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Chapter Twenty Two
A Peril of the Plains
“A ‘tenderfoot,’ and – ‘turned round’!” (Lost.) And the speaker hands his field-glass to his companion. The latter brings it to bear and gazes with interest upon the object under observation.
The said object is a horseman, now between three and four miles distant. The observers from their point of vantage and concealment, a little belt of scrub and timber cresting a knoll, have been watching this object ever since it appeared on the skyline.
Thanks to the powerful glass they can make out every movement of the solitary horseman, and very irresolute his movements are. Now he reins in, and looks anxiously around; now he spurs his nag to the brow of some slight eminence, only to encounter disappointment, for the broad rolling plains lie around in unbroken monotony, affording no sort of landmark for the guidance of this inexperienced traveller. There is weariness and disappointment in his every movement. In his countenance there is more – an expression of strong apprehension, not to say alarm. This, too, thanks to the developments of science, is clear to the observers.
“A ‘tenderfoot,’ and turned round,” repeats Vipan. “Now, what the deuce can he be doing here, alone, and away from his outfit? Why – what’s the matter, Miss Santorex?”
“Look – look!” is the hurried reply. “There – to the right – down in the hollow! What – who are they?”
In her eagerness she has seized his arm, and her face has gone pale as death. But Vipan has seen at the same time what she herself has. His reply is grave and in one word.
For a new factor has appeared on the scene. Stealing around the slope of the hill, out of sight of the horseman, but so that a few minutes will bring them suddenly upon him, come nearly a score of mounted figures. Their plumed heads and long lances show them to be Indians, their painted faces and the fantastic trappings of their ponies show them to be warriors on the war-path. Their stealthy glide, as nearer and nearer they advance upon their wholly unconscious victim, leaves no doubt whatever as to their present intentions. Indeed, the observers can plainly distinguish the exultant grin on each cruel countenance as the warriors exchange glances or signals. A few moments, and the solitary horseman will ride right into their midst.
“Oh, can nothing be done to save him?” cried Yseulte Santorex, clasping her hands in the intensity of the situation.
“I’m afraid, under present circumstances – nothing,” was the reply, given with a calmness that outraged and exasperated her.
“What! I should never have believed it of you, Mr Vipan,” she cried, her eyes flashing with indignation. “I should never have believed that you – you of all men – would stand by and see a fellow-creature barbarously done to death, and make no effort to save him, or even to warn him.”
There was a strange look in Vipan’s eyes as he met her scornful and angry glance – full and unflinchingly.
“Should you not!” he replied. “Well, then, I would stand by and see a hetacomb of ‘fellow-creatures’ done to death, if the alternative lay in exposing you to serious danger.”
“Forgive me,” she said, hurriedly, and in a softer tone. “But leave me out of the question, and let us try and save him. See! There are not many Indians; we can surely do something. Oh! It is too late!”
The stranger’s horse was seen suddenly to stop short, pause, swerve, then start forward with a bound that nearly left his rider rolling on the plain. He had scented the Indians, who at the same moment appeared within a few hundred yards of the white man. Feigning astonishment at the suddenness of the meeting, one of the foremost warriors called out in broken English:
“How! White brother not run away. We good Injun – damn good Injun! Stop! – say ‘how.’ Smoke pipe – eat heap ‘chuck’! Damn good Injun, we! White brother – stop!”
But the “white brother,” though obviously a greenhorn, was not quite so soft as that. For all answer he dug the spurs into the sides of his nag in such wise as materially to increase the distance between himself and the savages. The latter, baulked of an easy and bloodless capture, together with the rare sport of putting a prisoner to death amid all manner of slow and ingenious tortures, cast all pretence to the winds, as they darted in pursuit.
Then began a race for life, which the spectators could not but watch with thrilling interest. Fortunately for the fugitive, his horse was an animal of blood and mettle, and seemed likely to show a good lead to the fleet war-ponies. But on the other hand the fugitive himself was an indifferent rider, and more than once, wholly unaccustomed to the tremendous pace, he would sway in the saddle, and only save himself by a hurried clutch at his steed’s mane from being cast headlong to the earth. The whoops and yells of the savage pursuers sounded nearer and nearer in his ears, and the expression of his countenance, livid as with the dews of death, and eyeballs starting from their sockets, was that of such despairing horror as to turn one of the two spectators sick and faint.
