The Night Riders: A Romance of Early Montana

CHAPTER I

IN THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES

Forks Settlement no longer occupies its place upon the ordnance map of the state of Montana. At least not the Forks Settlement – the one which nestled in a hollow on the plains, beneath the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. It is curious how these little places do contrive to slip off the map in the course of time. There is no doubt but that they do, and are wholly forgotten, except, perhaps, by those who actually lived or visited there. It is this way with all growing countries, and anywhere from twenty to thirty years ago Montana was distinctly a new country.

It was about ’85 that Forks Settlement enjoyed the height of its prosperity – a prosperity based on the supply of dry-goods and machinery to a widely scattered and sparse population of small ranchers and farmers. These things brought it into existence and kept it afloat for some years. Then it gradually faded from existence – just as such places do.

When John Tresler rode into Forks he wondered what rural retreat he had chanced upon. He didn’t wonder in those words, his language was much more derogatory to the place than that.

It was late one afternoon when his horse ambled gently on to the green patch which served Forks as a market-place. He drew up and looked around him for some one to give him information. The place was quite deserted. It was a roasting hot day, and the people of Forks were not given to moving about much on hot days, unless imperative business claimed them. As there were only two seasons in the year when such a thing was likely to happen, and this was not one of them, no one was stirring.

The sky was unshaded by a single cloud. Tresler was tired, stiff, and consumed by a sponge-like thirst, for he was unused to long hours in the saddle. And he had found a dreary monotony in riding over the endless prairie lands of the West.

Now he found himself surrounded by an uncertain circle of wooden houses. None of them suggested luxury, but after the heaving rollers of grass-land they suggested companionship and life. And just now that was all the horseman cared about.

He surveyed each house in turn, searching for a single human face. And at last he beheld a window full of faces staring curiously at him from the far side of the circle. It was enough. Touching his jaded horse’s flanks he rode over toward it.

Further life appeared now in the form of a small man who edged shyly round the angle of the building and stood gazing at him. The stranger was a queer figure. His face was as brown as the surface of a prairie trail and just as scored with ruts. His long hair and flowing beard were the color of matured hay. His dress was simple and in keeping with his face; moleskin trousers, worn and soiled, a blue serge shirt, a shabby black jacket, and a fiery handkerchief about his neck, while a battered prairie hat adorned the back of his head.

Tresler pulled his horse up before this welcome vision and slid stiffly to the ground, while the little man slanted his eyes over his general outfit.

“Is this Forks Settlement?” the newcomer asked, with an ingratiating smile. He was a manly looking fellow with black hair and steel-blue eyes; he was dressed in a plain Norfolk jacket and riding kit. He was not particularly handsome, but possessed a strong, reliant face.

The stranger closed his eyes in token of acquiescence.

“Ur-hum,” he murmured.

“Will you point me out the hotel?”

The other’s eyes had finally settled themselves on the magnificent pair of balloon-shaped corduroy riding-breeches Tresler was wearing, which had now resettled themselves into their natural voluminous folds.

He made no audible reply. He was engrossed with the novel vision before him. A backward jerk of the head was the only sign he permitted himself.

Tresler looked at the house indicated. He felt in some doubt, and not without reason. The place was a mere two-storied shanty, all askew and generally unpromising.

“Can I – that is, does the proprietor take – er – guests?” he asked.

“Guess Carney takes most anythin’,” came the easy reply.

The door of the hotel opened and two men came out, eyeing the newcomer and his horse critically. Then they propped themselves in leisurely fashion against the door-casing, and chewed silently, while they gazed abroad with marked unconcern.

Tresler hazarded another question. He felt strange in this company. It was his first real acquaintance with a prairie settlement, and he didn’t quite know what to expect.

“I wonder if there is any one to see to my horse,” he said with some hesitation.

“Hitch him to the tie-post an’ ast in ther’,” observed the uncommunicative man, pointing to a post a few yards from the door, but without losing interest in the other’s nether garments.

“That sounds reasonable.”

Tresler moved off and secured his horse and loosened the saddle-girths.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said, when he came back, his well-trimmed six feet towering over the other’s five feet four. “Might I ask whom I have the pleasure of addressing? My name is John Tresler; I am on my way to Mosquito Bend, Julian Marbolt’s ranch. A stranger, you see, in a strange land. No doubt you have observed that already,” he finished up good-naturedly.

But the other’s attention was not to be diverted from the interesting spectacle of the corduroys, and he answered without shifting his gaze.

“My name’s Ranks – gener’ly called ‘Slum.’ Howdy.”

