CHAPTER XVI
AN ADVENTURE IN THE MOONLIGHT
Stamford climbed into bed with a feeling of discomfort. He always knew beforehand when he would not sleep. Even as a youngster the aftermath of indigestible luxuries, nightmare, was heralded before he closed his eyes by a feeling of oppression. To-night he longed for Imp's watchful ears at the foot of his bed. Outside, the world was dominated by the hideous yelping of the coyotes. To Stamford they were a symbol of Red Deer mysteries: though hundreds of them by day lurked within the horizon, they were seldom visible; at night, when only their eyes could see, they filled the darkness with raucous clamour.
For a long time he struggled in vain to sleep, and at last put on his dressing-gown and seated himself before the window. The mosquitoes had retreated before the cool nights, though the sun still brought them to life in clouds by day. He removed the screen and leaned from the window. Beyond the shadow of the house the prairie was yellow now with a brilliant moonlight.
A distant sound of disjointed conversation drew his eyes to the bunk-house. A light still burned there.
Urged by sudden recklessness, he hastily donned part of his clothing and climbed outside.
He found the prairie in another of its moods. To-night the moon blazed a spirit that ridiculed the proportions of darkness and day. It seemed inconceivable that the slightest movement could pass unnoticed in such brilliance, but this that he looked on was a new world of silent majesty. There were the old landmarks, but they were altered in size and distance and relative location. So plainly did the cliff across the river stand out that it seemed within a stone's throw, yet any attempt to decipher the familiar strata, the recesses and projections, was defeated by a bewilderingly new mass of shadows and high-lights. The ranch buildings were crowding closer, and the lazy movements of the horses in the corrals came sharp as pistol shots.
Stamford stood for minutes, gripped in the clutch of the prairie by moonlight. His mind refused to turn from the scene; he was restless, unsatisfied, undecided. The light was still there in the bunk-house, and at intervals he could hear the sound of voices.
Bringing himself back to realities by sheer force of will, he moved round to the front of the house, clinging to the shadows. Where they ended he paused a moment to fix in his memory the concealing depressions that stretched further up the slope toward the stables, and then struck swiftly through the moonlight.
He was conscious of an ill-defined desire to conceal his movements from the ranch-house as well as from the bunk-house for which he was making, and he sank to the first cover with a sigh of relief. After a careful inspection in both directions through the long grass he began to crawl forward.
Nearer and nearer he approached the bunk-house, though on a higher level, without having once exposed himself—he was confident of that. The voices grew audible, certain excited words coming to him, then phrases. A wordy quarrel was in progress, from which Bean Slade's high-pitched voice projected itself frequently.
Stamford moved nearer, crept over several rolls to a hollow before the bunk-house, and lay down to listen.
"Yah!" he heard General sneer. "You'd 'a' let him go, you would, and got a bellyful o' lead fer yore trouble, you would."
"There was other ways o' gettin' out of it," protested Bean shrilly, "besides doin' fer him. It was damn brutal murder, I call it."
"Just 'cos you cain't sleep, Bean," jawed Alkali, "don't mean yo need to growl the rest of us awake everlastingly."
Dakota broke in imperatively:
"If you fellows don't shut your heads there's going to be trouble. Here you been on that ole song, Bean, for the last hour. What's the good? It can't be helped now. Somebody had to shoot—not to say it was meant to plug him for keeps. Now shut up both of you. We got enough excitement ahead for a month or so without worrying about a measly bullet or two."
Stamford hugged the ground, scarcely breathing. Once more Dakota had blocked him. Another minute and he would have heard something of moment, he was certain, though what it was he did not stop to consider until, in obedience to Dakota's orders, the quarrel ceased. He was not sure then that it was a case of any personal interest to him. Someone had once shot someone. All he knew was that Bean resented it, and that General was its strongest defender, whether as the shooter or not was uncertain.
He knew of only three deaths by shooting since he arrived: Corporal Faircloth, Kid Loveridge, and Billy Windover. Corporal Faircloth's death was not involved, since there could have been no danger of a bullet had he been spared. Kid Loveridge? It was almost as difficult to imagine that it concerned him, since he was one of the outfit and its most popular member. Of Billy Windover's death he knew too little, and was too little interested to follow the connection.
