CHAPTER II. In the Silence of the Canon.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 15, 3 August 1888, Page 25

CHAPTER 11. In the Silence of the Canon.

Tbe sun was setting behind Bald Butte as the Johnstown stage approached the five-mile grade which led down to Stoney Creek. The air was growing coel. The rabbits, looking like sage-bushes in motion, flitted about iv the twilight. A colony of prairie-owl >, posting themselves at intervals along the road, accompanied the intrtding vehicle through their territory, the head of the Hoe rising as the stage drew near and gravely flying down to take station at the foot, until, the danger departed, they solemnly withdrew. Down the grftde the stage went, with the driver on the brake and the horses trotting loosely in their harness, until, with a final jolt and lurch, they fetched up on the bank of Stoney Creek. The driver swung himself off the box, and taking an iron pail out of the boot, proceeded to water his horses. The elderly passenger emerged from the stage with a tin cup, and scooping some of the bright cold water, from the noisy mountain stream, gallantly took it to the kdy inside. Then, helping himself , he said to the driver, with a laugh :—: — " I jedge you've been making up time. Ye herded 'em along pretty lively down thet grade." The lieutenant nodded.his head: The position in which he found himself had responsibilities that discouraged sociability. Going to the other side of tbe stage, he got out his overcoat and put it on. It was a garment made of rough blue cloth, long and voluminous, with a cape that came to the waist. Quietly slipping his revolver from its holster, he put it in a narrow pocket in the lining of the coat. This pocket, apparently made for the purpose, dispensed with the ostentatious and cumbrous method of belting the pistol on outside. These preparations for the night completed, he mounted to his place, and made the usual warning inquiry, " All set ?" " If you don't mind, pard," said the passenger, " I'll ride outs : de for a way 8, and give tbe lady a chance to stretch." " 1 don t miod," said the lieutenant, and the elderly stranger climbed laboriously to his side. The horses' hoofs splashed and the stage wheels crunched their way through the stream, while the water fretted and foamed noisily about the wet fetlocks and through the cleaned spokes. Then hoofs and wheels came out on the soft bank, and the stage sped silently along the damp bottom land. Dark forms shaped themselves into cottonwood trees and alder bushes, and dissolved again into the darkness, while the fresh odour of tbe earth and growing thing 9 scented the cool night air. " Have a drink ?" said the passenger, sociably, drawing out a bottle. 11 No, thank you," said the lieutenant ; " I don't drink on the box." " Right you are," said his companion ; " well, here's luck ! You h'aint been long on the line, I take it ?" The stage had commenced to ascend the grade on the other side of Stoney Creek. The road wound up through a canon or gulch, in the bottom of which was the dry bed of a winter torrent. It was a long, tedious pull to the top of the mesa, and the bor<?es had to take their time to it. Notwithstanding that a thin line of light on the brow of a distant mountain signalled that the moon had risen, it was very dark in tbe caDon, so dark, that although tbe lieutenant kept peering ahead of the horses, he conld see but little more than a bend of the winding road faiotly defined by the denser obscurity on each aide of it. The passenger himself, notwithstanding his steady flow of talk, seemed affected by the surrounding gloom, and maintained an alert gaze upon the side of the road. The lieutenant spoke to his horses, which were showing a restive disinclination to proceed. They were almost at the top of the grade now. A clump of Bcrub-oaks at the head of tbe canon was in sight, The shadows here were very dense by contrast with the moonlight, which lay in the open beyond. It was at these shadows that the horses were pricking their ears. The lieutenant cracked his whip over the unruly aaima's, but as he did so he looked Bharply in the direction of the oaks. Was not something moving there? Or was it the moonlight shadows playing their usual tricks on highly strung nerves ? Then he remembered there was a spring under those oaks, and that cattle were always around it ; or perhaps, a stray deer from the mountains might have come there to drink. His military training and frontier exparience made him guard against unreasoning alarm. At the same time the station-keeper's open secret that the paymaster's funds were abrrad flashed across bis minds. It would never do for him. an army officer, to han ) down WelU-Furgo's box to the first road agent who asked for it. Professional pride, if naught else, forbade it, Ho said nothiug to the man at his side, but, under cover of his cape, he clipped the lines and whip into his left hand.and with his right cocked the revolver in his pocket. The elderly passenger, notwithstan ling that his eyes were also fastened on the c ump of oaks, seemed quite unsuspicious, and continued to talk?- • shrill whistle suddenly startled the silence of the night. The passenger on the box, almost without a pause, leaned over, and lav g one hand on the lines, with the other pointed a pistol at the driver's bead, and said, but no longer in the accents of the uneducated person :

