"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 shining 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, rushing 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 dashing 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!
"Who"s a-firin" off pistles in de kitchen?" demanded b.u.t.tercup in a serious tone, as she popped her woolly head through the doorway.
"n.o.body, me black darlin"," said Pat; "it"s only Miss Mary expressin"
her failin"s in a cheeky manner. That"s all!"
So saying the rejected cow-boy left the scene of his discomfiture, mounted his mustang, took his departure from the ranch of Roarin" Bull without saying farewell, and when next heard of had crossed the lonely Guadaloupe mountains into Lincoln County, New Mexico.
But to return. While the troops and the outlaws were hastening thus to the rescue of the dwellers in Bull"s ranch, and the blood-thirsty Redskins were making for the same point, bent on the destruction of all its inhabitants, Roaring Bull himself, his pretty daughter, and d.i.c.k Darvall, were seated in the ranch enjoying their supper, all ignorant alike of the movements of friend and foe, with b.u.t.tercup waiting on them.
One messenger, however, was speeding on his way to warn them of danger.
This was the cowboy Crux, who had been despatched on Bluefire by Hunky Ben just before that st.u.r.dy scout had started to call out the cavalry at Quester Creek.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
THE ALARM AND PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE.
"From what you say I should think that my friend Brooke won"t have much trouble in findin" Traitor"s Trap," remarked d.i.c.k Darvall, pausing in the disposal of a venison steak which had been cooked by the fair bands of Mary Jackson herself, "but I"m sorely afraid o" the reception he"ll meet with when he gets there, if the men are such awful blackguards as you describe."
"They"re the biggest hounds unhung," growled Roaring Bull, bringing one hand down on the board by way of emphasis, while with the other he held out his plate for another steak.
"You"re too hard on some of them, father," said Mary, in a voice the softness of which seemed appropriate to the beauty of her face.
"Always the way wi" you wenches," observed the father. "Some o" the villains are good-lookin", others are ugly; so, the first are not so bad as the second--eh, la.s.s?"
Mary laughed. She was accustomed to her fathers somewhat rough but not ill-natured rebuffs.
"Perhaps I may be prejudiced, father," she returned; "but apart from that, surely you would never compare Buck Tom with Jake the Flint, though they do belong to the same band."
"You are right, my la.s.s," rejoined her father. "They do say that Buck Tom is a gentleman, and often keeps back his boys from devilry--though he can"t always manage that, an" no wonder, for Jake the Flint is the cruellest monster "tween this an" Texas if all that"s said of him be true."
"I wish my comrade was well out o" their clutches," said d.i.c.k, with a look of anxiety; "an" it makes me feel very small to be sittin" here enjoyin" myself when I might be ridin" on to help him if he should need help."
"Don"t worry yourself on that score," said the host. "You couldn"t find your way without a guide though I was to give ye the best horse in my stable--which I"d do slick off if it was of any use. There"s not one o"
my boys on the ranch just now, but there"ll be four or five of "em in to-morrow by daylight an" I promise you the first that comes in. They all know the country for three hundred miles around--every inch--an" you may ride my best horse till you drop him if ye can. There, now, wash down your victuals an" give us a yarn, or a song."
"I"m quite sure," added Mary, by way of encouragement, "that with one of the outlaws for an old friend, Mr Brooke will be quite safe among them."
"But he"s _not_ an outlaw, Miss Mary," broke in Darvall. "Leastwise we have the best reason for believin" that he"s detained among them against his will. Hows"ever, it"s of no use cryin" over spilt milk. I"m bound to lay at anchor in this port till mornin", so, as I can"t get up steam for a song in the circ.u.mstances, here goes for a yarn."
The yarn to which our handsome seaman treated his audience was nothing more than an account of one of his numerous experiences on the ocean, but he had such a pleasant, earnest, truth-like, and confidential way of relating it and, withal, interlarded his speech with so many little touches of humour, that the audience became fascinated, and sat in open-eyed forgetfulness of all else. b.u.t.tercup, in particular, became so engrossed as to forget herself as well as her duties, and stood behind her master in an expectant att.i.tude, glaring at the story-teller, with bated breath, profound sympathy, and extreme readiness to appreciate every joke whether good or bad.
In the midst of one of the most telling of his anecdotes the speaker was suddenly arrested by the quick tramp of a galloping horse, the rider of which, judging from the sound, seemed to be in hot haste.
All eyes were turned inquiringly on the master of the ranch. That cool individual, rising with quiet yet rapid action, reached down a magazine repeating rifle that hung ready loaded above the door of the room.
Observing this, d.i.c.k Darvall drew a revolver from his coat-pocket and followed his host to the outer door of the house. Mary accompanied them, and b.u.t.tercup retired to the back kitchen as being her appropriate stronghold.