The Second Western Megapack

by Various Writers

  “That beats me,” said Cutler, quietly, and his hand moved under his frock-coat, as the half-breed, eyeing the central pile of counters in triumph, closed his fingers over it. They were dashed off by Kelley, who looked expectantly across at Cutler, and seeing the scout’s face wither into sudden old age, cried out, “For God’s sake, Jarvis, where’s your gun?” Kelley sprang for the yellow curtain, and reeled backward at the shot of Toussaint. His arm thrashed along the window-sill as he fell, sweeping over the lamp, and flaring channels of oil ran over his body and spread on the ground. But these could no longer hurt him. The half-breed had leaped outside the cabin, enraged that Cutler should have got out during the moment he had been dealing with Kelley. The scout was groping for his ivory-handled pistol off in the darkness. He found it, and hurried to the little window at a second shot he heard inside. Loomis, beating the rising flame away, had seized the pistol from the shelf, and aimlessly fired into the night at Toussaint. He fired again, running to the door from the scorching heat. Cutler got round the house to save him if he could, and saw the half-breed’s weapon flash, and the body pitch out across the threshold. Toussaint, gaining his horse, shot three times and missed Cutler, whom he could not clearly see; and he heard the scout’s bullets sing past him as his horse bore him rushing away.

  II

  Jarvis Cutler lifted the dead Loomis out of the cabin. He made a try for Kelley’s body, but the room had become a cave of flame, and he was driven from the door. He wrung his hands, giving himself bitter blame aloud, as he covered Loomis with his saddle-blanket, and jumped bareback upon Duster to go to the post. He had not been riding a minute when several men met him. They had seen the fire from below, and on their way up the half-breed had passed them at a run.

  “Here’s our point,” said Cutler. “Will he hide with the Sioux, or will he take to the railroad? Well, that’s my business more than being wagon-master. I’ll get a warrant. You tell Lieutenant Balwin—and somebody give me a fresh horse.”

  A short while later, as Cutler, with the warrant in his pocket, rode out of Fort Laramie, the call of the sentinels came across the night: “Number One. Twelve o’clock, and all’s well.” A moment, and the refrain sounded more distant, given by Number Two. When the fourth took it up, far away along the line, the words were lost, leaving something like the faint echo of a song. The half-breed had crossed the Platte, as if he were making for his kindred tribe, but the scout did not believe in this too plain trail.

