it was late. the august night was cool and sweet after a weary day of intense heat. the door was thrown wide open. it was good to feel the night air creeping into the stifling room. there was no light within; and without, nothing but the brilliant stars in the quiet, brooding sky. williston was sitting just within the doorway. mary, her hands clasped idly around her knees, sat on the doorstep, thoughtfully staring out into the still darkness. there was a stir.
“bedtime, little girl,” said williston.
“just a minute more, daddy. must we have a light? think how the mosquitoes will swarm. let’s go to bed in the dark.”
“we will shut the door and next summer, little girl, you shall have your screens. i promise you that, always providing, of course, jesse black leaves us alone.”
had it not been so dark, mary could have seen the wistful smile on the thin, scholarly face. but though she could not see it, she knew it was there. there had been fairer hopes and more generous promises in the past few years. they had all gone the dreary way of impotent striving, of bitter disappointment. there was little need of light for mary to read her father’s thoughts.
“sure, daddy,” she answered, cheerily. “and i’ll see that you don’t forget. as for jesse black, he wouldn’t dare with the three bars on his trail. well, if you must have a light, you must,” rising and stretching her firm-fleshed young arms far over her head. “you can’t forget you were born in civilization, can you, daddy? i am sure i could be your man in the dark, if you’d let me, and i always turn your nightshirt right side out before hanging it on your bedpost, and your sheet and spread are turned down, and water right at hand. you funny, funny little father, who can’t go to bed in the dark.” she was rummaging around a shelf in search of matches. “now, i have forgotten long since that i wasn’t born on the plains. it wouldn’t hurt me if i had misplaced my nightdress. i’ve done it,” with a gay little laugh. he must be cheered up at all costs, this buffeted and disappointed but fine-minded, high-strung, and lovable father of hers. “and i haven’t taken my hair down nights since—oh, since months ago, till—oh, well—so you see it’s easy enough for me to go to bed in the dark.”
her hand touched the match box at last. a light flared out.
“shut the door quick, dad,” she said, lighting the lamp on the table. “the skeeters’ll eat us alive.”
williston stepped to the door. just a moment he stood there in the doorway, the light streaming out into the night, tall, thoughtful, no weakling in spite of many failures and many mistakes. a fair mark he made, outlined against the brightly lighted room. it was quiet. not even a coyote shrilled. and while he stood there looking up at the calm stars, a sudden sharp report rang out and the sacred peace of god, written in the serenity of still summer nights, was desecrated. hissing and ominous, the bullet sang past williston’s head, perilously near, and lodged in the opposite wall. at that moment, the light was blown out. a great presence of mind had come to mary in the time of imminent danger.
“good, my dear!” cried williston, in low tones. quick as a flash, the door was slammed shut and bolted just as a second shot fell foul of it.
“oh, my father!” cried mary, groping her way to his side.
“hush, my dear! they missed me clean. don’t lose your nerve, mary. they won’t find it so easy after all.”
there had been no third shot. a profound silence followed the second report. there was no sound of horse or man. whence, then, the shots? one man, maybe, creeping up like some foul beast of prey to strike in the dark. was he still lurking near, abiding another opportunity?
it took but a moment for williston to have the rifles cocked and ready. mary took her own from him with a hand that trembled ever so slightly.
“what will you do, father?” she asked, holding her rifle lovingly and thanking god in a swift, unformed thought for every rattlesnake or other noxious creature whose life she had put out while doing her man’s work of riding the range,—work which had given her not only a man’s courage but a man’s skill as well.
“take the back window, girl,” he answered, briefly. “i’ll take the front. stand to the side. get used to the starlight and shoot every shadow you see, especially if it moves. keep track of your shots, don’t waste an effort and don’t let anything creep up on you. they mustn’t get near enough to fire the house.”
his voice was sharp and incisive. the drifting habit had fallen from him, and he was his own master again.
several heavy minutes dragged away without movement, without sound from without. the ticking of the clock pressed on strained ears like ghastly bell-tolling. their eyes became accustomed to the darkness and, by the dim starlight, they were able to distinguish the outlines of the cattle-sheds, still, empty, black. nothing moved out there.
“i think they’re frightened off,” said mary at last, breathing more freely. “they were probably just one, or they’d not have left. he knew he missed you, or he would not have fired again. do you think it was jesse?”
“jesse would not have missed,” he said, grimly.
at that moment, a new sound broke the stillness, the whinny of a horse. reinforcement had approached within the shadow of the cattle-sheds. something moved out there at last.
