THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT by EMILIE BAKER LORING (classic fiction .txt) 📕

I knew that Ranlett would kill me if I backed out but I'd--I'd rather--die."

"But you're not going to die, Beechy, and we'll win out," the girl comforted eagerly. "Oh, how can I leave you like this----"

"Mount that pony again, quick!" He gathered his strength by a superhuman effort. "Don't think of me. I'll rest here and then I'll move on, I promise. I want to--get out--of--this scrape as much as--you want me to. That's right--up you--go." The last word was a whisper. He struggled to one elbow. "Tell Greyson if he gets a chance--to put a bullet through the man--Ranlett took on in--my place--that range-rider at Bear-Creek ranch."

CHAPTER XVI

Benson regarded Ming Soy in stunned amazement. Her words, "She never come back--not all this time," revolved stupidly round and round in his brain. They had been catapulted into the midst of his passionate declaration to Peggy; what she would have answered he never would know, now. The color which the touch of his lips had brought to the girl's face had faded; she was regarding the Chinese woman with terrified eyes. She laid a trembling hand on Benson's arm. "Thank God, I haven't made you hate me," he thought fervently as he gripped her cold fingers in a comforting clasp. His faith in the wisdom of a surprise attack had been built upon a rock, after all.

"Tell me again, Ming Soy, just when Mrs. Courtlandt started and what she said to you."

In her excitement Ming Soy's English kept tripping her up, but Benson was able to get a fairly clear idea of what had happened.

"I watched her rode--not to the flield she tole me--no--down the road. I listened for shoots. No shoots. No noding. No noding in flield. When Ming Soy see you way down road, Ming Soy bleat glong."

Benson's mind had been working with machine-like speed while he listened. The girl beside him drew a long, ragged breath. He laid his lips upon her hand for a moment.

"Don't worry! I'll find her, Peg-o'-my-heart. She has probably dropped in at Bear Creek ranch to see that new arrival and has forgotten the time. Women are like that when there's a baby." He advanced the theory with a light-hearted laugh which he flattered himself was a marvel of its kind, but it merely drew a long, quivering sob from the girl. "Just for company, I'll ride down to meet her."

"I'll go with you," announced Peggy eagerly.

"Nothing doing! You'll go back to the house with Ming Soy. Don't let Hopi Soy work off any of his thrift ideas on the dinner. If Jerry has been riding all afternoon she'll be famished, and I--I feel as if I could eat a raw mountain lion this minute. I'll take the horses back to the corral and get a fresh mount."

"Please--Tommy--take me?"

Benson closed his ears heroically against the wiles of his own particular Circe. He shook his head; his grave eyes met the girl's squarely.

"Be a good little sport, Peg. I can go faster without you. Besides, Jerry may be back before me and she would be anxious if you were not here."

"All right, Tommy. Come, Ming Soy."

Benson could get no satisfaction from the man in charge of the corral. He questioned him as he watched him shift the saddle from Soapy to a powerful black. Slowman only knew that Mrs. Courtlandt came for Patches at about two o'clock. She was humming and laughing softly to herself as she led him off, quite as though she had heard some good news--or--or was up to some mischief; women were like that, when they had something up their sleeves, he'd noticed. None of the boys who had gone after the Shorthorns had returned. Mr. Courtlandt had 'phoned the corral from Slippy Bend that he should not be back to the ranch until morning, and to keep a sharp watch over the horses.

"By cripes, when he said that," Slowman added as he looked at Benson with eyes so curiously crossed that they appeared to regard an object from the north and south extremes of the pole of vision, "it sent the creeps all over me. It was almost as good as though I'd gone back to the days of honest-to-God hold-ups an' rustlin's. I'm sorry about Mrs. Courtlandt, Mr. Tommy, but don't you worry. You'll like as not find her over takin' care of Jim Carey's baby. I hear the kid's a boy," with a sheepish grin.

As Benson rode out from the corral he looked at the bank of clouds in the southwest and put spurs to his horse. Ming Soy, under cross-examination, had held stoutly to her statement that Jerry had not gone to the field back of the ranch-house. He would ride to the B C first. On the rustic bridge that spanned the stream he stopped to reconnoiter then went on and rounded the clump of cottonwoods that screened the Bear Creek buildings from his view. They were beginning to lose their outline in the deepening gloom. The fast spreading clouds were letting down a curtain of darkness.

Benson had ridden but a few hundred yards when he pulled the black up short. What was that! He listened. The air was still with that curious sinister calm which precedes a storm. The sound came again. It was the whinny of a horse but--but--it was not from the direction of the B C ranch; it came from the level at the foot of the hills beyond.

Tommy's imaginings as he raced across the field would have provided material for a five-reel thriller of the most lurid variety. They blew up like a balloon which has been pricked when he was near enough to the whinnying horse to discover that it not Patches but Ranlett's favorite mount, The Piker. He gave voice to a mild but expressive swear-word.

