The Night Riders

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  “Who told you?”

  “Jake, here. I didn’t mention it before, because—because——”

  “Did you say the hills?”

  Arizona had risen to his feet. There was no emotion in his manner. They might have been discussing the most ordinary topic. Now the rest of the men crowded round. And Tresler heard the rancher’s voice calling from the verandah to inquire into the meaning of the shots. However, heedless of the others, he replied to the cowpuncher’s question.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Shake. S’long.”

  The two men gripped and Arizona faded away in the uncertain light, in the direction of the barn.

  And the dead Jake was borne by rough but gentle hands into his own shack. And there was not one amongst those “boys” but would have been ready and eager to help him, if help had been possible. Even on the prairie death atones for much that in life is voted intolerable.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXI

  AT WIDOW DANGLEY’S

  Inside the hut, where Jake had so long been master, the boys were grouped round the bunk on which their old oppressor was laid out; the strong, rough fellows were awed with the magnitude of the outrage. Jake, Jake Harnach, the terror of the ranch, “done up.” The thought was amazing. Tresler was quietly stripping clothes from the dead man’s upper body to free the wounds for the doctor’s inspection, and Raw Harris was close beside him. It was while in the midst of this operation that the former came upon another wound. Raw Harris also saw it, and at once drew his attention.

  “Guess I heerd four shots,” he said. “Say, that feller Anton was a daddy. Four of ’em, an’ all found their mark. I ’lows this one’s on’y a graze. Might ’a’ bin done wi’ a knife, et’s so clean. Yes, sirree, he was a daddy, sure.”

  As no one seemed inclined to contradict the statement that Anton was a “daddy,” and as the question of four shots or three was of no vital interest to the onlookers, the matter passed unheeded. Only Tresler found food for reflection. That fourth wound he knew had not been inflicted by the half-breed. He remembered the rancher’s knife and its dripping point, and he remembered Jake’s cry, “You would, would you!” He needed no other explanation.

  While the two men were still bending over their task there was a slight stir at the open door. The silent onlookers parted, leaving a sort of aisle to the bedside, and Julian Marbolt came shuffling his way through them, heralded by the regular tap, tap, of his guiding stick.

  It was with many conflicting emotions that Tresler looked round when he heard the familiar sound. He stared at the man as he might stare at some horrid beast of prey, fascinated even against himself. It would have been hard to say what feeling was uppermost with him at the moment. Astonishment, loathing, expectation, and even some dread, all struggled for place, and the combination held him silent, waiting for what that hateful presence was to bring forth. He could have found it in his heart to denounce him then and there, only it would have served no purpose, and would probably have done much harm. Therefore he contented himself with gazing into the inflamed depths of the man’s mysterious eyes with an intentness he had never yet bestowed upon them, and while he looked all the horror of the scene in the office stole over him again and made him shudder.

  “Where is he—where is Jake?” the blind man asked, halting accurately at the bedside.

  The question was directed at no one in particular, but Tresler took it upon himself to answer.

  “Lying on the bed before you,” he said coldly.

  The man turned on him swiftly. “Ah—Tresler,” he said.

  Then he bent over the bed, and his hands groped over the dead man’s body till they came into contact with the congealing blood round the wound in his stomach.

  With a movement of repulsion he drew back sharply. “He’s not dead?” he questioned, with a queer eagerness, turning round to those about him.

  “Yes, he is dead,” replied Tresler, with unintentional solemnity.

  “Who—who did it?”

  The question came in a tense voice, sharper and more eagerly than the preceding one.

  “Anton,” chorused the men, as though finding relief from their long silence in the announcement. The crime was even secondary to the personality of the culprit with them. Anton’s name was uppermost in their minds, and so they spoke it readily.

  “Anton? And where is he? Have you got him?”

  The rancher had turned about, and addressed himself generally.

  “Anton has made off with one of your horses,” said Tresler. “I tried to get him, but he had too much start for me. I was on foot.”

