The Rustler of Wind River

by Ogden, George W

  “Couldn’t it be settled without all this fighting and killing?” she went on, pressing her point.

  “It’s all over now but the shoutin’,” said he. “There’s only one way to handle a rustler, Miss Frances, and that’s to salt his hide.”

  “I’d be willing—I’d be glad—to go up there myself, alone, and take any message you might send,” she offered. “I think they’d listen to reason, even to leaving the country if you want them to, rather than try to stand against a ga—force like this.”

  “You can’t understand our side of it, Miss Frances,”—Chadron spoke impatiently, reaching out for the bundle that his wife was bringing while she was yet two rods away—“for you ain’t been robbed and wronged by them nesters like we have. You’ve got to live it to know what it means, little lady. We’ve argued with ’em till we’ve used up all our words, but their fences is still there. Now we’re goin’ to clear ’em out.”

  “But Macdonald seemed hurt when I asked him how much money they wanted you to pay as Nola’s ransom,” she said.

  “He’s deep, and he’s tricky—too deep and too slick for you.” Chadron gathered up his reins, leaned over and whispered: “Don’t say anything about that Thorn yarn to her”—a sideways jerk of the head toward his wife—“her trouble’s deep enough without stirrin’ it.”

  Chadron had the bundle now, and Mrs. Chadron was helping him tie it behind his saddle, shaking her head sadly as she handled the belongings of her child with gentle touch. Tears were running down her cheeks, but her usually ready words seemed dead upon her tongue.

  From the direction of the barn a little commotion moved forward among the horsemen, like a wave before a breeze. Banjo Gibson appeared on his horse as the last thong was tied about Nola’s bundle, his hat tilted more than its custom to spare the sore place over his eye.

  The cowboys looked at his gaudy trappings with curious eyes. Chadron gave him a short word of greeting, and bent to kiss his wife good-bye.

  “I’m with you in this here thing, Saul,” said Banjo; “I’ll ride to hell’s back door to help you find that little girl!”

  Chadron slewed in his saddle with an ugly scowl.

  “We don’t want any banjo-pickers on this job, it’s men’s work!” he said.

  Banjo seemed to droop with humiliation. Chuckles and derisive words were heard among Chadron’s train. The little musician hung his bandaged head.

  “Oh, you ortn’t be hard on Banjo, he means well,” Mrs. Chadron pleaded.

  “He can stay here and scratch the pigs,” Chadron returned, in his brutal way. “We’ve got to go now, old lady, but we’ll be back before morning, and we’ll bring Nola. Don’t you worry any more; she’ll be all right—they wouldn’t dare to harm a hair of her head.”

  Mrs. Chadron looked at him with large hope and larger trust in her yearning face, and Banjo slewed his horse directly across the gate.

  “Before you leave, Saul, I want to tell you this,” he said. “You’ve hurt me, and you’ve hurt me deep! I’ll leave here before another hour passes by, and I’ll never set a boot-heel inside of your door ag’in as long as you live!”

  “Oh hell!” said Chadron, spurring forward into the road.

  Chadron’s men rode away after him, except five whom he detailed to stay behind and guard the ranch. These turned their horses into the corral, made their little fire of twigs and gleaned brush in their manner of wood-scant frugality, and over it cooked their simple dinner, each man after his own way.

  Banjo led his horse to the gate in front of the house and left it standing there while he went in to get his instruments. Mrs. Chadron was moved to a fresh outburst of weeping by his preparations for departure, and the sad, hurt look in his simple face.

  “You stay here, Banjo; don’t you go!” she begged. “Saul he didn’t mean any harm by what he said—he won’t remember nothing about it when he comes back.”

  “I’ll remember it,” Banjo told her, shaking his head in unbending determination, “and I couldn’t be easy here like I was in the past. If I was to try to swaller a bite of Saul Chadron’s grub after this it’d stick in my throat and choke me. No, I’m a-goin’, mom, but I’m carryin’ away kind thoughts of you in my breast, never to be forgot.”