“There’s just a chance for him,” muttered Vipan, more to himself than to his companion. “If he takes the right fork of the valley he’s a dead man – nothing can save him. If he takes the left, it’ll bring him close under us, and I’ll give him a hail.”
“Do, for the love of Heaven!” gasped the girl through her ashy lips. “God will help us, if we try and save this stranger.”
Along the valley-bottom swept this most engrossing of all hunts – a man-hunt. Whatever advantage the superiority of his horse afforded him the fugitive was throwing away by his own clumsiness; for wildly gripping the bridle to steady himself in his seat, he was checking and worrying his steed to a perilous extent. Bent low on the necks of their ponies, the savages were urging the latter to their utmost speed. Slowly but surely now they were gaining. But a minute more and the fugitive must choose – the right fork of the valley, away into certain death – the left, succour, possible safety.
Suddenly a warrior, urging his steed in advance of the rest, literally flying over the ground, comes within fifty yards of the fugitive. Five – ten – another effort and he will be within striking distance. Then rising upright in his saddle the savage whirls a lasso in the air. Another moment and the fatal coil will have settled around the doomed man’s shoulders.
But it is not to be. A crack and a puff of smoke from the spectators’ hiding-place. The distance is too great for accuracy of aim – six hundred yards if an inch – but the ball ploughs up the ground under the pony’s feet, causing the animal to swerve and the rider to miss his cast. The warriors, disconcerted by this wholly unlooked-for danger, halt for a moment, gazing in the direction of the report. At the same time a stentorian voice calls out:
“This way, stranger. This way, for your blessed soul, or you’re a dead man!”
The fugitive needs no second invitation. His horse’s head is turned towards the never-so-welcome refuge. Amid a shower of bullets and arrows from his discomfited pursuers he gallops up the gradual slope which lies between himself and safety, and, fainting, exhausted, speechless, more dead than alive, at length flings himself upon the ground at his rescuers’ feet.
Vipan’s attention is for the moment more taken up with the red warriors than with the man he has saved from their ruthless clutches. The whole party has now withdrawn beyond range, and is busily discussing the sudden turn affairs have taken. Then turning to the panting and exhausted man stretched at full length upon the ground with closed eyes, he remarks drily:
“You’ve had a narrow squeak for it, friend. I don’t think your scalp could sit much more lightly than it has done within the last few minutes short of coming off altogether.”
But the fugitive seemed not to hear. His whole attention was fixed – riveted – upon the beautiful face bending over him in alarm – solicitude – then unbounded surprise.
“Yseulte!” he stammered. “Yseulte! Is it really you, or am I dead or dreaming?”
“Why it’s Geoffry. Geoffry Vallance! Why, Geoffry, where on earth have you dropped from?”
“Er – I was trying to catch up your – er – Major Winthrop’s party – and lost my way,” he answered stupidly – rubbing his eyes in sheer bewilderment.
Chapter Twenty Three
The “Tenderfoot.”
If Yseulte Santorex stood lost in amazement at this wholly unlooked-for meeting, there was really considerable excuse for some upsetting of her mental poise. Beyond a brief and formal farewell in the presence of her family, she had not seen her former admirer since that passionate and despairing declaration of his in the summer meadows which skirted the pleasant Lant, and neither at that time nor since had the faintest idea crossed her mind that he contemplated any such undertaking as Western or any other travel. And now here he was, flung, so to say, by Fate at her very feet, escaping by the narrowest chance from the hands of hostile savages, the most ruthless in the world. And she had been mainly instrumental in saving him.