"Now what's to pay?" he muttered as he flung himself from the saddle and bent over the outstretched figure half buried in the long grass. He knelt. "Beechy!" he exclaimed incredulously. "How the dickens did you----" The recumbent man lifted heavy lids.

"Comment ça----" Returning consciousness cleared the haze from the blue eyes. "Mr. Benson--you--did she find you--instead of----" his eyes closed.

"Beechy! Beechy! Rouse yourself. You must help me," Tommy pleaded. "Have you seen Mrs. Courtlandt? She's--she's lost! Your Lieutenant can't find his wife, Beechy!"

"Mon Lieutenant," the blue eyes looked up at Benson dazedly. "What's that you said, Mr. Benson? Lost his wife? You're wrong, you've got another guess coming." With cautious effort he raised himself on his elbow. "Prop me up, that's better. Don't worry about Mrs. Lieut. She's a good little--sport. She must be getting near the X Y Z by now." His voice was clearer, the color was coming back to his lips.

"She's safe--unhurt?"

"Sure, man--nothin' could happen to a woman like her--don't you know that? She's ridin' like the devil to cut off----" in his excitement he jerked himself erect; in the next moment he was a crumpled heap on the ground.

Tommy emptied the canteen he had tied to his saddle-horn, for the Lord only knew what emergency, over the white face. His tense nerves relaxed. Jerry had been all right when Beechy saw her last and that couldn't have been so long ago. If she was at Greyson's she was safe--but--what the dickens had she been doing all the afternoon, he wondered. Now that he had her accounted for he must get Beechy under cover. With an anxious glance at the threatening sky overhead he spoke to the man on the ground. He was quite conscious again. He listened intelligently as Tommy outlined his plan for getting him to Bear Creek ranch. He wasted no strength on words but with Benson's help finally mounted The Piker. He put his arms around the horse's neck and fell forward on his mane. Benson steadied him with one hand. Side by side the two horses made their way to the buildings now nothing but a blotch of darkness.

Jim Carey dashed out of the corral as the two rode up. He was a tall, good-looking man with black eyes which twitched nervously as he talked.

"Is that you, Small? Where the devil----" he broke off in astonishment as he saw the figure flung forward on The Piker's neck.

"It's not Small, Carey. I'm Benson from the Double O," Tommy called from out the gloom. "I picked up a man at the foot of the hill who was about all in. He was Courtlandt's sergeant overseas. Help me get him down, will you?"

"We'll take him into Small's cabin. This way."

The two men carried Beechy into the shack and laid him on a bed. Carey lighted a lamp. He came back and looked down at the unconscious man as he lay with his red hair roughly tousled and the bruise under his eye a purplish red.

"I'll get Mother Eagan. I--I suppose you know what's come?" Carey asked with awkward pride.

"I heard that the stork was playing a one-night stand in this county. Is Mrs. Carey getting on all right?" Tommy asked as he busied himself unfastening Beechy's clothes. "What is it, Carl?" he soothed as the injured man struggled to one elbow, his eyes blazing with excitement.

"Grab his horse--Mrs. Lieut., I'll get the range better next time--Ranlett----" he dropped back on the pillow; the fever died down in his eyes. He looked up into Benson's anxious face. "Don't mind what I said," he pleaded weakly. "I was dreamin' but--but--I guess you'd better ride after Mrs. Lieut., and be sure she's all right. Ranlett's gang----"

"Ranlett's gang!" both men bent over him. "What do you mean, Beechy?" Benson asked tensely.

"Bolster me up! That's right. That infernal pounding inside me's quieting down." He drew a cautious breath and smiled wanly into the face above him. "Did you see that? It came as easy as spendin' money. Who's that? Where am I?" he demanded as he caught sight of Jim Carey and looked around the room.

"You are at Bear Creek ranch and this is Carey the owner."

"Send him out, Mr. Benson. I've got something to say to you."

"But Carey is----"

"Send him out," Beechy reiterated weakly and closed his eyes as though he were again slipping into a coma.

"You'd better go, Jim. There's some deviltry afoot and Beechy knows what it is. Send Mother Eagan down in ten minutes if she can be spared."

Carey looked down at the motionless figure on the bed.

"I wonder if he knows anything about Small," he whispered. "He left early this morning and----"

"You mean?"

"The same," answered Carey enigmatically and left the cabin. The wind banged the door after him. Benson could see Beechy wince. Then he was conscious of what was going on about him.

"He's gone, Carl," he whispered.

Beechy's lips twisted in a smile as he opened his eyes, and eased himself on his elbow.

"I reckoned we'd shake him if I played 'possum. I'm feelin' better every minute. Get a paper and pencil, Mr. Benson. I want you to take something down for me. This bogus heart of mine is likely to pound on for years, then again it may shut up shop any minute."

"I'll do it, Beechy, but first, tell me about Mrs. Courtlandt. I must know that she is safe."

"She's safe, all right. She started for the X Y Z and