The Night Riders

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  And Tresler was rousing. His constitution had asserted itself, and the restorative Diane had administered was doing the rest. He moved several times, but as yet his strength was insufficient to rouse him to full consciousness. He lay there with his brain struggling against his overwhelming weakness. Thought was hard at work with the mistiness of dreaming. He was half aware that he was stretched out upon a bed, yet it seemed to him that he was bound down with fetters of iron, which resisted his wildest efforts to break. It seemed to him that he was struggling fiercely, and that Jake was looking on mocking him. At last, utterly weary and exhausted he gave up trying and called upon Arizona. He shouted loudly, but he could not hear his own voice; he shouted again and again, raising his screams to a fearful pitch, but still no sound came. Then he thought that Jake went away, and he was left utterly alone. He lay quite still waiting, and presently he realized that he was stretched out on the prairie, staked down to the ground by shackles securing his hands and feet; and the moon was shining, and he could hear the distant sound of the coyotes and prairie dogs. This brought him to a full understanding. His enemies had done this thing so that he should be eaten alive by the starving scavengers of the prairie. He pondered long; wondering, as the cries of the coyotes drew nearer, how long it would be before the first of the loathsome creatures would attack him. Now he could see their forms in the moonlight. They came slowly, slowly. One much bigger than the rest was leading; and as the creature drew near he saw that it had the face of the rancher, whose blind eyes shone out like two coals of fire in the moonlight. It reared itself on its hind legs, and to his utter astonishment, as this man-wolf stood gazing down upon him, he saw that it was wearing the dressing-gown in which the rancher always appeared. It was a weird apparition, and the shackled man felt the force of those savage, glowing eyes, gazing so cruelly into his. But there could be no resistance, he was utterly at the creature’s mercy. He saw the gleaming teeth bared in anticipation of the meal awaiting it, but, with wolf-like cunning, it dissembled. It moved around, gazing in every direction to see that the coast was clear, it paused and stood listening; then it came on. Now it was standing near him, and he could feel the warmth of its reeking breath blowing on his face. Lower drooped its head, and its front feet, which he recognized as hands, were placed upon his neck. Then a faint and distant voice reached him, and he knew that this man-wolf was speaking. “So you’d marry her,” it said. “You! But we’ll take no chances—no chances. I could tear your throat out, but I won’t; no, I won’t do that. A little blood—just a little.” And then the dreaming man felt the fingers moving about his throat. They felt cold and clammy, and the night air chilled him.

  Then came a change, one of those fantastic changes which dreamland loves, and which drives the dreamer, even in his sleeping thought, nearly distracted. The dark vista of the prairie suddenly lit. A great light shone over all, and the dreaming man could see nothing but the light—that, and the wolf-man. The ghoulish creature stood its ground. The fingers were still at his throat, but now they moved uncertainly, groping. There was no longer the deliberate movement of set purpose. It was as though the light had blinded the cruel scavenger, that its purpose was foiled through its power of vision being suddenly destroyed. It was a breathless moment in the dream.

  But the tension quickly relaxed. The hands were drawn abruptly away. The wolf-man stood erect again, and the dreamer heard it addressing the light. The words were gentle, in contrast with the manner in which it had spoken to him, and the softness of its tones held him fascinated.

  “He’s better, eh? Coming round,” he said. And somehow the dreamer thought that he laughed, and the invisible coyotes laughed with him.

  A brief silence followed, which was ultimately broken by another voice. It was a voice from out of the light, and its tones were a gasp of astonishment and alarm.

  “What are you doing here, father?” the voice asked. There was a strange familiarity in the tones, and the dreamer struggled for recollection; but before it came to him the voice went on with a wild exclamation of horror. “Father! The bandage!”

  The dreamer wondered; and something drew his attention to the wolf-man. He saw that the creature was eyeing the light with ferocious purpose in its expression. It was all so real that he felt a wild thrill of excitement as he watched for what was to happen. But the voice out of the light again spoke, and he found himself listening.

  “Go!” it said in a tone of command, and thrilling with horror and indignation. “Go! or—no, dare to lay a hand on me, and I’ll dash the lamp in your face! Go now! or I will summon help. It is at hand, below. And armed help.”

  There was a pause. The wolf-man stared at the light with villainous eyes, but the contemplated attack was not forthcoming. The creature muttered something which the dreamer lost. Then it moved away; not as it had come, but groping its way blindly. A moment later the light went out too, the cries of the coyotes were hushed, and the moon shone down on the scene as before. And the dreamer, still feeling himself imprisoned, watched the great yellow globe until it disappeared below the horizon. Then, as the darkness closed over him, he seemed to sleep, for the scene died out and recollection faded away.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE RENUNCIATION

  The early morning sun was streaming in through the window of the sick man’s room when Tresler at last awoke to consciousness. And, curiously enough, more than half an hour passed before Diane became aware of the change in her patient.

  And yet she was wide awake too. Sleep had never been further from her eyes, and her mind never more alert. But for the first time since Tresler had been brought in wounded, his condition was no longer first in her thoughts. Something occupied her at the moment of his waking to the exclusion of all else.