  “Well, why are you all here? Have none of you sense enough to get after him?”

  “Arizona is after him, and, until the sheriff comes, he is sufficient. He will never leave his trail.”

  There was no mistaking the significance Tresler conveyed in his last remark. The rancher took him up sharply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Arizona has no love for Anton.”

  “Ah! And Jake. Who found him? Who was there when he died?”

  Marbolt’s eyes had fixed themselves on Tresler’s face. And the latter had no hesitation in suiting his reply to his own purpose.

  “I found him—dead; quite dead. His death must have been instantaneous.”

  “So.”

  Marbolt turned back to the bed.

  The rancher stood over the dead man in silence for some minutes. Then, to Tresler’s horror, he broke out into a low-voiced lamentation, the hypocrisy of which made him want to seize him by the throat and choke the words ere they were uttered.

  “My poor old Jake!” he said, with infinite pity. “Poor old Jake!” he repeated, addressing the dead man sorrowfully. “I wish now I’d taken your advice about that rascal and got rid of him. And to think that you should be the man on whom he was to wreak his treachery. I wonder how it came about. It must have been that rough temper of yours. Tresler,” he cried, pointing to the still form on the bed, “there lies the truest, the only friend I ever had. That man has stood by me when all others left me. Yes, we’ve fought side by side in the Indian days; ay, and further back still. I remember when he would have defended me with his life; poor Jake! I suppose he had his faults, the same as most of us have. Yes, and I wager his temper took him foul of Anton. Poor old Jake! I suppose we shall never know the truth of this.” He paused. Then he cried fiercely, “Damn it! Men, every one of you, I’ll give a thousand dollars to the one who brings Anton back, dead or alive. Dead from preference, then he won’t escape us. A thousand dollars. Now, who?”

  But Tresler could stand it no longer. “Don’t trouble, Mr. Marbolt,” he said icily. “It is no use your offering rewards. The man who has gone after Anton will find him. And you can rest satisfied he’ll take nothing from you on that score. You may not know Arizona; I do.”

  “You are confident,” the other retorted, resentful at once.

  “I have reason to be,” came the decided answer.

  Marbolt shook his close-cropped head. His resentment had gone from his manner again. He had few moods which he was unable to control at will. That was how it seemed to Tresler.

  “I hope truly it may be as you say. But I must still doubt. However,” he went on, in a lighter tone, “in the meantime there is work to be done. The doctor must be summoned. Send some one for doctor and sheriff first thing to-morrow morning, Tresler. It is no use worrying them to-night. The sheriff has his night work to do, and wouldn’t thank us for routing him out now. Besides, nothing can be done until daylight! And the doctor is only needed to certify. Poor old Jake!”

  He turned away with something very like a sigh. Half-way to the door he paused.

  “Tresler, you take charge of things to-night. Have this door locked. And,” he added, with redoubled earnestness, “are you sure Arizona will hunt that man down?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Tresler smiled grimly. He fancied he understood the persistence.


  There was a moment’s silence. Then the stick tapped, and the rancher passed out under the curious gaze of his men. Tresler, too, looked after him. Nor was there any doubt of his feelings now. He knew that his presence in the house during Marbolt’s murderous assault on Jake was unsuspected. And Marbolt, villainous hypocrite that he was, was covering his tracks. He loathed the blind villain as he never thought to have loathed anybody. And all through his thoughts there was a cold, hard vein of triumph which was utterly foreign to his nature, but which was quite in keeping with his feelings toward the man with whom he was dealing.

  As Julian Marbolt passed out the men kept silence, and even when the distant tapping of his stick had died away. Tresler looked round him at these hardy comrades of his with something like delight in his eyes. Joe was not there, which matter gave him satisfaction. The faithful little fellow was at his post to care for Diane. Now he turned to Harris.

  “Raw,” he said, “will you ride in for the doctor?”

  “He said t’-morrer,” the man objected.

  “I know. But if you’d care to do me a favor you’ll ride in and warn the doctor to-night, and then—ride out to Widow Dangley’s and meet us all there, cachéd in the neighborhood.”