  Banjo hitched the shoulder strap of the instrument from which he took his name with a jerking of the shoulder, and settled it in place; he took up his fiddle box and hooked it under his arm, and offered Mrs. Chadron his hand. She was crying, her face in her apron, and did not see. Frances took the extended hand and clasped it warmly, for the little musician and his homely small sentiments had found a place in her heart.

  “You shouldn’t leave until your head gets better,” she said; “you’re hardly able to take another long ride after being in the saddle all night, hurt like you are.”

  Banjo looked at her with pain reflected in his shallow eyes.

  “The hurt that gives me my misery is where it can’t be seen,” he said.

  “Where are you goin’, Banjo, with the country riled up this way, and you li’ble to be shot down any place by them rustlers?” Mrs. Chadron asked, looking at him appealingly, her apron ready to stem her gushing tears.

  “I’ll go over to the mission and stay with Mother Mathews till I’m healed up. I’ll be welcome in that house; I’d be welcome there if I was blind, and had m’ back broke and couldn’t touch a string.”

  “Yes, you would, Banjo,” Mrs. Chadron nodded.

  “She’s married to a Injun, but she’s as white as a angel’s robe.”

  “She’s a good soul, Banjo, as good as ever lived.”

  Frances took advantage of Banjo’s trip to the reservation to send a note to her father apprising him of the tragedy at the ranch. Banjo buttoned it inside his coat, mounted his horse, and rode away.

  Mrs. Chadron watched him out of sight with lamentations.

  “I wish he’d ’a’ stayed—it ’d ’a’ been all right with Saul; Saul didn’t mean any harm by what he said. He’s the tender-heartedest man you ever saw, he wouldn’t hurt a body’s feelin’s for a farm.”

  “I don’t believe Banjo is a man to hold a grudge very long,” Frances told her, looking after the retreating musician, her thoughts on him but hazily, but rather on a little highland bonnet with a bullet hole in its crown.

  “No, he ain’t,” Mrs. Chadron agreed, plucking up a little brightness. “But it’s a bad sign, a mighty bad sign, when a friend parts from you with a hurt in his heart that way, and leaves your house in a huff and feels put out like Banjo does.”

  “Yes,” said Frances, “we let them go away from us too often that way, with sore hearts that even a little word might ease.”

  She spoke with such wistful regret that the older woman felt its note through her own deep gloom. She groped out, tears blinding her, until her hand found her young friend’s, and then she clasped it, and stood holding it, no words between them.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XV

  ONE ROAD

  Twenty-four hours after Banjo’s departure a messenger arrived at the ranchhouse. It was one of the cowboys attached to the ranch, and he came with his right arm in a sling. He was worn, and beaten out by long hours in the saddle and the pain of his wound.

  He said they had news of Nola, and that Chadron sent word that she would be home before another night passed. This intelligence sent Mrs. Chadron off to bedroom and kitchen to make preparations for her reception and restoration.

  As she left the room Frances turned to the messenger, who stood swinging his big hat awkwardly by the brim. She untied the sling that held his wounded arm and made him sit by the table while she examined his injury, concerning which Mrs. Chadron, in her excitement, had not even inquired.

  The shot had gone through the forearm, grazing the bone. When Frances, with the aid of Maggie, the Mexican woman with tender eyes, had cleansed and bound up the wound, she turned to him with a decisive air of demand.

  “Now, tell me the truth,” she said.
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  He was a bashful man, with a long, sheepish nose and the bluest of harmless eyes. He started a little when she made that demand, and blushed.

  “That’s what the boss told me to say,” he demurred.

  “I know he did; but what’s happening?”

  “Well, we ain’t heard hide nor hair of her”—he looked round cautiously, lest Mrs. Chadron surprise him in the truth—“and them rustlers they’re clean gone and took everything but their houses and fences along—beds and teams and stock, and everything.”

  “Gone!” she repeated, staring at him blankly; “where have they gone?”

  “Macdonald’s doin’ it; that man’s got brainds,” the cowboy yielded, with what he knew to be unlawful admiration of the enemy’s parts. “He’s herdin’ ’em back in the hills where they’ve built a regular fort, they say. Some of us fellers caught up to a few of the stragglers last night, and that’s when I got this arm put on me.”