  The man lay like a log. His eyes were staring up at the ceiling; he made no movement, and though perfect consciousness had come to him there was no interest with it, no inquiry. He accepted his position like an infant waking from its healthy night-long slumber. Truth to tell, his weakness held him prisoner, sapping all natural inclination from mind and body. All his awakening brought him was a hazy, indifferent recollection of a bad dream; that, and a background of the events at Willow Bluff.

  If the man were suffering from a bad dream, the girl’s expression suggested the terrible reality of her thought. There was something worse than horror in her eyes, in the puckering of her brows, in the nervous compression of her lips. There was a blending of terror and bewilderment in the brown depths that contemplated the wall before her, and every now and then her pretty figure moved with a palpable shudder. Her thoughts were reviewing feverishly scenes similar to those in her patient’s dream, only with her they were terrible realities which she had witnessed only a few hours before in that very room. At that moment she would have given her life to have been able to call them dreams. Her lover’s life had been attempted by the inhuman process of reopening his wound.

  Should she ever forget the dreadful scene? Never! Not once, but time and again her brain pictured each detail with a distinctness that was in the nature of physical pain. From the moment she awoke, which had been unaccountable to her, to find herself still propped against the foot-rail of her bed, to the finish of the dastardly scene in the sick-room was a living nightmare. She remembered the start with which she had opened her eyes. As far as she knew she had heard nothing; nothing had disturbed her. And yet she found herself sitting bolt upright, awake, listening, intent. Then her rush to the lamp. Her guilty feelings. The unconscious stealth of her tiptoeing to the landing outside. Her horror at the discovery that her obstruction to the staircase had been removed, and the chairs, as though to mock the puerility of her scheming, set in orderly fashion, side by side against the wall to make way for the midnight intruder. The closed door of the sick-room, which yielded to her touch and revealed the apparition of her father bending over her lover, and, with no uncertainty of movement, removing the bandage from the wounded neck. The terror of i
t all remained. So long as she lived she could never forget one single detail of it.

  Even now, though hours had passed since these things had happened, the nervousness with which she had finally approached the task of readjusting the bandage still possessed her. And even the thankfulness with which she discovered that the intended injury had been frustrated was inadequate to bring her more than a passing satisfaction. She shuddered, and nervously turned to her patient.

  Then it was that she became aware of his return to life.

  “Jack! Oh, thank God!” she murmured softly.

  And the sound of the well-loved voice roused the patient’s interest in the things about him.

  “Where am I?” he asked, in a weak whisper, turning his eyes to the face so anxiously regarding him.

  But Diane’s troubles had been lifted from her shoulders for the moment and the nurse was uppermost once more. She signed to him to keep quiet while she administered the doses Doc. Osler had prepared for him. Then she answered his question.

  “You are in the room adjoining mine,” she said quietly.

  Her woman’s instinct warned her that no more reassuring information could be given him.

  And the result justified it. He smiled faintly, and, in a few moments, his eyes closed again and he slept.

  Then the girl set about her work in earnest. She hurried down-stairs and communicated the good news to Joe. She went in search of Jake, to have a man despatched for the doctor. For the time at least all her troubles were forgotten in her thankfulness at her lover’s return to life. Somehow, as she passed out of the house, the very sunlight seemed to rejoice with her; the old familiar buildings had something friendly in their bald, unyielding aspect. Even the hideous corrals looked less like the prisons they were, and the branding forges less cruel. But greatest wonder of all was the attitude of Jake when she put her request before him. The giant smiled upon her and granted it without demur. And, in her gladness, the simple child smiled back her heartfelt thanks. But her smile was short-lived, and her thanks were premature.

  “I’m pretty nigh glad that feller’s mendin’,” Jake said. “Say, he’s a man, that feller.” He turned his eyes away and avoided her smiling gaze, and continued in a tone he tried to make regretful. “Guess I was gettin’ to feel mean about him. We haven’t hit it exac’ly. I allow it’s mostly temper between us. Howsum, I guess it can’t be helped now—now he’s goin’.”

  “Going?” the girl inquired. But she knew he would be going, only she wondered what Jake meant.

  “Sure,” the foreman said, with a sudden return to his usual manner. “Say, your father’s up against him good and hot. I’ve seen Julian Marbolt mad—madder’n hell; but I ain’t never seen him jest as mad as he is against your beau. When Tresler gits right he’s got to quit—quick. I’ve been wonderin’ what’s fixed your father like that. Guess you ain’t been crazy enough to tell him that Tresler’s been sparkin’ you?”

  The girl’s smile died out, and her pretty eyes assumed a look of stony contempt as she answered with spirit. And Jake listened to her reply with a smile on his bold face that in no wise concealed his desire to hurt her.

  “Whatever happens Mr. Tresler doesn’t leave our house until Doc. Osler gives the word. Perhaps it will do you good to further understand that the doctor will not give that word until I choose.”