“daddy!” called mary, in a choked whisper. “come here—they are down at the sheds.”
williston stepped to the back window quickly.
“change places,” he said, briefly.
“daddy!”
“yes?”
“keep up your nerve,” she breathed between great heart-pumps.
“surely! do you the same, little comrade, and shoot to kill.”
there was a savage note in his last words. for himself, it did not matter so much, but mary—he pinned no false faith in any thought of possible chivalrous intent on the part of the raiders to exempt his daughter from the grim fate that awaited him. he had to deal with a desperate man; there would be no clemency in this desperate man’s retaliation.
to his quickened hearing came the sound of stealthy creeping. something moved directly in front of him, but some distance away. “shoot every shadow you see, especially if it moves,” were the fighting orders, and his was the third shot of that night.
“hell! i’ve got it in the leg!” cried a rough voice full of intense anger and pain, and there were sounds of a precipitate retreat.
out under protection of the long row of low-built sheds, other orders were being tersely given and silently received.
“now, men, i’ll shoot the first man of you who blubbers when he’s hit. d’ye hear? there have been breaks enough in this affair already. i don’t intend for that petticoat man and his pulin’ petticoat kid in there to get any satisfaction out o’ this at all. hear me?”
there was no response. none was needed.
some shots found harmless lodgment in the outer walls of the shanty. they were the result of an unavailing attempt to pick the window whence williston’s shot had come. mary could not keep back a little womanish gasp of nervous dread.
“grip your nerve, mary,” said her father. “that’s nothing—shooting from down there. just lie low and they can do nothing. only watch, child, watch! they must not creep up on us. oh, for a moon!”
she did grip her nerve, and her hand ceased its trembling. in the darkness, her eyes were big and solemn. sometime, to-morrow, the reaction would come, but to-night—
“yes, father, keep up your own nerve,” she said, in a brave little voice that made the man catch his breath in a sob.
again the heavy minutes dragged away. at each of the two windows crouched a tense figure, brain alert, eyes in iron control. it was a frightful strain, this waiting game. could one be sure nothing had escaped one’s vigilance? starlight was deceptive, and one’s eyes must needs shift to keep the mastery over their little horizon. it might well be that some one of those ghostly and hidden sentinels patrolling the lonely homestead had wormed himself past staring eyeballs, crawling, crawling, crawling; it might well be that at any moment a sudden light flaring up from some corner would tell the tale of the end.
now and then could be heard the soft thud of a hoof as some one rode to execute an order. occasionally, something moved out by the sheds. such movement, if discernible from the house, was sure to be followed on the instant by a quick sharp remonstrance from williston’s rifle. how long could it last? would his nerve wear away with the night? could he keep his will dominant? if so, he must drag his mind resolutely away from that nerve-racking, still, and unseen creeping, creeping, creeping, nearer and nearer. how the stillness weighed upon him, and still his mind dwelt upon that sinuous, flat-bellied creeping, crawling, worming! god, it was awful! he fought it desperately. he knew he was lost if he could not stop thinking about it. the sweat came out in big beads on his forehead, on his body; he prickled with the heat of the effort. then it left him—the awful horror—left him curiously cold, but steady of nerve and with a will of iron and eyes, cat’s eyes, for their seeing in the dark. now that he was calm once more, he let himself weigh the chances of succor. they were pitifully remote. the lazy s was situated in a lonely stretch of prairie land far from any direct trail. true, it lay between kemah, the county seat, and the three bars ranch, but it was a good half mile from the straight route. even so, it was a late hour for any one to be passing by. it was not a travelled trail except for the boys of the three bars, and they were known to be great home-stayers and little given to spreeing. as for the rustlers, if rustlers they were, they had no fear of interruption by the officers of the law, who held their places by virtue of the insolent and arbitrary will of jesse black and his brotherhood, and were now carousing in kemah by virtue of the hush-money put up by this same secret tribunal.
yet now that williston’s head was clear, he realized, with strengthening confidence in the impregnability of their position, that two trusty rifles behind barred doors are not so bad a defence after all, especially when one took into consideration that, with the exception of the sheds overlooking which he had chosen his position as the point of greatest menace, and a small clump of half-grown cottonwoods by the spring which mary commanded from her window, there were no hiding places to be utilized for this indian mode of warfare. he could not know how many desperadoes there were, but he reasoned well when he confided in his belief that they would not readily trust themselves to the too dangerous odds of the open space between. an open attack was not probable. vigilance, then, a never-lapsing vigilance that they be not surprised, was the price of their salvation. what human power could do, he would do, and trust mary to do the same. she was a good girl and true. she would do well. she had not yet shot. surely, they would make use of that good vantage ground of the cottonwood clump. probably they were even now making a detour to reach it.