“Well, Mr. Ranks – ”

“Gener’ly called ‘Slum,’” interrupted the other.

“Mr. Slum, then – ” Tresler smiled.

“Slum!”

The man’s emphasis was marked. There was no cheating him of his due. “Slum” was his sobriquet by the courtesy of prairie custom. “Ranks” was purely a paternal heirloom and of no consequence at all.

“Well, Slum,” Tresler laughed, “suppose we go and sample Carney’s refreshments. I’m tired, and possess a thirst.”

He stepped toward the doorway and looked back. Mr. Ranks had not moved. Only his wondering eyes had followed the other’s movements.

“Won’t you join me?” Tresler asked. Then, noting the fixed stare in the man’s eyes, he went on with some impatience, “What the dickens are you staring at?” And, in self-defense, he was forced into a survey of his own riding-breeches.

Slum looked up. A twinkle of amusement shone beneath his heavy brows, while a broad grin parted the hair on his face.

“Oh, jest nothin’,” he said amiably. “I wer’ kind o’ figgerin’ out what sort of a feller them pants o’ yours wus made for.” He doused the brown earth at his feet with tobacco juice. Then shaking his head thoughtfully, a look of solemn wonder replaced the grin. “Say,” he added, “but he must ’a’ bin a dandy chunk of a man.”

Tresler was about to reply. But a glance at Mr. Ranks, and an audible snigger coming from the doorway, suddenly changed his mind. He swung round to face a howl of laughter; and he understood.

“The drinks are on me,” he said with some chagrin. “Come on, all of you. Yes, I’m a ‘tenderfoot.’”

And it was the geniality of his reply that won him a place in the society of Forks Settlement at once. In five minutes his horse was stabled and cared for. In five minutes he was addressing the occupants of the saloon by their familiar nicknames. In five minutes he was paying for whisky at an exorbitant price. In five minutes – well, he sniffed his first breath of prairie habits and prairie ways.

It is not necessary to delve deeply into the characters of these citizens of Forks. It is not good to rake bad soil, the process is always offensive. A mere outline is alone necessary. Ike Carney purveyed liquor. A little man with quick, cunning eyes, and a mouth that shut tight under a close-cut fringe of gray moustache. “Shaky” Pindle, the carpenter, was a sad-eyed man who looked as gentle as a disguised wolf. His big, scarred face never smiled, because, his friends said, it was a physical impossibility for it to do so, and his huge, rough body was as uncouth as his manners, and as unwieldy as his slow-moving tongue. Taylor, otherwise “Twirly,” the butcher, was a man so genial and rubicund that in five minutes you began to wish that he was built like the lower animals that have no means of giving audible expression to their good humor, or, if they have, there is no necessity to notice it except by a well-directed kick. And Slum, quiet, unsophisticated Slum, shadier than the shadiest of them all, but a man who took the keenest delight in the humors of life, and who did wrong from an inordinate delight in besting his neighbors. A man to smile at, but to avoid.

These were the men John Tresler, fresh from Harvard and a generous home, found himself associated with while he rested on his way to Mosquito Bend.

Ike Carney laid himself out to be pleasant.

“Goin’ to Skitter Bend?” he observed, as he handed his new guest the change out of a one hundred dollar bill. “Wal, it’s a tidy layout; – ninety-five dollars, mister; a dollar a drink. You’ll find that c’rect – best ranch around these parts. Say,” he went on, “the ol’ blind hoss has hunched it together pretty neat. I’ll say that.”

“Blind mule,” put in Slum, vaulting to a seat on the bar.

“Mule?” questioned Shaky, with profound scorn. “Guess you ain’t worked around his layout, Slum. Skunk’s my notion of him. I ’lows his kickin’s most like a mule’s, but ther’ ain’t nothin’ more to the likeness. A mule’s a hard-workin’, decent cit’zen, which ain’t off’n said o’ Julian Marbolt.”

Shaky swung a leg over the back of a chair and sat down with his arms folded across it, and his heavy bearded chin resting upon them.

“But you can’t expect a blind man to be the essence of amiability,” said Tresler. “Think of his condition.”

“See here, young feller,” jerked in Shaky, thrusting his chin-beard forward aggressively. “Condition ain’t to be figgered on when a man keeps a great hulkin’, bulldozin’ swine of a foreman like Jake Harnach. Say, them two, the blind skunk an’ Jake, ken raise more hell in five minutes around that ranch than a tribe o’ neches on the war-path. I built a barn on that place last summer, an’ I guess I know.”

“Comforting for me,” observed Tresler, with a laugh.

