IV
ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER
Michail Lafond merely spread the news, and made it a subject ofdiscussion. In his statements he said nothing of his own grievance,nor did he suggest a plan. He knew that this was not a case forviolence, nor did he care that it should become such. His actionsalways depended very much on how an impulse hit his queerly constructednature. In the present instance he might either resolve to get evenwith Billy Knapp by means of personal vengeance, or his anger mighttake the direction of a cold, set determination to get through theplains journey in spite of the scout's prohibition. That the latter,rather than the former course happened to appeal to him, was purely amatter of chance. So, though he said little to the direct point, theplan finally adopted in secret by a choice few had a good deal of hisdesire mingled in its substance.
The quiescence of the camp astonished and puzzled the three scouts.They had expected an outbreak, and were prepared for it. It did notcome.
The three days slipped by; everything was packed; and early in themorning, before the dawn's freshness had left the air, the little banddefiled across the prairie. A curious crowd gathered sleepily to watchit go, but there was no demonstration. Billy openly congratulatedhimself. Alfred looked to see that his revolvers were still capped.
The party comprised an even dozen "schooners," each drawn by four toughponies. Besides these, a dozen men rode on horseback. On occasion,their mounts could be pressed into draft service. The men themselveswere a representative lot; tall, bronzed, silent. They had taken partin the fierce Indian wars, then just beginning to lull; they had riddenpony-express with Wild Bill; they had stalked revenue officers in themountains of Tennessee. As they strode with free grace beside theirteams, or sat, with loose-swaying shoulders, their wiry little broncos,they drew to themselves in the early light the impressiveness of anage--the age of pioneers.
At their head rode Billy Knapp. At their rear rode Jim Buckley.Alfred was a little of everywhere at once. As a matter of habit, thesethree carried their rifles cross-fashion in front of them, but the newWinchesters and the old long-barrelled pieces of the other score of menwere still slung inside the canvas covers, for the Indian country wasyet to see. Beneath the axles hung pails. The wagons contained muchfood, a good supply of ammunition, and a scanty equipment of thecomforts of life. In one of them were three wooden boxes, two trunks,the doctor, Mrs. Prue, and little Miss Prue herself, laughingly proudat being allowed to dangle along the dew-wet grass the heavy coil of ablack snake whip.
The men shouted suddenly, the horses leaned to their collars, thewagons creaked, and the swaying procession began to loom huge andghost-like in the mist that steamed golden-white from the surface ofthe prairie.
Then, from the haze of the town, six more wagons silently detachedthemselves, and followed in the wake of the first.
This second caravan differed from the other in that it deployed nooutriders, and from the close-drawn canvas of its wagons came, once ina while, the sharp cry of a child, followed immediately by thecomforting of a woman. The men drove from the seats, and across thelap of each was a weapon.
About five miles out, the first caravan halted until the second drewnearer. Billy Knapp cantered back to it. One of the men in theforemost wagon thereupon clamped the brake and jumped to the ground,where he stood, leaning on the muzzle of his big mountaineer's rifle,chewing a nonchalant plug.
"What's this?" demanded Billy, reining in his horse.
The man shifted his quid.
"Nawthin'," he drawled, "'xcept that this yare outfit's a-goin' too."
Billy's eyes snapped.
"We settled all thet afore," said he, with outward calm.
"This yare outfit's a-goin' too," reiterated the man.
"The hell it is!" cried the scout angrily. "We all said no women andno poor hosses, and that goes. Yore hosses are a lot of crowbait,and----"
"The women is women as is women," cried another voice, "and not yoreleetle white-faced, yaller-haired sort that'd keel over if yo' said booto her!"
During the laconic dialogue, the schooners had gradually drawn nearer,until now they were grouped in a rough crescent around the two men.Billy looked up to see a tall woman in blue gingham haranguing him frombehind one of the seats.
"I reckon if she can go, we can; and you jest chalk that down, Mr.Speckleface!" she went on. Billy was slightly pockmarked.
Other canvas flaps opened, and the audience was increased by half.
"We're goin'," went on the woman, "whether you want us to or not; an'what's more, you got t' take care of us in the Injun country, an' ifyou don't I'll curse you from the grave, you white-livered, no 'countcradle robber, you! Folks has some rights on the plains, an' you knowit jest's well as I do, an' if you think you can shake yore ole palsfor a lot of no 'count tenderfeet, an' not find trouble, you jest foolsyoreself up a lot, let me tell you that. If Dave yere had th' sperritof a coyote, he'd fix you, Mr. Seoul!" with vast contempt.
"You men are all alike! A pretty face----" began the virago again, butBilly had fled at speed.
The man, who had been chuckling silently, spat and threw the rifle intothe hollow of his arm.
"Good for you, Susie," he remarked.
"You shut up!" replied Susie with acerbity, and retired within. Theman had yet to learn that one should never voluntarily step within thenotice of an angry woman.
The two wagon-trains proceeded as before--one behind the other by abouthalf a mile.
At intervals Billy or Jim went back to expostulate. They might be ableto undertake the responsibility of one woman, hardly of nine! But theynever got a hearing, as all the conversation was vituperative andone-sided.
Alfred led the party to a deep, swift crossing of the Platte. By theaid of the extra ponies the ford was made without loss. The secondparty had a hard struggle, but emerged dripping and triumphant.
Billy and Jim were again put to rout in an attempt at mere verbaldissuasion.
Alfred took them roundabout through a piece of country, cut and gulliedby rains. Some hills they climbed by the help of long ropes. Thesecond party dragged their wagons up singly, using all their animals toeach wagon. They lost some time, but the evening of the day followingthey strung out in the rear as imperturbably as ever. Alfred orderedall the riders into the wagons, and, by alternating the ponies, madeforced marches, hoping thus to shake the others off. The others,however, discovering that Alfred's party had been doubling and twistingthrough the worst country, detached a single rider, whose business itwas to search out the directest and easiest route. Thus they caughtup. Alfred discovered it too late, for they were now on the borders ofthe Indian country.
