"I hope Doctor Mallory will understand," she said, a trifle anxiously, "I have some rather trying experiences with my boys, and if Bill has gone and insulted the doctor I'll have to get Jack Pierce to go to town and explain."
"This Bill seems to just adore Mr. Samuelson," ventured Patty. "Why his voice was almost—almost reverent when he said 'the Old Man.'"
The little lady nodded: "Yes, Bill thinks there's no one like him. You see, Bill shot a man, one day when—he was not quite himself. Over in the Blackfoot country, it was, and Vil Holland knew the facts in the case, and he rode over and told Mr. Samuelson all about it, and they both went and talked it over with the prosecuting attorney, and with old Judge Nevers, with the result that they agreed to give the boy a chance. So Mr. Samuelson brought him here. That was five years ago. Bill is foreman of this outfit now, and our other three riders are boys that were headed the same way Bill was. Vil Holland brought one of them over, and Bill and Mr. Samuelson picked up the other two—and, if I do say it myself," she declared, proudly, "there isn't an outfit in Montana that can boast a more capable or loyal, or a straighter quartet of riders than this one."
As Patty listened she understood something of what was behind the words of Thompson and Len Christie, when they had spoken that day of "Old Man" Samuelson. But, there was something she did not understand. And that something was—Vil Holland. Everybody liked him, everybody spoke well of him, and apparently everybody but herself trusted him implicitly. And yet, to her own certain knowledge, he did carry a jug, he did follow her about the hills, and he did tell her to her face that when she found her father's claim she would have a race on her hands, and that if she were beaten she would have to be satisfied with what she would get.
But Vil Holland, his comings and his goings were soon forgotten in the absorbing interest with which Patty listened as her little gray-haired hostess recounted incidents and horrors of the Indian uprising, the first sporadic depredations, the coming of the troops, and finally the forcing of the belligerent tribes onto their reservations.
It had been Patty's intention to ride back to her cabin in the evening, but Mrs. Samuelson would not hear of it. And, indeed the girl did not insist, for despite the fact that she had become thoroughly accustomed to her surroundings, the anticipation of a dinner prepared and served by the highly efficient Wong Yie, in the tastefully appointed dining room, with its real silver and china, proved sufficiently attractive to overcome even her impatience to begin the working out of her father's map. And the realization fully justified the anticipation. When the meal was finished the two women had talked the long evening away before the cheerful blaze of the wood fire, and when at last she was shown to her room, the girl retired to luxuriate in a real bed of linen sheets and a box mattress.
* * *
CHAPTER XV
THE HORSE RAID
Patty did not know how long she had slept when she awoke, tense and listening, sitting bolt upright in bed. Moonlight flooded the room through the windows thrown wide to admit the chill night air. Beyond the valley floor, green with the luxuriant second crop of alfalfa, she could see the mountains looming dim and mysterious in the half-light.
The whole world seemed silent as the grave—and yet, something must have awakened her. She shuddered, partly at the chill that struck at her thinly clad shoulders, and partly at the recollection of some of the scenes those selfsame mountains had witnessed, during the uprisings, and which her hostess had so vividly recounted. The girl smiled, and gazing toward the mountains, pictured long lines of naked horsemen stealing silently into the valley. She started violently. Through the open window came sounds, the muffled thud of hoofs upon the soft ground, the low rattle of bit-chains and spur-rowels, and the creak of saddle leather. There were horsemen in the valley, and the horsemen were passing almost beneath her windows—and they were moving stealthily.
For a moment her heart raced madly—the fancy of those conjured horsemen, and then the mysterious sounds from the night that were not fancy, combined in just the right proportion to overcome her with a momentary terror. She realized that the sounds were passing—growing fainter, and leaping from the bed, rushed to the window and peered out. Only silence—profound, unbroken silence, and the moonlight. In vain she strained her ears to catch a repetition of the faint sounds, and in vain she peered into the dark shadows cast by the bunk house and the pole horse-corral. Her windows commanded the eastern wall of the valley, and its upper reaches. Had there actually been horsemen, or were the sounds part of her vivid vision of the long ago? "No," she muttered, "those sounds were real," and she leaned far out of the window in a vain effort to catch a glimpse of the trail that led down the creek toward Pierce's.