“Oh, you ain’t like to git his rough edge,” put in Carney, easily.

“Guess you’re payin’ a premium?” asked Shaky.

“I’m going to have three years’ teaching.”

“Three years o’ Skitter Bend?” said Slum, quietly. “Guess you’ll learn a deal in three years o’ Skitter Bend.”

The little man chewed the end of a cigar Tresler had presented him with, while his twinkling eyes exchanged meaning glances with his comrades. Twirly laughed loudly and backed against the bar, stretching out his arms on either side of him, and gripping its moulded edge with his beefy hands.

“An’ you’re payin’ fer that teachin’?” the butcher asked incredulously, when his mirth had subsided.

“It seems the custom in this country to pay for everything you get,” Tresler answered, a little shortly.

He was being laughed at more than he cared about. Still he checked his annoyance. He wanted to know something about the local reputation of the rancher he had apprenticed himself to, so he fired a direct question in amongst his audience.

“Look here,” he said sharply. “What’s the game? What’s the matter with this Julian Marbolt?”

He looked round for an answer, which, for some minutes, did not seem to be forthcoming.

Slum broke the silence at last. “He’s blind,” he said quietly.

“I know that,” retorted Tresler, impatiently. “It’s something else I want to know.”

He looked at the butcher, who only laughed. He turned on the saloon-keeper, who shook his head. Finally he applied to Shaky.

“Wal,” the carpenter began, with a ponderous air of weighing his words. “I ain’t the man to judge a feller offhand like. I ’lows I know suthin’ o’ the blind man o’ Skitter Bend, seein’ I wus workin’ contract fer him all last summer. An’ wot I knows is – nasty. I’ve see’d things on that ranch as made me git a tight grip on my axe, an’ long a’mighty hard to bust a few heads in. I’ve see’d that all-fired Jake Harnach, the foreman, hammer hell out o’ some o’ the hands, wi’ tha’ blind man standin’ by jest as though his gummy eyes could see what was doin’, and I’ve watched his ugly face workin’ wi e’very blow as Jake pounded, ’cos o’ the pleasure it give him. I’ve see’d some o’ those fellers wilter right down an’ grovel like yaller dorgs at their master’s feet. I’ve see’d that butcher-lovin’ lot handle their hosses an’ steers like so much dead meat – an’ wuss’n. I’ve see’d hell around that ranch. ‘An’ why for,’ you asks, ‘do their punchers an’ hands stand it?’ ‘’Cos,’ I answers quick, ‘ther’ ain’t a job on this countryside fer ’em after Julian Marbolt’s done with ’em.’ That’s why. ‘Wher’ wus you workin’ around before?’ asks a foreman. ‘Skitter Bend,’ says the puncher. ‘Ain’t got nothin’ fer you,’ says the foreman quick; ‘guess this ain’t no butcherin’ bizness!’ An’ that’s jest how it is right thro’ with Skitter Bend,” Shaky finished up, drenching the spittoon against the bar with consummate accuracy.

“Right – dead right,” said Twirly, with a laugh.

“Guess, mebbe, you’re prejudiced some,” suggested Carney, with an eye on his visitor.

“Shaky’s taken to book readin’,” said Slum, gently. “Guess dime fiction gits a powerful holt on some folk.”

“Dime fiction y’rself,” retorted Shaky, sullenly. “Mebbe young Dave Steele as come back from ther’ with a hole in his head that left him plumb crazy ever since till he died, ’cos o’ some racket he had wi’ Jake – mebbe that’s out of a dime fiction. Say, you git right to it, an’ kep on sousin’ whisky, Slum Ranks. You ken do that – you can’t tell me ’bout the blind man.”

A pause in the conversation followed while Ike dried some glasses. The room was getting dark. It was a cheerless den. Tresler was thoughtfully smoking. He was digesting and sifting what he had heard; trying to separate fact from fiction in Shaky’s story. He felt that there must be some exaggeration. At last he broke the silence, and all eyes were turned on him.

“And do you mean to say there is no law to protect people on these outlying stations? Do you mean to tell me that men sit down quietly under such dastardly tyranny?” His questions were more particularly directed toward Shaky.

“Law?” replied the carpenter. “Law? Say, we don’t rec’nize no law around these parts – not yet. Mebbe it’s comin’, but – I ’lows ther’s jest one law at present, an’ that we mostly carries on us. Oh, Jake Harnach’s met his match ’fore now. But ’tain’t frekent. Yes, Jake’s a big swine, wi’ the muscle o’ two men; but I’ve seen him git downed, and not a hund’ed mile from wher’ we’re settin’. Say, Ike,” he turned to the man behind the bar, “you ain’t like to fergit the night Black Anton called his ‘hand.’ Ther’ ain’t no bluff to Anton. When he gits to the bizness end of a gun it’s best to get your thumbs up sudden.”

