And yet it was Fort Kendry.
A thousand times he had heard that name. It had been ringing through the stories that came in from the frontier. It was one of those last outposts of civilization, hardly civilized itself. Men said that the rapid river that slid past Fort Kendry ate a man a day—and nothing done to the murderers. Still he had some doubt, and, calling to a bearded, little, ratty-looking man, he asked if this were indeed Fort Kendry. The latter, in reply, merely gaped, and then broke into loud laughter and went on his way.
He went farther, until he saw a squaw standing with arms akimbo in the door of a miserable shack. He asked of her in English. She merely stared insolently at him, eying him with contempt, and the two splendid horses with curiosity. He tried her in Cheyenne.
She started convulsively and sprang forward. To the bare ankles she sank in the mud. Yes, this was Fort Kendry. Did he come from the Suhtai? Had he been with them long?
Yes, Roger Lincoln was at the fort. He lived inside the fort itself. Had he known in the Cheyenne tribe a great warrior, Yellow Wolf, who . . . ?
Yes, Samuel Brett was here, and living with his niece in the big, square house just outside the gates of the fort. So she poured out answer and question intermixed. But he did not wait to satisfy her curiosity. He merely waved his hand to her and pressed forward. He was, indeed, too choked by the wild fluttering of his heart to be capable of speech.
XV
He went toward the square house that had been pointed out to him. A big man with a square-cut beard was chopping wood beside the building. His brawny arms were bared to the elbow; the axe flew like a feather in his grasp. There was something deeply familiar to Torridon in the appearance of the stalwart. And he called in a trembling voice to know if this were the house of Samuel Brett.
The other turned, axe poised for a stroke. Slowly he allowed it to sink to the ground as he stared, and then he shouted: “By grab, it’s the thief!”
And dropping the axe, he snatched up a rifle. Resistance was not in the mind of Torridon. In blank terror he whirled the horse and fled, and heard the click of the rifle hammer, followed by no explosion, then the furious growling of the other.
Before him the gate of the fort was wide open—a double gate, in fact, with men leaning on their tall rifles nearby. Through the gate he fled, and drew rein inside, a badly frightened youth. Loud and angry voices demanded the reason for thus pushing into their midst, without leave begged. Stern faces closed around him, and a hand was laid on the bridle rein.
“Roger Lincoln . . .” was all he could stammer. “Is Roger Lincoln here?”
“And what d’you want with Roger Lincoln?” asked one while another exclaimed: “By gravy, it’s Comanche!”
“Comanche, you fool! She’s a half a hand taller’n that gray runt!”
“I tell you, I know her. It’s her. Didn’t I match my pinto ag’in’ her last year? Didn’t she leave him like he was hobbled?”
A crowd of the idle and curious was gathering, and suddenly, through that crowd, Torridon was aware of a tall man stepping lightly forward, his long hair gleaming over his shoulders, a jacket of the most beautiful, white deerskin setting off his fine torso.
“Roger!” shouted Torridon. “Oh, Roger Lincoln!”
Would he, too, have a rifle and curses with which to greet him? No, no! For Roger Lincoln came with a leap. He took Torridon in those slender, mighty hands of his, lifted him to the ground, and held him at arm’s length, by the shoulders.
“My boy,” said Roger Lincoln softly, “this is the greatest and the happiest and the finest day of my life. Lad, how did you come back to me from the dead?”
They sat in Lincoln’s room in the fort. Fort, indeed, by courtesy, for it was held by a trading company and not by federal troops. Hundreds of miles to the east the formal authority of the government ended. With an armed rabble, the fur company held this outpost; according to the whim of the moment it made its laws. Half hotel and store, and half fortress, it ruled the wild country around it.
They had interchanged stories eagerly. The tale of Roger Lincoln was simplicity itself. Out hunting, and not three miles from his starting place, he had been snatched up by a wandering band of Crows, far from their own hunting grounds. Death and scalping would have been the end of him, had it not chanced that the chief knew Lincoln to be a famous man and decided on accepting a ransom. They proceeded straight to the vicinity of Fort Kendry, and there Roger Lincoln had no difficulty in procuring a score of good horses to pay for his scalp.
That done, he secured the best mount be could find and spent two days in letting the Crows learn that no bargain could be altogether one-sided. He had pursued them, caught two stragglers, sent them to their long account, and returned, eager to get back to the spot where he had left the boy.
But, of course, he found that Torridon was gone. The letter placed on the site of the campfire was gone, also. And after hunting in vain for sign that he could follow, Roger Lincoln had returned to the fort, hoping that his young friend might be able to win through to it, even against heavy odds.
Next came the tale of Torridon, hastily sketched in, to which Roger Lincoln listened with increasing joy. The trip to the Sky People filled him with laughter and excitement. And, finally, he caught the hand of Torridon and exclaimed: “You’re such big medicine to that pack of wolves that they’ll never give you peace! They’ll be trying to steal you again, one of these days.”
“Don’t say it,” murmured Torridon. “It makes me faint and weak to hear you.”
The frontiersman rested his chin on the palm of his hand and regarded the boy with a smile and a nod. “The same Paul,” he said. “The same Paul Torridon. Almost like a girl until it comes to the pinch . . . and then like a pair of tigers.”
“No, no!” exclaimed Torridon. “Ah, Roger, if you knew how happy I am to be with you again, and how many times I’ve prayed to have a man like you with me.”
Here they were interrupted by a knock at the door and no less a person than the commander of the fort appeared, a man of middle age, shrewd and hard-faced, to tell Roger Lincoln that he was accused by Samuel Brett of harboring a horse thief.
“It’s the case of Ashur,” said Lincoln. “Come down with me and we’ll face Brett. He’s not a bad kind of a man. But they’ve written to him that the stallion was stolen, and in a way he was. Now’s the time to face it out.”
He would not wait to hear the protest of Torridon, who had no wish to meet that grim axe man who so nearly had put an end to his days not long before. But down went Lincoln, Torridon, and the post captain together, and found Brett in a high rage. He repeated his accusation in a loud voice. Torridon was a sneak and a thief and a member of a cut-throat family. And he had repaid the kindness of the Bretts by slipping away with their finest horse.
The post captain heard this speech with a growing darkness of brow. “The law ain’t overworked in these parts much,” he declared. “But a horse thief I hate worse than a snake . . . it’s one reason that I hate every damned Indian I ever seen. And if this Torridon has stole the black stallion . . . back he goes to Brett. And, besides, I’ll make an example of him that’ll . . .”
“Hold on a half minute.” Roger Lincoln smiled. “Let me tell you that I found Torridon locked in the Brett cellar. They intended to cut this lad’s throat the next day. We had to fight our way out, and, once out, we had to take the best horse on the place to be sure of getting away from the murderers. The horse that we took is the black one. We’ll admit that. But I think the circumstances alter the case a good deal, don’t you?”