For some time she remained at the window and then, shivering, crept back to bed, where she lay speculating upon the identity of these horsemen who passed in the night. She knew that a horse raid had been expected. Could these raiders have had the audacity to pass through the very dooryard of the ranch, knowing as they must have known, that four armed and determined cowboys occupied the bunk house?
And who were these raiders? At Thompson's she had heard Monk Bethune's name mentioned in connection with possible horse-thieving. Bethune had spoken of hurried trips, "to the northward." She remembered that upon the occasion of their first meeting, she had heard him dickering with Watts for the rent of his horse pasture, and she recollected the incident of the changed name. Then, again, only a few days before, she had parted with him when he struck off the trail to the eastward with the excuse that he was going over onto the east slope on a matter having to do with some horses. Bill had mentioned, in talking to Mrs. Samuelson, that he had been riding through the horses on the east slope. Could it be possible that the suave Bethune was a horse-thief? On the other hand, Bethune had openly hinted that Vil Holland was a horse-thief—and yet, these other people all believed that he was persistently on the trail of the horse-thieves.
For a long time she lay thinking, guessing, trying to recall little scraps of evidence that would bear upon the case. Again, a slight sound brought her to a sitting posture. This time it was the opening of a door across the hall from her room. The sound was followed by the soft padding of slippered feet in the hall, the low tapping, evidently at another door, a few low-voiced words, and a return of the padding steps. A few moments later other steps hurried along the hall past her door and rapidly descended the stairs. Patty heard the opening of an outside door, and once more stealing to the window she saw the Chinaman hurry across the moonlit yard to the bunk house and throw open the door. He entered to emerge a moment later and rush to the horse-corral, where he peered between the poles for a moment and then made his way swiftly back to the house.
Without lighting the lamp Patty dressed hurriedly. Was the Samuelson ranch a place of mystery? What was the meaning of the light sounds—the soft tramp of horses, and the padding of feet upon the stairs? The footsteps paused at the door across the hall. There followed a whispered colloquy and the steps retreated rapidly to the lower regions. Patty opened her door to see Mrs. Samuelson, her face expressing the deepest agitation, and one thin hand catching together the folds of a lavender kimono.
"What is the matter?" asked the girl. "What has happened?"
The old lady closed the door from beyond which came sounds of heavy breathing. "I am afraid he is worse," she whispered. "Wong Yie went to the bunk house to send the boys for the doctor and for Mrs. Pierce, and he says they are gone! Their horses are not in the corral. I don't understand it," she cried. "I told them not to go away. They know, that with my husband sick, we are in momentary danger from the horse-thieves, and they know that their place is right here."
"You told Bill to stay until he heard from Vil Holland," reminded Patty. "Maybe they heard from him, and left without disturbing you."
"That's it, of course!" cried the woman. "I ought to have known I could trust them. But, for a moment it seemed that—" She stopped abruptly and glanced anxiously into the girl's face,
"But what in the world will we do? Wong Yie can't ride a step, and if he could, I need him here——"
"I'll ride to Pierce's!" exclaimed Patty. "And get Mr. Pierce to go for the doctor, and bring Mrs. Pierce back with me. My horse is in the corral, and I can get down there in no time."
"Oh, can you? Will you? And you are not afraid—alone at night in the hills? Under any other circumstances I wouldn't think of letting you do it, child—especially with the horse-thieves about. But, it seems the only way——"
"Of course it's the only way! And I'm not a bit afraid."
Hurrying to the corral, Patty saddled her horse, and a few moments later swung into the trail that led down the creek. She glanced at her watch; it was one o'clock. The moon floated high in the heavens and the valley was almost as light as day. Urging her horse into a run, she found a wild exhilaration in riding through the night, splashing across shallows and shooting across short level stretches to plunge through the water again.
After what seemed an interminable wait, Pierce himself appeared at the door in answer to her persistent pounding. Patty thought he eyed her curiously as he stood aside and motioned her into the kitchen. Very deliberately he lighted the lamp and listened in silence until she had finished. Then, coolly, he eyed her from top to toe: "'Pears to me I've saw you before," he announced. "Over on the trail, a while back. An' you was a-ridin' with—Monk Bethune."
