Dorn Of The Mountains (19 page)

“Did you find her?” queried Helen hurriedly.

“Wasn’t no track or sign of her up the north range,” replied Roy as he dismounted and threw his bridle. “An’ I was ridin’ back to take up her tracks from the corral an’ trail her. But I seen Las Vegas comin’ an’ he waved his sombrero. He was comin’ up from the south….There he is now.”

Carmichael appeared swinging into the lane. He was mounted on Helen’s big black Ranger, and he made the dust fly.

“Wal, he’s seen her, that’s shore,” vouchsafed Roy with relief as Carmichael rode up.

“Miss Nell, she’s comin’,” said the cowboy as he reined in, and slid down with his graceful single motion. Then in a violent action, characteristic of him, he slammed his sombrero down on the porch and threw up both arms. “I’ve a hunch it’s come off!”

“Oh, what?” exclaimed Helen.

“Now, Las Vegas, talk sense,” expostulated Roy. “Miss Helen is shore serious today. Has anything happened?”

“I reckon, but I don’t know what,” replied Carmichael, drawing a long breath. “Folks, I must be gettin’ old. For I shore felt awful queer till I seen Bo. She was ridin’ down the ridge across the valley. Ridin’ some fast, too, an’ she’ll be here right off, if she doesn’t stop in the village.”

“Wal, I hear her comin’ now,” said Roy. “An, if you asked me, I’d say she
was
ridin’ some fast.”

Helen heard the light swift rhythmic beat of hoofs, and then out on the curve of the road that led down to Pine she saw Bo’s mustang, white with lather, coming on a dead run.

“Las Vegas, do you see any Apaches?” asked Roy quizzingly.

The cowboy made no reply, but he strode out from the porch, directly in front of the mustang. Bo was pulling hard on the bridle, and had him slowing down but not controlled. When he reached the house, it could easily be seen that Bo had pulled him to the limit of her strength, which was not enough to halt him. Carmichael lunged for the bridle and, seizing it, hauled him to a standstill.

At close sight of Bo, Helen uttered a startled cry. Bo was white and her sombrero was gone and her hair undone; there was blood and dirt on her face, and her riding suit was torn and muddy. She had evidently sustained a fall. Roy gazed at her in admiring consternation, but Carmichael never looked at her at all. Apparently he was examining the horse.

“Nell, help me off…somebody,” cried Bo peremptorily. Her voice was weak, but not her spirit.

Roy sprang to help her off, and, when she was down, it developed that she was lame.

“Oh, Bo! You’ve had a tumble!” exclaimed Helen anxiously, and she ran to assist Roy. They led her up the porch and to the door. There she turned to look at Carmichael who was still examining the spent mustang.

“Tell him…to come in,” she whispered.

“Hey, there, Las Vegas!” called Roy. “Rustle hyar, will you?”

When Bo had been led into the sitting room and seated in a chair, Carmichael entered. His face was a study, as slowly he walked up to Bo.

“Girl, you ain’t hurt?” he asked huskily.

“It’s no fault of yours that I’m not crippled…or dead…or worse,” retorted Bo. “You said the south range was the only safe ride for me. And there…I…it happened.” She panted a little and her bosom heaved. One of her gauntlets was gone, and the bare hand, that was bruised and bloody, trembled as she held it out.

“Dear, tell us…are you badly hurt?” queried Helen with hurried gentleness.

“Not much. I’ve had a spill,” replied Bo. “But, oh, I’m mad…I’m boiling.” She looked as if she might have exaggerated her doubt of injuries, but certainly she had not overestimated her state of mind. Any blaze Helen had heretofore seen in those quick eyes was tame compared to this one. It actually leaped. Bo was more than pretty then. Manifestly Roy was admiring her looks, but Carmichael saw beyond her charm. And slowly he was growing pale.

“I rode out the south range…as I was told,” began Bo, breathing hard and trying to control her feelings. “That’s the ride you usually take, Nell, and you bet…if you’d taken it today, you’d not be here now.…About three miles out I climbed off the range up that cedar slope. I always keep to high ground. When I got up, I saw two horse men ride out of some broken rocks off to the east. They rode as if to come between me and home. I didn’t like that. I circled south. About a mile farther in I spied another horse man and he showed up directly in front of me and came along slow. That I liked still less. It might have been accident, but it looked to me that these riders had some intent. All I could do was head off to the southeast and ride. You bet I did ride. But I got into rough ground where I’d never been before. It was slow going. At last I made the cedars and there I cut loose, believing I could circle ahead of these strange riders, and come around through Pine…I had it wrong.”

Here she hesitated, perhaps for breath, for she had spoken rapidly, or perhaps to get better hold on her subject. Not improbably the effect she was creating on her listeners began to be significant. Roy sat absorbed, perfectly motionless, eyes keen as steel, his mouth open. Carmichael was gazing over Bo’s head, out of the window, and it seemed that he must know the rest of her narrative. Helen knew that her own wide-eyed attention alone would have been all-compelling inspiration to Bo Rayner.

