheeks as she recognized him. Without any intention Diane checked the mare, and, a moment later, realizing what she had done, she urged her on with unnecessary energy. But Tresler had no desire that she should pass him in that casual fashion, and, with a disarming smile, hailed her.

  “Don’t change a good mind, Miss Marbolt,” he cried.

  Whereat the blush returned to the girl’s cheek intensified, for she knew that he had seen her intention. This time, however, she pulled up decidedly, and turned a smiling face to him.

  “This is better than I bargained for,” he went on. “I came here to think the afternoon’s events out, and—I meet you. I had no idea you were out.”

  “I felt that Bess wanted exercise,” the girl answered evasively.

  Without asking herself why, Diane felt pleased at meeting this man. Their first encounter had been no ordinary one. From the beginning he seemed to link himself with her life. For her their hours of acquaintance might have been years; years of mutual help and confidence. However, she gathered her reins up as though to drive on. Tresler promptly stayed her.

  “No, don’t go yet, Miss Marbolt, please. Pleasures that come unexpectedly are pleasures indeed. I feel sure you will not cast me back upon my gloomy thoughts.”

  Diane let the reins fall into her lap.

  “So your thoughts were gloomy; well, I don’t wonder at it. There are gloomy things happening. I was out driving, and thought I would look in at Mosquito Reach. It has been razed to the ground.”

  “You have been to see—and help—young Orr’s mother and sister? I know it. It was like you, Miss Marbolt,” Tresler said, with a genuine look of admiration at the dark little face so overshadowed by the sun-hat.

  “Don’t be so ready to credit me with virtues I do not possess. We women are curious. Curiosity is one of our most pronounced features. Poor souls—their home is gone. Utterly—utterly gone. Oh, Mr. Tresler, what are we to do? We cannot remain silent, and yet—we don’t know. We can prove nothing.”

  “And what has become of them—I mean Mrs. Orr and her daughter?” Tresler asked, for the moment ignoring the girl’s question.

  “They have gone into Forks.”

  “And food and money?”

  “I have seen to that.” Diane shrugged her shoulders to make light of what she had done, but Tresler would not be put off.

  “Bless you for that,” he said, with simple earnestness. “I knew I was right.” Then he reverted abruptly to her question. “But we can do something; the sheriff has come to Forks.”

  “Yes, I know.” Diane’s tone suddenly became eager, almost hopeful. “And father knows, and he is going to send in a letter to Fyles—Sheriff Fyles is the great prairie detective, and is in charge of Forks—welcoming him, and inviting him out here. He is going to tell him all he knows of these rustlers, and so endeavor to set him on their track. Father laughs at the idea of the sheriff catching these men. He says that they—the rustlers—are no ordinary gang, but clever men, and well organized. But he thinks that if he gets Fyles around it will save his property.”

  “And your father is wise. Yes, it will certainly have that effect; but I, too, have a little idea that I have been working at, and—Miss Marbolt, forgive the seeming impertinence, but I want to discuss Jake again; this time from a personal point of view. You dislike Jake; more, you have shown me that you fear him.”

  The girl hesitated before replying. This man’s almost brusque manner of driving straight to his point was somewhat alarming. He gave her no loophole. If she discussed the matter with him at all it must be fully, or she must refuse to answer him.

  “I suppose I do fear him,” she said at last with a sigh. Then her face suddenly lit up with an angry glow. “I fear him as any girl would fear the man who, in defiance of her expressed hatred, thrusts his attentions upon her. I fear him because of father’s blindness. I fear him because he hopes in his secret heart some day to own this ranch, these lands, all these splendid cattle, our fortune. Father will be gone then. How? I don’t know. And I—I shall be Jake’s slave. These are the reasons why I fear Jake, Mr. Tresler, since you insist on knowing.”

  “I thank you, Miss Marbolt.” The gentle tone at once dispelled the girl’s resentment. “You have suspicions which may prove to be right. It was for this reason I asked you to discuss Jake. One thing more and I’ll have done. This Joe Nelson, he is very shrewd, he is in close contact with you. How far is he to be trusted?”

  “To any length; with your life, Mr. Tresler,” the girl said with enthusiasm. “Joe is nobody’s enemy but his own, poor fellow. I am ashamed to admit it, but I have long since realized that when things bother me so that I cannot bear them all alone, it is Joe that I look to for help. He is so kind. Oh, Mr. Tresler, you cannot understand the gentleness, the sympathy of his honest old heart. I am very, very fond of Joe.”