But Geoffry had the advantage of her, in that his surprise was mainly confined to the circumstances and place of their meeting. When he had quarrelled with and separated from the rather worthless guide whom he had engaged at the nearest frontier post, he had reckoned on pushing on so as to overtake Major Winthrop’s outfit in a day at the outside, and having found it, the first part of his object would be accomplished. Then he had lost himself, as we have seen, and but for the present opportune meeting his fate was sealed. And now here was the object of his search, more winsome, more beautiful than ever, her loveliness enhanced tenfold by the glorious open-air life she had been leading. But who on earth was her companion? Not her brother. George Santorex could never have altered beyond recognition within three or four years; besides, he was dark-haired – darker than Yseulte herself – and had not the herculean build of this stranger. Thus ran Geoffry’s thoughts as, with half-closed eyes, he lay on the sward, thoroughly done up with fright and exhaustion.
Vipan, for his part, took no notice of the man whose life he had saved. He saw before him a loosely hung, shambling sort of youth, commonplace of aspect, and in no wise over-burdened with practical intelligence. Beyond the first half-bantering, half-contemptuous remark, he hardly seemed to think his new acquaintance worth addressing. Nor did he seem to think the unexpected recognition between him and Yseulte Santorex worthy of notice.
“Will they attack us, Mr Vipan?” asked the latter, with a shade of anxiety. For the Indians, having finished their consultation, were riding just beyond range, so as to make a wide circuit of the position.
“I doubt it. They are going to find our trail leading in here, so as to discover the extent of our force. They will find the trail of two horses, and not having seen you will take for granted that represents two men, instead of one man and a non-combatant. That, with our friend here, makes three. Three men with rifles, snugly fixed in a strong position, constitute far too tough a nut for a small force like that to try and crack, and they are only sixteen. No. They will conclude to go away and leave us alone.”
Yseulte gave a sigh of relief. A skirmish would mean bloodshed, and, brave as she was, the idea of seeing men shot down, even in self-defence, could not be otherwise than abhorrent to her.
“Look,” went on Vipan, “they have picked up our trail, and – there goes the inevitable white rag.”
The warriors had stopped, clustered together, and having briefly scrutinised the ground, one of their number rode out, waving a dirty rag on a lance-point.
“Flourish away, friend,” remarked Vipan, drily; “I guess we’re not going to be drawn by any such childish device.”
“Don’t they want to make terms?” said Yseulte.
“No doubt. But we don’t. They know our number. What they want now is to find out our strength – who we are, in short. Now there isn’t a red on the Northern Plains who doesn’t know me, by sight or intuition, and this time I’m going to let them entertain a Tartar unawares; if they try fighting, that is.”
Finding no notice whatever was taken of their signals, the savages again gathered in consultation. Then the warrior who had hoisted the white flag advanced from among the rest, and yelled out in broken English:
“Ha-yah, ha-yah! Golden Face Injun’s brudder! Good hoss, ole debbil Satanta – make big trail. Golden Face bring out lily white gal. Good squaw for Injun brudder! Ha-yah!”
The whole band screamed with laughter, but the insolent buck grinned rather too soon. Long as the range was, a ball from Vipan’s rifle crashed through his shin-bone, and both he and his pony rolled upon the ground; the latter in the throes of death. Their mirth changed into a yell of rage; the band scattered, and withdrawing to a more respectful distance, began circling frantically around the position, waving their weapons and bawling out such expletives and coarse expressions as their limited knowledge of Anglo-Saxon allowed. Finally, their vocabulary having given out, they once more collected together, and with a parting jeer rode leisurely away.
“There go sixteen as disgusted reds as are to be met on the Plains this day,” said Vipan as the last of the warriors disappeared over the far rise. “And now, Miss Santorex, sorry as I am to disappoint you, we must put off our picnic à deux, or rather à trois, and get back to camp as soon as possible. Those chaps might fall in with a lot more of their tribe, and double back on us sharp, or half-a-hundred things might happen. So we’ve no time to lose.”
Vipan was not the man to leave anything to chance, but although no square foot of the surrounding country escaped his keen glance, as they cantered merrily away from the scene of the late fracas, not a sign of their recent foes was visible. The vast rolling plains shimmering in the afternoon heat lay silent and deserted, and save that a film of smoke in the far distance, marking the site of the emigrants’ camp, was faintly discernible, might have been untrodden by human foot.