"Well?" asked the girl, angered by the man's tone.
"Well," mocked Pierce. "So to-night's the night yer figgerin' on pullin' the raid, is it?"
"I'm figuring on pulling the raid! What do you mean?"
"I mean you, an' Bethune, an' yer gang. You be'n up a-spottin' the lay, so's to tip 'em off, an' now you come down here an' tell me the Old Man's worst so's I'll take out to town fer the doc—an' one less posse-man in the hills. Yer a pretty slick article, Miss, but it hain't a-goin' to work."
Patty listened, speechless with rage. When the man finished she found her tongue. "You—you accuse me of being a—a horse-thief?" she choked.
"Yup," answered the man. "That's it—an' not so fur off, neither. Don't you s'pose I know that if the Old Man was worst one of his own boys would of be'n a foggin' it fer town hisself? I'd ort to take an' lock you up in the root cellar an' turn you over to Vil Holland, but I guess if we get all the he ones out of yer gang we kin leave you loose. 'Tain't likely you could run off no horses single-handed."
A woman whose appearance showed an evident hasty toilet had stepped from an inner room, and stood listening to the man. Patty was about to appeal to her when, from the outside came a thunder of hoofs, and suddenly a man burst into the room. Patty recognized him as Bill, of the Samuelson ranch. "Come on, Jack, quick! Git yer gun, while I slam the kak on yer cayuse. The raid's on, they've cut out a bunch of them three an' four-year-olds offen the east slope an' they're a-foggin' 'em off."
"Bill! Oh, Bill!" cried the girl, in desperation. But the man had plunged toward the corral, followed by Pierce, buckling on his cartridge belt as he ran. A moment later both men were in the saddle, and the sound of pounding hoofs grew far away.
In tears, Patty turned to the woman. "Oh, why couldn't he have believed me?" she cried. "He thinks I'm one of that detestable gang of thieves! But, you—surely you don't think I'm a horse-thief?" In broken sentences she related the facts to the woman, and finished by begging her to go up to the Samuelson ranch. "I'll ride on to town for the doctor myself!" she exclaimed. "And surely you can do that much for your neighbor."
"Do that much fer 'em!" the woman exclaimed. "I reckon they ain't nothin' I wouldn't do fer them. Mebbe Jack's right, an' mebbe he's wrong. I've saw him be both, 'fore now. Anyways, it ain't a-goin' to do Samuelsons no harm, nor the horse-thieves no good fer me to go up there. You hit the trail fer town, an' I'll ride up the crick." The woman cut short the girl's thanks. "You better take straight on down Porky 'til it crosses the trail," she advised. "It's a little longer but you won't git lost that way, an' chances is you would if I tried to tell you the short cut. Thompsons is great friends with Samuelsons," called the woman, as Patty mounted. "Better change horses there! Or, mebbe Thompson'll go on to town fer you."
Below the Pierce ranch the trail was not so good but, unheeding, the girl held her horse to his pace. In her heart now was no wild exhilaration of moonlight, nor was there any lurking fear of unknown horsemen, only a mighty rage—a rage engendered by Pierce's accusation, but which expanded with each leap of her horse until it included Vil Holland, Bethune, the Samuelson cowboys, and even Len Christie and the Samuelsons themselves—a senseless, consuming rage that caused the blood to throb hotly to her temples and found vicious expression in driving the rowels into her horse's sides until the animal tore down the rough, half-lit trail at a pace that sent the loose stones flying from beneath his hoofs in rattling volleys.
Possibly, it was the rattling of loose stones, possibly her anger dulled her sensibilities to the point where they were incapable of taking note of her surroundings, but the fact remains that as she approached the mouth of a wide coulee that gave into the valley from the eastward, she did not hear the rumble of hundreds of pounding hoofs that each second grew louder and more ominous, until as she reached the mouth of the coulee a rider swept into the valley, his horse straining every muscle to keep ahead of the herd that thundered in his wake.
