A Man Four-Square | Page 6

impossible to look her little
brother Jimmie in the face. Would they believe the story she told? And
if they were convinced of its truth, what difference would that make?
She was what she was, no matter how she had become so.
On the pike they met old Nance Cunningham returning from the mill
with a sack of meal. The story of that meeting was one the old gossip
told after the tragedy to many an eager circle of listeners,
"She jes' lifted her han' an' stopped me, an' if death was ever writ on a
human face it shorely wuz stomped on hers. 'I want you to tell my
father I'm sorry,' she sez. 'He swore he'd marry me inside of an hour.
This man hyer--his brother--made out like he wuz a preacher an'
married us. Tell my father that an' ask him to forgive me if he can.'

That wuz all she said. Ranse Roush hit her horse with a switch an' sez,
'Yo' kin tell him all that yore own self soon as you git home.' I reckon I
wuz the lastest person she spoke to alive."
They left the old woman staring after them with her mouth open. It
could have been only a few minutes later that they reached Quicksand
Creek.
'Lindy pulled up her horse to let the men precede her through the ford.
They splashed into the shallows on the other side of the creek and
waited for her to join them. Instead, she slipped from the saddle, ran
down the bank, and plunged into the quicksand.
"Goddlemighty!" shrieked Ranse. "She's a-drowndin' herself in the
sands."
They spurred their horses back across the creek and ran to rescue the
girl. But she had flung herself forward face down far out of their reach.
They dared not venture into the quivering bog after her. While they still
stared in a frozen horror, the tragedy was completed. The victim of
their revenge had disappeared beneath the surface of the morass.
Chapter I
"Call Me Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em"
The boy had spent the night at a water-hole in a little draw near the foot
of the mesa. He had supped on cold rations and slept in his blanket
without the comfort of glowing piñon knots. For yesterday he had cut
Indian signs and after dark had seen the shadow of Apache camp-fires
reflected in the clouds.
After eating he swung to the bare back of his pony and climbed to the
summit of the butte. His trained eyes searched the plains. A big bunch
of antelope was trailing down to water almost within rifle-shot. But he
was not looking for game.
He sniffed the smoke from the pits where the renegades were roasting

mescal and judged the distance to the Apache camp at close to ten
miles. His gaze swept toward the sunrise horizon and rested upon a
cloud of dust. That probably meant a big herd of cattle crossing to the
Pecos Valley on the Chisum Trail that led to Fort Stanton. The riders
were likely just throwing the beeves from the bed-ground to the trail.
The boy waited to make sure of their line of travel.
Presently he spoke aloud, after the fashion of the plainsman who
spends much time alone in the saddle. "Looks like they'll throw off
to-night close to the 'Pache camp. If they do hell's a-goin' to pop just
before sunup to-morrow. I reckon I'll ride over and warn the outfit."
From a trapper the boy had learned that a band of Mescalero Apaches
had left the reservation three weeks before, crossed into Mexico, gone
plundering down the Pecos, and was now heading back toward the
Staked Plains. Evidently the drover did not know this, since he was
moving his cattle directly toward the Indian camp.
The young fellow let his cowpony pick its way down the steep shale
hill to the draw. He saddled without a waste motion, packed his
supplies deftly, mounted, and was off. In the way he cut across the
desert toward the moving herd was the certainty of the frontiersman.
He did not hurry, but he wasted no time. His horse circled in and out
among the sand dunes, now topped a hill, now followed a wash. Every
foot of the devious trail was the most economical possible.
At the end of nearly an hour's travel he pulled up, threw down his
bridle reins, and studied the ground carefully. He had cut Indian sign.
What he saw would have escaped the notice of a tenderfoot, and if it
had been pointed out to him none but an expert trailer would have
understood its significance. Yet certain facts were printed here on the
desert for this boy as plainly as if they had been stenciled on a
guide-post. He knew