The Orphan, Clarence E. Mulford [find a book to read TXT] 📗

the last defile cut through a ridge of rock, called the Backbone, which ranged in height from twenty to forty feet, smooth, unbroken and perpendicular on its eastern face. This ridge wound and twisted from the big chaparral twenty miles below the defile to a branch of the Limping Water, fifteen miles above. And in all the thirty-five miles there was but a single opening, the one used by Bill and the stage.

In crossing the level plain Bill could see for miles to either side of him, but when once in the rough country his view was restricted to yards, and more often to feet. It was here that he expected trouble if at all, and he usually went through it with a speed which was reckless, to say the least.

He had just dismissed the possibility of meeting with Apaches as he turned into the last long defile, which he was pleased to call a cañon. As he made the first turn he nearly fell from his seat in astonishment at what he saw. Squarely in the center of the trail ahead of him was a horseman, who rode the horse which had formerly belonged to Jimmy of the Cross Bar-8, and across the cut lay a heavy piece of timber, one of the dead trees which were found occasionally at that altitude, and it effectively barred the passing of the stage. The horseman wore his sombrero far back on his head and a rifle lay across his saddle, while two repeating Winchesters were slung on either side of his horse. One startled look revealed the worst to the driver–The Orphan, the terrible Orphan faced him!

“Don’t choke–I’m not going to eat you,” assured the horseman with a smile. “But I’m going to smoke half of your tobacco–and you can bring me a half pound when you come back from Sagetown. Just throw it up yonder,” pointing to a rocky ledge, “and keep going right ahead.”

Bill looked very much relieved, and hastily fumbled in his hip pocket, which was a most suicidal thing to do in a hurry; but The Orphan didn’t even move at the play, having judged the man before him and having faith in his judgment. The hand came out again with a pouch of tobacco, which its owner flung to the outlaw. After putting half of it in his own pouch and enclosing a coin to pay for his half pound, The Orphan tossed it back again and then moved the tree trunk until it fell to the road, when he dismounted and rolled it aside.

“You forget right now that you have seen me or you’ll have heart disease some day in this place,” warned the horseman, moving aside. Bill swore earnestly that at times his memory was too short to even remember his own name, and he enthusiastically lashed his cayuse sextet. As he swung out on the plain again he glanced furtively over his shoulder and breathed a deep breath of relief when he found that the outlaw was not in sight. He then tied a knot in his handkerchief so as to be sure to remember to get a half-pound package of tobacco. A new responsibility, and one which he had never borne before, weighed upon him. He must keep silent–and what a rich subject for endless conversations! Talking material which would last him for years must be sealed tightly within his memory on penalty of death if he failed to keep it secret.

After an uneventful trip across the open plain, which passed so rapidly because of his intent thoughts that he hardly realized it, he ripped into Sagetown with a burst of speed and flung the mail bag at the station agent, after which he hastened to float the dust down his throat.

When he met his Sagetown friends he had fairly to choke down his secret, and his aching desire to create a sensation pained and worried him.

“You made her faster than usual, Bill,” remarked the bartender casually. “Yore half-an-hour ahead of time,” he added in a congratulatory tone as he placed a bottle and glass before the new arrival.

“Yes, and I had to stop, too,” Bill replied, and then hastily gulped down his liquor to save himself.

“That so?” asked old Pop Westley, an habitué of the saloon. Pop Westley had fought through the Civil War and never forgot to tell of his experiences, which must have been unusually numerous, even for four years of hard campaigning, if one may judge from the fact that he never had to repeat, and yet used them as his coup d’état in many conversational bouts. “What was it, Injuns?” he asked, winking at the bartender as if in prophecy as to what the driver would choose for his next lie.

“Oh, no,” replied Bill, groping for an idea to get him out of trouble. “Nope, just had to lose twenty minutes rollin’ rocks out of the cañon–they must have been a little landslide since I went through her the last time. Some of ’em was purty big, too.”

“I thought you might a had to kill some Injuns, like you did when they broke out four years ago,” responded the bartender gravely. “Tell us about that time you licked them dozen mad Apache warriors, Bill,” he requested. “That was a blamed good scrap from what I can remember.”

“Oh, I’ve told you about that scrap so much I’m ashamed to tell it again,” replied the driver, wishing that he could remember just what he had said about it, and sorry that his memory was so inferior to his imagination.

“Bet you get scalped goin’ back,” pleasantly remarked Johnny Sands, who had not fought in the Civil War, but who often ferociously wished he had when old Pop Westley was telling of how Mead took Vicksburg, or some other such bit of history. Pop must have been connected to a flying regiment, for he had fought under every general on the Union side.

