The Night Riders: A Romance of Early Montana

With no further hesitation he hurried round. His only care now was to tread quietly, and even this seemed unnecessary, for the blind man’s room was at the other side of the house, and, if his suspicions were correct, Jake was busy at his nocturnal trade. Fortune favored him. The blind was down, but the lower sash of the window was raised, and he saw that, by pulling the linen on one side, he could obtain a full view of the room.

He was about to carry out his purpose. His hand was raised and reaching toward the window, when the sound of weeping came to him and checked his action. He stood listening for a second. Then, with a stifled ejaculation, he thrust his hand out further, and caught the edge of the blind.

He paused for nothing now. He had no scruples. He knew without inquiry who it was that was weeping within; who else but Diane could it be? And at the sound of each choking sob, his heart was wrung, and he longed to clasp her in his arms and comfort her. This love of his which had taken its place so suddenly in his life thrilled through his body like a fiery torrent roused to fever heat by the sound of the girl’s sobs.

Drawing the edge of the blind sharply on one side, he peered into the room. His worst fears were realized. Diane was at the far side of the kitchen sitting over the square cook-stove, rocking herself to and fro in an access of misery, and, in what seemed to him, an attitude of physical suffering. Her pretty head was bowed low upon her hands, and her whole frame was shaken by the sobs she was struggling hard to, but could not, suppress.

He took all this in at a glance, then his eyes rested upon her arms. The sleeves of her dress had been unfastened, and were thrown back from her wrists, leaving them bare to the elbow. And he saw, to his horror and indignation, that the soft, rounded flesh of her forearm was swollen and bruised. The sight made him clench his teeth, and his blue eyes suddenly hardened. He no longer permitted caution to govern his actions.

“Hist, Diane!” he whispered hoarsely. And he shook the stiff blind to further draw her attention. “It is I, Tresler,” he went on urgently.

And the girl sprang from her seat instantly and faced the window. She dashed her hand across her eyes and hastily sought to readjust her sleeves. But the pitiful attempt to thus hide her trouble only made the signs more marked. The tears still flowed, in spite of her bravest manner, and no effort of hers was able to keep the sweet lips from quivering.

She took one step in the direction of the window, but drew up with such a violent start and expression of alarm in her tearful eyes, that Tresler peered all round the room for the cause. He saw nothing more startling than a slumbering cat and the fragments of a broken lamp upon the floor, and his eyes went back to her again. Then, as he marked her attitude of attention, he understood. She was listening for the familiar but ominous “tap, tap” of her father’s stick. He too listened. Then, as no sound came to his straining ears, he spoke again.

“I must speak with you, Miss Diane,” he whispered. “Open the back door.”

It was only after making his demand that he realized how impossible it must have sounded to the distraught girl. It was the first time, since he had set out to see her, that it occurred to him how one-sided was the proposition. She had no knowledge of his resolve to thrust his aid upon her. He told himself that she could have no possible inkling of his feelings toward her; and he waited with no little anxiety for her response.

Nor was that response long in coming. She made another effort to dash the tears from her eyes. Then, half defiantly and half eagerly, she stepped up to the window.

“Go round to the door, quick!” she whispered, and moved off again as though she stood in imminent peril as a consequence of her words.

And Tresler was round at the door and standing in the shadow of the water-barrel before the bolt was slipped back. Now, as the girl raised the latch and silently opened the door, he slid within. He offered no explanation, but simply pointed to the window.

“We must close that,” he said in a low tone.

And Diane obeyed without demur. There was a quiet unobtrusive force about this man whenever his actions were directed into a definite channel. And Diane found herself complying without the least resentment, or even doubt as to the necessity for his orders. Now she came back to him, and raised a pair of trusting eyes to his face, and he, looking down into them, thought he had never gazed upon anything so sweetly pathetic; nor had he ever encountered anything quite so rousing as the implicit trust of her manner toward him. Whatever he had felt for her before, it was as nothing to the delicious sense of protection, the indefinable wave of responsibility, almost parental, that now swept over him. He felt that, come what might, she was his to cherish, to guard, to pilot through whatever shoals her life might hold for her. It was the effect of her simple womanly trust appealing to his manhood, unconsciously for her part, but nevertheless surely. Nor was that feeling only due to his love for her; it was largely the chivalrous instinct of a brave and strong man for a weak woman that filled his heart at that moment.