  “Have any of the rustlers been killed?”

  “No,” he admitted, disgustedly, “they ain’t! We’ve burnt all the shacks we come to, and cut their fences, but they all got slick and clean away, down to the littlest kid. But the boss’s after ’em,” he added, with brisk hopefulness, “and you’ll have better news by mornin’.”

  Chadron himself was the next rider to arrive at that anxious house, and he came as the messenger of disaster. He arrived between midnight and morning, his horse spur-gashed, driven to the limit, himself sunken-eyed from his anxiety and hard pursuit of his elusive enemy.

  Mrs. Chadron was asleep when he entered the living-room where Frances was keeping lonely watch before the chimney fire.

  “What’s happened?” she asked, hastening to meet him.

  Chadron stood there gray and dusty, his big hat down hard on his head, his black eyes shooting inquiry into the shadowed room.

  “Where is she?” he whispered.

  “Upstairs, asleep—I’ve only just been able to persuade her to lie down and close her eyes.”

  “Well, there’s no use to wake her up for bad news.”

  “You haven’t found Nola?”

  “I know right where she is. I could put my hand on her if I could reach her.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Hell!” said Chadron, bursting into a fire of passion, “why can’t I fly like an eagle? Young woman, I’ve got to tell you I’ve been beat and tricked for the first time in my life! They’ve got my men hemmed in, I tell you—they’ve got ’em shut up in a cañon as tight as if they was nailed in their coffins!”

  If Chadron had been clearer of sight and mind in that moment of his towering anger, he would have seen her cheeks flush at his words, and her nostrils dilate and her breath come faster. But he was blind; his little varnish of delicacy was gone. He was just a ranting, roaring, dark-visaged brute with murder in his heart.

  “That damned Macdonald done it, led ’em into it like they was blind! He’s a wolf, and he’s got the tricks of a wolf, he skulked ahead of ’em with a little pack of his rustlers and led ’em into his trap, then the men he had hid there and ready they popped up as thick as grass. They’ve got fifty of my men shut up there where they can’t git to water, and where they can’t fight back. Now, what do you think of that?”

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” she said, throwing up her head, her eyes as quick and bright as water in the sun, “I think it’s the judgment of God! I glory in the trick Alan Macdonald played you, and I pray God he can shut your hired murderers there till the last red-handed devil dies of thirst!”

  Chadron fell back from her a step, his eyes staring, his mouth open, his hand lifted as if to silence her. He stood so a moment, casting his wild look around, fearful that somebody else had heard her passionate denunciation.

  “What in the hell do you mean?” he asked, crouching as he spoke, his teeth clenched, his voice smothered in his throat.

  “I mean that I know you’re a murderer—and worse! You hired those men, like you hired Mark Thorn, to come here and murder those innocent men and their families!”

  “Well, what if I did?” he said, standing straight again, his composure returning. “They’re thieves; they’ve been livin’ off of my cattle for years. Anybody’s got a right to kill a rustler—that’s the only cure. Well, they’ll not pen them men of mine up there till they crack for water, I’ll bet you a purty on that! I’m goin’ after soldiers, and this time I’ll git ’em, too.”

  “Soldiers!” said she, in amazement. “Will you ask the United States government to march troops here to save your hired assassins? Well, you’ll not get troops—if there’s anything that I can say against you to keep you from it!”

  “You keep out of it, my little lady; you ain’t got no call to mix up with a bunch of brand-burnin’ thieves!”

  “They’re not thieves, and you know it! Macdonald never stole an animal from you or anybody else; none of the others ever did.”

  “What do you know about it?” sharply.

  “I know it, as well as I know what’s in your mind about the troops. You’ll go over father’s head to get them. Well, by the time he wires to the department the facts I’m going to lay before him, I’d like to see the color of the trooper you’ll get!”

  “You’ll keep your mouth shut, and hold your finger out of this pie before you git it burnt!”

  “I’ll not keep my mouth shut!” She began moving about the room, picking up her belongings. “I’m going to saddle my horse and go to the post right now, and the facts of your bloody business will be in Washington before morning.”

