Tom wondered why they were up so early at the ranch. It was about half past three when he came in sight of the house, with dawn yet two hours off, but there was light in the kitchen, the movement of somebody evident within. He felt a crinkling of anxiety, a creeping of foreboding. Eudora, he dreaded, had met with an accident. That was the first leap of his thought—to Eudora. The first kindling of his concern was for her, as a man thinks of his money and his precious things when he finds the tracks of vandals at his door.
With the scent of home in his nostrils the horse had gone ahead eagerly the last several miles. Now Tom urged it to greater effort, the sense of something wrong about the place coming out to him on the beam of that lonely light. This early rising could not be on his account, this watch could not be for him. He had not set any time for his return; they hardly would expect him back before the evening of the day just then on the distant verge of dawn.
Mrs. Ellison heard him ride in; she met him at the door with the disturbing news. Wade Harrison's gang had raided the place. They had come looking for him, slipping in so stealthily that old Shep, the shaggy, indolent household dog, had not even barked.
"Where's Eudora?" Tom inquired, his voice small in the great fear that made his legs feel numb under his weight.
"She's gone after the doctor and"
"Doctor for whom?"
"Waco. They shot him. He did the best he could, poor man"
"Is he badly hurt?"
"In two places: one through the leg, one on the top of his head where they hit him. He didn't have a chance to more than grab his gun, they sneaked in so still. But they didn't know it was Waco till after they shot him, and that let him off with his life. They were lookin' for you."
"Where is he?"
"In by the stove. He'd bled so much, he was so cold"
She left him to guess what her fearful conclusions in Waco's case had been, opening the door softly for him to enter.
Waco was lying unconscious on a canvas cot near the kitchen stove. There were bandages and a bottle on a chair, a strong smell of turpentine in the room, that being the pioneer's invariable first remedy in the treatment of all kinds of wounds. He looked pretty far gone to Tom, who bent over him and felt for his heart. There was a spark of life in Waco, but it was very low.
They withdrew a little from the wounded man while Mrs. Ellison recounted the story of the vengeful visitation. She was more downcast and sorrowful over Waco's condition than her own loss, which had been considerable.
The thieves had driven off all the horses which Waco had assembled in the corral, eight or ten head, she was not certain of the number. At the sound of shooting she and Eudora had thrown on a few garments and run out of the house, expecting the raiders to come looking for them next. She had taken a gun away from Eudora and thrown it in the weeds, fearful of a more wanton retaliation if the scoundrels should suffer any damage, or even resistance from the house.
Eudora had snatched the ax and run to the barn, where she stood on defense of her horse Frank. But they had not gone to the barn, no doubt knowing that Frank was so securely barred and locked in it that he could not have been stolen without tearing out the side of the building.
Mrs. Ellison said she had returned to the kitchen immediately after Eudora ran to the barn, thinking to draw their attention from the girl, in case any of them had seen her flit past, by making a light in the house. After shooting Waco, and cursing loudly when they discovered their mistake, they came storming to the house, inquiring for Simpson. They had not taken her word when told he had gone to Drumwell. They searched the house, hauling the bedding around, trampling and swearing, but had not taken anything so far as she knew. They seemed flighty and nervous, and in a hurry. Wade Harrison was not along, but she recognized at least two of the men who were with him on the first raid.
Tom went to the door. It was still dark, too dark to find the horses in the pasture, if any had been left. He bent over Waco again, wondering how the two women had been able to carry him to the kitchen, not so much on account of his burden as his shocking state.
"He's not the first shot-up man I've helped carry into this house," Mrs. Ellison said when Tom expressed his admiration for their bravery, "but I hope to heaven he'll be the last."
"When did it happen?" Tom inquired, not remembering whether he had asked the same question before.
"Along about midnight, maybe a little after."
"Has Eudora been gone long?"
"An hour or more."
"She went to Indian Rock, of course?" Tom turned to the door as he spoke, to look anxiously out into the dark.
"It's fifteen miles nearer than Drumwell," Mrs. Ellison said. "I wouldn't let her start till I saw there wasn't anything I could do to bring Waco to, and then I wouldn't let her leave till I was sure them thieves was cleared out and gone. I wanted her to wait till daylight, but she would go."