“There is a lot for us to talk about,” he said. “A lot that others mustn’t hear,” he added thoughtfully.

“What others?” Diane asked anxiously.

Tresler deemed it best to avoid half measures, and answered with prompt decision —

“Your father, for one.”

“Then,” said Diane, steadying at once, “we had better close the door into the passage.”

She suited the action to the word, and returned dry-eyed and calm.

“My father?” Her question was sharp; it was a demand.

Instead of answering her, Tresler pointed to the broken lamp on the floor.

“You have had an accident,” he said, and his blue eyes compelled hers, and held them.

“Yes,” she said, after the least possible hesitation. Then, not without a slight touch of resentment: “But you have not answered my question.”

“I’ll answer that later on. Let me go on in my own way.”

The girl was impressed with the gravity of his manner. She felt uneasy too. She felt how impossible it would be to hide anything from this man, who, quiet yet kindly, could exercise so masterful an influence over her. And there was a good deal just now she would have liked to keep from him. While they were talking she drew the sleeves of her dress down over her bruised wrists. Tresler saw the action and called her attention to the blackened flesh she was endeavoring to hide.

“Another accident?” he asked. And Diane kept silence. “Two accidents, and – tears,” he went on, in so gentle a tone that fresh tears slowly welled up into her eyes. “That is quite unlike you, Miss – Diane. One moment. Let me look.” He reached out to take her hands, but she drew away from him. He shrugged his shoulders. “I wonder if it were an accident?” he said, his keen eyes searching her face. “It would be strange to bruise both wrists by – accident.”

The girl held silent for a while. It was evident that a struggle was going on in her mind. Tresler watched. He saw the indecision. He knew how sorely he was pressing his advantage. Yet he must do it, if he would carry out his purpose. He felt that he was acting the brute, but it was the only way. Every barrier must be swept aside. At last she threw her head back with an impatient movement, and a slight flush of anger tinged her cheeks.

“And what if it were no accident?”

“The bruises or the lamp?”

“Both.”

“Then” – and Tresler’s tone was keenly incisive – “it is the work of some cruelly disposed person. You would not wilfully bruise yourself, Diane,” he moved nearer to her, and his voice softened wonderfully; “is there any real reason why you cannot trust me with the truth? May I not share something of your troubles? See, I will save you the pain of the telling. If I am right, do not answer me, and I shall understand. Your father has been here, and it was his doing – these things.”

The anger had passed out of the girl’s face, and her eyes, troubled enough but yielding, looked up into his.

“But how do you – ?”

“Some one, we both know whom, has maliciously been talking to your father,” Tresler went on, without heeding the interruption; “has been lying to him to prejudice him against me – us. And your father has accepted his tales without testing their veracity. Having done so, he has spoken to you. What has passed between you I do not know, nor shall I attempt to fathom. The result is more than sufficient for me. You are unhappy; you have been unusually unhappy for days. You have wept much, and now you bear signs of violence on your arms.”

Diane averted her gaze, her head was bent, and her eyes were fixed upon the broken lamp.

“Shall I go on?” Tresler continued. “Shall I tell you the whole story? Yes, I had better.”

Diane nodded without looking at him.

“You know most of it, but you may not have looked at it quite in the same way that I do.” His tone was very low, there was a great depth of earnestness in it. “We are all in the midst of a foul conspiracy, and that conspiracy it is for us to break up. Your father is threatened. You know it. And you are threatened with marriage to a rascal that should be wiped off the face of the earth. And this is the work of one man whom we believe to be the scourge of the countryside; whom we call Red Mask or Jake Harnach, according to when and where we meet him. Now, is this all to go on without protest? Will you submit? Is your father to be victimized?”

The girl shook her head.