“watch, child, watch!” he said again, without in the least shifting his tense position.
“surely!” responded mary, quite steadily.
now was her time come. dark, sinister figures flitted from tree to tree. at first, she could not be sure, it was so heartlessly dark, but there was movement—it was different from that terrible blank quiet which she had hitherto been gazing upon till her eyes burned and pricked as with needle points, and visionary things swam before them. she winked rapidly to dispel the unreal and floating things, opened wide her longlashed lids, fixed them, and—fired. then williston knew that his “little girl,” his one ewe lamb, all that was left to him of a full and gracious past, must go through what he had gone through, all that nameless horror and expectant dread, and his heart cried out at the unholy injustice of it all. he dared not go to her, dared not desert his post for an instant. if one got within the shadow of the walls, all was lost.
mary’s challenge was met with a rather hot return fire. it was probably given to inspire the besieged with a due respect for the attackers’ numbers. bullets pattered around the outside walls like hailstones, one even whizzed through the window perilously near the girl’s intent young face.
silence came back to the night. there was no more movement. yet down there at the spring, something, maybe one of those dark, gaunt cottonwoods, held death—death for her and death for her father. a stream of icy coldness struck across her heart. she found herself calculating in deliberation which tree it was that held this thing—death. the biggest one, shadowing the spring, helping to keep the pool sweet and cool where paul langford had galloped his horse that day when—ah! if paul langford would only come now!
a wild, girlish hope flashed up in her heart. langford would come—had he not sworn it to her father? had he not given his hand as a pledge? it means something to shake hands in the cattle country. he was big and brave and true. when he came, these awful, creeping terrors would disperse—grim shadows that must steal away when morning comes. when he came, she could put her rifle in his big, confident hands, lie down on the floor and—cry. she wanted to cry—oh, how she did want to cry! if paul langford would only come, she could cry. cold reason came back to her aid and dissipated the weak and womanish longing to give way to tears. there was a pathetic droop to her mouth, a long, quivering, sobbing sigh, and she buried her woman’s weakness right deeply and stamped upon it. how utterly wild and foolish her brief hope had been! langford and all his men were sound in sleep long ago. how could he know? were the ruffians out there men to tell? ah, no! there was no one to know. it would all happen in the dark,—in awful loneliness, and there would be no one to know until it was all over—to-morrow, maybe, or next week, who could tell? they were off the main trail, few people ever sought them out. there would be no one to know.
as her strained sight stared out into the darkness, it was borne to her intuitively, it may be, that something was creeping up on her. she could see nothing and yet knew it to be true. every fibre of her being tingled with the certainty of it. it was coming closer and closer. she felt it like an actual presence. her eyes shifted here, there—swept her half-circle searchingly—stared and stared. still nothing moved. and yet the nearness of some unseen thing grew more and more palpable. if she could not see it soon, she must scream aloud. she breathed in little quickened gasps. soon, very soon now, she would scream. ah! a shadow down by the biggest cottonwood! it boldly sought a nearer and a smaller trunk. another slinking shadow glided behind the vacated position. it was a ghastly presentation of “pussy-wants-a-corner” played in nightmare. but at last it was something tangible,—something to do away with that frightful sensation of that crawling, creeping, twisting, worming, insinuating—nearer and nearer, so near now that it beat upon her—unseen presence. she pressed her finger to the trigger to shoot at the tangible shadows and dispel that enveloping, choking, blanket horror, when god knows what stayed the muscular action of her fingers. call it instinct, what you will, her hand was stayed even before her physical eye was caught and held by a blot darker still than the night, over to her right, farthest from the spring. it lay perfectly still. it came to her, the wily plan, with startling clearness. the blot was waiting for her to fire futilely at grinning shadows among the trees and, under cover of her engrossed attention, insinuate its treacherous body the farther forward. then the play would go merrily on till—the end. she turned the barrel of her rifle slowly and deliberately away from the moving shapes among the cottonwood clump, sighted truly the motionless blur to her right, and fired, once, twice, three times.
