Wyoming(怀俄明)

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WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

WYOMING

A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

William MacLeod Raine

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

CHAPTER 1. A DESERT

MEETING

An automobile shot out from a gash in the hills and slipped swiftly

down to the butte. Here it came to a halt on the white, dusty road, while its

occupant gazed with eager, unsated eyes on the great panorama that

stretched before her. The earth rolled in waves like a mighty sea to the

distant horizon line. From a wonderful blue sky poured down upon the

land a bath of sunbeat. The air was like wine, pure and strong, and above

the desert swam the rare, untempered light of Wyoming. Surely here was a

peace primeval, a silence unbroken since the birth of creation.

It was all new to her, and wonderfully exhilarating. The infinite roll of

plain, the distant shining mountains, the multitudinous voices of the desert

drowned in a sunlit sea of space--they were all details of the situation that

ministered to a large serenity.

And while she breathed deeply the satisfaction of it, an exploding rifle

echo shattered the stillness. With excited sputtering came the prompt

answer of a fusillade. She was new to the West; but some instinct stronger

than reason told the girl that here was no playful puncher shooting up the

scenery to ventilate his exuberance. Her imagination conceived something

more deadly; a sinister picture of men pumping lead in a grim, close-

lipped silence; a lusty plainsman, with murder in his heart, crumpling into

a lifeless heap, while the thin smoke-spiral curled from his hot rifle.

So the girl imagined the scene as she ran swiftly forward through the

pines to the edge of the butte bluff whence she might look down upon the

coulee that nestled against it. Nor had she greatly erred, for her first

sweeping glance showed her the thing she had dreaded.

In a semicircle, well back from the foot of the butte, half a dozen men

crouched in the cover of the sage-brush and a scattered group of

cottonwoods. They were perhaps fifty yards apart, and the attention of all

of them was focused on a spot directly beneath her. Even as she looked, in

that first swift moment of apprehension, a spurt of smoke came from one

of the rifles and was flung back from the forked pine at the bottom of the

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

mesa. She saw him then, kneeling behind his insufficient shelter, a trapped

man making his last stand.

>From where she stood the girl distinguished him very clearly, and

under the field-glasses that she turned on him the details leaped to life.

Tall, strong, slender, with the lean, clean build of a greyhound, he seemed

as wary and alert as a panther. The broad, soft hat, the scarlet handkerchief

loosely knotted about his throat, the gray shirt, spurs and overalls,

proclaimed him a stockman, just as his dead horse at the entrance to the

coulee told of an accidental meeting in the desert and a hurried run for

cover.

That he had no chance was quite plain, but no plainer than the cool

vigilance with which he proposed to make them pay. Even in the matter of

defense he was worse off than they were, but he knew how to make the

most of what he had; knew how to avail himself of every inch of

sagebrush that helped to render him indistinct to their eyes.

One of the attackers, eager for a clearer shot, exposed himself a trifle

too far in taking aim. Without any loss of time in sighting, swift as a

lightning-flash, the rifle behind the forked pine spoke. That the bullet

reached its mark she saw with a gasp of dismay. For the man suddenly

huddled down and rolled over on his side.

His comrades appeared to take warning by this example. The men at

both ends of the crescent fell back, and for a minute the girl's heart leaped

with the hope that they were about to abandon the siege. Apparently the

man in the scarlet kerchief had no such expectation. He deserted his

position behind the pine and ran back, crouching low in the brush, to

another little clump of trees closer to the bluff. The reason for this was at

first not apparent to her, but she understood presently when the men who

had fallen back behind the rolling hillocks appeared again well in to the

edge of the bluff. Only by his timely retreat had the man saved himself

from being outflanked.

It was very plain that the attackers meant to take their time to finish

him in perfect safety. He was surrounded on every side by a cordon of

rifles, except where the bare face of the butte hung down behind him. To

attempt to scale it would have been to expose himself as a mark for every

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

gun to certain death.

