Part 23 (1/2)

”Yes, yes--I know,” returned Shank, with a look of great anxiety; ”but, Charlie, you don't know half the danger you run. Don't fight with Buck Tom--do you hear?”

”Of course I won't,” said Charlie, in some surprise.

”No, no, that's not what I mean,” said Shank, with increasing anxiety.

”Don't fight _in company with him_.”

At that moment the voice of the outlaw was heard at the entrance shouting, ”Come along, Brooke, we're all ready.”

”Don't be anxious about me, Shank; I'll take good care,” said Charlie, as he hastily pressed the hand of the invalid and hurried away.

The ten men with Buck at their head were already mounted when he ran out.

”Pardon me,” he said, vaulting into the saddle, ”I was having a word with the sick man.”

”Keep next to me, and close up,” said Buck, as he wheeled to the right and trotted away.

Down the Traitor's Trap they went at what was to Charlie a break-neck but satisfactory pace, for now that he was fairly on the road a desperate anxiety lest they should be too late took possession of him.

Across an open s.p.a.ce they went at the bottom of which ran a brawling rivulet. There was no bridge, but over or through it went the whole band without the slightest check, and onward at full gallop, for the country became more level and open just beyond.

The moon was still s.h.i.+ning although sinking towards the horizon, and now for the first time Charlie began to note with what a stern and reckless band of men he was riding, and a feeling of something like exultation arose within him as he thought on the one hand of the irresistible sweep of an onslaught from such men, and, on the other, of the cruelties that savages were known to practise. In short, rus.h.i.+ng to the rescue was naturally congenial to our hero.

About the same time that the outlaws were thus hastening for once on an honourable mission--though some of them went from anything but honourable motives--two other bands of men were converging to the same point as fast as they could go. These were a company of United States troops, guided by Hunky Ben, and a large band of Indians under their warlike chief Bigfoot.

Jackson, _alias_ Roaring Bull, had once inadvertently given offence to Bigfoot, and as that chief was both by nature and profession an unforgiving man he had vowed to have his revenge. Jackson treated the threat lightly, but his pretty daughter Mary was not quite as indifferent about it as her father.

The stories of Indian raids and frontier wars and barbarous cruelties had made a deep impression on her sensitive mind, and when her mother died, leaving her the only woman at her father's ranch--with the exception of one or two half-breed women, who could not be much to her as companions--her life had been very lonely, and her spirit had been subjected to frequent, though hitherto groundless, alarms.

But pretty Moll, as she was generally called, was well protected, for her father, besides having been a noted pugilist in his youth, was a big, powerful man, and an expert with rifle and revolver. Moreover, there was not a cow-boy within a hundred miles of her who would not (at least thought he would not) have attacked single-handed the whole race of Redskins if Moll had ordered him to do so as a proof of affection.

Now, when strapping, good-looking d.i.c.k Darvall came to the ranch in the course of his travels and beheld Mary Jackson, and received the first broadside from her bright blue eyes, he hauled down his colours and surrendered with a celerity which would have mightily amused the many comrades to whom he had said in days of yore that his heart was as hard as rock, and he had never yet seen the woman as could soften it!

But d.i.c.k, more than most of his calling, was a modest, almost a bashful, man. He behaved to Mary with the politeness that was natural to him, and with which he would have approached any woman. He did not make the slightest attempt to show his admiration of her, though it is quite within the bounds of possibility that his ”speaking” brown eyes may have said something without his permission! Mary Jackson, being also modest in a degree, of course did not reveal the state of her feelings, and made no visible attempt to ascertain his, but her bluff sagacious old father was not obtuse--neither was he reticent. He was a man of the world--at least of the back-woods world--and his knowledge of life, as there exhibited, was founded on somewhat acute experience. He knew that his daughter was young and remarkably pretty. He saw that d.i.c.k Darvall was also young--a das.h.i.+ng and unusually handsome sailor--something like what Tom Bowling may have been. Putting these things together, he came to the very natural conclusion that a wedding would be desirable; believing, as he did, that human nature in the Rockies is very much the same as to its foundation elements as it is elsewhere. Moreover, Roaring Bull was very much in want of a stout son-in-law at that time, so he fanned the flame which he fondly hoped was beginning to arise.

This he did in a somewhat blundering and obvious manner, but d.i.c.k was too much engrossed with Mary to notice it and Mary was too ignorant of the civilised world's ways to care much for the proprieties of life.

Of course this state of things created an awful commotion in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the cow-boys who were in the employment of Mary's father and herded his cattle. Their mutual jealousies were sunk in the supreme danger that threatened them all, and they were only restrained from picking a quarrel with d.i.c.k and shooting him by the calmly resolute look in his brown eyes, coupled with his great physical power and his irresistible good-nature. Urbanity seemed to have been the mould in which the spirit of this man-of-the-sea had been cast and gentleness was one of his chief characteristics.Moreover, he could tell a good story, and sing a good song in a fine ba.s.s voice. Still further, although these gallant cow-boys felt intensely jealous of this newcomer, they could not but admit that they had nothing tangible to go upon, for the sailor did not apparently pay any pointed attention to Mary, and she certainly gave no special encouragement to him.

There was one cow-boy, however, of Irish descent, who could not or would not make up his mind to take things quietly, but resolved, as far as he was concerned, to bring matters to a head. His name was Pat Reilly.

He entered the kitchen on the day after d.i.c.k's arrival and found Mary alone and busily engaged with the dinner.

”Miss Jackson,” said Pat, ”there's a question I've bin wantin' to ax ye for a long time past, an' with your lave I'll putt it now.”

”What is it Mr Reilly?” asked the girl somewhat stiffly, for she had a suspicion of what was coming. A little negro girl in the back kitchen named b.u.t.tercup also had a suspicion of what was coming, and stationed herself with intense delight behind the door, through a crack in which she could both hear and see.

”Mary, my dear,” said Pat insinuatingly, ”how would you like to jump into double harness with me an' jog along the path o' life together?”

Poor Mary, being agitated by the proposal, and much amused by the manner of it, bent over a pot of something and tried to hide her blushes and amus.e.m.e.nt in the steam. b.u.t.tercup glared, grinned, hugged herself, and waited for more.

Pat, erroneously supposing that silence meant consent, slipped an arm round Mary's waist. No man had ever yet dared to do such a thing to her. The indignant girl suddenly wheeled round and brought her pretty little palm down on the cow-boy's cheek with all her might--and that was considerable!