The Texan by James B. Hendryx (reading in the dark .TXT) 📖

back-trail. And then softly, almost inaudibly to the ears of the girl came the sound of horses' hoofs pounding the trail in monotonous rhythm.

Leaping to her feet she rushed forward in time to see Bat catch up the reins of the three horses and slip noiselessly into the shelter of a bunch of scrub willows. In a moment she was at his side and the Indian thrust the reins into her hand.

"Better you wait here," he whispered hurriedly. "Mebbe-so, som'wan else com' 'long. Me, A'm gon' for look." With the words the man blended into the shadows and, clutching the reins, the girl waited with every nerve drawn tense.

Nearer and nearer came the sound of the thudding hoofs. The riders had reached the dip of the trail now and the rhythmic pound of the horses' feet changed to a syncopated shuffle as the animals made the steep descent. At the edge of the creek they paused for a moment and then Alice, could hear the splash of their feet in the water and the deep sucking sound of horses drinking.

A low peculiar whistle cut the air and the next moment a voice which the girl recognized as the Texan's sounded plainly through the dark.

"You got here, did you? Where's the girl?" Alice could not catch the answer but at the next words of the Texan she started forward tugging at the reins of the refractory cayuses.

"Come alive, now, an' get your outfit together. There's prob'ly a big posse out an' we got to scratch gravel some lively to keep ahead of 'em, which little item the future prosperity of all concerned, as the fellow says, depends on—not only the hangee here, but us accessories, the law bein' some specific in outlinin' the disposal of aiders an' abettors of felonious transmigrations."

The half-breed relieved her of the horses and Alice rushed to the side of Endicott who had reined his horse out of the water and dismounted stiffly.

"Oh, Winthrop!" she cried joyfully. "Then they didn't hang you, and——"

Endicott laughed: "No, they didn't hang me but they put a lot of local colour into the preliminaries. I certainly thought my time had come, when friend Tex here gave the word to throw off the rope." The girl flashed a grateful glance into the face of the Texan who sat his horse with the peculiar smile curling his lips.

"Oh, how can I ever thank you?" she cried impulsively. "I think you are just splendid! And I'll never, never distrust you again. I've been a perfect fool and——"

"Yes," answered the man gruffly, and Alice noticed that the smile was gone from his lips. "But you ain't out of the woods yet. Bat's got that horse packed an' as soon as Winthrup, there, can crawl up the side of that bronc we better be hittin' the trail. If we can make the timber at the head of Cow Creek divide by daylight, we can slip down into the bad lands tomorrow night."

Endicott painfully raised a foot to the stirrup, and the Texan turned abruptly to the girl.

"Can you make it?" he asked. She replied with an eager affirmative and the Texan shot her a glance of approval as he watched her mount, for well he knew that she must have fared very little better than Endicott in the matter of aching muscles.

Mile after mile the four rode in silence, Tex in the lead with Bat Lajune close by his side. An occasional backward glance revealed the clumsy efforts of the pilgrim to ease himself in the saddle, and the set look of determination upon the tired face of the girl.

"Winthrup ain't wearin' well," thought the cowboy as his lips twisted into a smile, "but what could you expect with a name like that? I'm afraid Winthrup is goin' to wish I hadn't interfered none with his demise, but he won't squawk, an' neither will she. There's the makin's of a couple of good folks wasted in them two pilgrims," and he frowned darkly at the recollection of the note of genuine relief and gladness with which the girl had greeted Endicott; a frown that deepened at the girl's impulsive words to himself, "I think you are just splendid. I'll never distrust you again." "She's a fool!" he muttered under his breath. At his side the half-breed regarded him shrewdly from under the broad brim of his hat.

"Dat girl she dam' fine 'oman. She got, w'at you call, de nerve."

"It's a good thing it ain't daytime," growled the Texan surlily, "or that there tongue of yourn would get sun-burnt the way you keep it a-goin'."

Upon the crest of a high foothill that is a spur of Tiger Ridge, Tex swerved abruptly from the trail and headed straight for the mountains that loomed out of the darkness. On and on he rode, keeping wherever possible to the higher levels to avoid the fences of the nesters whose fields and pastures followed the windings of the creek bottoms.

Higher and higher they climbed and rougher grew the way. The scrub willows gave place to patches of bull pine and the long stretches of buffalo grass to ugly bare patches of black rock. In and out of the scrub timber they wended, following deep coulees to their sources and crossing steep-pitched divides into other coulees. The fences of the nesters were left far behind and following old game trails, or no trails at all, the Texan pushed unhesitatingly forward. At last, just as the dim outlines of the mountains were beginning to assume definite shape in the first faint hint of the morning grey, he pulled into a more extensive patch of timber than any they had passed and dismounting motioned the others to the ground.

While the Texan prepared breakfast, Bat busied himself with the blankets and when the meal was finished Alice found a tent awaiting her, which the half-breed had constructed by throwing the pack-tarp over a number of light poles whose ends rested upon a fallen tree-trunk. Never in her life, thought the girl, as she sank into the foot-thick mattress of pine boughs that underlay the blankets, had a bed felt so comfortable, so absolutely satisfying. But her conscious enjoyment of its comfort was short-lived for the sounds of men and horses, and the low soughing of the wind in the pine-tops blended into one, and she slept. Endicott, too, fell asleep almost as soon as he touched the blankets which the half-breed had spread for him a short distance back from the fire, notwithstanding the scant padding of pine needles that interposed between him and mother earth.

