The Plow-Woman Part 54

And now the interpreter took thought for himself. At sundown he had l.u.s.ted for the night's doing. But the heart was gone out of him. Even before the stampede, the whole affair had a.s.sumed monster proportions.

He had begun to think of the murdered, and of the maiming, and had wished himself well out of it. Now, with no horse to carry him across to safety, there seemed to face him only discovery and punishment.

"Well, they drove me to it," he complained. "This wouldn't 'a' happened if they'd give me a square deal." He was wrenching with all his might at a section of the scaffold platform. "I wanted to be decent, and they treated me like a dog."

With this, he ran down the river bank and launched his frail raft.

"Anyhow," he said, "I'll git out o' this jus' as fast as water'll take me!"

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE LAST WARNING

Thrown down by a sounding-board of inky clouds, the alarm shots at Brannon, the shouting, the reports of the Gatlings, and the trumpet-calls fell sharp and clear upon the shack. Dallas, watching into the blackness from her bench by the door, was up and armed on the instant, and leaning far over the sill, as if to see the better through the dark. Soon she made out something--a glimmer--that, in the beginning, was redder than the flare of the lightning, fainter, and more fixed; but which, growing as the din grew, swiftly deepened in colour, spread wide, and rose, throwing into relief the intervening grove of cottonwoods, and the form of a man who was racing riverward from the swale. He disappeared, swelling the distant clamour with a cry--a dread cry she had never heard before--of "Fire!"

She shut the door behind her and waited a moment. She was no longer merely watchful. She was uncertain and troubled.

Presently she went in and bent over Marylyn, touching her gently, and speaking low to save her a fright. "Honey, dear, honey. Hop up and see what's happ'ning at the Fort."

The younger girl scrambled to her feet, putting out nervous hands to her sister. Dallas quieted her. And they stood together in the door.

And, now, across the Missouri, the guns and trumpets suddenly stilled, and the shouting lessened. While the glow rapidly thickened into a roaring press of flame, before which darted the troopers, like flies in the light of a lamp.

"My! my!" whispered Marylyn, her voice quavering with sorrow and awe.

She found her clothes and, keeping in line with the door, began to dress.

"Looks pretty bad," said Dallas, soberly. The silencing of the guns augured well, however; and she added thankfully, "It could be a lot worse, though."

"I'll put on my shoes, and we can go down a ways, so's to see close.

Shall I, Dal----"

"s.h.!.+" Dallas was leaning out again, her head lowered as if to listen.

All at once she turned and, kneeling, felt about on the floor for her cartridge-belt. "Yes, yes," she answered; "put 'em on--quick!"

"Are we going down to watch?"

"No."

The barracks and the stables were high, cherry-hued pyres, terrible enough to the eye, with their tops crooking northward in the wind. To Dallas' ear, they were far more terrible, telling of awful suffering--hinting of direful intent. For the nearer pyre sent proof of a sacrifice. She could hear the screams of a horse.

The belt found, she stepped back to the door. "Hurry, hurry," she said.

The old iron resolve never to desert the shack was fusing in the heat of a panic. Her unfailing instinct was hardening a new one, that ruled for immediate flight.

Marylyn was working with her shoe-thongs, not stopping to thread them, only to wind and tie them around her ankles. She heard her sister exclaim. Then she was seized and brought forward by a trembling hand.

"Marylyn! Marylyn! The boat! She's going!"

They looked, and saw a black-funnelled bulk floating across the watery strip mantled by the blaze.

"Maybe they thought it'd burn," suggested Marylyn. "See, there's sparks flying that way."

Dallas leaned back against the door. "I guess--that's it," she said slowly. Then after a moment, "But why didn't they bring her straight across? There's no place to tie up downstream."

"Why, there's fire breaking out all over now," cried the younger girl, forgetting to be afraid in her wonder and excitement. "See! One of the little houses is caught!"

It was the first cabin of Clothes-Pin Row. Two or three men were near it. At that distance they seemed gaily posturing to each other in a dance.

"If anything _is_ wrong," Dallas said, "Mr. Lounsbury'll come back."

"Mr. Lounsbury!" repeated Marylyn. "Was he here?"

"On this side, by the grove. I saw him start for the Fort."

And so their going was delayed.

Nevertheless, Dallas' sense of coming danger was acute; and when, before long, she heard the trumpet again, and saw the troopers fall away from the pyres, leaving the flames to their work, she lit the lantern and held it to where were stored her treasures--a lock of her mother's hair, her father's pipe, the letter she had received from Lounsbury.

"You take the cartridge-belt," she called to Marylyn.

The other obeyed.

"Ready?" said Dallas, and lifted the lantern to shake it.

She got no reply. Instead, gasping in alarm, Marylyn came headlong to her, pinioning her arms with wildly clinging ones. "Dallas! oh, help----"

Outside there was a sound of rapid running. Dallas flung herself against the door, driving it shut. A second, and a weight was hurled against the outer battens. Then came four raps.

"Don't open! don't!" cried Marylyn. "Maybe it ain't Charley!"

But Dallas, undoubting, swung the door back, and into the room leaped a stooping figure.

It _was_ The Squaw.

He crouched, and moved his head from side to side, as if expecting a blow or a bullet from behind. His right hand held a bow; his left, a bundle of arrows. With these he beckoned violently, shaking the water from his tattered clothes and pointing over his shoulder to the west.

"We're coming, Charley. Dearie, stand up. Now, _now_!" Marylyn was dragged to her feet. The light was quenched. The outcast faced about.

And the three headed for the river, with The Squaw leading at a trot.

As they crossed the plowed land r.i.m.m.i.n.g the yard, sleepy birds fluttered up in front of them with startled cheeps and a whistle of wings. They swerved to find the shack road, along which the way was freer and more quiet, and the pace easy. Charley glanced back now and then to see if they were close; or, halted them, when they listened, holding their breath.

They paused for the last time near the river end of the corn, and close to the coulee crossing. From there Dallas saw that the pyres were lower, and that other buildings of the Row were ablaze; the roof of a scout hut, too; and the prairie, over which travelled widening crescents of gold. But the fire was the only thing that was moving. For not a single man was in sight.

Charley was not watching toward Brannon, only along the nearer bank, to the south.

Of a sudden, as their eyes followed his, a gun-shot rang out from the cottonwood grove.

"Mr. Lounsbury!" cried Dallas, starting forward.