  “There’s Chug Water lying right the other way from where he went, and I guess it’s there Mr. Toussaint is aiming for.” With this idea Cutler swung from north to southwest along the Laramie. He went slowly over his shortcut, not to leave the widely circling Toussaint too much in his rear. The fugitive would keep himself carefully far on the other side of the Laramie, and very likely not cross it until the forks of Chug Water. Dawn had ceased to be gray, and the doves were cooing incessantly among the river thickets, when Cutler, reaching the forks, found a bottom where the sage-brush grew seven and eight feet high, and buried himself and his horse in its cover. Here was comfort; here both rivers could be safely watched. It seemed a good leisure-time for a little fire and some breakfast. He eased his horse of the saddle, sliced some bacon, and put a match to his pile of small sticks. As the flame caught, he stood up to enjoy the cool of a breeze that was passing through the stillness, and he suddenly stamped his fire out. The smell of another fire had come across Chug Water on the wind. It was incredible that Toussaint should be there already. There was no seeing from this bottom, and if Cutler walked up out of it the other man would see too. If it were Toussaint, he would not stay long in the vast exposed plain across Chug Water, but would go on after his meal. In twenty minutes it would be the thing to swim or wade the stream, and crawl up the mud bank to take a look. Meanwhile, Cutler dipped in water some old bread that he had and sucked it down, while the little breeze from opposite hook the cottonwood leaves and brought over the smell of cooking meat. The sun grew warmer, and the doves ceased. Cutler opened his big watch, and clapped it shut as the sound of mud heavily slopping into the other river reached him. He crawled to where he could look at the Laramie from among his sagebrush, and there was Toussaint leading his horse down to the water. The half-breed gave a shrill call, and waved his hat. His call was answered, and as he crossed the Laramie, three Sioux appeared, riding to the bank. They waited till he gained their level, when all four rode up the Chug Water, and went out of sight opposite the watching Cutler. The scout threw off some of his clothes, for the water was still high, and when he had crossed, and drawn himself to a level with the plain, there were the four squatted among the sage-brush beside a fire. They sat talking and eating for some time. One of them rose at last, pointed south, and mounting his horse, dwindled to a dot, blurred, and evaporated in the heated, trembling distance. Cutler at the edge of the bank still watched the other three, who sat on the ground. A faint shot came, and they rose at once, mounted, and vanished southward. There was no following them now in this exposed country, and Cutler, feeling sure that the signal had meant something about Toussaint’s horses, made his fire, watered his own horse, and letting him drag a rope where the feed was green, ate his breakfast in ease. Toussaint would get a fresh mount, and proceed to the railroad. With the comfort of certainty and tobacco, the scout lolled by the river under the cottonwood, and even slept. In the cool of the afternoon he reached the cabin of an acquaintance twenty miles south, and changed his horse. A man had passed by, he was told. Looked as if bound for Cheyenne. “No,” Cutler said, “he’s known there”; and he went on, watching Toussaint’s tracks. Within ten miles they veered away from Cheyenne to the southeast, and Cutler struck out on a trail of his own more freely. By midnight he was on Lodge-Pole Creek, sleeping sound among the last trees that he would pass. He slept twelve hours, having gone to bed knowing he must not come into town by daylight. About nine o’clock he arrived, and went to the railroad station; there the operator knew him. The lowest haunt in the town had a tent south of the Union Pacific tracks; and Cutler, getting his irons, and a man from the saloon, went there, and stepped in, covering the room with his pistol. The fiddle stopped, the shrieking women scattered, and Toussaint, who had a glass in his hand, let it fly at Cutler’s head, for he was drunk. There were two customers besides himself.

  “Nobody shall get hurt here,” said Cutler, above the bedlam that was now set up. “Only that man’s wanted. The quieter I get him, the quieter it’ll be for others.”

  Toussaint had dived for his pistol, but the proprietor of the dance-hall, scenting law, struck the half-breed with the butt of another, and he rolled over, and was harmless for some minutes. Then he got on his legs, and was led out of the entertainment, which resumed more gayly than ever. Feet shuffled, the fiddle whined, and truculent treble laughter sounded through the canvas walls as Toussaint walked between Cutler and the saloon-man to jail. He was duly indicted, and upon the scout’s deposition committed to trial for the murder of Loomis and Kelley. Cutler, hoping still to be wagon-master, wrote to Lieutenant Balwin, hearing in reply that the reinforcements would not arrive for two months. The session of the court came in one, and Cutler was the Territory’s only witness. He gave his name and age, and hesitated over his occupation.

  “Call it poker-dealer,” sneered Toussaint’s attorney.

  “I would, but I’m such a fool one,” observed the witness. “Put me down as wagon-master to the military outfit that’s going to White River.”

  “What is your residence?”

  “Well, I reside in the section that lies between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean.”

  “A pleasant neighborhood,” said the judge, who knew Cutler perfectly, and precisely how well he could deal poker hands.

  “It’s not a pleasant neighborhood for some.” And Cutler looked at Toussaint.

  “You think you done with me?” Toussaint inquired, upon which silence was ordered in the court.

  Upon Cutler’s tes
timony the half-breed was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged in six weeks from that day. Hearing this, he looked at the witness. “I see you one day agin,” he said.

  The scout returned to Fort Laramie, and soon the expected troops arrived, and the expedition started for White River to join Captain Brent. The captain was stationed there to impress Red Cloud, and had written to headquarters that this chief did not seem impressed very deeply, and that the lives of the settlers were insecure. Reinforcements were accordingly sent to him. On the evening before these soldiers left Laramie, news came from the south. Toussaint had escaped from jail. The country was full of roving, dubious Indians, and with the authentic news went a rumor that the jailer had received various messages. These were to the effect that the Sioux nation did not desire Toussaint to be killed by the white man, that Toussaint’s mother was the sister of Red Cloud, and that many friends of Toussaint often passed the jailer’s house. Perhaps he did get such messages. They are not a nice sort to receive. However all this may have been, the prisoner was gone.