It was now that she heard the man who seemed to be directing the

attack call out to another on his right. She was too far to make out the

words, but their effect was clear to her. He pointed to the brow of the butte

above, and a puncher in white woolen chaps dropped back out of range

and swung to the saddle upon one of the ponies bunched in the rear. He

cantered round in a wide circle and made for the butte. His purpose was

obviously to catch their victim in the unprotected rear, and fire down upon

him from above.

The young woman shouted a warning, but her voice failed to carry.

For a moment she stood with her hands pressed together in despair, then

turned and swiftly scudded to her machine. She sprang in, swept forward,

reached the rim of the mesa, and plunged down. Never before had she

attempted so precarious a descent in such wild haste. The car fairly leaped

into space, and after it struck swayed dizzily as it shot down. The girl hung

on, her face white and set, the pulse in her temple beating wildly. She

could do nothing, as the machine rocked down, but hope against many

chances that instant destruction might be averted.

Utterly beyond her control, the motor-car thundered down, reached the

foot of the butte, and swept over a little hill in its wild flight. She rushed

by a mounted horseman in the thousandth part of a second. She was still

speeding at a tremendous velocity, but a second hill reduced this

somewhat. She had not yet recovered control of the machine, but, though

her eyes instinctively followed the white road that flashed past, she again

had photographed on her brain the scene of the turbid tragedy in which she

was intervening.

At the foot of the butte the road circled and dipped into the coulee. She

braced herself for the shock, but, though the wheels skidded till her heart

was in her throat, the automobile, hanging on the balance of disaster,

swept round in safety.

Her horn screamed an instant warning to the trapped man. She could

not see him, and for an instant her heart sank with the fear that they had

killed him. But she saw then that they were still firing, and she continued

her honking invitation as the car leaped forward into the zone of spitting

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

bullets.

By this time she was recovering control of the motor, and she dared

not let her attention wander, but out of the corner of her eye she

appreciated the situation. Temporarily, out of sheer amaze at this

apparition from the blue, the guns ceased their sniping. She became aware

that a light curly head, crouched low in the sage-brush, was moving

rapidly to meet her at right angles, and in doing so was approaching

directly the line of fire. She could see him dodging to and fro as he moved

forward, for the rifles were again barking.

She was within two hundred yards of him, still going rapidly, but not

with the same headlong rush as before, when the curly head disappeared in

the sage-brush. It was up again presently, but she could see that the man

came limping, and so uncertainly that twice he pitched forward to the

ground. Incautionsly one of his assailants ran forward with a shout the

second time his head went down. Crack! The unerring rifle rang out, and

the impetuous one dropped in his tracks.

As she approached, the young woman slowed without stopping, and as

the car swept past Curly Head flung himself in headlong. He picked

himself up from her feet, crept past her to the seat beyond, and almost

instantly whipped his rifle to his shoulder in prompt defiance of the fire

that was now converged on them.

Yet in a few moments the sound died away, for a voice midway in the

crescent had shouted an amazed discovery:

"By God, it's a woman!"

The car skimmed forward over the uneven ground toward the end of

the semicircle, and passed within fifty yards of the second man from the

end, the one she had picked out as the leader of the party. He was a black,

swarthy fellow in plain leather chaps and blue shirt. As they passed he

took a long, steady aim.

"Duck!" shouted the man beside her, and dragged her down on the seat

so that his body covered hers.

A puff of wind fanned the girl's cheek.

"Near thing," her companion said coolly. He looked back at the

swarthy man and laughed softly. "Some day you'll mebbe wish you had

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

sent your pills straighter, Mr. Judd Morgan."

Yet a few wheel-turns and they had dipped forward out of range

among the great land waves that seemed to stretch before them forever.

The unexpected had happened, and she had achieved a rescue in the face

of the impossible.

"Hurt badly?" the girl inquired briefly, her dark-blue eyes meeting his

as frankly as those of a boy.

"No need for an undertaker. I reckon I'll survive, ma'am,"

"Where are you hit?"

"I just got a telegram from my ankle saying there was a cargo of lead

arrived there unexpected," he drawled easily.

"Hurts a good deal, doesn't it?"

"No more than is needful to keep my memory jogged up. It's a sort of a

forget-me-not souvenir. For a good boy; compliments of Mr. Jim Henson,"

he explained.