the completeness of the surprise seemed to inspire the attackers with a hellish fury. they returned the fire rapidly and at will, remaining under cover the while. shrinking low at her window, her eyes glued on the still black mass out yonder, mary wondered if it were dead. she prayed passionately that it might be, and yet—it is a dreadful thing to kill. once more the wild firing ceased. mary responded once or twice just to keep the deadly chill from returning—if that were possible.
under cover of the desperadoes’ fire, at obtuse angles with the first attempt, a second blot began its tortuous twisting. it accomplished a space, stopped; pulled itself its length, stopped, waited, watchful eyes on the window whence came mary’s scattered firing still into the clump of trees. they had drawn her close regard at last. would it hold out? forward again, crawling flat on the ground, ever advancing, slowly, very slowly, but also very surely, creeping, creeping, creeping, now stopping, now creeping, stopping, creeping.
all at once the gun play began again, sharp, quick, from the spring, from the sheds. the blot lay perfectly still for a moment—waiting, watching. the plucky little rifle was silent. but so it had been before. quarter length, half, whole length, cautiously with frequent stops, eyes so steely, so intent—could it be possible that this gun was really silenced—out of the race? it would not do to trust too much. the blot waited, scarcely breathed, crept forward again.
a sudden bright light flashed up through the darkness under the unprotected wall to mary’s left. almost simultaneously a kindred light sprang into being from the region of the cattle-sheds. the men down there had been waiting for this signal. it meant that for some reason the second effort to creep up unobserved to fire the house had been successful. the flare grew and spread. it became a glare.
when the whole cabin seemed to be in flames save the door,—the dry, rude boarding had caught and burned like paper,—when the heat had become unbearable, williston held out his hand to his daughter, silently. as silently she put her hand, her left hand, in his; nor did williston notice that it was her left, nor how limply her right arm hung to her side. in the glare, her face shone colorless, but her dark eyes were stars. her head was held high. with firm step, williston advanced to the door. deliberately he unbarred it, as deliberately threw it open, and stepped over the threshold. they were covered on the instant by four rifles.
“drop your guns!” called the chief, roughly. then the desperadoes moved up.
“i take it that i am the one wanted,” said williston.
his voice was calm and scholarly once more. in the uselessness of further struggle, it had lost the sharp incisiveness that had been the call to action. if one must die, it is good to die after a brave fight. one is never a coward then. williston’s face wore an almost exalted look.
“my daughter is free to go?” he asked, his first words having met with no response. better, much better, for the make of a man like williston to die in the dignity of silence, but for mary’s sake he parleyed.
“i guess not!” responded the leader, curtly. “if a pulin’ idiot hadn’t missed the broadside of you—as pretty a mark this side heaven as man could want,—then we might talk about the girl. she’s showed up too damned much like a man now to let her loose.”
his big, shuffling form lounged in his saddle. he raised his rifle with every appearance of lazy indifference. they were to be shot down where they stood, now, right on the threshold of their burning homestead.
williston bowed his head to the inevitable for a moment; then raised it proudly to meet the inevitable.
a rifle shot rang out startlingly clear. at the very moment the leader’s hawk’s eye had swept the sight, his rifle arm had twitched uncertainly, then fallen nerveless to his side, while his bullet, playing a faltering and discordant second to the first true shot, tore up the ground in front of him and swerved harmlessly to one side. instantly the wildest confusion reigned,—shouts, curses, the plunging of horses mingled with the sharp crack of fire-arms. the shooting was wild. the surprise was too complete for the outlaws to recover at once. they had heard no sound of approaching hoofbeats. the roaring flames licking up the dry lumber, and rendering the surrounding darkness the blacker for the contrast, had been of saving grace to the besiegers after all.
in a moment, the desperadoes rallied. they closed in and imposed a cursing, malignant wall between the rescuers and the blazing door of the shanty and what stood and lay before it. mary had sunk down at her father’s feet, and had no cognizance of the fierce though brief conflict that ensued.
presently, she was dragged roughly to her feet. a big, muscular arm had heavy grasp of her.
“make sure of the girl, red!” commanded a sharp voice near, and it was gone out into the night.
afterward, she heard—oh, many, many times in the night watches—the eerie galloping of horses’ hoofs, growing fainter and ever fainter, heard it above the medley of trampling horses and yelling men, and knew it for what it meant; but to-night—this evil night—she gave but one quick, bewildered glance into the sinister face above her and in a soft, shuddering voice breathed, “please don’t,” and fainted.
