The Trail to Yesterday

Duncan had already ridden over sixty miles within the past twenty-four hours, and he made a grumbling rejoinder. But in the end he roped one of Dakota’s horses, saddled it, and presently vanished in the darkness. Allen and his men built a fire near the edge of the clearing and rolled into their blankets.

At eight o’clock the following morning, Langford appeared on the river trail, leading a pack horse loaded with provisions and cooking utensils for the sheriff and his men. Duncan, Langford told Allen while they breakfasted, had sought his bunk, being tired from the day’s activities.

“You’re the owner of the Double R?” questioned Allen.

“You and Dakota friendly?” he questioned again, noting Langford’s nod.

“We’ve been quite friendly,” smiled Langford.

“But you ain’t now?”

“Not since this has happened. We must have law and order, even at the price of friendship.”

Allen squinted a mildly hostile eye at Langford. “That’s a good principle to get back of – for a weak-kneed friendship. But most men who have got friends wouldn’t let a little thing like law and order interfere between them.”

Langford reddened. “I haven’t known Dakota long of course,” he defended. “Perhaps I erred in saying we were friends. Acquaintances would better describe it I think.”

Allen’s eye narrowed again with an emotion that Langford could not fathom. “I always had a heap of faith in Dakota’s judgment,” he said. And then, when Langford’s face flushed with a realization of the subtle insult, Allen said gruffly:

“You say Doubler’s dead?”

“I don’t remember to have said that to you,” returned Langford, his voice snapping with rage. “What I did say was that Duncan saw him killed and came to me with the news. I sent him for you. Since then my daughter has been over to Doubler’s cabin. He is quite dead, she reported,” he lied. “There can be no doubt of his guilt, if that is what bothers you,” he continued. “Duncan saw him shoot Doubler in the back with Doubler’s own rifle, and my daughter heard the shot and met Dakota coming from Doubler’s cabin, immediately after. It’s a clear case, it seems to me.”

“Yes, clear,” said Allen. “The evidence is all against him.”

Yet it was not all quite clear to Langford. To be sure, he had expected to receive news that Dakota had accomplished the destruction of Doubler, but he had not anticipated the fortunate appearance of Duncan at the nester’s cabin during the commission of the murder, nor had he expected Sheila to be near the scene of the crime. It had turned out better than he had planned, for since he had burned the agreement that he had made with Dakota, the latter had no hold on him whatever, and if it were finally proved that he had committed the crime there would come an end to both Dakota and Doubler.

Only one thing puzzled him. Dakota had been to his place, he knew that he was charged with the murder and that the agreement had been burned. He also knew that Duncan and Sheila would bear witness against him. And yet, though he had had an opportunity to escape, he had not done so. Why not?

He put this interrogation to Allen, carefully avoiding reference to anything which would give the sheriff any idea that he possessed any suspicion that Dakota was not really guilty.

“That’s what’s bothering me!” declared the latter. “He’s had time enough to hit the breeze clear out of the Territory. Though,” he added, squinting at Langford, “Dakota ain’t never been much on the run. He’d a heap rather face the music. Damn the cuss!” he exploded impatiently.

He finished his breakfast in silence, and then again approached the door of Dakota’s cabin, knocking loudly, as before.

“I’m wanting that palaver now, Dakota,” he said coaxingly.

He heard Dakota laugh. “Have you viewed the corpse, Allen?” came his voice, burdened with mockery.

“No,” said Allen.

“You’re a hell of a sheriff – wanting to take a man when you don’t know whether he’s done anything.”

“I reckon you ain’t fooling me none,” said Allen slowly. “The evidence is dead against you.”

“What evidence?”

“Duncan saw you fixing Doubler, and Langford’s daughter met you coming from his cabin.”

“Who told you that?”

“Langford. He’s just brought some grub over.”

The silence that followed Allen’s words lasted long, and the sheriff fidgeted impatiently. When he again spoke there was the sharpness of intolerance in his voice.

“If talking to you was all I had to do, I might monkey around here all summer,” he said. “I’ve give you about eight hours to think this thing over, and that’s plenty long enough. I don’t like to get into any gun argument with you, because I know that somebody will get hurt. Why in hell don’t you surrender decently? I’m a friend of yours and you hadn’t ought to want to make any trouble for me. And them’s good boys that I’ve got over there and I wouldn’t want to see any of them perforated. And I’d hate like blazes to have to put you out of business. Why don’t you act decent and come out like a man?”