Her dark glance swept him searchingly. She disapproved the assurance

of his manner even while the youth in her applauded his reckless

sufficiency. His gay courage held her unconsenting admiration even while

she resented it. He was a trifle too much at his ease for one who had just

been snatched from dire peril. Yet even in his insouciance there was

something engaging; something almost of distinction.

"What was the trouble?"

Mirth bubbled in his gray eyes. "I gathered, ma'am, that they wanted to

collect my scalp."

"Do what?" she frowned.

"Bump me off--send me across the divide."

"Oh, I know that. But why?"

He seemed to reproach himself. "Now how could I be so neglectful? I

clean forgot to ask."

"That's ridiculous," was her sharp verdict.

"Yes, ma'am, plumb ridiculous. My only excuse is that they began

scattering lead so sudden I didn't have time to ask many 'Whyfors.' I

reckon we'll just have to call it a Wyoming difference of opinion," he

concluded pleasantly.

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

"Which means, I suppose, that you are not going to tell me."

"I got so much else to tell y'u that's a heap more important," he

laughed. "Y'u see, I'm enjoyin' my first automobile ride. It was certainly

thoughful of y'u to ask me to go riding with y'u, Miss Messiter."

"So you know my name. May I ask how?" was her astonished

question.

He gave the low laugh that always seemed to suggest a private source

of amusement of his own. "I suspicioned that might be your name when I

say y'u come a-sailin' down from heaven to gather me up like Enoch."

"Why?"

"Well, ma'am, I happened to drift in to Gimlet Butte two or three days

ago, and while I was up at the depot looking for some freight a train

sashaid in and side tracked a flat car. There was an automobile on that car

addressed to Miss Helen Messiter. Now, automobiles are awful seldom in

this country. I don't seem to remember having seen one before."

"I see. You're quite a Sherlock Holmes. Do you know anything more

about me?"

"I know y'u have just fallen heir to the Lazy D. They say y'u are a

schoolmarm, but I don't believe it."

"Well, I am." Then, "Why don't you believe it?" she added.

He surveyed her with his smile audacious, let his amused eyes wander

down from the mobile face with the wild-rose bloom to the slim young

figure so long and supple, then serenely met her frown.

" Y'u don't look it."

" No? Are you the owner of a composite photograph of the teachers of

the country?"

He enjoyed again his private mirth. "I should like right well to have

the pictures of some of them."

She glanced at him sharply, but he was gazing so innocently at the

purple Shoshones in the distance that she could not give him the snub she

thought he needed.

"You are right. My name is Helen Messiter," she said, by way of

stimulating a counter fund of information. For, though she was a young

woman not much given to curiosity, she was aware of an interest in this

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

spare, broad-shouldered youth who was such an incarnation of bronzed

vigor.

"Glad to meet y'u, Miss Messiter," he responded, and offered his firm

brown hand in Western fashion.

But she observed resentfully that he did not mention his own name. It

was impossible to suppose that he knew no better, and she was driven to

conclude that he was silent of set purpose. Very well! If he did not want to

introduce himself she was not going to urge it upon him. In a businesslike

manner she gave her attention to eating up the dusty miles.

"Yes, ma'am. I reckon I never was more glad to death to meet a lady

than I was to meet up with y'u," he continued, cheerily. "Y'u sure looked

good to me as y'u come a-foggin' down the road. I fair had been yearnin'

for company but was some discouraged for fear the invitation had

miscarried." He broke off his sardonic raillery and let his level gaze

possess her for a long moment. "Miss Messiter, I'm certainly under an

obligation to y'u I can't repay. Y'u saved my life," he finished gravely.

"Nonsense."

"Fact."

"It isn't a personal matter at all," she assured him, with a touch of

impatient hauteur.

"It s a heap personal to me."

In spite of her healthy young resentment she laughed at the way in

which he drawled this out, and with a swift sweep her boyish eyes took in

again his compelling devil-may-care charm. She was a tenderfoot, but

intuition as well as experience taught her that he was unusual enough to be

one of ten thousand. No young Greek god's head could have risen more

superbly above the brick-tanned column of the neck than this close-

cropped curly one. Gray eyes, deep and unwavering and masterful, looked

out of a face as brown as Wyoming. He was got up with no thought of

effect, but the tigerish litheness, the picturesque competency of him, spake

louder than costuming.