Here a serious problem presented itself. The second party had, up tonow, made no attempt to close in and join forces. On entering theIndian country, they would certainly do so. The question was, whetherthey should be resisted or received.
If they were not repulsed, could they be brought through successfully?If they were resisted, would the resistance be effective? One thing orthe other must be decided immediately, for, whatever the policyadopted, it must be a settled policy before entering hostile ground.
In the contest of endurance, the score of men comprising the main partyhad taken part amusedly. They were under the command of the scouts.When the scouts ordered speed, speed was made. When they said to climbhills, hills were climbed. When they advised difficult fords, thedifficulties of crossing were overcome. If the other train had troublekeeping up with the procession, why, that was good enough fun. Butactual resistance was a different matter. After all, according totheir lights, these other men were entirely in the right. They hadbeen excluded from the expedition, on the basis of a rule which hadbeen agreed to after some grumbling; and now that the rule had beenbroken by the very framers of it, there seemed to be no longer fairgrounds of exclusion; and therefore a certain rough sense of justiceinclined them to take sides with the bearers of the pea rifles in therear. At the sa
me time, they felt the truth of Billy's statement, thatit would be impossible to get so unwieldy a caravan over the roughcountry and through the dangers to come. So, seeing reason on bothsides, they maintained a guarded neutrality.
Resistance being out of the question, the three next considered theother horn of the dilemma. Alfred rode over to examine the prospectiveaddition to the party. He found the animals in poor condition, partlybecause of the forced marches he had himself imposed. In his opinionthey would not last out the journey, and he so reported, to the greatconsternation of the other two.
While they lamented, Prue came up and heard a part. She demanded thewhole, and they told her frankly. The heroine of romance, realizingherself the cause of the trouble, would have offered to return with theother women, and so the whole question would have been resolved; butPrue was only a very nice little woman, in love with her husband. Herchief concern was not the triumph of eternal justice, but whether thewhole expedition would come to nothing. She pondered.
"If you can't keep them from going with us, and if you can't getthrough if they do go with us," she said finally, "it seems to me thatthe only way to fix it would be to do something so they couldn'tgo"--with which vague hint this Puritan looked wickedly at them all,and went away, clinching her small hands with anger. From the hint,they made a plan to which all three agreed.
Next morning Jim roused the camp an hour earlier than usual, andinsisted on an immediate departure. The horses were hitched, and thebreakfast things put away. Then Alfred rode over to the other camp,with Jim and Billy following at a little distance.
People start a camp on the plains, in a safe country, by arranging thewagons in a rough semicircle. Behind this semicircle the horses arehobbled, and left to graze. In front of it the cooking-fire is built.During the night, besides the regular sentinels, one man is assigned toride herd, but this is unnecessary in full daylight; so at breakfastthe horses are left to graze quite unprotected. In a hostile country,picket ropes and more care are needed. This party had so hobbledtwenty-four animals--four for each wagon, which is a scant supply.
Alfred cantered rapidly up to the herd from the east. He had made along detour, so as to approach in the eye of the sun. With the twelvechambers of his revolvers he killed eleven horses. As I have said,Alfred was one of the best pistol shots in the middle West; After this,he put spurs to his mount, and shot away like an arrow in the directionof his own camp.
The unsuspicious mountaineers, at breakfast, did not gather their witsuntil too late. Then eight of them leaped fiercely upon some of theremaining animals, and pursued the wagon-train, which, under thefrantic urging of Billy and Jim, was already under way in close order.A few of their bullets spattered against the wagon-bodies, and theywounded a horse.
This roused the other men. Neutrality was all right enough, but theycould not afford to lose horses, so they made such a brave show ofrifle muzzles that the eight fell back. Three to one was too big odds;but their rage was great.
Then Jim took his life in his hands, and rode a little way out on theprairie toward them, waving a white handkerchief. Somebody shot athim, and bored a hole through the looseness of his flannel shirt,whereupon he dismounted and dropped two horses with his new-modelWinchester. His own horse was killed in the exchange, but Jim couldtake care of himself in frontier fashion.
Before the men could reload or move, Jim, imperturbably, arose frombehind his dead mount, and waved his white handkerchief again. Therewas a moment's hesitation, then someone returned the signal. Jimpromptly advanced. His remarks were brief and businesslike, and werereceived in sullen silence.
"You fellows have got to go back," said he. "You have hosses enoughleft to get your women back with, by goin' slow. If you try to shootus up any, we'll kill every hoof you have. So don't come any funnybusiness."
He turned squarely on his heel, and walked away rapidly. He wanted toget his distance before the reaction came. Michail Lafond, no longerimpassive, shook his rifle after him.
"You damn skunk!" he shouted, hoarse with anger. "Tell your damn womanI'll pull every hair from her head!"
Jim did not turn his head, but ducked into the long grass, where hewriggled along Indian fashion. Lafond, who had thrown his rifle intoposition for a shot, started forward in pursuit, his face twisted withpassion, but he was dragged back by main strength. Two of the horsesbore double, and the little group turned sullenly toward the east.
The mood of the original party, after this incident, was grim. Thebonds of plains brotherhood had been lightly broken.
Alfred had resorted to such desperate measures in making the best ofundesirable conditions brought to pass by someone else.
Billy Knapp had done so because he had entered into a game, anddeclined to be beaten by anyone.
Jim alone was happy. He had done it solely and simply for a woman; andthe woman had seen him fight for her.