Beside the fire the half-breed helped Tex wash the dishes, the while he regarded the cowpuncher shrewdly as if to fathom what was passing in his mind.

"Back in Wolf Rivaire, dey t'ink de pilgrim git hang. W'at for dey mak' de posse?" he asked at length. The Texan finished washing the tin plates, dried his hands, and rolled a cigarette, which he lighted deliberately with a brand from the fire.

"Bat," he said with a glance toward the sleeping Endicott, "me an' you has be'n right good friends for quite a spell. You recollect them four bits, back in Las Vegas—" The half-breed interrupted him with a grin and reaching into his shirt front withdrew a silver half-dollar which depended from his neck by a rawhide thong.

"Oui, A'm don' git mooch chance to ferget dat four bit."

"Well, then, you got to help me through with this here, like I helped you through when you stole Fatty's horse." The half-breed nodded and Tex continued: "When that outfit goes up against the Wolf River hooch you can bet someone's going to leak it out that there wasn't no reg'lar bony-fido hangin' bee. That'll start a posse, an' that's why we got to stay cached good an' tight till this kind of blows over an' gives us a chance to slip acrost the Misszoo. Even if it don't leak out, an' any one should happen to spot the pilgrim, that would start a posse, pronto, an' we'd get ours for helpin' him to elope."

"'Spose dey git de pilgrim," persisted the half-breed, "de, w'at you call, de jury, dey say 'turn 'um loose' 'cause he keel dat Purdy for try to——"

Tex hurled his cigarette into the blaze. "You're a damn smart Injun, ain't you? Well, you just listen to me. I'm runnin' this here little outfit, an' there's reasons over an' above what I've orated, why the pilgrim is goin' to be treated to a good lib'ral dose of the rough stuff. If he comes through, he'll stack up pretty close to a top hand, an' if he don't—" The Texan paused and scowled into the fire. "An' if he don't it's his own damn fault, anyhow—an' there you are."

The half-breed nodded, and in the dark eyes the Texan noted a half-humorous, half-ominous gleam; "Dat, w'at you call, 'reason over an' 'bove', she damn fine 'oman. A'm t'ink she lak' de pilgrim more'n you. But mebbe-so you show heem up for w'at you call, de yellow, you git her 'way, but—me, A'm no lak' I see her git harm." With which declaration the half-breed rose abruptly and busied himself with the horses, while the Texan, without bothering to spread his blankets, pulled his hat over his face and stretched out beside the fire.

CHAPTER XI A RESCUE

When Alice Marcum opened her eyes the timber was in darkness. The moon had not yet topped the divide and through an opening in the trees the girl could see the dim outlines of an endless sea of peaks and ridges that stretched away to the eastward. The voice of the Texan sounded in her ears: "Come alive, now! We got to eat an' pull out of here in an hour's time if we're goin' to fetch the bad lands by daylight."

Peering around the edge of her shelter tent she could see him, coffee-pot in hand, standing beside the tiny flame that licked at the dry pine shavings of a newly kindled fire.

He turned and made his way to the creek that burbled over the rocks a short way down the ravine and Alice drew on her riding-boots and joined Endicott who had made his way painfully toward the fire where he stood gazing ruefully at the begrimed wreck of a white collar which he held in his hand. The Texan returned and placed the coffee-pot close against the tiny blaze.

"When you get through invoicin' yer trooso, Winthrup, it wouldn't delay us none if you'd grasp that there hand-ax an' carve out a little fire-fodder." He glanced up at Alice. "An' if cookin' of any kind has be'n inclooded in your repretwa of accomplishments, you might sizzle up a hunk of that sow-belly, an' keep yer eye on this here pot. An' if Winthrup should happen to recover from his locomotive attacksyou an' hack off a limb or two, you can get a little bigger blaze a-goin' an', just before that water starts to burn, slop in a fistful of java. You'll find some dough-gods an' salve in one of them canvas bags, an' when you're all set, holler. I'll throw the kaks on these cayuses, an' Bat, he can wrastle with the pack."

Alice looked into the Texan's face with a peculiar little puckering of the brows, and laughed: "See here, Mr. Tex," she said, "of course, I know that java must be coffee, but if you will kindly render the rest of your remarks a little less caliginous by calling the grub by its Christian name, maybe I'll get along better with the breakfast."

The Texan was laughing now, a wholesome, hearty laugh in which was no trace of cynicism, and the girl felt that for the first time she had caught a glimpse of the real man, the boyish, whole-hearted man that once or twice before she had suspected existed behind the mask of the sardonic smile. From that moment she liked him and at the breezy whimsicality of his next words she decided that it would be well worth the effort to penetrate the mask.

"The dude, or dictionary, names for the above specified commodities is bacon, biscuits, an' butter. An' referrin' back to your own etymological spasm, the word 'grub' shows a decided improvement over anything you