Ben Blair Part 22

"I may be gone several days. You and Ma attend to the--burial. Dig the grave out under the big maple." A pause. "I think," steadily, "he would have liked it there."

The foreman nodded silently.

Benjamin Blair dropped into the bunk, drew the blankets over him and closed his eyes. As he did so, from the direction of the barn there came a succession of pistol shots--one, two, three. Then again silence fell.

CHAPTER XIV

THE INEXORABLE TRAIL

Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A heavy blanket and a light camp kit were strapped behind his saddle, and so attached that they could be quickly transferred to his back. A big rifle was stretched across his right knee and the saddle-horn. At either hip rode a great holster. The air, despite the cloudiness, was bitter cold; and he wore a heavy sheepskin coat with the wool turned in, and long gauntlets reaching half-way to his elbows. A broad leather belt held the heavy coat in place, and attached to it was a thin sheath from which protruded the stout handle of a hunting-knife. He also wore another belt, fitted with many loops, each holding a gleaming little bra.s.s cylinder. No one seeing the man this morning could have made the mistake of considering him, as before, on a journey to see a lady.

Slowly day advanced. The east resolved itself from flaming red into the neutral tint of the remainder of the sky. The sun shone through the clouds, dissipated them, was obscured, and shone again. The something which the man had been watching so intently gradually grew clearer. It was the trail of another horse--a galloping horse. It was easy to follow, and the rider looked about him. After a few miles, when the mustang had warmed to his second wind, a gauntleted hand dropped to the yellow neck and stroked it gently.

"Let 'em out a bit, Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he could follow if need be without a break from sun to sun.

On they went, the trail they were following unwinding like a great tape steadily before them, the crunch of the frozen snow in their ears, tiny particles of it flying to the side and behind like spray. But, bravely as they were going, the horse ahead which had unwound that band of tracks had moved more swiftly. Not within inches did the best efforts of the buckskin approach those giant strides. It had been a desperate rider who had urged such a pace; and the grim face of the tall youth grew grimmer at the thought.

Not another sound than of their own making did they hear. Not an object uncovered of white did they see, until, thirteen miles out, they pa.s.sed near the deserted Baker ranch; but the trail did not stop, nor did they, and ere long it faded again from view. The course was dipping well to the north now, and Ben realized that not again on his journey would he pa.s.s in sight of a human habitation.

All that mortal day the buckskin pounded monotonously ahead. The sun rose to the meridian, gazed warmly down upon them, softened the surface of the frozen snow until the crunch sounded mellower, and slowly descended to their left. The dainty ears of the pony, as the day waned, flattened close to his head. Foam gathered beneath the saddle and between the animal's legs; but doggedly relentless as his rider, he forged ahead. Much in common had these two beings; more closely than ever was their comradery cemented that day. Many times, with the same motion as at first, the man had leaned over and patted that muscular neck, dark and soiled now with perspiration. "Good old Buck," he said as to a fellow, "good old Buck!" and each time the set ears had flicked intelligently in response.

It was nearing sunset when they came in sight of the hills bordering the river, and the last mile Ben drew the buckskin to a walk. The chain of hoof-tracks had changed much since the morning. The buckskin could equal the strides of the other now, and the follower was content. The evenings were very short at this season of the year, and they would not attempt to go farther to-night. At the margin of the stream Ben rode along until he found a spot where the full strength of the current ate into the bank. There on the thinner ice he hammered with the b.u.t.t of his heavy rifle until he broke a hole; then, the dumb one first, the two friends drank their fill. After that, side by side, they walked back until in the shelter of a high knoll the man found a s.p.a.ce of perhaps half an acre where the gra.s.s, thick and unpastured, was practically bare of snow. Here he removed saddle and bridle, and without lariat or hobble--for they knew each other now, these two--he turned the pony loose to graze. He himself, with the kit and blanket and a handful of dead wood, went to the hill-top, where he could see for miles around, built a tiny fire, an Indian's fire, made a can of strong black coffee, and ate of the jerked beef he had brought. Later, he cleared a spot the size of a man's grave, and with gra.s.s and the blanket built a shallow nest, in which he stretched himself, his elbow on the earth, his face in his hand, thinking, thinking.