The saloon-keeper nodded. “Guess there’s one man who’s got Jake’s measure, an’ that’s Black Anton.”

The butcher added a punctuating laugh, while Slum nodded.

“And who’s Black Anton?” asked Tresler of the saloon-keeper.

“Anton? Wal, I guess he’s Marbolt’s private hoss keeper. He’s a half-breed. French-Canadian; an’ tough. Say, he’s jest as quiet an’ easy you wouldn’t know he was around. Soft spoken as a woman, an’ jest about as vicious as a rattler. Guess you’ll meet him. An’ I ’lows he’s meetable – till he’s riled.”

“Pleasant sort of man if he can cow this wonderful Jake,” observed Tresler, quietly.

“Oh, yes, pleasant ’nough,” said Ike, mistaking his guest’s meaning.

“The only thing I can’t understand ’bout Anton,” said Slum, suddenly becoming interested, “is that he’s earnin’ his livin’ honest. He’s too quiet, an’ – an’ iley. He sort o’ slid into this territory wi’out a blamed cit’zen of us knowin’. We’ve heerd tell of him sence from ’crost the border, an’ the yarns ain’t nice. I don’t figger to argue wi’ strangers at no time, an’ when Anton’s around I don’t never git givin’ no opinion till he’s done talkin’, when I mostly find mine’s the same as his.”

“Some folks ain’t got no grit,” growled Shaky, contemptuously.

“An’ some folk ’a’ got so much grit they ain’t got no room fer savee,” rapped in Slum sharply.

“Meanin’ me,” said Shaky, sitting up angrily.

“I ’lows you’ve got grit,” replied the little man quietly, looking squarely into the big man’s eyes.

“Go to h – ”

“Guess I’d as lief be in Forks; it’s warmer,” replied Slum, imperturbably.

“Stow yer gas! You nag like a widder as can’t git a second man.”

“Which wouldn’t happen wi’ folk o’ your kidney around.”

Shaky was on his feet in an instant, and his anger was blazing in his fierce eyes.

“Say, you gorl – ”

“Set right ther’, Shaky,” broke in Slum, as the big man sprang toward him. “Set right ther’; ther’ ain’t goin’ to be no hoss-play.”

Slum Ranks had not shifted his position, but his right hand had dived into his jacket pocket and his eyes flashed ominously. And the carpenter dropped back into his seat without a word.

And Tresler looked on in amazement. It was all so quick, so sudden. There had hardly been a breathing space between the passing of their good-nature and their swift-rising anger. The strangeness of it all, the lawlessness, fascinated him. He knew he was on the fringe of civilization, but he had had no idea of how sparse and short that fringe was. He thought that civilization depended on the presence of white folk. That, of necessity, white folk must themselves have the instincts of civilization.

Here he saw men, apparently good comrades all, who were ready, on the smallest provocation, to turn and rend each other. It was certainly a new life to him, something that perhaps he had vaguely dreamt of, but the possibility of the existence of which he had never seriously considered.

But, curiously enough, as he beheld these things for himself for the first time, they produced no shock, they disturbed him in nowise. It all seemed so natural. More, it roused in him a feeling that such things should be. Possibly this feeling was due to his own upbringing, which had been that of an essentially athletic university. He even felt the warm blood surge through his veins at the prospect of a forcible termination to the two men’s swift passage of arms.

But the ebullition died out as quickly as it had risen. Slum slid from the bar to the ground, and his deep-set eyes were smiling again.

“Pshaw,” he said, with a careless shrug, “ther’ ain’t nothin’ to grit wi’out savee.”

Shaky rose and stretched himself as though nothing had happened to disturb the harmony of the meeting. The butcher relinquished his hold on the bar and moved across to the window.

“Guess the missis’ll be shoutin’ around fer you fellers to git your suppers,” Slum observed cheerfully. Then he turned to Tresler. “Ike, here, don’t run no boarders. Mebbe you’d best git around to my shack. Sally’ll fix you up with a blanket or two, an’ the grub ain’t bad. You see, I run a boardin’-house fer the boys – leastways, Sally does.”

And Tresler adopted the suggestion. He had no choice but to do so. Anyway, he was quite satisfied with the arrangement. He had entered the life of the prairie and was more than willing to adopt its ways and its people.