“Go and look at the corpse,” insisted Dakota.

“There’ll be plenty of time to look at the corpse after you’re took.”

There was no answer. Allen sighed regretfully. “Well,” he said presently, “I’ve done what I could. From now on, I’m looking for you.”

“Just a minute, Allen,” came Dakota’s voice. To Allen’s surprise he heard a fumbling at the fastenings of the door, and an instant later it swung open and Dakota stood in the opening, one of his six-shooters in hand.

“I reckon I know you well enough to be tolerably sure that you’ll get me before you leave here,” he said, as Allen wheeled and faced him, his arms folded over his chest as a declaration of his present peaceful intentions. “But I want you to get this business straight before anything is started. And then you’ll be responsible. I’m giving it to you straight. Somebody’s framed up on me. I didn’t shoot Doubler. When I left him he was cleaning his rifle. After I left him I heard shooting. I thought it was him trying his rifle, or I would have gone back.

“Then I met Sheila Langford on the river trail, near the cabin. She’d heard the shooting, too. She thinks I did it. You think I did it, and Duncan says he saw me do it. Doubler isn’t dead. At least he wasn’t dead when I left the doctor with him at sundown. But he wasn’t far from it, and if he dies without coming to it’s likely that things will look bad for me. But because I knew he wasn’t dead I took a chance on staying here. I am not allowing that I’m going to let anyone hang me for a thing I didn’t do, and so if you’re determined to get me without making sure that Doubler’s going to have mourners immediately, it’s a dead sure thing that some one’s going to get hurt. I reckon that’s all. I’ve given you fair warning, and after you get back to the edge of the clearing our friendship don’t count any more.”

He stepped back and closed the door.

Allen walked slowly toward the clearing, thinking seriously. He said nothing to Langford or his men concerning his conversation with Dakota, and though he covertly questioned the former he could discover nothing more than that which the Double R owner had already told him. Several times during the morning he was on the point of planning an attack on the cabin, but Dakota’s voice had a ring of truth in it and he delayed action, waiting for some more favorable turn of events.

And so the hours dragged. The men lounged in the shade of the trees and talked; Langford – though he had no further excuse for staying – remained, concealing his impatience over Allen’s inaction by taking short rides, but always returning; Allen, taciturn, morose even, paid no attention to him.

The afternoon waned; the sun descended to the peaks of the mountains, and there was still inaction on Allen’s part, still silence from the cabin. Just at sundown Allen called his men to him and told them to guard the cabin closely, not to shoot unless forced by Dakota, but to be certain that he did not escape.

He said they might expect him to return by dawn of the following morning. Then, during Langford’s absence on one of his rides, he loped his pony up the river trail toward Ben Doubler’s cabin.

CHAPTER XVII

DOUBLER TALKS

After the departure of the doctor Sheila entered the cabin and closed the door, fastening the bars and drawing a chair over near the table. Doubler seemed to be resting easier, though there was a flush in his cheeks that told of the presence of fever. However, he breathed more regularly and with less effort than before the coming of the doctor, and as a consequence, Sheila felt decidedly better. At intervals during the night she gave him quantities of the medicine which the doctor had left, but only when the fever seemed to increase, forcing the liquid through his lips. Several times she changed the bandages, and once or twice during the night when he moaned she pulled her chair over beside him and smoothed his forehead, soothing him. When the dawn came it found her heavy eyed and tired.

She went to the river and procured fresh water, washed her hands and face, prepared a breakfast of bacon and soda biscuit – which she found in a tin box in a corner of the cabin, and then, as Doubler seemed to be doing nicely, she saddled her pony and took a short gallop. Returning, she entered the cabin, to find Doubler tossing restlessly.

She gave him a dose of the medicine – an extra large one – but it had little effect, quieting him only momentarily. Evidently he was growing worse. The thought aroused apprehension in her mind, but she fought it down and stayed resolutely at the sick man’s side.

Through the slow-dragging hours of the morning she sat beside him, giving him the best care possible under the circumstances, but in spite of her efforts the fever steadily rose, and at noon he sat suddenly up in the bunk and gazed at her with blazing, vacuous eyes.

