Ranson threw off the detaining hand, and ran behind the counter. From a lower shelf he s.n.a.t.c.hed a red bandanna kerchief. From another he dragged a rubber poncho, and b.u.t.toned it high about his throat. He picked up the steel shears which lay upon the counter, and snipping two holes in the red kerchief, stuck it under the brim of his sombrero. It fell before his face like a curtain. From his neck to his knees the poncho concealed his figure. All that was visible of him was his eyes, laughing through the holes in the red mask.

"Behold the Red Rider!" he groaned. "Hold up your hands!"

He pulled the kerchief from his face and threw the poncho over his arm.

"Do you see these shears?" he whispered. "I'm going to hold up the stage with 'em. No one ever fires at a road agent. They just shout, 'Don't shoot, colonel, and I'll come down.' I'm going to bring 'em down with these shears."

Crosby caught Curtis by the arm, laughing eagerly. "Come to the stables, quick," he cried. "We'll get twenty troopers after him before he can go a half mile." He turned on Ranson with a triumphant chuckle. "You'll not be dismissed this regiment, if I can help it," he cried.

Ranson gave an ugly laugh, like the snarl of a puppy over his bone. "If you try to follow me, or interfere with me, Lieutenant Crosby," he said, "I'll shoot you and your troopers!"

"With a pair of shears?" jeered Crosby.

"No, with the gun I've got in my pocket. Now you listen to me. I'm not going to use that gun on any stage filled with women, driven by a man seventy years old, but--and I mean it--if you try to stop me, I'll use it on you. I'm going to show you how anyone can bluff a stage full with a pair of tin shears and a red mask for a kicker. And I'll shoot the man that tries to stop me."

Ranson sprang to his horse's side, and stuck his toe into the empty stirrup-strap; there was a scattering of pebbles, a scurry of hoofs, and the horse and rider became a gray blot in the moonlight.

The two lieutenants stood irresolute. Under his breath Crosby was swearing fiercely. Curtis stood staring out of the open door.

"Will he do it?" he asked.

"Of course he'll do it."

Curtis crossed the room and dropped into a chair. "And what--what had we better do?" he asked. For some time the other made no answer. His brows were knit, and he tramped the room, scowling at the floor. Then with an exclamation of alarm he stepped lightly to the door of the exchange and threw back the curtain. In the other room, Cahill stood at its furthest corner, scooping sugar from a hogshead.

Crosby's scowl relaxed, and, reseating himself at the table, he rolled a cigarette. "Now, if he pulls it off," he whispered, "and gets back to quarters, then--it's a case of all's well. But, if he's shot, or caught, and it all comes out, then it's up to us to prove he meant it as a practical joke."

"It isn't our duty to report it now, is it?" asked Curtis, nervously.

"Certainly not! If he chooses to make an a.s.s of himself, that's none of our business. Unless he's found out, we have heard nothing and seen nothing. If he's caught, then we've got to stick by him, and testify that he did it on a bet. He'll probably win out all right. There is n.o.body expected on the stage but that Miss Post and her aunt. And the driver's an old hand. He knows better than to fight."

"There may be some cowboys coming up."

"That's Ranson's lookout. As Cahill says, the Red Rider takes his chances."

"I wish there was something we could do now," Curtis protested, petulantly. "I suppose we've just got to sit still and wait for him?"

"That's all," answered Crosby, and then leaped to his feet. "What's that?" he asked. Out on the parade ground, a bugle-call broke suddenly on the soft spring air. It rang like an alarm. The noise of a man running swiftly sounded on the path, and before the officers reached the doorway Sergeant Clancey entered it, and halted at attention.

"The colonel's orders," panted the sergeant, "and the lieutenant's are to take twenty men from G and H Troops, and ride to Kiowa to escort the paymaster."

"The paymaster!" Crosby cried. "He's not coming till Thursday."

"He's just telegraphed from Kiowa City, lieutenant. He's ahead of his schedule. He wants an escort for the money. He left Kiowa a few minutes ago in the up stage."

The two lieutenants sprang forward, and shouted in chorus: "The stage?

He is in the stage!"

Sergeant Clancey stared dubiously from one officer to the other. He misunderstood their alarm, and with the privilege of long service attempted to allay it. "The lieutenant knows nothing can happen to the stage till it reaches the b.u.t.tes," he said. "There has never been a hold-up in the open, and the escort can reach the b.u.t.tes long before the stage gets here." He coughed consciously. "Colonel's orders are to gallop, lieutenant."

As the two officers rode knee to knee through the night, the pay escort pounding the trail behind them, Crosby leaned from his saddle. "He has only ten minutes' start of us," he whispered. "We are certain to overtake him. We can't help but do it. We must do it. We MUST! If we don't, and he tries to stop Colonel Patten and the pay-roll, he'll die.

Two women and a deaf driver, that--that's a joke. But an Indian fighter like old Patten, and Uncle Sam's money, that means a finish fight-and his death and disgrace." He turned savagely in his saddle. "Close up there!" he commanded. "Stop that talking. You keep your breath till I want it--and ride hard."

After the officers had galloped away from the messroom, and Sergeant Clancey had hurried after them to the stables, the post-trader entered it from the exchange and barred the door, which they in their haste had left open. As he did this, the close observer, had one been present, might have noted that though his movements were now alert and eager, they no longer were betrayed by any sound, and that his spurs had ceased to jangle. Yet that he purposed to ride abroad was evident from the fact that from a far corner he dragged out a heavy saddle. He flung this upon the counter, and swiftly stripped it of its stirrups. These, with more than necessary care, he hid away upon the highest shelf of the shop, while from the lower shelves he s.n.a.t.c.hed a rubber poncho and a red kerchief. For a moment, as he unbarred the door, the post-trader paused and cast a quick glance before and behind him, and then the door closed and there was silence. A minute later it was broken by the hoofs of a horse galloping swiftly along the trail to Kiowa City.

