The Man of the Forest Part 48

But I spurred and beat my mustang. Then began a race! Rough going--thick cedars--washes and gullies I had to make him run--to keep my saddle--to pick my way. Oh-h-h! but it was glorious! To race for fun--that's one thing; to race for your life is another! My heart was in my mouth--choking me. I couldn't have yelled. I was as cold as ice--dizzy sometimes--blind others--then my stomach turned--and I couldn't get my breath. Yet the wild thrills I had!... But I stuck on and held my own for several miles--to the edge of the cedars. There the big horse gained on me. He came pounding closer--perhaps as close as a hundred yards--I could hear him plain enough. Then I had my spill. Oh, my mustang tripped--threw me 'way over his head. I hit light, but slid far--and that's what sc.r.a.ped me so. I know my knee is raw.... When I got to my feet the big horse dashed up, throwing gravel all over me--and his rider jumped off.... Now who do you think he was?"

Helen knew, but she did not voice her conviction. Carmichael knew positively, yet he kept silent. Roy was smiling, as if the narrative told did not seem so alarming to him.

"Wal, the fact of you bein' here, safe an' sound, sorta makes no difference who thet son-of-a-gun was," he said.

"Riggs! Harve Riggs!" blazed Bo. "The instant I recognized him I got over my scare. And so mad I burned all through like fire. I don't know what I said, but it was wild--and it was a whole lot, you bet.

"You sure can ride,' he said.

"I demanded why he had dared to chase me, and he said he had an important message for Nell. This was it: 'Tell your sister that Beasley means to put her off an' take the ranch. If she'll marry me I'll block his deal. If she won't marry me, I'll go in with Beasley.' Then he told me to hurry home and not to breathe a word to any one except Nell. Well, here I am--and I seem to have been breathing rather fast."

She looked from Helen to Roy and from Roy to Las Vegas. Her smile was for the latter, and to any one not overexcited by her story that smile would have told volumes.

"Wal, I'll be doggoned!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Roy, feelingly.

Helen laughed.

"Indeed, the working of that man's mind is beyond me.... Marry him to save my ranch? I wouldn't marry him to save my life!"

Carmichael suddenly broke his silence.

"Bo, did you see the other men?"

"Yes. I was coming to that," she replied. "I caught a glimpse of them back in the cedars. The three were together, or, at least, three hors.e.m.e.n were there. They had halted behind some trees. Then on the way home I began to think. Even in my fury I had received impressions. Riggs was SURPRISED when I got up. I'll bet he had not expected me to be who I was. He thought I was NELL!... I look bigger in this buckskin outfit. My hair was up till I lost my hat, and that was when I had the tumble. He took me for Nell. Another thing, I remember--he made some sign--some motion while I was calling him names, and I believe that was to keep those other men back.... I believe Riggs had a plan with those other men to waylay Nell and make off with her. I absolutely know it."

"Bo, you're so--so--you jump at wild ideas so," protested Helen, trying to believe in her own a.s.surance. But inwardly she was trembling.

"Miss Helen, that ain't a wild idee," said Roy, seriously. "I reckon your sister is pretty close on the trail. Las Vegas, don't you savvy it thet way?"

Carmichael's answer was to stalk out of the room.

"Call him back!" cried Helen, apprehensively.

"Hold on, boy!" called Roy, sharply.

Helen reached the door simultaneously with Roy. The cowboy picked up his sombrero, jammed it on his head, gave his belt a vicious. .h.i.tch that made the gun-sheath jump, and then in one giant step he was astride Ranger.

"Carmichael! Stay!" cried Helen.

The cowboy spurred the black, and the stones rang under iron-shod hoofs.

"Bo! Call him back! Please call him back!" importuned Helen, in distress.

"I won't," declared Bo Rayner. Her face shone whiter now and her eyes were like fiery flint. That was her answer to a loving, gentle-hearted sister; that was her answer to the call of the West.

"No use," said Roy, quietly. "An' I reckon I'd better trail him up."

He, too, strode out and, mounting his horse, galloped swiftly away.

It turned out that Bo, was more bruised and sc.r.a.ped and shaken than she had imagined. One knee was rather badly cut, which injury alone would have kept her from riding again very soon. Helen, who was somewhat skilled at bandaging wounds, worried a great deal over these sundry blotches on Bo's fair skin, and it took considerable time to wash and dress them. Long after this was done, and during the early supper, and afterward, Bo's excitement remained unabated. The whiteness stayed on her face and the blaze in her eyes. Helen ordered and begged her to go to bed, for the fact was Bo could not stand up and her hands shook.

"Go to bed? Not much," she said. "I want to know what he does to Riggs."

It was that possibility which had Helen in dreadful suspense. If Carmichael killed Riggs, it seemed to Helen that the bottom would drop out of this structure of Western life she had begun to build so earnestly and fearfully. She did not believe that he would do so. But the uncertainty was torturing.

"Dear Bo," appealed Helen, "you don't want--Oh! you do want Carmichael to--to kill Riggs?"

"No, I don't, but I wouldn't care if he did," replied Bo, bluntly.

"Do you think--he will?"

"Nell, if that cowboy really loves me he read my mind right here before he left," declared Bo. "And he knew what I thought he'd do."

"And what's--that?" faltered Helen.

"I want him to round Riggs up down in the village--somewhere in a crowd.

I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is.

And insulted, slapped, kicked--driven out of Pine!"

Her pa.s.sionate speech still rang throughout the room when there came footsteps on the porch. Helen hurried to raise the bar from the door and open it just as a tap sounded on the door-post. Roy's face stood white out of the darkness. His eyes were bright. And his smile made Helen's fearful query needless.

"How are you-all this evenin'?" he drawled, as he came in.

A fire blazed on the hearth and a lamp burned on the table. By their light Bo looked white and eager-eyed as she reclined in the big arm-chair.

"What 'd he do?" she asked, with all her amazing force.

"Wal, now, ain't you goin' to tell me how you are?"

"Roy, I'm all bunged up. I ought to be in bed, but I just couldn't sleep till I hear what Las Vegas did. I'd forgive anything except him getting drunk."

"Wal, I sh.o.r.e can ease your mind on thet," replied Roy. "He never drank a drop."

Roy was distractingly slow about beginning the tale any child could have guessed he was eager to tell. For once the hard, intent quietness, the soul of labor, pain, and endurance so plain in his face was softened by pleasurable emotion. He poked at the burning logs with the toe of his boot. Helen observed that he had changed his boots and now wore no spurs. Then he had gone to his quarters after whatever had happened down in Pine.

"Where IS he?" asked Bo.

"Who? Riggs? Wal, I don't know. But I reckon he's somewhere out in the woods nursin' himself."

"Not Riggs. First tell me where HE is."

"Sh.o.r.e, then, you must mean Las Vegas. I just left him down at the cabin. He was gettin' ready for bed, early as it is. All tired out he was an' thet white you wouldn't have knowed him. But he looked happy at thet, an' the last words he said, more to himself than to me, I reckon, was, 'I'm some locoed gent, but if she doesn't call me Tom now she's no good!'"

Bo actually clapped her hands, notwithstanding that one of them was bandaged.

"Call him Tom? I should smile I will," she declared, in delight. "Hurry now--what 'd--"

"It's sh.o.r.e powerful strange how he hates thet handle Las Vegas," went on Roy, imperturbably.