" Hold up your hands, lieutenant ! " At the fame instamt a man with a masked face, and holding a gun, appeared in the middle of the aud stopped the borees. The lieutenant turned pile, and stared in amazement at the m.tn by his side. " It's no U6e." said the elderly passenger, steadly. " We've got the drop on you I Bo quick, or I'll— — " " Well," sud the lieutenant, defeatedly, "you have got the drop on me, for a fact !" And drawing a long breath he slowly raised his arms. But when bis left elbow was high as his shoulder, with his right hand he piesspd the trigger of the revolver in his pocket. There wag a muffled report, a shriek, and a enrse, followed by another ieport, then another, at) d another, confused and intermingled, the sharp crack of the rifle ringing out over the duller noise of tha pistols. When the sounds ceased, the man in tbe road was crawling on his hands and knees toward the shadow of the oaks whence he had emerged. There was no one on the box but the lieutenant, and he was standing erect. Tne next moment he pitched head first over the dash-board on to the off-horse's back, and from there rolled on to the road. It needed but this to goad the frightened animals into a stampede, and with the lines under their heels, kicking and shying, they galloped cut over the prairie. It is not easy for two horses to run away with a Concord coach, especially after coming up Stoney Creek grade. And 60, after the stage had lumbered and lurched at their heels for a half mile or io, the horses came down to a trot, ani then to a walk, and finally stood still, and gazed around, trembling, and ready for a second flight. The moment that the vehicle stopped, the veiled faceof the lady passenger appeared at the door, and her terror-stricken voice cried, but almost iaaudibly, " My God 1 what has happened 1" Aroused from a troubled sleep by the report of a pistol, followed by a man's shriek, more shots, curses, and groans, she had opened her eyes just in time to see a heavy body fall over the wheel and on to the ground. Then the stage had started forward, the wheel going over the thing on the ground with a sickening jolt. As the stage bounded on, she had been thrown violently to and fro, dinging convulsively to her baby, unable to realize what this grisly horror of the night might be. With shaking hands, she now unfastened the door, and stepped out, found herself alone in the awful silence and solitude of the night. Hark I what was that ? She tore her veil from her head, and with it came her bat. Great masses of black hair fell down her shoulders, and a white, young face shone out in the moonlight, lovely even in its terror. The noise was but the piping of an insect, bat it sounded like a distant shriek. Then the wind itirred the dry grass, and it seemed to the panic-stricken woman as though it was the voices of men pursuing. Her hair rose, and all the blood in her body rallied in her heart. She would have fainted had it not been for the wailing of the dependent baby in her arms. What should she do 1 Her first impulse was to run from what might be behind her. But her feeble limbs failed at the sight of the wide plains and obstructing sage* brush. If she conld but get upon the stage and drive. She went to the horses, and spoke to them. One of them whinnied in reply, and that encouraged her. She crept between them, talking to them all the time in trembling, beseeching tones, and got the lines oat from beneath their hoofs. Then holding the reins and the baby in oae arm, she scrambled on to th 3 wheel, and from there to the driver's seat. Everything was so big, the lines, the seat, the brake, her little feot did not reach the dashboard, but rested on some sacki of barley that filled the forward boot. In this barley she made a nest for the baby. When she was ready to start it was evident that she was not ignorant of driving. She held the lines and whip like the amateur drivers of the New York coaching clubs. The horses had been restive during these prolonged preparations, and they started off freely at her timorous word. {Concluded next ivrek.)