CHAPTER XIV
RIDERS OF THE NIGHT
Stamford, softly lifting the screen from his window, with the thrills of a conspirator, climbed through and looked about. Once before he had stood in the midst of the darkened prairie, with no thought then than that he was temporarily but not dangerously lost. What lay before him now he thought he had seen under every aspect from his bedroom window. But there was a difference—a very disturbing difference.
Now, in the eeriest part of the vast prairies he was stepping into an eery and illegitimate adventure. Deliberately he was involving himself in a situation that could bring no satisfaction but that of counter-plotting, and, were he discovered, would expose him to even worse suspicion than he deserved. Most of the exhilaration fled with the touch of the cold night air on his face; the rest of it went before the vividness of his imagination. He marvelled that a mere key should have uplifted him so much, that a prospective ride at such an hour should have gratified one to whom riding was at best nothing more than an unpleasant education.
Had his knees not trembled he would probably have climbed back through the window with a grin of shame at his foolhardiness, but with terror tingling his scalp—— He closed his teeth and struck out stubbornly round the corner of the house, avoiding the noisy gravel walk. Up the slope diagonally he crept, pointing above the stables. A sense of the necessity of concealment, and a dim thought of future needs, impressed him so strongly that he scouted about for a long time back and forth in search of the deepest of the scarcely visible rolls he knew to mark the prairie everywhere.
Dropping down the slope then from above the stables, he applied the key to the padlock. His heart was beating fast, his fingers trembling. The night was crammed with terrors, and anxiety about the fit of the key made him wonder what kink in his brain clothed an adventure like this in attraction.
The key fitted. He realised then that there was no honourable escape but to go on. Fate was a funny thing. He looked back once toward his window in the ranch-house, took a long breath, and stepped into the utter blackness of the stable. The horses sniffed, and for a moment he tried to convince himself that he had accomplished all he wished.
He knew Hobbles' stall, and, speaking gently, advanced in the darkness. By the light of a sulphur match which he struck under the cover of his coat he found saddle and bridle and clumsily fastened them in place. Once off the wooden floors, the horse's feet met only hard, soundless clay, and when he emerged into the night, leading Hobbles, he was satisfied that he could not have wakened the cookie, who alone, he thought, remained in the ranch buildings. Pushing back the loop of the padlock without locking it, he led off to the south-east, avoiding bunk-house and ranch-house.
In the saddle he was more satisfied. No longer was he alarmed, but the exhilaration of exercising a new art alone in the night determined him on one burst of speed. Stopping suddenly at the end of a few hundred yards, he turned his ear back with tingling veins. Back there somewhere in the darkness he imagined the beat of a horse's hoofs—and then sudden silence. Twice more he repeated it with the same result.
Convinced now that he was really frightened into foolish fancies, he rode on.
Out before him a strange lightness in the sky attracted his attention. Five minutes later he could see dimly the lines of dead grass on the crest of a ridge. Riding slowly up a slope, he looked over.
Four hundred yards away, in a deep coulee, a fire was burning. The bottom in which it was kindled was carefully chosen for concealment, and Stamford thrilled with excitement. Between him and the flames a bunch of cattle was kept in hand by a temporary corral, two silhouetted cowboys seated on the top rail. About the fire more cowboys were struggling with a steer that lay on its side, and the smell of burning hair carried to Stamford's nose the work of the branding irons.
He wondered what mystic night rites he was invading.
Seeking a nearer approach than was possible from that direction, he rode back down the slope and skirted about to the opposite side. That side, the south, suited him better, too, for the reason that, if he were detected, he would not seem to have come from the ranch.
Leaving Hobbles with dropped rein in another coulee, he climbed to the ridge. There he could see everything. Though he knew next to nothing of branding, and nothing whatever of its dishonest forms, the hour of the deed, the silence of the operations, and the choice of location, convinced him that it was intended only for the eyes of those immediately concerned.
He had just settled down to watch the thing through, when from only a few yards away rose the startling howl of a coyote. The sound galvanised more startling life into the group of cowboys. Those at the fire dropped their branding irons and rushed for their horses, and the two at the corrals were in their saddles as the howl ceased.
Stamford tumbled down the slope and raced for Hobbles. As he clambered into the saddle he realised with a gasp how hopeless flight was. Even with such a short start he had confidence that Hobbles could hold her own in the dark—but he couldn't at such a speed. Fifty yards convinced him of it—fifty yards of giving Hobbles her head and concentrating on the horn in front.