  “You’re a silly wench!” Jake exclaimed angrily. Then he became scornful. “I don’t care that much for Tresler, now.” Nevertheless he gave a vicious snap with his fingers as he flicked them in the air. “I wish him well enough. I have reason to. Let him stay as long as you can keep him. Yes, go right ahead an’ dose him, an’ physic him; an’ when he’s well he’s goin’, sure. An’ when he’s out of the way maybe you’ll see the advantage o’ marryin’ me. How’s that, heh? There, there,” he went on tauntingly, as he saw the flushing face before him, and the angry eyes, “don’t get huffed, though I don’t know but what you’re a daisy-lookin’ wench when you’re huffed. Get right ahead, milady, an’ fix the boy up. Guess it’s all you’ll ever do for him.”

  Diane had fled before the last words came. She had to, or she would have struck the man. She knew, only too well, how right he was about Tresler; but this cruelty was unbearable, and she went back to the sick-room utterly bereft of the last shadow of the happiness she had left it with.

  The doctor came, and brought with him a measure of comfort. He told her there was nothing to be considered now but the patient’s weakness, and the cleansing of the wound. In his abrupt manner he suggested a diet, and ordered certain physic, and finally departed, telling her that as her room adjoined her patient’s there would be no further need of sitting up at night.

  And so three weeks passed; three weeks of rapid convalescence for Tresler, if they were spent very much otherwise by many of the settlers in the district. Truth to tell, it was the stormiest time that the country had ever known. The check the night-riders had received at Willow Bluff had apparently sent them crazy for revenge, which they proceeded to take in a wholly characteristic manner. Hitherto their depredations had been comparatively far apart, considerable intervals elapsing between them, but now four raids occurred one after the other. The police were utterly defied; cattle were driven off, and their defenders shot down without mercy. These monsters worked their will whithersoever they chose. The sheriff brought reinforcements up, but with no other effect than to rouse the discontent of the ranchers at their utter failure. It seemed as though the acts of these rustlers was a direct challenge to all authority. A reign of terror set in, and settlers, who had been in the country for years, declared their intention of getting out, and seeking a place where, if they had to pay more for their land, they would at least find protection for life and property.

  Such was the position when Tresler found himself allowed to move about his room, and sit in a comfortable armchair in the delightful sunlight at his open window. Nor was he kept in ignorance of the doings of the raiders. Diane and he discussed them ardently. But she was careful to keep him in ignorance of everything concerning herself and her father. He knew nothing of the latter’s objection to his presence in the house, and he knew nothing of the blind man’s threats, or that fearful attack he had perpetrated in one of his fits of mad passion.

  These days, so delightful to them both, so brimful of happiness for him, so fraught with such a blending of pain and sweetness for her, had stolen along almost uncounted, unheeded. But like all such overshadowed delights, their end came swiftly, ruthlessly.

  The signal was given at the midday meal. The rancher, who had never mentioned Tresler’s name since that memorable night, rose from the table to retire to his room. At the door he paused and turned.

  “That man, Tresler,” he said, in his smooth, even tones. “He’s well enough to go to the bunkhouse. See to it.”

  And he left the girl crushed and helpless. It had come at last. She knew that she could keep her lover no longer at her side. Even Doc. Osler could not help her, and, besides, if she refused to obey, her father would not have the slightest compunction in attending to the matter in his own way.

  So it was with a heavy heart she took herself up-stairs for the afternoon. This tête-à-tête had become their custom every day; she with her sewing, and the sick man luxuriating in a pipe. Tresler was still bandaged, but it was only lightly, for the wound was almost healed.

  The girl took up her position as usual, and Tresler moved his chair over beside the little table she laid her work on, and sat facing her. He loved to gaze upon the sad little face. He loved to say things to her that would rouse it from its serious caste, and show him the shadows dispelled, and the pretty smile wreathing itself in their stead. And he had found it so easy too. The simplicity, the honesty, the single-mindedness of this prairie flower made her more than susceptible to girlish happiness, even amidst her troublous surroundings. But he knew that these moments were all too passing, that to make them enduring he must somehow contrive to get her away from that wo
rld of brutality to a place where she could bask, surrounded by love and the sunshine of a happy home. And during the days of his convalescence he planned and plotted for the consummation of his hopes.

  But he found her more difficult to-day. The eyes were a shade more sad, and the smile would not come to banish the shadows. The sweet mouth, too, always drooping slightly at the corners, seemed to droop more than usual to-day. He tried, in vain, every topic that he thought would interest her, but at last himself began to experience the depression that seemed to weigh so desperately on her. And strangely enough this dispiriting influence conjured up in his mind a morbid memory, that until then had utterly escaped him. It was the dream he had the night before his awakening. And almost unconsciously he spoke of it.

  “You remember the day I woke to find myself here, Danny?” he said. “It just occurs to me now that I wasn’t unconscious all the time before. I distinctly remember dreaming. Perhaps I was only asleep.”

  The girl shook her head.

  “You were more than asleep,” she said portentously.

  “Anyhow, I distinctly remember a dream I had. I should say it was ‘nightmare.’ It was about your father. He’d got me by the throat, and—what’s the matter?”

  Diane started, and, to Tresler’s alarm, looked like fainting; but she recovered at once.

  “Nothing,” she said, “only—only I can’t bear to think of that time, and then—then—father strangling you! Don’t think of your dream. Let’s talk of something else.”