"Aren't you really hurt worse than you pretend? I'm sure your ankle

ought to be attended to as soon as possible."

"Don't tell me you're a lady doctor, ma'am," he burlesqued his alarm.

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

"Can you tell me where the nearest ranch house is?" she asked,

ignoring his diversion.

"The Lazy D is the nearest, I reckon."

"Which direction?"

"North by east, ma'am."

"Then I'll take the most direct road to it.

"In that case I'll thank y'u for my ride and get out here."

"But--why?"

He waved a jaunty hand toward the recent battlefield. "The Lazy D

lies right back of that hill. I expect, mebbe, those wolves might howl again

if we went back."

"Where, then, shall I take you?"

"I hate to trouble y'u to go out of your way.

"I dare say, but I'm going just the same," she told him, dryly.

"If you're right determined " He interrupted himself to point to the

south. "Do y'u see that camel-back peak over there?"

"The one with the sunshine on its lower edge?"

"That's it, Miss Messiter. They call those two humps the Antelope

Peaks. If y'u can drop me somewhere near there I think I'll manage all

right."

"I'm not going to leave you till we reach a house," she informed him

promptly. "You're not fit to walk fifty yards."

"That's right kind of y'u, but I could not think of asking so much. My

friends will find me if y'u leave me where I can work a heliograph."

"Or your enemies," she cut in.

"I hope not. I'd not likely have the luck to get another invitation right

then to go riding with a friendly young lady."

She gave him direct, cool, black-blue eyes that met and searched his.

"I'm not at all sure she is friendly. I shall want to find out the cause of the

trouble you have just had before I make up my mind as to that."

"I judge people by their actions. Y'u didn't wait to find out before

bringing the ambulance into action," he laughed.

"I see you do not mean to tell me."

"You're quite a lawyer, ma'am," he evaded.

WYOMING:A STORY OF THE OUTDOOR WEST

"I find you a very slippery witness, then."

"Ask anything y'u like and I'll tell you."

"Very well. Who were those men, and why were they trying to kill

you?"

"They turned their wolf loose on me because I shot up one of them

yesterday."

"Dear me! Is it your business to go around shooting people? That's

three I happen to know that you have shot. How many more?"

"No more, ma'am--not recently."

"Well, three is quite enough--recently," she mimicked. "You seem to

me a good deal of a desperado."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't say 'Yes, ma'am,' like that, as if it didn't matter in the least

whether you are or not," she ordered.

"No, ma'am."

"Oh!" She broke off with a gesture of impatience at his burlesque of

obedience. "You know what I mean--that you ought to deny it; ought to be

furious at me for suggesting it."

"Ought I?"

"Of course you ought."

"There's a heap of ways I ain't up to specifications," he admitted,

cheerfully.

"And who are they--the men that were attacking you?"

There was a gleam of irrepressible humor in the bold eyes. "Your cow-

punchers, ma'am."

"My cow-punchers?"

"They ce'tainly belong to the Lazy D outfit."

"And you say that you shot one of my men yesterday?" He could see

her getting ready for a declaration of war.

"Down by Willow Creek-- Yes, ma'am," he answered, comfortably.

"And why, may I ask?" she flamed

"That's a long story, Miss Messiter. It wouldn't be square for me to get

my version in before your boys. Y'u ask them." He permitted himself a

genial smile, somewhat ironic. "I shouldn't wonder but what they'll give

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WYOMING:ASTORYOFTHEOUTDOORWEST1WYOMINGASTORYOFTHEOUTDOORWESTWilliamMacLeodRaineWYOMING:ASTORYOFTHEOUTDOORWEST2CHAPTER1.ADESERTMEETINGAnautomobileshotoutfromagashinthehillsandslippedswiftlydowntothebutte.Hereitcametoahaltonthewhite,dustyroad,whileitsoccupantgazedwitheager,unsatedeyesonthegreatpanoram...

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