“No,” she said. Then with a sudden burst of passion she went on, only keeping her voice low by the greatest effort. “But what can we do? I have warned father. He has been told all that you have told me. He laughed. And I grew angry. Then he grew angry, too. And – and these things are the result. Oh, he hates you because he believes Jake’s stories. And he scorns all my accusations against Jake, and treats me worse than some silly, tattling servant girl. How can we do anything?”

It was that last question that set fire to the powder-train. She had coupled herself with him, and Tresler, seeking only the faintest loophole, jumped at the opportunity it afforded him. His serious face softened. A slow, gentle smile crept into his eyes, and Diane was held by their caressing gaze.

“We can do something. We are going to do something,” he said. “Not singly, but together; you and I.”

There was that in his manner that made the girl droop her eyelids. There was a warmth, a light in his eyes he had never permitted her to see before, and her woman’s instinct set her heart beating fast, so fast that she trembled and fidgeted nervously.

“Diane,” he went on, reaching out and quietly taking possession of one of her hands, and raising it till the bared wrist displayed the cruel bruise encircling it, “no man has a right to lay a hand upon a woman to give her pain. A woman has a right to look to her men-folk to protect her, and when they fail her, she is indeed in sore straits. This,” touching the bruises with his finger, “is the work of your father, the man of all who should protect you. You are sadly alone, so much alone that I cannot see what will be the end of it – if it is allowed to go on. Diane, I love you, and I want you, henceforward, to let me be your protector. You will need some whole-hearted support in the future. I can see it. And you can see it too. Say, tell me, little girl, fate has pitched us together in a stormy sea, surely it is for me to aid you with all the loving care and help I can bestow. Believe me, I am no idle boaster. I do not even say that my protection will be worth as much as that of our faithful old Joe, but, such as it is, it is yours, whether you take me with it or no, for as long as I live.”

Diane had had time to recover from her first embarrassment. She knew that she loved this man; knew that she had done so almost from the very first. He was so different from the men she had known about the ranch. She understood, and acknowledged without shame, the feeling that had prompted her first warning to him. She knew that ever since his coming to the ranch he had hardly ever been out of her thoughts. She had never attempted to deceive herself about him. All she had feared was that she might, by some chance act, betray her feelings to him, and so earn his everlasting contempt. She was very simple and single-minded. She had known practically no association with her sex. Her father, who had kept her a willing slave by his side all her life, had seen to that. And so she had been thrown upon her own resources, with the excellent result that she had grown up with a mind untainted by any worldly thought. And now, when this man came to her with his version of the old, old story, she knew no coquetry, knew how to exercise no coyness or other blandishment. She made no pretense of any sort. She loved him, so what else was there to do but to tell him so?

“Joe has been my faithful protector for years, Mr. Tresler,” she replied, her sweet round face blushing and smiling as she raised it to him, “and I know his value and goodness. But – but I’d sooner have you – ever so much.”

And of her own accord she raised her other hand to his and placed it trustfully within his only too willing clasp. But this was not sufficient for Tresler. He reached out and took her in his powerful arms and drew her to his breast. And when he released her there were tears again in her eyes, but they were tears of happiness.

“And now, sweetheart, we must be practical again,” he said. “If I am to be your protector, I must not allow my inclination to interfere with duty. Some day, when you are my wife, we shall be able to look back on this time and be proud of our restraint. Just now it is hard. It is a moment for kisses and happy dreams, and these things are denied us – ”

He broke off and started as the flutter of the linen blind behind him drew his attention.

“I thought you shut the window,” he said sharply.

“I thought I did; perhaps I didn’t quite close it.”

Diane was about to move over to investigate, but Tresler restrained her.

“Wait.”

He went instead. The window was open about six inches. He closed and bolted it, and came back with a smile on his face that in no way deceived the girl.

“Yes, you left it open,” he said.

And Diane’s reply was an unconvinced “Ah!”