"Of course she'd go," Tom said gloomily.
"She'll bring Sheriff Treadwell back with her."
"It will be noon before she gets back," Tom speculated. He was standing in the door, more than half in the mind to mount his tired horse and strike out after Eudora, although she had been gone so long there was not the slightest chance of overtaking her.
"Yes, it will be about noon, the best she can do," Mrs. Ellison said.
They spoke in low, restrained tones, as people speak in a house where someone lies dead. And there was that feeling about the place to Tom Simpson of somebody gone, whose absence made him numb. It was a perilous thing Eudora had undertaken, that ride of twenty-five miles through the night to Indian Rock, the county seat. This was not a railroad town, a village of small consequence aside from its being the seat of county government. The fact that it lay in exactly the opposite direction the raiders were likely to take gave Tom a little assurance. He was thinking of the route the raiders would take when he said:
"Sheriff Treadwell might as well try to catch the wind by the time he can take up their trail."
"Just about," she agreed. "If he'd only pin his badge inside of his vest and forget about it, and go down there in the Nation and clean up that gang!"
Mrs. Ellison spoke with deep feeling in the matter, but still in that subdued voice as if she feared she might disturb the feeble flame of Waco Johnson's life.
"I don't look for him to do it," she said. "The United States marshal down there's jealous of his authority, and he'd be as likely as not to set some of his half-breed Indian deputies on to kill the sheriff, or any other Kansas officer, that went down there after their robber friends. I guess Treadwell's wise enough when he keeps out of there, but it's hard on us folks that pay taxes for protection of the law and don't get it. We had more safety when there wasn't any law south of Wichita. No gang ever came up from the Nation and raided this ranch when our own men were the law, and all the law we needed."
"Just so," said Tom.
He was standing in the door, head up, chin lifted, as straight and stiff as a soldier on parade, peering out as if he saw something that had struck him motionless, not a clew to his thought or intention in his thin, stern face.
"I must attend to the horse," he said, going out quickly.
Mrs. Ellison followed him to the door, a sudden feeling of dread leaping and falling like a transient flame in her heart, the awakening of old memories, the movement of old fears. She had gone to that threshold before to see determined men ride away on desperate enterprises from which they never returned, their lips closed in hard lines, as Tom Simpson's lips were closed when he peered out at the distant things no other eyes than his could see. She looked after him as he led the horse away, growing dim in the gloom, toward the corral. There was a movement of birds in the orchard trees; the eastern rim of the world was faintly gray with dawn.
Some horses had come up; Tom could see them looming enlarged out of their natural bulk in the thinning dark. Waco's horses he took them to be, a rather long-necked and scrawny breed. He did not know what others had been left by the thieves, although he believed there were no fewer than fifteen or twenty head of the Ellison stock on the place. He unsaddled the horse he had ridden, threw hay into the mangers and opened the gate to the animals outside, then carried his sack of supplies to the bunk-house.
Tom found a little lamp on the deal table, a chair beside it, Waco's boots near by. There was a pencil and piece of paper sack on the table, the paper scribbled over with figures. Waco, too, had been computing speculative profits in bones.
There was evidence of struggle around the bunk where Waco had slept. The blankets were on the floor, the hay-stuffed pillow kicked under the bunk. Waco's various possessions which he had carried in his roll were hanging on the wall: a slicker, a pair of trousers, a bright necktie and a black coat, an immense razor strop dangling below the garment like a beaver's tail. Waco's gun was not there. A dark blot on the floor near the bunk marked where he had fallen after they shot and clubbed him.
Tom piled the provisions on the table, making a quick selection of certain things, opening a package of this, taking a can of that, putting up rations sufficient for several days of flour, bacon, coffee, and the meagre essentials of life that a man may carry behind his saddle without adding materially to his horse's burden.
He looked around then for Waco's coffee pot and pan, finding them hanging under the slicker. With supplies and simple utensils stowed in the sack, Tom borowed Waco's slicker to protect it against rain, made a compact bundle of it all, then turned his attention to the three horses he had admitted to the corral.