“By the way, Mr – er?” began Vipan.
” – Vallance.”
“Well, Mr Balance.”
“Er – Vallance.”
“Oh, Vallance, I beg your pardon. Well, Mr Vallance, I was going to say, what do you think of Indian fighting? Never saw ‘Mr Lo’ 4 on the war-path before, I take it?”
“No, never. And I don’t particularly care if I never see him again,” answered Geoffry, flurriedly. “Er – you have saved my life, Mr – er – ?”
“Vipan.”
” – Mr Vipan,” he stuttered; “and but for you I should be a dead man at this moment.”
“Not strictly accurate, and that in two particulars,” was the quiet reply. “In the first place, you should have said ‘But for Miss Santorex’; in the second, you would not have had the luck to be a dead man at this moment. You would be squirming a good deal nearer to a slow fire than is either pleasant or salubrious.”
Geoffry turned pale, nor could he repress a slight shudder as he thought of the ghastly fate from which he had escaped, as it were, by the skin of his teeth. Then the sight of his enslaver – so unexpectedly met with, and, like himself, dependent for aid and protection amid the grisly perils of these Western wilds, upon this mysterious stranger, who treated him, Geoffry, with a patronising and tolerant air which under any other circumstances would have been galling in the extreme – roused a wave of jealousy and distrust in the young man’s breast. What the deuce was she doing here, careering about the country with this splendidly handsome desperado? But the latter’s next words seemed to solve the enigma.
“I reckon you’ll follow the crowd next time you feel like running buffalo, Miss Santorex. I ought not to have exposed you to even this small risk.”
“A delicate way of reminding me that I’ve only myself to thank for risking being scalped,” she replied demurely, but with a mischievous smile struggling not to break forth. “Well, it’s perfectly true. I made you take me, and you all agreed it was quite safe. But we killed our buffalo after all – though I didn’t like the killing part of it – and I shall never get the chance of a buffalo hunt again. Besides,” with a glance at Geoffry and a serious ring in her voice, “it looks as if we had been sent here on purpose.”
“I say,” sputtered Geoffry, staring at Vipan, as though bursting with a new idea. “I say, w-were you ever at the ’Varsity?”
“Which ’Varsity?”
“Why, Oxford or Cambridge, don’t cher know. You give me the idea of a man who has been there.”
“Do I? If I was there at all, it must have been rather before you were born,” replied the other, imperturbably.
“Hang the fellow, he needn’t be so close!” thought Geoffry, with a sullen sense of having been “shut up.” But he was glad enough to see safety and comfort in the shape of Major Winthrop’s camp, which lay about a mile distant, between them and the setting sun, although he was conscious of a profound feeling of jealousy and distrust towards the man to whom he owed that safety and comfort.
“My partner will show up this evening,” said Vipan, tranquilly. “In fact I shouldn’t wonder if we found him in camp when we arrive, and what’s more, he’ll know exactly what we’ve been doing since I joined you.”
“How on earth will he know?” asked Yseulte, wonderingly.
“That’s just how he will know,” was the amused reply. “By looking on the earth. We have a code of our own. But, you’ll see, anyhow.”
Chapter Twenty Four
A Bomb for the Rev. Dudley
The Rev. Dudley Vallance sat in his library sorting out the contents of the post-bag.
There was his usual correspondence, all of which he knew at a glance, and tossed impatiently aside, and two or three missives in an unknown hand, which met with no greater attention. But that which he sought was not there. Not a line from his absent son.
More than a month had elapsed since Geoffry had started on his travels. To the surprise of his parents, he had as suddenly come round to their plans, and was as ardently ready to go abroad as he had been formerly opposed to the idea. Still more to their surprise, he had expressed a firm determination to travel in the United States and nowhere else; and, with an energy wholly foreign to his limp nature, had extorted from them a promise to reveal no word of his intention until after his departure. Of course, the reason of this was soon made manifest; yet his indulgent father would not oppose him. And now, for nearly a fortnight, no news of him had been received. To be sure, he had been on the eve of quitting the furthest limits of Western civilisation when he last wrote – probably opportunities of communication were few and far between. Yet the Rev. Dudley felt very anxious, very disappointed.