“Now let us be quick,” he went on. “Jake may threaten and bully, but he can do nothing to really hurt you. You are safe from him. For, before anything can possibly happen – I mean to you – I shall be on hand to help you. Joe is our watch-dog, asking his pardon. You can take heart in the thought that you are no longer alone. But developments are imminent, and I want you to watch your father closely, and endeavor to ascertain Jake’s attitude toward him. This is my fear – that Jake may put some nefarious scheme, as regards him, into operation; such schemes as we cannot anticipate. He may even try to silence me, or make me ineffective in some way before such time comes along. He may adopt some way of getting rid of me – ”

“What way?” There was a world of fear and anxiety in Diane’s question, and she drew up close to him as though she would protect him with her own frail body.

Tresler shrugged. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter; I have my plans arranged. The thing that is of more importance is the fact that the night-riders are abroad again. I saw them on my way here. At the same spot where I saw them before. This time I shall not conceal my knowledge of the fact.”

“You mean you will tell Jake – to his face?”

Diane gave a little gasp, and her beautiful eyes fixed themselves apprehensively upon his. They had in their depths a soft look of admiration, in spite of her anxiety and fear. But Tresler saw nothing of that. He took her question seriously.

“Certainly; it is my only means of getting into line of battle. By this means I shall make myself the centre of open attack – if all our surmises be true. It is getting late and I must go. I want to witness the return of the ruffians.”

A silence fell. The man had said it was time for him to go, but he found it hard to tear himself away. He wanted to say so much to her; he wanted to ask her so much. Diane, half shyly, came a step nearer to him, and, though her face was smiling bravely, a pucker wrinkled her brows.

“Mr. Tresler – ”

“I was christened ‘John.’”

“John, then.” The girl blushed faintly as she pronounced the name, which, spoken by her, seemed to seal the bond between them. “Is it absolutely necessary to tell Jake? Is it absolutely necessary to put yourself in such peril? Couldn’t you – ”

But she got no further. Her lover’s arms were about her in an instant. He caught her to him in a great embrace and kissed her pleading, upturned face.

“Yes, yes, yes, child. It is absolutely necessary. No, you can’t go yet,” as she struggled feebly to free herself. “I ought to leave you now, yet I can hardly tear myself away. I have heaps to ask you: about yourself, your life, your father. I want to learn all there is in your little head, in your heart, little girl. I want to make our bond of love one of perfect sympathy and understanding of each other; of trust and confidence. It is necessary. We come together here with storm-clouds gathering on our horizon; with the storm actually breaking. We come together under strange and unusual circumstances, and must fight for this love of ours. Ours will be no flower-strewn path. This much I have fully realized; but it only makes me the more determined to see it through quickly. We have to fight – good. We will be early in the field. Now good-night, sweetheart. God bless you. Trust to me. Whatever I do will be done after careful deliberation; with a view to our common goal. If I am wrong, so much the worse. I will do all that is given me to do. And, last, remember this. Should anything happen to me, you have two friends who will never let Jake marry you. They are Joe and Arizona. Now, good-bye again.”

“But nothing will happen to you – Jack?”

Every vestige of independence, every atom of the old self-reliance had gone from the girl’s manner. She clung to him, timid, loving, a gentle, weak woman. Her whole soul was in her appeal and the look she bestowed.

“I hope not. Courage, little woman. I remember the white dress, the sad, dark little face beneath the straw sun-hat of the girl who knew no fear when two men held thoughts of slaying each other, and were almost in the act of putting them into execution. You must remember her too.”

“You are right, Jack. I will be brave and help you, if I can. Good-bye.”

They kissed once more, and Tresler hurried from the room with the precipitancy of a man who can only hold to his purpose by an ignominious flight from temptation.

Outside the door he paused, turned, and closed it carefully after him. And then he listened intently. He had in no way been deceived by the window business. He knew, as Diane knew, that she had closed it. Some hand from outside had opened it; and he wondered whose had been the hand, and what the purpose.

When he passed out of the kitchen, the whole aspect of the night had changed. There was not a star visible, and the only light to guide him was that which shone through the window. He waited while Diane bolted the door, then, as nothing appeared to cause him alarm, he moved off. He had to pass round the shed where Joe slept. This was an addition to the kitchen, and quite shut off from the house. He groped his way along the wall of it till he came to the door, which stood open. He was half inclined to go in and rouse the little choreman. He felt that he would like to tell his old friend of his luck, his happiness. Then it flashed through his mind that, seeing the door was open, Joe might still be abroad. So he contented himself with listening for the sound of his breathing. All was still within; his conjecture was right. Joe had not yet turned in.