“Sure I had it wrong,” resumed Bo. “Pretty soon I heard a horse behind. I looked back. I saw a big bay riding down on me. Oh, but he was running. He just tore through the cedars…. I was scared half out of my senses. But I spurred and beat my mustang. Then began a race! Rough going…thick cedars…washes and gullies! I had to make him run…to keep my saddle…to pick my way. Oh-h-h, but it was glorious! To race for fun…that’s one thing…to race for your life is another! My heart was in my mouth…choking me. I couldn’t have yelled. I was as cold as ice…dizzy sometimes…blind others…thenmy stomach turned…and I couldn’t get my breath. Yet the wild thrills I had…. But I stuck on and held my own for several miles…tothe edge of the cedars. There the big horse gained on me. He came pounding closer…perhaps as close as a hundred yards…I could hear him plain enough. Then I had my spill. Oh! My mustang tripped…threw me way over his head. I hit light, but slid far…and that’s what scraped me. So, I know my knee is raw…. When I got to my feet, the big horse dashed up, throwing gravel all over me…and his rider jumped off…. Now who do you think he was?”

Helen knew, but she did not voice her conviction. Carmichael knew positively, yet he kept silent. Roy was smiling as if the narrative told did not seem so alarming to him. “Wal, the fact of you bein’ here, safe an’ sound, sorta makes no difference who that son-of-a-gun was,” he said.

“Riggs! Harve Riggs!” blazed Bo. “The instant I recognized him, I got over my scare. I was so mad I burned all through like fire. I don’t know what I said, but it was wild…and it was a whole lot, you bet.

“ ‘You sure can ride,’ he said.

“I demanded why he had dared to chase me and he said he had an important message for Nell. This was it…‘Tell your sister that Beasley means to put her off an’ take the ranch. If she’ll marry me, I’ll block his deal. If she won’t marry me, I’ll go in with Beasley.’ Then he told me to hurry home and not to breathe a word to anyone except Nell. Well, here I am…and I seem to have been breathing rather fast.”

She looked from Helen to Roy and from Roy to Las Vegas. Her smile was for him, and to anyone not overexcited by her story that smile would have told volumes.

“Wal, I’ll be doggoned!” ejaculated Roy feelingly.

Helen laughed. “Indeed the working of that man’s mind is beyond me…. Marry him to save my ranch? I wouldn’t marry him to save my life!”

Carmichael suddenly broke his silence. “Bo, did you see the other men?”

“Yes. I was coming to that,” she replied. “I caught a glimpse of them back in the cedars. The three were together, or at least three horse men were there. They had halted behind some trees. Then on the way home I began to think. Even in my fury I had received impressions. Riggs was
surprised
when I got up. I’ll bet he had not expected me to be who I was. He thought I was
Nell!
I look bigger in the buckskin outfit. My hair was up till I lost my hat and that was when I had the tumble. He took me for Nell. Another thing I remember, he made some sign…some motion while I was calling him names, and I believe that was to keep those other men back…. I believe Riggs had a plan with these other men to waylay Nell and make off with her. I absolutely know it.”

“Bo, you’re so…so…you jump at wild ideas so,” protested Helen, trying to believe in her own assurance. But inwardly she was trembling.

“Miss Helen, that ain’t a wild idee,” said Roy seriously. “I reckon your sister is pretty close on the trail. Las Vegas, don’t you savvy it that way?”

Carmichael’s answer was to stalk out of the room.

“Call him back!” cried Helen apprehensively.

“Hold on, boy!” called Roy sharply.

Helen reached the door simultaneously with Roy. The cowboy picked up his sombrero, jammed it on his head, gave his belt a vicious hitch that made the gun sheath jump, and then in one giant step he was astride Ranger.

“Carmichael! Stay!” cried Helen.

The cowboy spurred the black and the stones rang under iron-shod hoofs.

“Bo! Call him back! Please call him back!” importuned Helen in distress.

“I won’t,” declared Bo Rayner. Her face shone whiter now and her eyes were like fiery flint. That was her answer to a loving gentle-hearted sister; that was her answer to the call of the West.

“No use,” said Roy quietly. “An’ I reckon I’d better trail him up.”

He, too, strode out and, mounting his horse, galloped swiftly away.

It turned out that Bo was more bruised and scraped and shaken that she had imagined. One knee was rather badly cut, which injury alone would have kept her from riding again very soon. Helen, who was somewhat skilled at bandaging wounds, worried a great deal over the sundry blotches on Bo’s fair skin, and it took considerable time to wash and dress them. Long after this was done, and during the early supper and afterward, Bo’s excitement remained unabated. The whiteness stayed on her face and the blaze in her eyes. Helen ordered and begged her to go to bed, for the fact was Bo could not stand up and her hands shook.