II

That winter Miss Post had been going out a great deal more than was good for her, and when the spring came she broke down. The family doctor recommended Aiken, but an aunt of Miss Post's, Mrs. Truesdall, had been at Farmington with Mrs. "Colonel" Bolland, and urged visiting her instead. The doctor agreed that the climatic conditions existing at Fort Crockett were quite as health-giving as those at Aiken, and of the two the invalid decided that the regimental post would be more of a novelty.

So she and her aunt and the maid changed cars twice after leaving St.

Louis and then staged it to Kiowa City, where, while waiting for "Pop"

Henderson's coach to Fort Crockett, they dined with him on bacon, fried bread, and alkali water tinged with coffee.

It was at Kiowa City, a city of four hundred houses on blue-print paper and six on earth, that Miss Post first felt certain that she was going to enjoy her visit. It was there she first saw, at large and on his native heath, a blanket Indian. He was a tall, beautiful youth, with yellow ochre on his thin, brown arms and blue ochre on his cheekbones, who sat on "Pop's" steps, gazing impa.s.sively at the stars. Miss Post came out with her maid and fell over him. The maid screamed. Miss Post said: "I beg your pardon"; and the brave expressed his contempt by gutteral mutterings and by moving haughtily away. Miss Post was then glad that she had not gone to Aiken. For the twelve-mile drive through the moonlit b.u.t.tes to Fort Crockett there was, besides the women, one other pa.s.senger. He was a travelling salesman of the Hanc.o.c.k Uniform Company, and was visiting Fort Crockett to measure the officers for their summer tunics. At dinner he pa.s.sed Miss Post the condensed milk-can, and in other ways made himself agreeable. He informed her aunt that he was in the Military Equipment Department of the Army, but, much to that young woman's distress, addressed most of his remarks to the maid, who, to his taste, was the most attractive of the three.

"I take it," he said genially to Miss Post, "that you and the young lady are sisters."

"No," said Miss Post, "we are not related."

It was eight o'clock, and the moon was full in the heavens when "Pop"

Henderson hoisted them into the stage and burdened his driver, Hunk Smith, with words of advice which were intended solely for the ears of the pa.s.sengers.

"You want to be careful of that near wheeler, Hunk," he said, "or he'll upset you into a gully. An' in crossing the second ford, bear to the right; the water's running high, and it may carry youse all down stream.

I don't want that these ladies should be drowned in any stage of mine.

An' if the Red Rider jumps you don't put up no bluff, but sit still. The paymaster's due in a night or two, an' I've no doubt at all but that the Rider's laying for him. But if you tell him that there's no one inside but womenfolk and a tailor, mebbe he won't hurt youse. Now, ladies," he added, putting his head under the leather flap, as though unconscious that all he had said had already reached them, "without wishing to make you uneasy, I would advise your having your cash and jewelry ready in your hands. With road-agents it's mostly wisest to do what they say, an'

to do it quick. Ef you give 'em all you've got, they sometimes go away without spilling blood, though, such being their habits, naturally disappointed." He turned his face toward the shrinking figure of the military tailor. "You, being an army man," he said, "will of course want to protect the ladies, but you mustn't do it. You must keep cool. Ef you pull your gun, like as not you'll all get killed. But I'm hoping for the best. Good-night all, an' a pleasant journey."

The stage moved off with many creaks and many cracks of the whip, which in part smothered Hunk Smith's laughter. But after the first mile, he, being a man with feelings and a family, pulled the mules to a halt.

The voice of the drummer could instantly be heard calling loudly from the darkness of the stage: "Don't open those flaps. If they see us, they'll fire!"

"I wanted you folks to know," said Hunk Smith, leaning from the box-seat, "that that talk of Pop's was all foolishness. You're as safe on this trail as in a Pullman palace-car. That was just his way. Pop will have his joke. You just go to sleep now, if you can, and trust to me. I'll get you there by eleven o'clock or break a trace. Breakin' a trace is all the danger there is, anyway," he added, cheerfully, "so don't fret."

Miss Post could not resist saying to Mrs. Truesdall: "I told you he was joking."

The stage had proceeded for two hours. Sometimes it dropped with locked wheels down sheer walls of clay, again it was dragged, careening drunkenly, out of fathomless pits. It pitched and tossed, slid and galloped, danced grotesquely from one wheel to another, from one stone to another, recoiled out of ruts, b.u.t.ted against rocks, and swept down and out of swollen streams that gurgled between the spokes.

"If ever I leave Fort Crockett," gasped Mrs. Truesdall between jolts, "I shall either wait until they build a railroad or walk."

They had all but left the hills, and were approaching the level prairie.

That they might see the better the flaps had been rolled up, and the soft dry air came freely through the open sides. The mules were straining over the last hill. On either side only a few of the b.u.t.tes were still visible. They stood out in the moonlight as cleanly cut as the bows of great battleships. The trail at last was level. Mrs.

Truesdall's eyes closed. Her head fell forward. But Miss Post, weary as she was in body, could not sleep. To her the night-ride was full of strange and wonderful mysteries. Gratefully she drank in the dry scent of the prairie-gra.s.s, and, holding by the frame of the window, leaned far out over the wheel. As she did so, a man sprang into the trail from behind a wall of rock, and shouted hoa.r.s.ely. He was covered to his knees with a black mantle. His face was hidden by a blood-red mask.

"Throw up your hands!" he commanded. There was a sharp creaking as the brakes locked, and from the driver's seat an amazed oath. The stage stopped with a violent jerk, and Mrs. Truesdall pitched gently forward toward her niece.