Part 34 (1/2)

”You'd better go back--there's goin' to be a fight!” he said, a look of shocked concern in his big wild eyes.

”Do you see them? Where--”

”There they are!”--he clutched her arm, leaning and pointing--”and there's a bunch of fellers comin' to meet 'em that they don't see! I tell you there's goin' to be a fight!”

CHAPTER XIX

”I BEAT HIM TO IT”

The last dash of that long ride was only a whirlwind of emotions to Frances. It was a red streak. She did not know what became of the boy; she left him there as she lashed her horse past him on the last desperate stretch.

The two forces were not more than half a mile apart, the cavalry just mounting at the ruins of a homestead where she knew they had stopped for breakfast at the well. A little band of outriders was setting off, a scouting party under the lead of Chadron, she believed. Macdonald's men, their prisoners under guard between two long-strung lines of hors.e.m.e.n, were proceeding at a trot. Between the two forces the road made a long curve. Here it was bordered by brushwood that would hide a man on horseback.

When Frances broke through this screen which had hidden the cavalry from Macdonald, she found the cavalcade halted, for Macdonald had seen her coming down the hill. She told him in few words what her errand to him was, Tom La.s.siter and those who rode with him at the head of the column pressing around.

The question and mystification in Macdonald's face at her coming cleared with her brisk words. There was no wonder to him any more in her being there. It was like her to come, winging through the night straight to him, like a dove with a message. If it had been another woman to take up that brave and hardy task, then there would have been marvel in it. As it was, he held out his hand to her, silently, like one man to another in a pa.s.s where words alone would be weak and lame.

”I was looking for Chadron to come with help and attempt a rescue, and I was moving to forestall him, but we were late getting under way.

They”--waving his hand toward the prisoners--”held out until an hour ago.”

”You must think, and think fast!” she said. ”They're almost here!”

”Yes. I'm going ahead to meet them, and offer to turn these prisoners over to Major King. They'll have no excuse for firing on us then.”

”No, no! some other way--think of some other way!”

He looked gravely into her anxious, pleading eyes. ”Why, no matter, Frances. If they've come here to do that, they'll do it, but this way they'll have to do it in the open, not by a trick.”

”I'll go with you,” she said.

”I think perhaps--”

”I'll go!”

Macdonald turned to La.s.siter in a few hurried words. She pressed to his side as the two rode away alone to meet the troops, repeating as if she had been denied:

”I'll go!”

There was a dash of hoofs behind them, and a man who rode like a sack of bran came bouncing up, excitement over his large face.

”What's up, Macdonald--where're you off to?” he inquired.

Macdonald told him in a word, riding forward as he spoke. He introduced the stranger as a newspaper correspondent from Chicago, who had arrived at the homesteaders' camp the evening past.

”So they got troops, did they?” the newspaper man said, riding forward keenly. ”Yes, they told me down in Cheyenne they'd put that trick through. Here they come!”

Macdonald spurred ahead, holding up his right hand in the Indian sign of peace. Major King was riding with Chadron at the head of the vanguard. They drew rein suddenly at sight of what appeared to be such a formidable force at Macdonald's back, for at that distance, and with the dimness of the scattering mist, it appeared as if several hundred hors.e.m.e.n were approaching.

Distrustful of Chadron, fearing that he might induce Major King to shoot Macdonald down as he sat there making overtures of peace, Frances rode forward and joined him, the correspondent coming jolting after her in his horn-riding way. After a brief parley among themselves Chadron and King, together with three or four officers, rode forward. One remained behind, and halted the column as it came around the brushwood screen at the turn of the road.