“Go to bed? Not much,” she said. “I want to know what he does to Riggs.”

It was that possibility that had Helen in dreadful suspense. If Carmichael killed Riggs, it seemed to Helen, that the bottom would drop out of this structure of Western life she had begun to build so earnestly and fearfully. She did not believe that he would do so. But the uncertainty was torturing.

“Dear Bo,” appealed Helen, “you don’t want…. Oh! You do want Carmichael to…to kill Riggs?”

“No, I don’t, but I wouldn’t care if he did,” replied Bo bluntly.

“Do you think…he will?”

“Nell, if that cowboy really loves me, he read my mind right here before he left,” declared Bo. “And he knew what I thought he’d do.”

“And what’s…that?” faltered Helen.

“I want him to round Riggs up down in the village…somewhere in a crowd. I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is. And insulted, slapped, kicked…driven out of Pine!”

Her passionate speech still rang throughout the room when there came footsteps on the porch…. Helen hurried to raise the bar from the door and open it, just as a tap sounded on the door post. Roy’s face stood white out of the darkness. His eyes were bright. And his smile made Helen’s fearful query needless.

“How are you-all this evenin’?” he drawled as he came in.

A fire blazed on the hearth and a lamp burned on the table. By their light Bo looked white and eager-eyed as she reclined in the big armchair.

“What’d he do?” she asked with all her amazing force.

“Wal, now, ain’t you goin’ to tell me how you are?”

“Roy, I’m all bunged up. I ought to be in bed. But I just couldn’t sleep till I hear what Las Vegas did. I’d forgive anything except his getting drunk.”

“Wal, I shore can ease your mind on thet,” replied Roy. “He never drank a drop.”

Roy was distractingly slow about beginning the tale any child could have guessed he was eager to tell. For once the hard intent quietness, the soul of labor, pain, and endurance so plain in his face was softened by pleasurable emotion. He poked at the burning logs with the toe of his boot. Helen observed that he had changed his boots and now wore no spurs. Then he had gone to his quarters after what ever had happened down in Pine.

“Where
is
he?” asked Bo.

“Who? Riggs? Wal, I don’t know. But I reckon he’s somewhere out in the woods nursin’ hisself.”

“Not Riggs. First tell me where
he
is.”

“Shore then you must mean Las Vegas. I just left him down at the cabin. He was gettin’ ready for bed, early as it is. All tired out he was an’ thet white thet you wouldn’t have knowed him. But he looked happy at thet, an’ the last words he says, more to himself than to me I reckon, was…‘I’m some locoed gent, but, if she doesn’t call me Tom now, she’s no good!’ ”

Bo actually clapped her hands, notwithstanding that one of them was bandaged.

“Call him Tom? I should smile I will,” she declared in delight. “Hurry now…what’d…?”

“It’s shore powerful strange how he hates that handle Las Vegas,” went on Roy imperturbably.

“Roy, tell me what he did…what
Tom
did…or I’ll scream!” cried Bo.

“Miss Helen, did you ever see the likes of that girl?” asked Roy, appealing to Helen.

“No, Roy, I never did,” agreed Helen. “But please…please tell us what has happened.”

Roy grinned and rubbed his hands together in a dark delight, almost fiendish in its sudden revelation of a gulf of strange emotion deep within him. What ever had happened to Riggs had not been too much for Roy Beeman. Helen remembered hearing her uncle say that a real Westerner hated nothing so hard as the swaggering desperado, the make-believe gunman who pretended to sail under the true, wild, and reckoning colors of the West.

Roy leaned his lithe tall form against the stone mantelpiece and faced the girls.

“When I rode out after Las Vegas, I seen him ‘way down the road,” began Roy rapidly. “An’ I seen another man ridin’ down into Pine from the other side. Thet was Riggs, only I didn’t know it then. Las Vegas rode up to the store, where some fellars was hangin’ around, an’ he spoke to them. When I came up, they was all headin’ for Turner’s saloon. I seen a dozen horses hitched to the rails. Las Vegas rode on. But I got off at Turner’s an’ went in with the bunch. Whatever it was Las Vegas said to them fellars, shore they didn’t give him away. Pretty soon more men strolled into Turner’s an’ there got to be ‘most twenty altogether, I reckon. Jeff Mulvey was there with his pards. They had been drinkin’ sorta free. An’ I didn’t like the way Mulvey watched me. So I went out an’ into the store, but kept a-lookin’ for Las Vegas. He wasn’t in sight. But I seen Riggs ridin’ up. Now Turner’s is where Riggs hangs out an’ does his braggin’. He looked powerful deep an’ thoughtful, dismounted slow without seein’ the onusual number of horses there, an’ then he slouches into Turner’s. No more’n a minute after thet Las Vegas rode down like a streak. An’ just as quick he was off an’ through that door.”