He was considering what would happen when they caught him, when a horse raced out of the darkness behind him and shot past—so close that a skirt blew against his legs and he could hear a woman's voice whispering to her mount.
So Mary Aikens, too, was out that night! He forgot his fears and raced on.
But escape was hopeless. From the ridge came the thunder of the pursuing cowboys—and then, close behind him, another horse. It was gaining rapidly, the quirt lashing again and again—Stamford could hear its gushing breath at his hip.... And then he felt himself pushed from the saddle with a force that threw him clear of Hobbles' flying heels. Over and over on the soft earth he rolled, uninjured but too mystified and angry to appreciate it. He was rising to his feet to face his captor, when he realised that the rider who had unhorsed him had not even paused in his pace. Twice he heard the quirt fall, and he remembered that as he left the saddle that quirt had lashed over Hobbles' flank. Without a rider Hobbles would make the ranch.
A short hundred yards back pounded the feet of the pursuing horses. Stamford crept swiftly out of their path and lay still.
When they were past he rose and started on the run for the ranch. Vaguely he felt that in the speed of his return lay safety. Reaching the trail, he ran until his heart threatened to collapse; but he would not stop to rest.
It was still dark when he topped the rise overlooking the ranch buildings and crept carefully down toward the house. Though there seemed little danger of discovery, he kept to the depressions, zig-zagging downward. He was thankful to his instinct for concealment when he suddenly became aware of someone standing before the ranch-house looking up the trail—a woman. He could make out no more than the outline, but it must, of course, be Mary Aikens. He knew that she could have no desire to be discovered by him, and he moved more slowly, waiting for her to go.
His foot struck an unexpected mound and landed him on his face. As he lay in the grass he saw her move swiftly away round the corner of the house. Both the front door and the window of the Aikens' bedroom were in plain sight, but she did not enter either. He ran on openly then.
On the other side of the house no one was in sight. He hastened to the back, but the peg left by the cookie on the outside of the screen door when he departed after his evening's work proved that no one had entered there since.
Stamford leaned against the wall, completely mystified. He looked around, poking in the grass, yet without hope. The woman had vanished.
He remembered Hobbles and, gulping down a desire to cuddle into the bedclothes, hurried to the stable. The mysteries increased—the stable was locked. From the bunk-house came the noisy snoring of the cookie. With his duplicate key he let himself into the stable and found Hobbles—unsaddled—as if she had never been out, though her sides were still slightly warm.
Stamford crept out. It was uncanny.
The soft padding of a horse down the slope to the east, far from the trail, brought him to a sense of his exposure. Diving between two buildings, he waited. The rider turned off toward the corrals, evidently moving with caution, and a few minutes later Cockney Aikens came round the corner of one of the buildings that concealed Stamford, stopped a moment to listen to the snoring of the cook, and passed on to the house.
His steps were still audible when another horse came along the same course, but it did not turn off to the corrals. Stamford slunk further into his hiding-place as Dakota Fraley rode past and drew up before the bunk-house.
To Stamford's amazement Bean Slade came out.
"Who in h—l's been riding about here to-night?" Dakota demanded.
"Nobody—not that I've heard," returned Bean in a whisper.
"You been sleeping so tight, I guess, it ud take a kick on the ear to wake you."
"I heard you far enough," returned Bean sharply.
"Bring the lantern."
Dakota dismounted. Bean was a long time with the lantern, striking several matches in vain.
"No ile," he growled, with a curse.
"Never mind. I have matches."
Dakota tried the padlock, unlocked it, and entered the stable. Stamford heard a match scratch and saw a momentary flare through the cracks where the mud had dropped out.
"That shore beats me," muttered Dakota, as they came out. "They're all there. Let's take a look at the corrals."
They went off around the stable, and Stamford, creeping out, slunk up to the depressions in the slope that had become in one night such good friends to him, and returned to the house. He discovered that he had left his screen out, and a few hardy mosquitoes that defied the chilly night were buzzing within. Imp's snuffling grunt came from beneath the door and he opened it noisily and let the little terrier in. As he did so he thought he heard a gentle creak of Cockney's door. He smiled into the darkness and crept into bed, the dog curled up at his feet.