  III

  Fort Robinson, on the White River, is backed by yellow bluffs that break out of the foot-hills in turret and toadstool shapes, with stunt pines starving between their torrid bastions. In front of the fort the land slants away into the flat unfeatured desert, and in summer the sky is a blue-steel covet that each day shuts the sun and the earth and mankind into one box together, while it lifts at night to let in the cool of the stars. The White River, which is not wide, runs in a curve, and around this curve below the fort some distance was the agency, and beyond it a stockade, inside which in those days dwelt the settlers. All this was strung out on one side of the White River, outside of the curve; and at a point near the agency a foot-bridge of two cottonwood trunks crossed to the concave of the river’s bend—a bottom of some extent, filled with growing cottonwoods, and the tepees of many Sioux families. Along the river and on the plain other tepees stood.

  One morning, after Lieutenant Balwin had become established at Fort Robinson, he was talking with his friend Lieutenant Powell, when Cutler knocked at the wire door. The wagon-master was a privileged character, and he sat down and commented irrelevantly upon the lieutenant’s pictures, Indian curiosities, and other well-meant attempts to conceal the walk:

  “What’s the trouble, Cutler?”

  “Don’t know as there’s any trouble.”

  “Come to your point, man; you’re not a scout now.”

  “Toussaint’s here.”

  “What! in camp?”

  “Hiding with the Sioux. Two Knives heard about it.” (Two Knives was a friendly Indian.) “He’s laying for me,” Cutler added.

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “No. I want to quit my job and go after him.”

  “Nonsense!” said Powell.

  “You can’t, Cutler,” said Balwin. “I can’t spare you.”

  “You’ll be having to fill my place, then, I guess.”

  “You mean to go without permission?” said Powell, sternly.

  “Lord, no! He’ll shoot me. That’s all.”

  The two lieutenants pondered.

  “And it’s to-day,” continued Cutler, plaintively, “that he should be gettin’ hanged in Cheyenne.”

  Still the lieutenants pondered, while the wagon-master inspected a photograph of Marie Rose as Marguerite.

  “I have it!” exclaimed Powell. “Let’s kill him.”

  “How about the commanding officer?”

  “He’d back us—but we’ll tell him afterwards. Cutler, can you find Toussaint?”

  “If I get the time.”

  “Very well, you’re off duty till you do. Then report to me at once.”

  Just after guard-mounting two days later, Cutler came in without knocking. Toussaint was found. He was down on the river now, beyond the stockade. In ten minutes the wagon-master and the two lieutenants were rattling down to the agency in an ambulance, behind four tall blue government mules. These were handily driven by a seventeen-year-old boy whom Balwin had picked up, liking his sterling American ways. He had come West to be a cow-boy, but a chance of helping to impress Red Cloud had seemed still dearer to his heart. They drew up at the agency store, and all went in, leaving the boy nearly out of his mind with curiosity, and pretending to be absorbed with the reins. Presently they came out, Balwin with field-glasses.

  “Now,” said he, “where?”

  “You see the stockade, sir?”

  “Well?” said Powell, sticking his chin on Cutler’s shoulder to look along his arm as he pouted. But the scout proposed to be deliberate.

  “Now the gate of the stockade is this way, ain’t it?”

  “Well, well?”

  “You start there and follow the fence to the corner—the left corner, towards the river. Then you follow the side that’s nearest the river down to the other corner. Now that corner is about a hundred yards from the bank. You take a bee-line to the bank and go down stream, maybe thirty yards. No; it’ll be forty yards, I guess. There’s a lone pine-tree right agin the edge.” The wagon-master stopped.

  “I see all that,” said Lieutenant Balwin, screwing the field-glasses. “There’s a buck and a squaw lying under the tree.”