  The man stared; every man in that room was instantly agog with interest. Something in Tresler’s tone had brought a light to their eyes which he was glad to see.

  “What is ’t?” asked Jacob, eagerly.

  “Ay,” protested Raw; “no bluffin’.”

  “There’s no bluffing about me,” Tresler said quickly. “I’m dead in earnest. Here, listen, boys. I want you all to go out quietly, one by one. It’s eight miles to Widow Dangley’s. Arrange to get there by half-past one in the morning—and don’t forget your guns. There’s a big bluff adjoining the house,” he suggested significantly. “I shall be along, and so will the sheriff and all his men. I think there’ll be a racket, and we may—there, I can tell you no more. I refrained from asking Marbolt’s permission; you remember what he said once before. We’ll not risk saying anything to him.”

  “I’m in to the limit,” said Raw, with decision.

  “Guess we don’t want no limit to this racket. We’ll jest get right along,” said Jacob, quietly.

  And after that the men filed out one by one. And when the last had gone, Tresler put the lamp out and locked the door. Then he quietly stole up to the kitchen and peered in at the window. Diane was there, so was Joe, with two guns hanging to his belt. He had little difficulty in drawing their attention. There was no dalliance about his visit this time. He waived aside the eager questions with which the girl assailed him, and merely gave her a quiet warning.

  “Stay up all night, dear,” he said, “but do not let your father know it.”

  To Joe he said: “Joe, if you sleep a wink this night I’ll never forgive you.”

  Then he hurried away, satisfied that neither would fail him, and went to the barn. Without a word, almost without a sound, he saddled the Lady Jezebel.

  His mare ready, he went and gazed long and earnestly up at the rancher’s house. He was speculating in his mind as to the risk he was running. Not the general risk, but the risk of success or failure in his enterprise.

  He waited until the last of the lights had gone out, and the house stood out a mere black outline in the moonlight, then he disappeared within the barn again, and presently reappeared leading his fractious mare. A few moments later he rode quietly off. And the manner of his going brought a grim smile to his lips, for he thought of the ghostly movements of the night-riders as he had witnessed them. His way lay in a different direction from that of his comrades. Instead of taking the trail, as they had done, he skirted the upper corral and pastures, and plunged into the black pinewoods behind the house.

  * * *

  The Widow Dangley’s homestead looked much more extensive in the moonlight than it really was. Everything was shown up, endowed with a curious silvery burnish which dazzled the eyes till shadows became magnified into buildings, and the buildings themselves distorted out of all proportion. Hers was simply a comfortable place and quite unpretentious.

  The ranch stood in a narrow valley, in the midst of which a small brook gurgled its way on to the Mosquito River, about four miles distant. The valley was one of those sharp cuttings in which the prairie abounds, quite hidden and unmarked from the land above, lying unsuspected until one chances directly upon it. It was much like a furrow of Nature’s ploughing, cut out to serve as a drainage for the surrounding plains. It wound its irregular course away east and west, a maze of undergrowth, larger bluff, low red-sand cut-banks and crumbling gravel cliffs, all scattered by a prodigal hand, with a profusion that seemed wanton amidst the surrounding wastes of grass-land.

  The house stood on the northern slope, surrounded on three sides by a protecting bluff of pinewoods. Then to the right of it came the outbuildings, and last, at least one hundred and fifty yards from the rest, came the corrals, well hidden in the bluff, instead, as is usual, of being overlooked by the house. Certainly Widow Dangley was a confiding person.

  And so Tresler, comparatively inexperienced as he was, thought, as he surveyed the prospect in the moonlight from the back of his mare. He was accompanied by Sheriff Fyles, and the two men were estimating the chances they were likely to have against possible invaders.

  “How goes the time?” asked the sheriff, after a few moments’ silent contemplation of the scene.

  “You’ve half an hour in which to dispose your forces. Ah! there’s one of your fellows riding down the opposite bank.” Tresler pointed across the valley.