“You’re a liar!” he shouted. “Dakota’s square!”

Sheila stifled a scream of fear and shrank from him. But recovering, she went to him, seizing his shoulders and forcing him back into the bunk. He did not resist, not seeming to pay any attention to her at all, but he mumbled, inexpressively:

“It ain’t so, I tell you. He’s just left me, an’ any man which could talk like he talked to me ain’t – I reckon not,” he said, shaking his head with a vigorous, negative motion; “you’re a heap mistaken – you ain’t got him right at all.”

He was quiet for a time after this, but toward the middle of the afternoon Sheila saw that his gaze was following her as she paced softly back and forth in the cabin.

“So you’re stuck on that Langford girl, are you?” he demanded, laughing. “Well, it won’t do you any good, Dakota, she’s – well, she’s some sore at you for something. She won’t listen to anything which is said about you.” The laughter died out of his eyes; they became cold with menace. “I ain’t listenin’ to any more of that sorta talk, I tell you! I’ve got my eyes open. Why!” he said in surprise, starting up, “he’s gone!” He suddenly shuddered and cursed. “In the back,” he said. “You – you – ” And profanity gushed from his lips. Then he collapsed, closing his eyes, and lay silent and motionless.

Out of the jumble of disconnected sentences Sheila was able to gather two things of importance – perhaps three.

The first was that some one had told him of Dakota’s complicity in the plan to murder him and that he refused to believe his friend capable of such depravity. The second was that he knew who had shot him; he also knew the man who had informed him of Dakota’s duplicity – though this knowledge would amount to very little unless he recovered enough to be able to supply the missing threads.

Sheila despaired of him supplying anything, for it seemed that he was steadily growing worse, and when the dusk came she began to feel a dread of remaining with him in the cabin during the night. If only the doctor would return! If Dakota would come – Duncan, her father, anybody! But nobody came, and the silence around the cabin grew so oppressive that she felt she must scream. When darkness succeeded dusk she lighted the kerosene lamp, placed a bar over the window, secured the door fastenings, and seated herself at the table, determined to take a short nap.

It seemed that she had scarcely dropped off to sleep – though in reality she had been unconscious for more than two hours – when she awoke suddenly, to see Doubler sitting erect in the bunk, watching her with a wan, sympathetic smile. There was the light of reason in his eyes and her heart gave an ecstatic leap.

“Could you give me a drink of water, ma’am?” he said, in the voice that she knew well.

She sprang to the pail, to find that it contained very little. She had lifted it, and was about to unfasten the door, intending to go to the river to procure fresh water, when Doubler’s voice arrested her.

“There’s some water there – I can hear it splashin’: It’ll do well enough just now. I don’t want much. You can get some fresh after a while. I want to talk to you.”

She placed the pail down and went over to him, standing beside him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“How long have you been here? I knowed you was here all the time – I kept seein’ you, but somehow things was a little mixed. But I know that you’ve been here quite a while. How long?”

“This is the second night.”

“You found me layin’ there – in the door. I dropped there, not bein’ able to go any further. I felt you touchin’ me – draggin’ me. There was someone else here, too. Who was it?”

“The doctor and Dakota.”

“Where’s Dakota now?”

“At his cabin, I suppose. He didn’t stay here long – he left right after he brought the doctor. I imagine you know why he didn’t stay. He was afraid that you would recognize him and accuse him.”

“Accuse him of what, ma’am?”

“Of shooting you.”

He smiled. “I reckon, ma’am, that you don’t understand. It wasn’t Dakota that shot me.”

“Who did, then?” she questioned eagerly. “Who?”

“Duncan.”

“Why – why – ” she said, sitting suddenly erect, a mysterious elation filling her, her eyes wide with surprise and delight, and a fear that Doubler might have been mistaken – “Why, I saw Dakota on the river trail just after you were shot.”

“He’d just left me. He hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes or so when Duncan rode up – comin’ out of the timber just down by the crick. Likely he’d been hidin’ there. I was cleanin’ my rifle; we had words, and when I set my rifle down just outside the shack, he grabbed it an’ shot me. After that I don’t seem to remember a heap, except that someone was touchin’ me – which must have been you.”

“Oh!” she said. “I am so glad!”