The night came on. As the eastern sky had done in the morning, so now the west crimsoned gloriously, became the color of blood, then gradually shaded back until it was neutral again, and the stars from a few scattering dots increased in numbers and filled the dome as scattered sand-grains cover a floor. Darkness came, and with it the slight wind of the day died down until the air was perfectly still. The cold, which had retreated for a time, returned, augmented. As though it were a live thing moving about, its coming could be heard in the almost indistinguishable crackling of the snow-crust. As beneath a crus.h.i.+ng weight, the ice of the great river boomed and crackled from its touch.

Wide-eyed but impa.s.sive, the man watched and listened. Scarcely a muscle of his body moved. Not once, as the hours slipped by, did he drowse; not for an instant was he off his guard. With the first trace of morning in the east, he was astir. As on the night before, he made his Indian's fire, ate his handful of beef, and drank of the strong black coffee.

The pony, sleepy as a child, was aroused and saddled. The ice which had frozen during the night over their drinking-hole was broken. Then, both man and horse stiff and sore from the exposure and the previous exertion, the trail was taken up anew.

For five miles, until both were warmed to their work, the man and beast trotted along side by side. "Now, Buck, old boy!" said Ben, and mounting, they were off in earnest. At first the trail they were following was that of a horse that walked; but later it stretched out into the old long-strided gallop, and the pursuer read the tale of quirt and spur which had forced the change.

Three hours out, thirty odd miles from the river as the rider calculated the distance, he came to the first break in the seemingly endless trail of hoofprints he was following. A heap of snow sc.r.a.ped aside and two brown spots on the earth told the story of where the pursued man and horse had paused to rest and sleep. No water was near. Neither the human nor the beast had strayed from the direct line; they had merely halted and dropped almost within their tracks. Just beyond was the spot where the man had remounted, where the flight began anew; and again a tale lay written on the surface of the snow. The prints of the horse's feet were now unsteady and irregular. Within a few rods there was on the right a red splash of blood; then others, a drop at a time. Very hard it had been to put life into the beast at starting; deep the rowels of the great spur had been dug. Ben Blair lightly touched the neck of his buckskin and gave the word to go.

"They were only thirty miles ahead last night, Buck, old chap," he said, "and very tired. We'll gain on them fast to-day."

But though they gained--the record of the tracks told that--they did not gain fast. Notwithstanding he still galloped doggedly ahead, the gallant little buckskin was plainly weakening. The eternal pounding through the snow was eating up his strength, and though his spirit was indomitable the end of his endurance was in sight. No longer would the dainty ears respond to a touch on the neck. With head lowered he moved forward like a machine. While the sun was yet above the horizon, the lope diminished to a trot, the trot to a walk--a game walk, but only a walk.

Then, for the second time that day, Ben dismounted. Silently he removed saddle and bridle, transferred the blanket and kit to his own back, and then, the rifle under his arm, stopped a moment by the pony's side and laid the dainty muzzle against his face.

"Buck, old boy," he said, "you've done mighty well--but I can beat you now. Maybe some day we'll meet again. I hope we shall. Anyway, we're better for having known each other. Good-bye."

A moment longer his face lay so, as his hand would have lain in a friend's hand at parting; then, with a last pat to the silken nose, he started on ahead.

At first the man walked steadily; then, warming to the work, he broke into the swinging jog-trot of the frontiersman, the hunter who travels afoot. Many Indians the youth had known in his day, and from them he had learned much; one thing was that in walking or running to step straight-footed instead of partially sideways, as the white man plants his sole, was to gain inches at every motion, besides making it easier to retrace his steps should he wish to do so. This habit had become a part of him, and now the marks of his own trail were like the alternately broken line which represents a railroad on a map.

As long as he could see to read from the white page of the snow-blanket, Ben Blair jogged ahead. Hot anger, that he could not repress, was with him constantly now, for the trail before him was very fresh, and, distinct beside it, more and more frequent were the red marks of an animal's suffering. He knew what horse it was the other had stolen. It was "Lady," one of Scotty's prize thoroughbred mares, the one Florence had ridden so many times. Often during those last hours the man wondered at the endurance of the mare. None but a thoroughbred would have stood up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,--but the man ahead doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture.