  The man abruptly moved from his stand at the side of the buckboard, and looked along the trail in the direction of the ranch. His action was partly to check an impulse which the girl’s manner had roused in him, and partly because his quick ears had caught the sound of some one approaching. He was master of himself in a moment, however, and, returning, smiled up into the serious eyes before him.

  “Well, Joe shall help me,” he said. “He shall help me as he has helped you. If——” he broke off, listening. Then with great deliberation he came close up to the buckboard. “Miss—Diane,” he said, and the girl’s lids lowered before the earnestness of his gaze, “you shall never—while I live—be the slave of Jake Harnach.”

  Nor had Tresler time to move away before a tall figure rounded the bend of the trail. In the dusk he mistook the newcomer for Jake, then, as he saw how slim he was, he realized his mistake.

  The man came right up to the buckboard with swift, almost stealthy strides. The dark olive of his complexion, the high cheek-bones, the delicately chiseled, aquiline nose, the perfectly penciled eyebrows surmounting the quick, keen, handsome black eyes; these things combined with the lithe, sinuous grace of an admirably poised body made him a figure of much attraction.

  The man ignored Tresler, and addressed the girl in the buckboard in a tone that made the former’s blood boil.

  “The boss, him raise hell. Him say, ‘I mak’ her wish she not been born any more.’ Him say, ‘Go you, Anton, an’ find her, an’ you not leave her but bring her back.’ Ho, the boss, your father, he mad. Hah?” The half-breed grinned, and displayed a flashing set of teeth. “So I go,” he went on, still smiling in his impudent manner. “I look out. I see the buckboard come down to the river. I know you come. I see from there back”—he pointed away to the bush—“you talk with this man, an’ I wait. So!”

  Diane was furious. Her gentle brown eyes flashed, and two bright patches of color burned on her cheeks. The half-breed watched her carelessly. Turning to Tresler she held out her hand abruptly.

  “Good-night, Mr. Tresler,” she said quietly. Then she chirruped to her light-hearted mare and drove off.

  Anton look
ed after her. “Sacre!” he cried, with a light shrug. “She is so mad—so mad. Voilà!” and he leisurely followed in the wake of the buckboard.

  And Tresler looked after him. Then it was that his thoughts reverted to the scene in the saloon at Forks. So this was Anton—“Black” Anton—the man who had slid into the country without any one knowing it. He remembered Slum Ranks’s words and description. This was the man who had the great Jake’s measure.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII

  WHICH DEALS WITH THE MATTER OF DRINK

  Although the murder of Manson Orr caused a wide-spread outcry, it ended at that in so far as the inhabitants of the district were concerned. There were one or two individuals who pondered deeply on the matter, and went quietly about a careful investigation, and of these Tresler was the most prominent. He found excuse to visit the scene of the outrage; he took interest in the half-breed settlement six miles out from Mosquito Bend. He hunted among the foot-hills, even into the obscurer confines of the mountains; and these doings of his were the result of much thought, and the work of much time and ingenuity; for everything had to be done without raising the suspicion of anybody on the ranch, or for that matter, off it. Being a “green” hand helped him. It was really astonishing how easily an intelligent man like Tresler could get lost; and yet such was the deplorable fact. Even Arizona’s opinion of him sank to zero, while Jake found a wide scope for his sneering brutality.

  As the days lengthened out into a week, and then a fortnight passed and nothing more was heard of Red Mask, the whole matter began to pass out of mind, and gradually became relegated to the lore of the country. It was added to the already long list of barroom stories, to be narrated, with embellishments, by such men as Slum or the worthy Forks carpenter.

  The only thing that stuck in people’s minds, and that only because it added fuel to an already deep, abiding, personal hatred, was the story of Julian Marbolt’s treatment of young Archie Orr, and his refusal to inaugurate a vigilance party. The blind man’s name, always one to rouse the roughest side of men’s tongues, was now cursed more bitterly than ever.

  And during these days the bunkhouse at Mosquito Bend seethed with revolt. But though this was so, underneath all their most bitter reflections the men were not without a faint hope of seeing the career of these desperadoes cut short; and this hope sprang from the knowledge of the coming of the sheriff to Forks. The faith of Arizona and the older hands in the official capacity for dealing with these people was a frail thing, but the younger set were less sceptical.