  “You’re not goin’—to the—post!” Chadron’s words were slow and hard. He stood with his back to the door. “This house was opened to you as a friend, not as a traitor and a spy. You’re not goin’ to put your foot outside of it into any business of mine, no matter which way you lean.”

  All day she had been dressed ready to mount and ride in any emergency, her hat, gloves and quirt on the table before the fireplace. In that sober habit she appeared smaller and less stately, and Saul Chadron, with his heavy shoulders against the closed door, towered above her, dark and angrily determined.

  “I’m going to get my horse,” said she, standing before him, waiting for him to quit the door.

  “You’re goin’ to stay right in this house, there’s where you’re goin’ to stay; and you’ll stay till I’ve cleaned out Macdonald and his gang, down to the last muddy-bellied wolf!”

  “You’ll answer for detaining me here, sir!”

  “There ain’t no man in this country that I answer to!” returned Chadron, not without dignity, for power undisputed for so long, and in such large affairs, had given him a certain manner of imperialism.

  “You’ll find out where your mistake is, to your bitter cost, before many days have gone over your head. Your master is on the way; you’ll meet him yet.”

  “You might as well ca’m down, and take that hat off and make yourself easy, Miss Frances; you ain’t goin’ to the post tonight.”

  “Open that door, Mr. Chadron! For the memory of your daughter, be a man!”

  “I’m actin’ for the best, Miss Frances.” Chadron softened in speech, but unbent in will. “You must stay here till we settle them fellers. I ain’t got time to bring any more men up from Cheyenne—I’ve got to have help within the next twenty-four hours. You can see how your misplaced feelin’s might muddle and delay me, and hold off the troopers till they’ve killed off all of my men in that cañon back yonder in the hills. It’s for the best, I tell you; you’ll see it that way before daylight.”

  “It’s a pity about your gallant cutthroats! It’s time the rest of this country knew something about the methods of you cattlemen up here, and the way you harass and hound and murder honest men that are trying to make homes!”

  “Oh, Miss Frances! ca’m down, ca’m down!” coaxed Chadron, spreading his hands in conciliatory gesture, as if to smooth her troubled spirits, and calm her down by stroking her, like a cat.


  “Now you want to call out the army to rescue that pack of villains, you want to enlist the government to help you murder more children! Well, I’m a daughter of the army; I’m not going to stand around and see you pull it down to any such business as yours!”

  “You’d better make up your mind to take it easy, now, Miss Frances. Put down your hat and things, now, and run along off to bed like a good little girl.”

  She turned from him with a disdainful toss of the head, and walked across to the window where Mrs. Chadron’s great chair stood beside her table.

  “Do you want it known that I was forced to leave your house by the window?” she asked, her hand on the sash.

  “It won’t do you any good if you do,” Chadron growled, turning and throwing the door open with gruff decision. He stood a moment glowering at her, his shoulders thrust into the room. “You can’t leave here till I’m ready for you to go—I’m goin’ to put my men on the watch for you. If you try it afoot they’ll fetch you back, and if you git stubborn and try to ride off from ’em, they’ll shoot your horse. You take my word that I mean it, and set down and be good.”

  He closed the door. She heard his heavy tread, careless, it seemed, whether he broke the troubled sleep of his wife, pass out by way of the kitchen. She returned to the fire, surging with the outrage of it, and sat down to consider the situation.

  There was no doubt that Chadron meant what he had said. This was only a mild proceeding to suppress evidence compared to his usual methods, as witnessed by the importation of Mark Thorn, and now his wholesale attempt with this army of hired gunslingers. But above the anger and indignation there was the exultant thought of Macdonald’s triumph over the oppressor of the land. It glowed like a bright light in the turmoil of her present hour.

  She had told Chadron that his master was on the way, and she had seen him swell with the cloud of anger that shrouded his black heart. And she knew that he feared that swift-footed man Macdonald, who had outgeneraled him and crippled him before he had struck a blow. Well, let him have his brutal way until morning; then she would prevail on Mrs. Chadron to rescind his order and let her go home.