He was puzzled. Where was Joe, and what was he doing at this hour of the night?

He moved on slowly now. His thoughts were fully occupied. He was not the man to let a single detail pass without careful analysis. And the matter was curious. Especially in conjunction with the fact of the open window. He attributed no treachery to Joe, but the thing wanted explanation. He rounded the building, and as he did so understood the change in the weather. A sharp gust of wind took him, and he felt several drops of rain splash upon his face. A moment later a flash of lightning preceded a distant rumble of thunder.

He quickened his pace and drew out into the open, leaving the shadow of the woods behind him as he turned toward the ranch buildings. The light in the kitchen had been put out. Evidently Diane had already gone to bed. He stepped out briskly, and a moment later another flash of lightning revealed the window close beside him. He mechanically stretched out a hand and felt along the sill. It was tightly closed all right. A crash of thunder warned him of the quick-rising summer storm that was upon him, and the rain was coming down with that ominous solidity which portends a real, if brief, deluge. He started at a run. A drenching at that hour was unpleasant to contemplate. He had intended witnessing the return of the night-riders, but, under the circumstances, that was now out of the question.

He had only gone a few paces when he brought up to a stand. Even amidst the noisy splashing of the rain, he thought he heard the sound of running feet somewhere near by; so he stood listening with every nerve straining. Then the promised deluge came and drowned every other sound. It was no use waiting longer, so he hurried on toward his quarters.

A dozen strides further on and the sky was split from end to end with a fork of lightning, and he was brought to a dead halt by the scene it revealed. It was gone in an instant, and the thunder crashed right above him. He had distinctly seen the figures of two men running. One was running toward him, and, curiously enough, the other was running from his left rear. And yet he had seen them both. Utterly heedless of the rain now, he waited for another flash. There was something strange doing, and he wished to fathom the mystery.

The duration of the storm was only a matter of a few minutes. It seemed to have spent itself in one flash of lightning and one peal of thunder. The second flash was long in coming. But at last a hazy sheet of white light shone for a second over the western sky, revealing the ghostly shadow of a man coming at him, bearing in his upraised hand some heavy weapon of offense. He leapt to avoid the blow. But he was too late. The weapon descended, and, though he flung his arms to protect himself, the darkness foiled him, and a crushing blow on the head felled him to the ground. And as he fell some great noise roared in his ears, or so it seemed, and echoed and reëchoed through his head. Then he knew no more.

All sound was lost in the deluge of rain. The sky was unrelieved by any further flashes of light for many minutes. Then, at last, one came. A weak, distant lighting up of the clouds, overhead, but it was sufficient to show the outstretched form of the stricken man lying with his white face staring up at the sky. Also it revealed a shadowy figure bending over him. There was no face visible, no distinct outline of form. And this figure was moving, and appeared to be testing the lifeless condition of the fallen man.

Half an hour later the rain ceased, but the water was still racing down the hill in little trickling rivulets toward the ranch buildings. And as rapidly as the storm had come up so the sky cleared. Again the stars shone out and a faint radiance dimly outlined the scene of the attack.

Within fifty yards of the rancher’s house Tresler was still stretched out upon the ground, but now a different figure was bending over him. It was a well-defined figure this time, a familiar figure. A little man with a gray head and a twisted face.

It was Joe Nelson trying, by every rough art his prairie life had taught him, to restore animation and consciousness in his friend. For a long time his efforts were unavailing; the task seemed hopeless. Then, when the little man had begun to fear the very worst, his patient suddenly moved and threw out his legs convulsively. Once the springs of life had been set in motion, the hardy constitution asserted itself, and, without further warning, Tresler sat bolt upright and stared about him wonderingly. For a few seconds he sat thus, then, with a movement of intense agony, one hand went up to his head.