The Orphan - Clarence E. Mulford (that summer book .TXT) 📗

he responded as he sprang to the ground.

“Then where are we, for goodness’ sake?”

“Back in Sagetown, ma’am,” he hurriedly replied. “I shore forgot something,” he added in explanation of the return as he ran toward the saloon.

She turned to her companions with a gesture of despair:

“Isn’t it awful,” she asked, “what a terrible thing drinking is? A most detestable habit! Here we are back to where we started from and just because our driver must have a drink of nasty liquor! Why, we would have been there by this time. I will most assuredly speak to James about this!”

“Well, I suppose we may go on now!” she exclaimed as Bill bolted into sight again, holding a package firmly in his two hands. “I suppose he feels quite capable of driving now.”

Bill, blissfully ignorant of the remarks he had called forth, tossed the tobacco upon the mail bag and climbed to his seat again. The long whip hissed and cracked as he bellowed to the team, and once more they started for Ford’s Station.

The passengers had all they could do to keep their seats because of the gymnastics of the erratic stage. Bill, who had always found delight in seeing how near he could come to missing things and who was elated at the joy of getting over the worst parts of the trail with speed, decided that this was a rare and most auspicious occasion to show just what he could do in the way of fancy driving. The return to town had spoiled his chances for a record, but he still could do some high-class work with the reins. The weight of the baggage on the tail-board bothered him until he discovered that it acted as a tail to his Concord kite, and when he learned that he joyously essayed feats which he had long dreamed of doing. The result was fully appreciated by the terrified passengers who, choking with the dust which forced its way in to them, could only hold fast to whatever came to their grasp and pray that they would survive.

As he passed a peculiarly formed clump of organ cacti, which he regarded as being his half-way mark, he happened to glance behind, and his face blanched in a sudden fear which gripped his heart in an icy grasp.

He leaped to his feet, wrapping the reins about his wrists, and the “blacksnake” coiled and writhed and hissed. Its reports sounded like those of a gun, and every time it straightened out a horse lost a bit of hair and skin. Both of the leaders had limp and torn ears, and a sudden terror surged through the team, causing their eyes to dilate and grow red. The driver’s voice, strong and full, rang out in blood-curdling whoops, which ended in the wailing howl of a coyote, wonderfully well imitated. The combination of voice and whip was too much, and the six horses, maddened by the terrible sting of the lash and the frightful, haunting howl, became frenzied and bolted.

Braced firmly on the footboard, poised carefully and with just the right tension on the reins, the driver scanned the trail before him, avoiding as best he could the rocks and deep ruts, and watching alertly for a stumble. His sombrero had deserted him and his long brown hair snapped behind him in the wind. Bill was frightened, but not for himself alone. With all his bravado he was built of good timber, and his one thought was for the women under his care. He unconsciously prayed that they might not be brought face to face with the realization of what menaced them; that they would not learn why the coach lurched so terribly; that the trunk which obstructed the back window of the coach would not shift and give them a sight of the danger. Oh, that the running gear held! That the king-bolt, new, thank God, proved the words of the boasting blacksmith to be true! He soon came to the beginning of a three-hundred-yard stretch of perfect road and he hazarded a quick backward glance. Instantly his eyes were to the front again, but his brain retained the picture he had seen, retained it perfectly and in wonderful clearness. He saw that the Apaches were no longer a mile away, but that they had gained upon him a very little, so very little that only an eye accustomed to gauging changing distances could have noticed the difference. And he also saw that the group was no longer compact, but that it was already spreading out into the dreaded, deadly crescent, a crescent with the best horses at the horns, which would endeavor to sweep forward and past the coach, drawing closer together until the circle was complete, with the stage as the center.

Another yell burst from him, and again and again the whip writhed and hissed and cracked, and a new burst of speed was the reward. Well it was that the horses were the best and most enduring to be found on the range. He was dependent on his team, he and his passengers. He could not hope to take up his rifle until the last desperate stand. Oh, if he only had the sheriff, the cool, laughing, accurate sheriff with him to lie against the seat and shoot for his sisters! Already the bullets were dropping behind him, but he did not know of it. They dropped, as yet, many yards too short, and he could not hear the flat reports. The wind which roared and whistled past his ears spared him that.