  And at last Julian Marbolt’s tardy invitation to Fyles was despatched. Tresler had watched and waited for the sending of that letter; he had hoped to be the bearer of it himself. It would have given him the opportunity of making this Fyles’s acquaintance, which was a matter he desired to accomplish as soon as possible, without drawing public attention to the fact. But in this he was disappointed, for Jake sent Nelson. Nor did he know of the little man’s going until he saw him astride of his buckskin “shag-an-appy,” with the letter safely bestowed in his wallet.

  This was not the only disappointment he experienced during that fortnight. He saw little or nothing of Diane. To Tresler, at least, their meeting at the ford was something more than a recollection. Every tone of the girl’s voice, every look, every word she had spoken remained with him, as these things will at the dawn of love. Many times he tried to see her, but failed. Then he learned the meaning of their separation. One day Joe brought him a note from Diane, in which she told him how Black Anton had returned to her father and poured into his only too willing ears a wilfully garbled story of their meeting at the ford. She told him of her father’s anger, and how he had forbidden her to leave the house unattended by at least one of his two police—Anton and Jake. This letter made its recipient furious, but it also started a secret correspondence between them, Joe Nelson proving himself perfectly willing to act as go-between. And this correspondence was infinitely pleasant to Tresler. He treasured Diane’s letters with a jealous care, making no attempt to disguise the truth from himself. He knew that he was falling hopelessly in love—had fallen hopelessly in love.

  This was the position when the evening of the day came on which the rancher’s invitation to Fyles had been despatched. The supper hash had been devoured by healthy men with healthy appetites. Work was practically over, there was nothing more to be done but feed, water, and bed down the horses. And Joe Nelson had not yet returned from Forks; he was at least five hours overdue.

  Arizona, practically recovered from his wound, was carefully soaping his saddle, and generally preparing his accoutrements for return to full work on the morrow. He had grown particularly sour and irritable with being kept so long out of the saddle. His volcanic temper had become even more than usually uncertain.

  His convalescence threw him a good deal into Tresler’s company, and a sort of uncertain friendship had sprung up between them. Arizona at first tolerated him, protested scathingly at his failures in the craft, and ended by liking him; while the other cordially appreciated the open, boisterous honesty of the cowpuncher. He was equally ready to do a kindly action, or smite the man hip and thigh who chanced to run foul of him. Tresler often told him that his nationality was a mistake, that instead of being an American he should have been born in Ireland.

  Just now the prospect of once more getting to work had put Arizona in high good temper, and he took his comrades’ rough chaff good-naturedly, giving as good as he got, and often a little better.

  Jacob Smith had been watching him for some time, and a thoughtful grin had quietly taken possession of his features.

  “Soapin’ yer saddle,” he observed at last, as the lean man happened to look up and see the grinning face in the doorway of the bunkhouse. “Guess saddles do git kind o’ slippery when you ain’t slung a leg over one fer a whiles. Say, best soap the knees o’ yer pants too, Arizona. Mebbe y’ll sit tighter.”

  “Wal,” retorted Arizona, bending to his work again, “I do allow ther’s more savee in that tip than most gener’ly slobbers off’n your tongue. I’ll kind o’ turn it over some.”

  Jacob’s grin broadened. “Guess I should. Your plug ain’t been saddled sence you wus sent sick. Soft soap ain’t gener’ly in your line; makes me laff to see you handlin’ it.”

  “That’s so,” observed the other, imperturbably. “I ’lows it has its uses. ’Tain’t bad fer washin’. Guess you ain’t tried it any?”

  At that moment Raw Harris came across from the barn. He lounged over to an upturned box and sat down.

  “Any o’ you fellers seen Joe Nelson along yet?” he asked as he leisurely filled his pipe.

  “Five hours overdue,” said Tresler, who was cleaning out the chambers of his revolver.

  “Joe ain’t likely to git back this night,” observed Arizona. “He’s a terror when he gits alongside a saloon. Guess he’s drank out one ranch of his own down Texas way. He’s the all-firedest bag o’ tricks I’ve ever see. Soft as a babby is Joe. Honest? Wal, I’d smile. Joe’s that honest he’d give up his socks ef the old sheep came along an’ claimed the wool. Him an’ me’s worked together ’fore. He’s gittin’ kind o’ old, an’ ain’t as handy as he used to be. Say, he never told you ’bout that temperator feller, Tresler, did he?”