They were Waco's horses, he knew, from their habit of herding together. They hadn't been around with the others long enough to get acquainted. One of them promised somewhat better than he had hoped, as the broadening day now revealed. It was a young animal, thin, as grass-fed and hard-ridden horses invariably are, but it had the lines of long wind and speed. He saddled it, tied his roll at the cantle, and went scouting around the bunk-house for ammunition.
The rifle and revolver which he had carried to Drumwell were, fortunately, of the same calibre. Eudora had told him they had belonged to her father. There was no ammunition to be found in the bunk-house. Mrs. Ellison, to whom he was forced to appeal, found one box of fifty cartridges on a shelf in the kitchen, which she gave him, asking no questions. He returned to his horse without explanation, mounted and started on his way.
Mrs. Ellison was at the gate. She took hold of the bridle as he stopped beside her.
"Tom Simpson, where are you going?" she asked, the old dread that had moved again in her heart that tragic morning making her voice sound weary, as if she had come a long distance to meet him and question him at the gate.
"To scout around a little," he replied, trying to make his words come lightly, quickly, to give the impression that it was an expedition of slight importance.
"Don't go," she pleaded, looking up with such beseeching fear in her eyes that drew his hand with impetuous start as if to give her an assuring caress. "What are a few horses for you to put your life up for—you a stranger from another land? Don't you go. Let them have the horses—we can live down the loss, as we've lived down bigger ones."
"Just so," Tom replied abstractedly, his eyes studying the road where the hoofprints of the stolen horses told which way they had gone. "But because you are strong to bear misfortune is no reason why you shouldn't be spared it."
"Wait till Sheriff Treadwell comes, Tom. He'll be here by noon, if not before."
Tom was studying the tracks in the road, which were growing plainer as daylight increased. He read them for peculiarities which would identify them if the trail were chopped by a crossing herd, leaning over from the saddle, peering intently. Mrs. Ellison let go the bridle, seeing something in his face which told her arguments and pleas would be of no avail. But caution was another thing.
"Don't cross over into the Nation alone, Tom. Wait down there for Sheriff Treadwell, and do whatever he says."
"Very well," Tom replied, but she knew he was only dimly conscious of what she said.
His faculties were concentrated on the tracks, two of them standing out from the others like italics in roman print. He could pick these up beyond a break in the trail, and be certain.
Mrs. Ellison did not make any further suggestions or requests. She saw that he had his marks, and was chafing to go. A glance had told her he was provisioned for a long scout; his manner of leaning and reading the tracks assured her of his experience. But what he expected to do, riding out alone in pursuit of that gang, she did not know. At the best he could only trail them to their headquarters, which no man had ever done and come back for help to wipe them out.
There was no hope in her words when she reached up to shake hands with him.
"Take care of yourself, Tom," she said, in that fatuous way of cautioning our well-beloved that all of us have been guilty of, when we knew as we spoke the words that it was advice thrown away. For he who rides to war and high adventure leaves his safety in the wild hands of chance.
Simpson took the trail with the determination to recover that stolen property. How it was to be accomplished did not trouble him at the start. What he should do and how he should do it must be determined by exigencies when he overtook the thieves. Mrs. Ellison had not been able to tell him how many men were riding the horsethief trail that night. Only two had come into the house, but she saw at least two or three more driving the stolen horses out.
As he passed the first homesteader's place, about three miles south of the Ellison ranch, Tom was hailed by an excited man who came running to the road to report that his four horses had been stolen. They had cleaned him out, not leaving him the hide nor hair of a horse on the place.
Tom scarcely more than paused to hear the frantic fellow's story. He told the hard-hit homesteader of the raid on Ellison's ranch as the shaggy, lean, wild-eyed man trotted along beside him. The sheriff had been notified; he would be along in due time. With such comfort as he could leave with the poor farmer in that assurance, Tom pushed on in a swinging gallop, following the raiders' trail.
Here the four horses stolen from the farmer had joined the main band; their coming had caused a flurry which was recorded in the ground, dusty now where it had been mud on the day of Tom's arrival. Not far along an old cattle trail cut the main road running north and south. This old trail led up from the southwest; cattle had been driven over it to Wichita and Wellington before the extension of the railroad to the Cherokee line. Here the horsethieves had turned off, heading for their refuge.