A stumble! But up again and without injury, for a master hand held the reins, a hand as cunning as the eyes were calculating. Could Bill’s scoffing friends see him now their scoffing would freeze on lips open in admiring astonishment. If he attained nothing more in his life he was justifying his creation. He was doing his best, and doing it wonderfully well. Long since had fear left him. He was now only a superb driver, an alert, quick-thinking master of his chosen trade. He thrilled with a peculiar elation, for was he not playing his hand against death? A lone hand and with no hope of a lucky draw. All he could hope for was that he be not unlucky and lose the game because of the weakness of a wheel, or the traces, or that new king-bolt; that the splendid, ugly, terrorized units of his sextet would last until he had gained the cañon, where the stage would nearly block the narrow opening, and where he could exchange reins for rifle!

Within the coach three women were miserably huddled in a mass on the floor. Two would be more proper, because the third, a slim girl of nineteen, was temporarily out of her misery, having fainted, which was a boon denied to her companions. Thrown from side to side as if they were straws in weight, they first crashed into one wall and then into the other, buffeted from the edge of the front seat to that of the rear one. Bruised and bleeding and terrified, they dumbly prayed for deliverance from the madman up above them.

The driver’s eye caught sight of the turn, which lay ten miles northeast of the cañon–then he had passed it.

“Only ten miles more, bronchs!” he shouted, imploringly, beseechingly. “Hold it, boys! Hold it, pets! Only ten miles more!” he repeated until the left-hand leader lurched forward and lost its footing. Another bit of masterly manipulation of the reins saved it from going down, and again the coyote yell rang out in all of its acute, quavering, hair-raising mournfulness. The blacksnake again and again mercilessly leaped and struck, and another wonderful burst of speed rewarded him.

His heart suddenly went out to his horses, as he realized what speed they were making and had been holding for so long a time, and he swore to treat them better than they had ever known if they pulled him safely to the mouth of the cañon.

A second backward glance, forced from him because of the awful uncertainty at his back, because if it was the last thing he ever did he must look behind him as a child looks back into the awful darkness of the room, caused his face to be convulsed with smiles, sudden and sincere. He shouted madly in his joy at what he saw, dancing up and down regardless of his perilous footing, bending his knees with a recklessness almost criminal, as he uncoiled the hissing blacksnake high up in the air. Again and again the whistling, hissing length of braided rawhide curled and straightened and cracked, faster and faster until the reports almost merged. He tossed his head and laughed wildly, hysterically, and danced as only a man can dance when eased of a terrible nervous tension; the rasping of the icy, grasping fingers of Death along his back suddenly ceased, and there came to him assurance of life and vengeance. Turning again he hurled the writhing length of his whip at the yelling Apaches, snapping the rifle-like reports at their faces, cursing them in shouted words; hot, joyous, cynical, taunting words fresh from the soul of him, throbbing with his hatred; venomous, contemptuous, scathing, too heartfelt to be over-profane.

“Come on, d––n you! Your slide to h–l is greased now! Come on, you wolves! You cheap, blind vultures! Come on! Come on!!” he yelled, well nigh out of his senses from the reaction. “Yes, yell! Yell, d––n you!” he shouted as they replied to his taunts. “Yell! Shoot your tin guns while you can, for you’ll soon be so full of lead you’ll stop forever! Come on! Come on!”

They came. All their energies were bent toward the grotesque figure that reviled them. They could not catch his words, but their eyes flashed at what they could see. Dust arose in huge, low clouds behind them, and they gained rapidly for a time, but only for a time, for their mounts had covered many miles in the last few days and were jaded and without their usual strength because of insufficient food. But they gained enough to drop their shots on the coach, although accurate shooting at the pace they were keeping was beyond their skill.

Puffs of dust spurted from the plain in front of the team and arose beside it, and a jagged splinter of seasoned ash whizzed past the driver’s ear. A long, gray furrow suddenly appeared in the end of the seat and holes began to show in the woodwork of the stage. One bullet, closer than the others, almost tore the reins from the driver’s hands as it hit the loose end of leather which flapped in the air. Its jerk caused him to turn again and renew his verbal cautery, tears in his eyes from the fervor of his madness.

“Hi-yi! Whoop-e-e!” he shouted at his straining, steaming sextet. “Keep it up, bronchs! Hold her for ten minutes more, boys! We’ll win! We’ll win! We’ll laugh them into h–l yet! We’ll dance on their painted faces! Keep her steady! You’re all right, every d––d one of you! Hold her steady! Whoop-e-e!”

A new factor had drawn cards, and the new factor could play his cards better than any two men under that washed-out, faded blue sky.

CHAPTER VI
THE ORPHAN OBEYS AN IMPULSE

WHEN Sneed promised to try to restrain his men he spoke in good faith, and when he discovered that half of them were missing his anger began to rise. But he was helpless now because they were beyond his reach, so he could only hope that they would not meet the sheriff, not only because of the displeasure of the peace officer, but also