She was thinking now of Dakota’s parting words to her the night before on the crest of the slope above the river, – of his words, of the truth of his statement denying his guilt, and she was glad that she had not spoken some of the spiteful things which had been in her mind. How she had misjudged him!

“I reckon it’s something to be glad for,” smiled Doubler, misunderstanding her elation, “but I reckon I owe it to you – I’d have pulled my freight sure, if you hadn’t come when you did. An’ I told you not to be comin’ here any more.” He laughed. “Ain’t it odd how things turn out – sometimes. I’d have died sure,” he repeated.

“You are going to live a long while,” she said. And then, to his surprise, she bent over and kissed his forehead, leaving his side instantly, her cheeks aflame, her eyes alight with a mysterious fire. To conceal her emotion from Doubler she seized the water pail.

“I will get some fresh water,” she said, with a quick, smiling glance at him. “You’ll want a fresh drink, and your bandages must be changed.”

She opened the door and stepped down into the darkness.

There was a moon, and the trail to the river was light enough for her to see plainly, but when she reached the timber clump in which Doubler had said Duncan had been hiding, she shuddered and made a detour to avoid passing close to it. This took her some distance out of her way, and she reached the river and walked along its bank for a little distance, searching for a deep accessible spot into which she could dip the pail.

The shallow crossing over which she had ridden many times was not far away, and when she stooped to fill the pail she heard a sudden clatter and splashing, and looked up to see a horseman riding into the water from the opposite side of the river.

He saw her at the instant she discovered him, and once over the ford he turned his horse and rode directly toward her.

After gaining the bank he halted his pony and looked intently at her.

“You’re Langford’s daughter, I reckon,” he said.

“Yes,” she returned, seeing that he was a stranger; “I am.”

“I’m Ben Allen,” he said shortly; “the sheriff of this county. What are you doing here?”

“I am taking care of Ben Doubler,” she said; “he has been – ”

“Then he ain’t dead, of course,” said Allen, interrupting her. It seemed to Sheila that there was relief and satisfaction in his voice, and she peered closer at him, but his face was hidden in the shadow of his hat brim.

“He is very much better now,” she told him, scarcely able to conceal her delight. “But he has been very bad.”

“Able to talk?”

“Yes. He has just been talking to me.” She took a step toward him, speaking earnestly and rapidly. “I suppose you are looking for Dakota,” she said, remembering what her father had told her about sending Duncan to Lazette for the sheriff. “If you are looking for him, I want to tell you that he didn’t shoot Doubler. It was Duncan. Doubler told me so not over five minutes ago. He said – ”

But Allen had spurred his pony forward, and before she could finish he was out of hearing distance, riding swiftly toward the cabin.

Sheila lingered at the water’s edge, for now suddenly she saw much beauty in the surrounding country, and she was no longer lonesome. She stood on the bank of the river, gazing long at the shadowy rims of the distant mountains, at their peaks, rising majestically in the luminous mist of the night; at the plains, stretching away and fading into the mysterious shadows of the distance; watching the waters of the river, shimmering like quicksilver – a band of glowing ribbon winding in and out and around the moon-touched buttes of the canyons.

“Oh!” she said irrelevantly, “he isn’t so bad, after all!”

Stooping over again to fill the pail, she heard a sharp clatter of hoofs behind her. A horseman was racing toward the river – toward her – bending low over his pony’s mane, riding desperately. She placed the pail down and watched him. Apparently he did not see her, for, swerving suddenly, he made for the crossing without slackening speed. He had almost reached the water’s edge when there came a spurt of flame from the door of Doubler’s cabin, followed by the sharp whip like crack of a rifle!

In the doorway of the cabin, clearly outlined against the flickering light of the interior, was a man. And as Sheila watched another streak of fire burst from the door, and she heard the shrill sighing of the bullet, heard the horseman curse. But he did not stop in his flight, and in an instant he had crossed the river. She saw him for an instant as he was outlined against the clear sky in the moonlight that bathed the crest of the slope, and then he was gone.

Dropping the pail, Sheila ran toward the cabin, fearing that Doubler had suddenly become delirious and had attacked Allen. But it seemed to her that it had not been Allen who had raced away from the cabin, and she had not gone more than half way toward it when she saw another horseman coming. She halted to wait for him, and when he halted and drew up beside her she saw that it was the sheriff.