Mechanically he opened his letters, one after another, but hardly glanced at the contents. Even the announcement that a couple of farms would shortly be thrown on his hands – a notice which at any other time would have disturbed his rest for a week – passed unheeded now. Suddenly his face paled, and a quick gasp escaped his white lips. He had come to the last letter of all, and it was from his solicitors.
We know of nothing more calculated to knock a man out of all time than a wholly unexpected and equally unwelcome communication imparted through the agency of the post. If imparted by word of mouth, he can find some relief in questioning his informant, but when coming through the medium of a letter, especially a lawyer’s letter, there is that in the cold, stiff paper, in the precise, hateful characters, as unbending, as inexorable as the very finality of Fate. The communication which, even in the midst of his paternal anxiety, had knocked Mr Vallance so thoroughly out of time, conveyed nothing less than the news that a claimant had come forward to dispossess him of the Lant estates, to contest the late squire’s will on several grounds, including that of fraud. And the said claimant was no less a personage than the late squire’s son.
And really it is not surprising that he should have been knocked out of time. In a lightning-flash there passed before him a vision of years of litigation, draining his resources and impoverishing his estate – and that even should things not come to the worst. The tone of his lawyers’ letter was not reassuring. This meant that, in their opinion, the claimant had a good case. How good that case might be was a consideration which turned the reverend squire’s features a trifle paler.
Then came a ray of hope. Ralph Vallance had not been heard of for years, nearer twenty than ten. He had probably gone to the dogs long ago, had joined the ranks of the “shady,” and, in keeping with his umbrageous character, was now trying to extort a compromise, or, failing that, a sum of money not to make himself troublesome. But to this happy idea succeeded a darker one, dousing the first as in a rush of ink. Probably with the extraordinary luck which now and then befalls the thorough adventurer, Ralph was returning a rich man, prepared, out of sheer vindictiveness, to devote a large portion of his wealth to plunging his cousin into protracted litigation, with all its harassing and impoverishing results. This would be about as disastrous, in the long run, as the actual establishment of the claim.
Again and again he read the hateful missive, until every word of it was burnt into his brain, but he gleaned no comfort. From whatever point he thought it over, the outlook was about as gloomy as it could be. The summer air came into the room in soft and balmy puffs, laden with the scent of roses. He could hear his children’s voices on the terrace below, and away over many a mile of rolling down his eye wandered over pleasant pastures alternating with velvety woodland, and yellow corn-fields awaiting the sickle; to the river flashing like a silver streak through the shade of the beeches, where the deer lay in antlered and dappled groups, lazily chewing the cud in the soft and sensuous forenoon. All this was his own, and his son’s after him – an hour ago, that is. But now? He saw himself adrift in his old age, and his idolised son drudging miserably for daily bread. He saw the kinsman, in whose place he had for so long stood, ejecting him pitilessly, vindictively; exacting, it might be, all arrears to the uttermost farthing. Even after this lapse of years (nearer twenty than ten) he cowered beneath the bitter and burning home-truths which that kinsman had hurled at him, here, in this very room, and his heart quaked and his blood curdled at the promise of a terrible and unlooked-for vengeance with which his kinsman had left him. Time had gone by; year had succeeded year; his children growing up, and he himself in undisturbed possession, and the force of these denunciations and threats had become dulled. He had long since come to categorise them in his own mind as the furious vapourings of a desperate and disappointed man. And now they were to bear fruit, to strike him down in his old age, to turn him and his homeless and helpless on the world. The wretched man dropped his head into his hands and groaned aloud.
But, the reader will ask, what was the man made of to start by discounting the worst; to throw up the sponge so abjectly at the very first threat of battle? Well, there may be something in the adage that conscience makes cowards – of certain temperaments, or there may have been a something underlying the whole affair unknown even to Mr Vallance’s own lawyers, or, possibly, a good deal of both. We can only say: Reader, persevere, and discover for yourself.