Thus night came on, folding within its concealing arms alike the hunter and the pursued. Ben did not build a fire this night. First of all, though during the day at different times he had been able to see the bordering trees of the White River at his left and the Bad River at his right, the trail hung to the comparatively level land of the great divide between, and not a sc.r.a.p of wood was within miles. Again, although he did not actually know, he could not believe he was far behind, and he would run no risk of giving a warning sign to eyes which must be watching the backward trail. The fierce hunger of a healthy animal was his; but his supply of beef was limited, and he ate a meagre allowance, was.h.i.+ng it down with a draught of river water from his canteen. Rolled up in the blanket, through which the stinging cold pierced as though it were gossamer, s.h.i.+vering, beating his hands and feet to prevent their stiffening, longing for protecting fur like a wolf or a buffalo, keeping constant watch about him as does a great prairie owl, the interminably long hours of his second night dragged by.

"The beginning of the end," he soliloquized, when once more it was light enough so that standing he could see the earth at his feet. Well he knew that ere this the other horse was eliminated from the chase--that it was now man against man. G.o.d! how his joints ached when he stretched them!--how his muscles pained at the slightest motion! He ground his teeth when he first began to walk, and hobbled like a rheumatic cripple; but within a half-hour tenacity had won, and the relentless jog-trot of the interrupted line was measuring off the miles anew.

The chase was nearing an end. Long ere noon, in the distance toward which he was heading, Blair detected a brown dot against the white.

Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly legible page, the last page in the biography of a n.o.ble horse. Let us pa.s.s it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain pa.s.ses under an opiate. He did not pause to eat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, watchful as a hawk, he jogged on, on, a mile--two miles--five--came to a rise in the great roll of the lands--stopped, his heart suddenly pounding the walls of his chest. Before him, not half a mile away, moving slowly westward, was the diminutive black shape of a man travelling afoot!

Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait.

Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore.

Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin.

Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind him; but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead.

Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it fell, and there select his point of waiting.

As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pa.s.s. A small diversity it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly came the reaction, the chill. To lie there in his present condition meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path.

Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were s.h.i.+ning, the man never felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his heart.

Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not wis.h.i.+ng to show himself, he kicked vigorously into s.p.a.ce as he lay. At intervals he made inspection of the east, looking out over the glitter of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow was moving,--was coming toward him.

Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was within three hundred yards, until it pa.s.sed by to the north, did Ben make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of Bad River.

Again two hours of unbroken monotony pa.s.sed. The sun had almost reached the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east.

For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged at his heart.

Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the snow-crust marked his every foot-fall.

And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost brown. Involuntarily the ma.s.sive chin had moved forward; but that was all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but beneath,--G.o.d! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he waited so impa.s.sively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated pulse-beats. Like the continuous s.h.i.+fting scenes in a panorama, the incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approach a bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift pa.s.sage of angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever.

Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse--a n.o.ble thoroughbred. What varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was pa.s.sing by fifty feet to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pa.s.s.

With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger tightened, almost--

A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him, held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even such a one as this without giving him a chance--no, he could not quite do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then slowly, slowly--

As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair, the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush.

With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about them the fresh snow flew, filling their eyes, their mouths. Squirming, straining, over and over they rolled; first the beardless man on top, then the bearded. The sound of their straining breath was continuous, the ripping of coa.r.s.e cloth an occasional interruption; but from the first, a spectator could not but have foreseen the end. The elder man was fighting in self-defence: the younger, he of the ma.s.sive protruding jaw--a jaw now so prominent as to be a positive disfigurement--in unappeasable ferocity. Against him in that hour a very giant could not have held his own. Merely a glimpse of his face inspired terror. Again and again as they struggled his hand had clutched at the other's throat, but only to have his hold broken. At last, however, his adversary was weakening under the strain. Blind terror began to grip Tom Blair. At first a mere suggestion, then a horrible certainty, possessed him as to the ident.i.ty of the relentless being who opposed him. Again the other's hand, like the creeping tentacle of an octopus, sought his throat, would not be stayed. He struggled with all his might against it, until it seemed the blood-vessels of his neck would burst, but still the hold tightened. He clutched at the long fingers desperately, bit at them, felt his breath coming hard. Freeing his own hand, he smashed with his fist again and again into that long thin face so near his own, knew that another tentacle had joined with the first, felt the impossibility of drawing air into his lungs, realized that consciousness was deserting him, saw the sun over him like a mocking face--then knew no more.

CHAPTER XV

IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW

How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning down as brightly as before. The snow was as white.