The light went out; silence reigned in the bunk-house. But Stamford lay there, forgetting where he was, riveting the conversation to his memory for future reference.
A sharp, muffled bark from the bunk-house roused him. He raised his head cautiously and peered through the grass. That was the precise warning the dog had given twice from the foot of his bed. What had disturbed it this time?
The door of the bunk-house opened and Dakota came stealthily but swiftly out, clad only in his shirt. In his hand was a rifle.
His first glance was toward the ranch-house, but all the time he was moving rapidly to the corner of the bunk-house, the rifle half-poised. Imp was there ahead of him, ears cocked, looking off down the valley toward the corrals. Stamford sank into the grass.
A burst of flame startled him, and then the crack of the rifle. It, too, was pointing down the slope toward the corrals. Stamford forgot caution and raised himself to look. But he could see nothing save the melting moonlight that never fulfilled its promise of exposing details.
Dakota returned to the bunk-house even more quickly than he had come. A few excited whispers followed, and then silence once more. Stamford began to work his way back to the ranch-house, suddenly aware of how shivery he was.
He had but started, his eyes searching the line of retreat, when he saw Cockney, fully dressed, appear from the shadows of the house, pass into the moonlight-bathed side where his bedroom window was, and climb through. Stamford hurried on. But before he reached the point where he must cross the open, Cockney reappeared and slunk into the shadows. An instant later Mary Aikens, in a dressing-gown, clambered through the bedroom window and crept timidly along the moonlit wall. At the corner she cautiously peered round after her husband.
Stamford could see Cockney outlined against the moonlit prairie beyond. He was standing with his face turned to the ranch buildings, as motionless as the other shadows. After a moment or two, with sudden decision he wheeled about and began to retrace his steps in long strides.
Mary Aikens turned and ran for the window, but she was too late, unless——
Stamford stood upright and spoke:
"Did you hear it, too, Cockney—the shot?"
Cockney stopped in his tracks, hand on hip. And his wife disappeared over the window-sill. Stamford stepped across the moonlight to the shadow of the house.
"Stamford"—Cockney's voice was full of menace, though it was quiet and low—"you'd better not butt in."
"I'm sure——" Stamford recognised the futility of talk. "I heard the shot and——"
"I've warned you," said Cockney, and entered the house by the front door.
Stamford stumbled thoughtfully on to his bedroom window. He was throwing one leg over the sill when Isabel Bulkeley spoke suddenly from over his head.
"I was wrong, Mr. Stamford."
He was as much startled by her presence there as by anything else that had happened that night, and he did not reply until he was safe in his room.
"You—you frightened me, Miss Bulkeley," he gasped, leaning out to see her.
Her low laugh made him himself again.
"How could you be wrong?"
"You certainly do more than sleep—and doze—and sleep again. Here you're strolling out when everyone else is asleep."
"It's very lonely," he hinted.
He felt that she was laughing in the silence that followed.
"There are more reasonable hours for a moonlight promenade than ten minutes to one in the morning—even in such moonlight."
"Any hour of the moonlight will suit me," he said,—"if I'm not alone. What wakened you?"
"When two men stand outside one's window quarrelling, a light sleeper is apt to waken."
"Didn't you hear the rifle-shot?"
"Sh-sh!" she whispered. "I think I hear Amos. If he wakens he'll not sleep for the rest of the night. And he must have his eight hours. Good-night, Mr. Stamford!"
The little man cursed the petty weaknesses of the big brother.
"Miss Bulkeley! Miss Bulkeley!"
But her window lowered, and he could hear her move away.
With throbbing heart, unaccountably happy, he threw off his clothes and crawled between the sheets. The clandestine good-night echoed sweetly in his ears. He could die like that—— But that was getting maudlin. He pulled up an extra covering and settled to sleep.
As in a dream he seemed to hear, far to the west, the thud of a horse's hoofs.