Suddenly there floated in upon the summer air a mellow peal of church bells. Mr Vallance aroused himself. He had forgotten it was Sunday, forgotten his anxiety about Geoffry, forgotten everything in this new and terrible blow that threatened him. The turning of the door-handle made him fairly start from his chair, so overwrought were his nerves.
“The girls have gone on, Dudley,” said his wife, entering, a sumptuous presence in her church-going attire.
“All right, my dear. Kindly overtake them, will you? I’ll follow you when I’m ready.”
“But you’ll be very late. Why, what is the matter?” she broke off, alarmed by his appearance and the huskiness of his tone. Then glancing at the pile of newly-opened letters – “Is it bad news? Not – not about Geoffry?”
“No, not about Geoffry; thank Heaven for that. There is no word of the boy or his movements. It is – er – merely a very unfortunate and perplexing matter of business. Please don’t wait for me.”
Those who caught a glimpse of their pastor’s face that morning as he swept up the church behind his little procession of choir-boys were startled at the grey, set expression it wore; and when, after several mistakes and omissions in the performance of the service, he brought it to a close without a sermon, the parish – such of it as was present, at least – came to the conclusion that something must have gone very wrong indeed. Had Mr Vallance heard bad news about his son? No, for when the retired jerry-builder, who was also churchwarden, meeting the parson after service, made the enquiry in a sepulchral and sympathising stage-whisper, he met with a very unconcerned answer in the negative.
“Parson do look main sick, surely” was the verdict of the village, as, represented by its choicest louts, it hung around the churchyard gate, and subsequently at the corners of the roads and lanes, previous to its afternoon Sunday loaf among the same. “Parson, he be agein’, he be.”
Thus the village verdict.
“Poor Mr Vallance was looking very ill this morning,” remarked Mrs Santorex at dinner that day. “He could hardly get through the service. Everybody thought at first that he had heard bad news of Geoffry, but it appears not. In fact, he had heard no news of him at all.”
“Likely enough he has been hard hit in the pocket department,” rejoined her lord. “Probably, ‘poor Mr Vallance’ has been dabbling in bubble investments; and his particular bubble has – gone the way of all bubbles. Rather rough that he should hear about it on Sunday, though, the day of all others when he has to show up in public. So he blundered over the service, did he? Well, our shepherd ought to know by this time that he can’t serve two masters – ha – ha!”
But when later in the afternoon Mr and Mrs Vallance, with a brace of daughters, dropped in, Mr Santorex felt persuaded that at least one of the quartet had come there with further intent than that of making a mere friendly call, and accordingly he awaited events in a kind of mental ambush congenial to his cynical soul.
“Any news of Yseulte?” asked Mrs Vallance, rising to depart.
“Yes. She has fallen in with a Major Winthrop and his wife. They seem very good sort of people, and the little girl is going to travel under their charge. They are neighbours of my boy George, and are returning to their ranche.”
“Can I have a word with you, Santorex?” said the Rev. Dudley, lingering at the gate, having told his wife and daughters to go on without him. “Er – the fact is,” he continued, lowering his voice, as the other nodded assent, “the fact is – er – something rather troublesome – a mere trifle that is to say – has occurred to worry me. Have you any idea of the whereabouts of Ralph Vallance?”
“Not the faintest.”
“Oh. I thought perhaps you might know something about him. I believe you and he were – er – on friendly terms at one time?”
“Yes, we were. Why? Have you heard anything about him?”
“Er – well, I may say this much. I fancy the poor fellow is in need of assistance – if only I knew where he was.”
“Afraid I can’t help you to learn. Stay. It was only lately I was turning out a lot of old correspondence, and there was a whole bundle of Ralph’s letters. It was just before Chickie went away. I’ll hunt them up and see if they afford any clue.”
The other started. A scared, anxious look came into his face at the mention of the correspondence.
“Might I – might I just look over those letters?” he asked, eagerly.
“H’m. I’m afraid I can hardly agree to that. But if I find anything in them likely to be of service to you I won’t fail to let you know.”
With this, Mr Vallance was forced to be content. His late host stood shaking his head softly as he looked after his retreating figure, and that cynical half-smile played about the corners of his mouth.