  “Yes, and there’s another lower down,” Fyles observed quietly. “And here’s one dropping down to your right. All on time. What of your men?”

  “They should be in yonder bluff, backing the corrals.”

  “How many?”

  “Four, including the cook.”

  “Four, and sixteen of mine—twenty. Our two selves—twenty-two. Good; come on.”

  The man led the way to the bluff. The cowboys were all there. They received instructions to hold the position at the corrals; to defend them, or to act as reinforcements if the struggle should take place elsewhere. Then the two leaders passed on down into the valley. It was an awkward descent, steep, and of a loose surface that shelved under their horses’ feet. For the moment a cloud had obscured the moon, and Fyles looked up. A southwesterly breeze had sprung up, and there was a watery look about the sky.

  “Good,” he said again, in his abrupt manner. “There won’t be too much moon. Moonlight is not altogether an advantage in a matter of this sort. We must depend chiefly on a surprise. We don’t want too many empty saddles.”

  At the bottom of the valley they found the rest of the men gathered together in the shelter of the scattered undergrowth. It was Fyles’s whole command. He proceeded at once to divide them up into two parties. One he stationed east of the ranch, split into a sort of skirmishing order, to act under Tresler’s charge. The other party he took for his own command, selecting an advantageous position to the west. He had also established a code of signals to be used on the approach of the enemy; these took the form of the cry of the screech-owl. Thus, within a quarter of an hour after their arrival, all was in readiness for the raiders, and the valley once more returned to its native quiet.

  And how quiet and still it all was! The time crept on toward the appointed hour. The moon was still high in the heavens, but its light had grown more and more uncertain. The clouds had become dense to a stormy extent. Now and then the rippling waters of the brook caught and reflected for a moment a passing shaft of light, like a silvery rift in the midst of the valley, but otherwise all was shadow. And in the occasional moonlight every tree and bush and boulder was magnified into some weird, spectral shape, distorting it from plain truth into some grotesque fiction, turning the humblest growth into anything from a grazing steer to a moving vehicle; from a prowling coyote to a log hut. The music of the waking night-world droned on the sce
nted air, emphasizing the calm, the delicious peace. It was like some fairy kingdom swept by strains of undefined music which haunted the ear without monotony, and peopled with shadows which the imagination could mould at its pleasure.

  But in the eagerness of the moment all this was lost to the waiting men. To them it was a possible battleground; with a view to cover, it was a strategic position, and they were satisfied with it. The cattle, turned loose from the corrals, must pass up or down the valley; similarly, any number of men must approach from one of these two directions, which meant that the ambush could not be avoided.

  At last the warning signal came. An owl hooted from somewhere up the valley, the cry rising in weird cadence and dying away lingeringly. And, at the same time, there came the sound of a distant rumble, like the steady drone of machinery at some far-off point. Tresler at once gave up his watch on the east and centred all attention upon the west. One of his own men had answered the owl’s cry, and a third screech came from the guard at the corrals.

  The rumble grew louder. There were no moving objects visible yet, but the growing sound was less of a murmur; it was more detached, and the straining ears distinctly made out the clatter of hoofs evidently traveling fast down the valley trail. On they came, steadily hammering out their measure with crisp precision. It was a moment of tense excitement for those awaiting the approach. But only a moment, although the sensation lasted longer. The moon suddenly brought the whole thing into reality. Suspense was banished with its revealing light, and each man, steady at his post, gripped his carbine or revolver, ready to pour in a deadly fire the moment the word should be given. A troop of about eighteen horsemen dashed round a bend of the valley and plunged into the ambush.

  Instantly Fyles’s voice rang out. “Halt, or we fire!” he cried.

  The horsemen drew rein at once, but the reply was a pistol-shot in the direction whence his voice had sounded. The defiance was Tresler’s signal. He passed the word to his men, and a volley of carbine-fire rang out at once, and confusion in the ranks of the horsemen followed immediately.