  Tresler shook his head, and paused in his work to relight his pipe.

  “It kind o’ minds me to tell you sence we’re talkin’ o’ Joe. It likely shows my meanin’ when I sez he’s that soft an’ honest, an’ yet crazy fer drink. You see, it wus this a-ways. I wus kind o’ foreman o’ the ‘U bar U’s’ in Canada, an’ Joe wus punchin’ cows then. The boys wus sheer grit; good hands, mind you, but sudden-like.”

  Arizona ceased plastering the soap on his saddle and stood erect. His gaunt figure looked leaner than ever, but his face was alight with interest in the story he was about to narrate, and his great wild eyes were shining with a look that suggested a sort of fierce amusement. Teddy Jinks lounged into view and stood pr
opped against an angle of the building.

  “Git on,” said Lew, between the puffs at his pipe.

  Arizona shot a quick, disdainful glance at the powerful figure of the parson’s progeny, and went on in his own peculiar fashion fashion—

  “Wal, it so happened that the records o’ the ‘U bar U’s’ kind o’ got noised abroad some, as they say in the gospel. Them coyotes as reckoned they wus smart ’lowed as even the cattle found a shortage o’ liquid by reason of an onnatural thirst on that ranch. Howsum, mebbe ther’ wus reason. Old Joe, he wus the daddy o’ the lot. Jim Marlin used to say as Joe most gener’ly used a black lead when he writ his letters; didn’t fancy wastin’ ink. Mebbe that’s kind o’ zaggerated, but I guess he wus the next thing to a fact’ry o’ blottin’ paper, sure.

  “Wal, I reckon some bald-faced galoot got yappin’, leastways there wus a temperance outfit come right along an’ lay hold o’ the boss. Say, flannel-mouthed orators! I guess that feller could roll out more juicy notions on the subject o’ drink in five minutes than a high-pressure locomotive could blow off steam through a five-inch leak in ha’f a year. He wus an eddication in langwidge, sir, sech as ’ud per-suade a wall-eyed mule to do what he didn’t want, and wa’n’t goin’ to do anyways.

  “I corralled the boys up in the yard, an’ the feller got good an’ goin’. He spotted Joe right off; fixed him wi’ his eye an’ focussed him dead centre, an’ talked right at him. An’ Joe wus iled—that iled he couldn’t keep a straight trail fer slippin’. Say, speakin’ metaphoric, that feller got the drop on pore Joe. He give him a dose o’ syllables in the pit o’ the stummick that made him curl, then he follered it right up wi’ a couple o’ slugs o’ his choicest, ’fore he could straighten up. Then he sort o’ picked him up an’ shook him with a power o’ langwidge, an’ sot him down like a spanked kid. Then he clouted him over both lugs with a shower o’ words wi’ capitals, clumped him over the head wi’ a bunch o’ texts, an’ thrashed him wi’ a fact’ry o’ trac’ papers. Say, I guess pore Joe wouldn’t ’a’ rec’nized the flavor o’ whisky from blue pizen when that feller had done; an’ we jest looked on, feelin’ ’bout as happy as a lot o’ old hens worritin’ to hatch out a batch o’ Easter eggs. Say, pore Joe wus weepin’ over his sins, an’ I guess we wus all ’most ready to cry. Then the feller up an’ sez, ‘Fetch out the pernicious sperrit, the nectar o’ the devil, the waters o’ the Styx, the vile filth as robs homes o’ their support, an’ drives whole races to perdition!’ an’ a lot o’ other big talk. An’, say, we fetched! Yes, sir, we fetched like a lot o’ silly, skippin’ lambs. We brought out six bottles o’ the worstest rotgut ever faked in a settlement saloon, an’ handed it over. After that I guess we wus feelin’ better. Sez we, feelin’ kind o’ mumsy over the whole racket, it ain’t right, we sez, to harbor no sperrit-soaked, liver-pickled tag of a decent citizen’s life around this layout; an’ so we took Joe Nelson to the river and diluted him. After that I ’lows we lay low. I did hear as some o’ the boys said their prayers that night, which goes to show as they wus feelin’ kind o’ thin an’ mean. Ther’ wa’n’t a feller ther’ but wus dead swore off fer a week.