“You’re on for the drinks, Johnny,” answered Bill promptly, feeling that it would be a double joy to win. “The war-whoops never lived who could scalp Bill Howland, and don’t forget it, neither,” he boastfully averred as he made for the door, very anxious to get away from that awful gnawing temptation to open their eyes wide about his recent experience.

“Then The Orphan will get you, shore,” came from Pop Westley. Bill jumped and slammed the door so hard that it shook the building.

He saw that his sextet was being properly fed and watered for the return trip, which would not take place until the next day. But a trifle like twenty-four hours had no effect on Bill under his present stress of excitement, and he fooled about the coach as if it was his dearest possession, inspecting the king-bolt, running-gear and whiffletrees with anxious eyes. He wanted no break-down, because the Apaches might be farther north than was their custom. That done he took his rifle apart and thoroughly cleaned and oiled it, seeing that the magazine was full to the end. Then he had his supper and went straight therefrom to bed, not daring to again meet his friends for fear of breaking his promise to The Orphan.

At dawn he drew up beside the small station and waited for the arrival of the train, which even then was a speck at the meeting place of the rails on the horizon.

The station agent sauntered over to him and grinned.

“I guess I will get that telegraph line after all, Bill,” he remarked happily. “I heard that the division superintendent wanted to get word to me in a hurry the other day, and raised the devil when he couldn’t. I’ve been fighting for a wire to civilization for three years, and now I reckon she’ll come.”

“I always said you ought to have a telegraph line out here,” Bill replied. “Suppose that train should run off the track some day, what would they do, hey?”

“Huh, that train never goes fast enough to run off of anything,” retorted the station agent. “She’d stop dead if she hit a coyote–by gosh! Here she comes now! What do you think of that, eh? Half-an-hour ahead of time, too! Must be trying to hit up a better average than she’s had for the last year. She’s usually due three hours late,” he added in bewilderment. “She owes the world about a month–must have left the day before by mistake.”

“Johnny Sands says he raced her once for ten miles, and beat it a mile,” replied Bill, crossing his legs and yawning. Then he began one of his endless talks, and the agent hastily departed and left him to himself.

When the train finally stopped at its destination, after running past the station and having to back to the platform, three women alighted and looked around. Seeing the stage, they ordered their baggage transferred to it and gave Bill a shock by their appearance.

“Is this the stage which runs to Ford’s Station?” the eldest asked of Bill.

Bill fumbled at his sombrero and tore it from his head as he replied.

“Yes, sir, er–ma’am!” he said, confusedly. “Are you Sheriff’s sister, ma’am?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Why do you ask? Has anything happened to him in this awful country?” she asked in alarm.

“No, ma’am, not yet,” responded Bill in confusion. “He just didn’t expect you ’til the next train, ma’am, that’s all. He was going to meet you then.”

“Now, isn’t that just like a man?” she asked her companions. “I distinctly remember that I wrote him I would come on the twenty-fourth. How stupid of him!”

“Yes, ma’am, you did,” interposed Bill, eagerly. “But this is only the twenty-first, ma’am.”

She refused to notice the correction and waved her hand toward the coach.

“Get in, dears,” she said. “I do so hope it isn’t dirty and uncomfortable, and we have so far to go in it, too. Thirty miles–think of it!”

Bill thought of it, but refrained from offering correction. If Shields had said it was thirty miles when he knew it was eighty that was Shields’ affair, and he didn’t care to have any unpleasantness. He had offered correction about the date, and that was enough for him. Clambering down heavily he opened the side door of the vehicle and then helped the station agent put the trunks and valises and hat boxes on the hanging shelf behind the coach and saw that they were lashed securely into place. Then he threw the mail bag upon his seat, climbed after it and started on his journey with a whoop and rush, for this trip was to be a record-breaker. Shields had said it was thirty miles, and it behove the driver to make it seem as short as possible.

The unexpected arrival of the women had driven everything else from his mind, even The Orphan, and after he had covered a mile he had a strong desire to smoke. Giving his whip a jerk he threw it along the top of the coach and slipped the handle under his arm. Then he felt for his pouch, and as his fingers closed upon it he suddenly stiffened and gasped. He had forgotten The Orphan’s half pound! Swearing earnestly and badly frightened at the close call he had from incurring the anger of a man like the outlaw, he pulled on the reins with a suddenness which caused the sextet to lay back their ears and indulge in a few heartfelt kicks. But the darting whip kept peace and he swung around and returned to town.

As he drove past the station Mary Shields, the sheriff’s elder sister, poked her head out of the door and called to him.

“Driver!” she exclaimed. “Driver!”

Bill craned his neck and looked down.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied anxiously.

“Are we there already?” she asked.

“Why, no, ma’am, it’s ei–thirty miles yet,”