And the recollection of that first night in Forks remained with him when the memory of many subsequent nights had passed from him. It stuck to him as only the first strong impressions of a new life can.

He met Sally Ranks – she was two sizes too large for the dining-room of the boarding-house – who talked in a shrieking nasal manner that cut the air like a knife, and who heaped the plates with coarse food that it was well to have a good appetite to face. He dined for the first time in his life at a table that had no cloth, and devoured his food with the aid of a knife and fork that had never seen a burnish since they had first entered the establishment, and drank boiled tea out of a tin cup that had once been enameled. He was no longer John Tresler, fresh from the New England States, but one of fourteen boarders, the majority of whom doubled the necessary length of their sentences when they conversed by reason of an extensive vocabulary of blasphemy, and picked their teeth with their forks.

But it was pleasant to him. He was surrounded by something approaching the natural man. Maybe they were drawn from the dregs of society, but nevertheless they had forcibly established their right to live – a feature that had lifted them from the ruck of thousands of law-abiding citizens. He experienced a friendly feeling for these ruffians. More, he had a certain respect for them.

After supper many of them drifted back to their recreation-ground, the saloon. Tresler, although he had no inclination for drink, would have done the same. He wished to see more of the people, to study them as a man who wishes to prepare himself for a new part. But the quiet Slum drew him back and talked gently to him; and he listened.

“Say, Tresler,” the little man remarked offhandedly, “ther’s three fellers lookin’ fer a gamble. Two of ’em ain’t a deal at ‘draw,’ the other’s pretty neat. I tho’t, mebbe, you’d notion a hand up here wi’ us. It’s better’n loafin’ down ’t the saloon. We most gener’ly play a dollar limit.”

And so it was arranged. Tresler stayed. He was initiated. He learned the result of a game of “draw” in Forks, where the players made the whole game of life a gamble, and attained a marked proficiency in the art.

The result was inevitable. By midnight there were four richer citizens in Forks, and a newcomer who was poorer by his change out of a hundred-dollar bill. But Tresler lost quite cheerfully. He never really knew how it was he lost, whether it was his bad play or bad luck. He was too tired and sleepy long before the game ended. He realized next morning, when he came to reflect, that in some mysterious manner he had been done. However, he took his initiation philosophically, making only a mental reservation for future guidance.

That night he slept on a palliasse of straw, with a pillow consisting of a thin bolster propped on his outer clothes. Three very yellow blankets made up the tally of comfort. And the whole was spread out on the floor of a room in which four other men were sleeping noisily.

After breakfast he paid his bill, and, procuring his horse, prepared for departure. His first acquaintance in Forks stood his friend to the last. Slum it was who looked round his horse to see that the girths of the saddle were all right; Slum it was who praised the beast in quiet, critical tones; Slum it was who shook him by the hand and wished him luck; Slum it was who gave him a parting word of advice; just as it was Slum who had first met him with ridicule, cared for him – at a price – during his sojourn, and quietly robbed him at a game he knew little about. And Tresler, with the philosophy of a man who has that within him which must make for achievement, smiled, shook hands heartily and with good will, and quietly stored up the wisdom he had acquired in his first night in Forks Settlement.

“Say, Tresler,” exclaimed Slum, kindly, as he wrung his departing guest’s hand, “I’m real glad I’ve met you. I ’lows, comin’ as you did, you might ’a’ run dead into some durned skunk as hadn’t the manners for dealin’ with a hog. There’s a hatful of ’em in Forks. S’long. Say, ther’s a gal at Skitter Bend. She’s the ol’ blind boss’s daughter, an’ she’s a dandy. But don’t git sparkin’ her wi’ the ol’ man around.”

Tresler laughed. Slum amused him.

“Good-bye,” he said. “Your kindness has taken a load – off my mind. I know more than I did yesterday morning. No, I won’t get sparking the girl with the old man around. See you again some time.”

And he passed out of Forks.

“That feller’s a decent – no, he’s a gentleman,” muttered Slum, staring after the receding horseman. “Guess Skitter Bend’s jest about the place fer him. He’ll bob out on top like a cork in a water bar’l. Say, Jake Harnach’ll git his feathers trimmed or I don’t know a ‘deuce-spot’ from a ‘straight flush.’”

Which sentiment spoke volumes for his opinion of the man who had just left him.

CHAPTER II

MOSQUITO BEND

Forks died away in a shimmering haze of heat as Tresler rode out over the hard prairie trail. Ten miles they had told him it was to Mosquito Bend; a ten-mile continuation of the undulating plains he had now grown accustomed to. He allowed his horse to take it leisurely. There was no great hurry for an early arrival.