Apparently the horseman did not notice her, and the next moment Patty was engulfed in the herd. The girl lived one wild moment of terror. In front, behind, upon each side were madly plunging horses, eyes staring, mouths agape exposing long white teeth that flashed wickedly in the moonlight, manes tossing wildly, and air whistling through wide-flaring nostrils. On and on they swept down the valley. The roar of hoofs rose to a mighty crescendo of thunder, above which, now and then, the terrified girl caught fierce yells from the flank of the herd. So close were the terrorized horses running that it was impossible for the girl to see the ground before her. Sweating, plunging bodies surged against her legs threatening each moment to scrape her feet from the stirrups. Gripping the horn with both hands she rode in a sort of daze.
Glancing over her shoulder, she caught an occasional flash of white as the men on the flanks waved sheets above their heads, whose flapping, fluttering folds urged the maddened horses into a perfect frenzy of action.
In front, and a little to one side of Patty, a horse went down, a big roan colt, and she got one horrible glimpse of a grotesquely twisted neck, and a tangle of thrashing hoofs as another horse plunged onto his fallen comrade. A horrible scream split the air as he, too, went down, and the sudden side-surge of the herd all but unseated the clinging girl. In a second it was over and the herd thundered on. Patty closed her eyes, and with white, tight-pressed lips, wondered when her horse would go down. She pictured the bloody, battered thing that had been herself, lying flattened and gruesome, in the moonlight when the pounding hoofs swept past.
Time and distance ceased to be. Patty was carried helplessly on, a part of that frenzied flood of flesh, muscles rigid, brain tense—waiting for the inevitable moment—the horrible moment that was to mark the climax of this ride of horrors. She wondered if it would hurt, or would merciful unconsciousness come with the first impact of the fall.
Suddenly she opened her eyes. She sensed a change in the rumble of hoofs. Horses surged together and the pace slackened from a wild rush to a wilder thrashing of uncertainty. In the forefront a thin red spurt of flame leaped forth and above the pounding hoofs rang the report of a shot. The leaders seemed to have stopped and the main body of the herd pressed and struggled against the unyielding front. Other spurts of flame pierced the night, and shots rang viciously from all sides. The horses were milling, churning, about in a huge maelstrom, in which Patty found herself being slowly forced to the outside as the unencumbered free horses crowded to the center away from the terrifying stabs of flame and the crack of guns. She could see a mounted form before her. Evidently it was the man who had ridden in the forefront of the herd.
The rider was very close, now, his horse keeping pace with her own which had nearly reached the outer rim of the churning mass of animals. The brim of his hat shadowed his face but Patty could see that the gauntleted hand held a six-gun. A shift of position brought the moonlight full upon the man's front—upon a scarf of robin's-egg blue caught together at the throat with the polished tip of buffalo horn. No other horsemen were in sight, but an occasional sharp report sounded from the opposite side of the herd. "Vil!" she screamed. "Vil Holland!" The form stiffened in the saddle and the girl caught the flash of his eyes beneath the hat brim. The next instant the gun had given place to a heavy quirt in his hand, his tall, rangy horse plunged straight toward her, the wild horses, crowding frenziedly to escape the blows as the rider lashed furiously to the right and to the left as he forced his mount to her side.
"Good God! Girl, what are you doing here? I thought you were one of them—and I nearly—" The man leaned suddenly forward and grasped the bit-chain of her bridle. As if knowing exactly what was expected of them, side by side the two horses fought their way free of the herd, the big buckskin with ears laid back, snapping viciously at the crowding horses. A six-gun roared twice. Patty felt a sudden brush of air against her cheek and the next instant the two horses plunged down the steep side of a narrow ravine. In the bottom the man released her bridle. "You stay here!" he commanded gruffly.
"But, the Samuelsons! Mr. Samuelson is—" The words were drowned in a shower of gravel as the rangy buckskin scrambled up the bank and disappeared over the top. The rapid transition from anger to terror, and from terror to relief, proved too much for the girl's nerves and she burst into a violent fit of sobbing. The tears enraged her and she shouted at the top of her voice. "I won't stay here!" but the words sounded puny and weak, and she knew that they had not penetrated beyond the rim of the ravine. "I won't do it! I won't stay here!" she kept repeating, the sentences broken by the hysterical sobbing. Nevertheless, stay there she did, until with a mighty rumble of hoofs and a scattering volley of shots, the horse herd swept northward, and when finally she succeeded in gaining the upper level, the sounds came to her ears faint and far away.
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