  “Naw, sir,” drawled Cutler, “that ain’t no buck. That’s him lying in his Injun blanket and chinnin’ a squaw.”

  “Why, that man’s an Indian, Cutler. I tell you I can see his braids.”

  “Oh, he’s rigged up Injun fashion, fust rate, sir. But them braids of his ain’t his’n. False hair.”

  The lieutenants passed each other the fieldglasses three times, and glared at the lone pine and the two figures in blankets. The boy on the ambulance was unable to pretend any longer, and leaned off his seat till he nearly fell.

  “Well,” said Balwin, “I never saw anything look more like a buck Sioux. Look at his paint. Take the glasses yourself, Cutler.”

  But Cutler refused. “He’s like an Injun,” he said. “But that’s just what he wants to be.” The scout’s conviction bore down their doubt.

  They were persuaded. “You can’t come with us, Cutler,” said Powell. “You must wait for us here.”

  “I know, sir; he’d spot us, sure. But it ain’t right. I started this whole business with my poker scheme at that cabin, and I ought to stay with it clear through.”

  The officers went into the agency store and took down two rifles hanging at the entrance, always ready for use. “We’re going to kill a man,” they explained, and the owner was entirely satisfied. They left the rueful Cutler inside, and proceeded to the gate of the stockade, turning there to the right, away from the river, and following the paling round the corner down to the farther right-hand corner. Looking from behind it, the lone pine-tree stood near, and plain against the sky. The striped figures lay still in their blankets, talking, with their faces to the river. Here and there across the stream the smoke-stained peak of a tepee showed among the green leaves.

  “Did you ever see a more genuine Indian?” inquired Baldwin.

  “We must let her rip now, anyhow,” said Powell, and they stepped out into the open. They walked towards the pine till it was a hundred yards from them, and the two beneath it lay talking all the while. Balwin covered the man with his rifle and called. The man turned his head, and seeing the rifle, sat up in his blanket. The squaw sat up also. Again the officer called, keeping his rifle steadily pointed, and the man dived like a frog over the bank. Like magic his blanket had left his limbs and painted body naked, except for the breech-clout. Balwin’s tardy bullet threw earth over the squaw, who went flapping and screeching down the river. Balwin and Powell ran to the edge, which dropped six abrupt feet of clay to a trail, then shelved into the swift little stream. The red figure was making up the trail to the foot-bridge that led to the Indian houses, and both officers fired. The man continued his limber flight, and they jumped down and followed, firing. They heard a yell on the plain above, and an answer to it, and then confused yells above and below, gathe
ring all the while. The figure ran on above the river trail below the bank, and their bullets whizzed after it.

  “Indian!” asserted Balwin, panting.

  “Ran away, though,” said Powell.

  “So’d you run. Think any Sioux’d stay when an army officer comes gunning for him?”

  “Shoot!” said Powell. “’S getting near bridge,” and they went on, running and firing. The yells all over the plain were thickening. The air seemed like a substance of solid flashing sound. The naked runner came round the river curve into view of the people at the agency store.

  “Where’s a rifle?” said Cutler to the agent.

  “Officers got ‘em,” the agent explained.

  “Well, I can’t stand this,” said the scout, and away he went.

  “That man’s crazy,” said the agent.

  “You bet he ain’t!” remarked the ambulance boy.

  Cutler was much nearer to the bridge than was the man in the breech-clout, and reaching the bank, he took half a minute’s keen pleasure in watching the race come up the trail. When the figure was within ten yards Cutler slowly drew an ivory-handled pistol. The lieutenants below saw the man leap to the middle of the bridge, sway suddenly with arms thrown up, and topple into White River. The current swept the body down, and as it came it alternately lifted and turned and sank as the stream played with it. Sometimes it struck submerged stumps or shallows, and bounded half out of water, then drew under with nothing but the back of the head in sight, turning round and round. The din of Indians increased, and from the tepees in the cottonwoods the red Sioux began to boil, swarming on the opposite bank, but uncertain what had happened. The man rolling in the water was close to the officers.