Tom had followed more than one trail of that kind in his day; he knew his chances of ever catching sight of a tail in that band of stolen horses was remote. The thieves had fully six hours' start on him; they would push through unsparing of man or beast until they had crossed the border, when they would slow up, perhaps split the herd into small bands to confuse trailers, reassembling them at fixed headquarters.
No matter for their tricks, he would stick to a trail bearing one or the other of those distinguishing hoofprints until he came to the end of it. Then there very likely would be something else to engage his wits.
A little way down this old cattle trail Tom encountered a man riding a little black mare without saddle or bridle, a noose of the neck-rope around her nose. He was bare-footed, bareheaded, dressed in overalls and shirt, a red-bearded stocky man with a red and rolling eye. He looked as if he had tumbled out of bed just as he was to ride wildly at the urge of some oppressing nightmare. He pulled up in the road ahead of Tom, waving his hand to stop him.
Robbed, he said; cleaned out by a band of horsethieves during the night. He had lost two horses, leaving him only the one he rode, which had been buckeyed last spring and never got over it and wasn't worth a damn. There's where they went with them horses—see the tracks? Right along there, headin' for the Nation, cuss their souls to that place where all good men and true consigned their enemies in that part of Kansas in those immoral days.
Tom paused to tell him his two horses were in good company as far as horse society went. The homesteader eyed him with curious suspicion when Tom put off his questions concerning his mission abroad so early in the day and so close on the heels of the thieves. He appeared to suspect for a while that Simpson was one of the gang who had been left behind through some evil dallying of his own, and was now riding hard to overtake his fellows of the road.
But he revised his opinion after looking Tom over narrowly, from spurs to sombrero. He saw that he sat his saddle with an air of authority and the light of honest confidence in his eyes. The night dampness had made the brim of the old sombrero stiff; Tom had pressed it back from his forehead, which shape it held, and would hold until sun and wind dried it to its usual floppy state. It gave him a headlong, hard-riding, shoot-up-and-go look that moved the homesteader's admiration.
"By heavens! you're goin' after 'em!" he said. "That's where you're a goin'—you're a goin' after 'em! Yes, and by heavens! if I had a good horse and a gun and a saddle, I'd go with you. I'm an old soldier—I'd go with you. I was with Grant at Appomattox. By heavens! I were there!"
"I don't doubt it," Tom said.
"I'll give you an old soldier's blessin' if you bring them two horses back."
Tom assured the vehement veteran that such a reward was to be valued above money, and he would do his best. He rode on, his contempt of Wade Harrison's horsethieves considerably increased by this news running out to him as he followed their trail, broad as if a troop of cavalry had passed that way.
The gang probably had rounded up everything that could travel, cleaning out the entire settlement, hitting a hard blow in retaliation for the loss of their eminent leader, or the damage he had suffered if he came off with his pestiferous life. The Ellisons could survive it, as they had not been left entirely without legs. But the case of that old soldier, of his lanky flat, starved, work-worn neighbor, was desperate in the extreme.
It was hard enough to fight the tough sod, the grasshoppers, the hot winds, in heroic effort to establish independence and get a living out of the land, off there forty miles from a railroad, a doctor or a store. Add to all that the misery of being stripped by a gang of brutal thieves of the means of travel, of every beast of burden, and it amounted to cutting off their legs in truth.
Tom's own case was little better. He had ridden back to the ranch in a glow of enthusiasm over the business outlook open before him and his partners. Now this band of sneaking night-riders had slammed the door to that prospect in his face. He was riding that morning on a foray for his very existence.
They had come up on that expedition to get him. Failing in that, their vindictive spite had spent itself on the entire neighborhood. They never had raided in that vicinity before, Mrs. Ellison and the sheriff had said. They probably never would have come but for the chase after Sid Coburn's silly old handbag that unlucky night. He had lured them there; he had brought this curse on the community. It was his solemn duty to adjust the wrong, even to the limit of his life.