“Who was it?” she demanded, breathlessly.

“Duncan!” Allen cursed picturesquely and profanely. “When I got to the shack he was inside, standing over Doubler, strangling him. The damned skunk! You was right,” he added; “it was him who shot Doubler!” He continued rapidly, grimly, taking a piece of paper from a pocket and writing something on it.

“My men have got Dakota corraled in his cabin. If he tries to get away they will do for him. I don’t want that to happen; there’s too few square men in the country as it is. Take this” – he held out the paper to her – “and get down to Dakota’s cabin with it. Give it to Bud – one of my men – and tell him to scatter the others and try to head off Duncan if he comes that way. I’m after him!”

The paper fluttered toward her, she snatched at it, missed it, and stooped to take it from the ground. When she stood erect she saw Allen and his pony silhouetted for an instant on the crest of the ridge on the other side of the river. Then he vanished.

CHAPTER XVIII

FOR DAKOTA

Though in a state of anxiety and excitement over the incident of Duncan’s attack on Doubler and the subsequent shooting, together with a realization of Dakota’s danger, Sheila did not lose her composure. She ran to the river and secured the water, aware that it might be needed now more than ever. Then, hurrying as best she could with the weight of the pail, she returned to the cabin.

She was relieved to find that Doubler had received no injury, and she paused long enough to allow him to tell her that Duncan had entered the cabin shortly after she had left it. He had attacked Doubler, but had been interrupted by Allen, who had suddenly ridden up. Duncan had heard him coming, and had concealed himself behind the door, and when Allen had entered Duncan had struck him on the head with the butt of his six-shooter, knocking him down. The blow had been a glancing one, however, and Allen had recovered quickly, seizing Doubler’s rifle and trying to bring down the would be murderer as he fled.

While attending to Doubler’s bandages, Sheila repeated the conversation she had had with Allen concerning the situation in which he had left Dakota, and instantly the nester’s anxiety for his friend took precedence over any thoughts for his own immediate welfare.

“There’ll be trouble sure, now that Allen’s left there,” he said. “Dakota won’t be a heap easy with them deputies.”

He told Sheila to let the bandaging go until later, but she refused.

“Dakota’ll be needin’ you a heap more than I need you,” he insisted, refusing to allow her to touch the bandages. “There’ll be the devil to pay if any of them deputies try to rush Dakota’s shack. I want you to go down there right now. If you wait, it’ll mebbe be too late.”

Sheila hesitated for a moment, and then, yielding to the entreaty in Doubler’s eyes, she was at his side, pressing his hand.

“Ride ma’am!” he told her, when she was ready to go, his cheeks flushed with excitement, his eyes bright.

Her pony snorted with surprise when she brought her riding whip down against its flanks when turning from the corral gates, but it needed no second urging, and its pace when it splashed through the shallow water of the crossing was fully as great as that of Duncan’s pony, which had previously passed through it.

Once on the hard sand of the river trail it settled into a long, swinging gallop, under which the miles flew by rapidly and steadily. Sheila drew the animal up on the rises, breathing it sometimes, but on the levels she urged it with whip and spur, and in something more than an hour after leaving Doubler’s cabin, she flashed by the quicksand crossing, which she estimated as being not more than twelve miles from her journey’s end.

She was tired after her long vigil at Doubler’s side, but the weariness was entirely physical, for her brain was working rapidly, filling her thoughts with picturesque conjectures, drawing pictures in which she saw Dakota being shot down by Allen’s deputies. And he was innocent!

She did not blame herself for Dakota’s dilemma, though she felt a keen regret over her treatment of him, over her unjust suspicions. He had really been in earnest when he had told her the night before on the river trail that he was not guilty – that everybody had misjudged him. Vivid in her recollection was the curious expression on his face when he had said to her just before leaving her that night:

“Won’t you believe me?”

And that other time, when he had taken her by the shoulders and looked steadily into her eyes – she remembered that, too; she could almost feel his fingers, and the words he had uttered then were fresh in her memory: “I’ve treated you mean, Sheila, about as mean as a man could treat a woman. I am sorry. I want you to believe that. And maybe some day – when this business is over – you’ll understand, and forgive me.”