Ranson leaned back against the music-rack and placed his glass upon the
keyboard. One leg was crossed over the other, and he did not remove it.
“Then you can't take a joke,” he said in a low tone. “You had to run
and tell.” He laughed and raised his voice so that all in the club might
hear, “What am I arrested for, Crosby?” he asked.
The lines in Crosby's face deepened, and only those who sat near could
hear him. “You are under arrest for attempting to kill a superior
officer, for the robbery of the government pay-train--and for murder.”
Ranson jumped to his feet. “My God, Crosby!” he cried.
“Silence! Don't talk!” ordered Crosby. “Come along with me.”
The four troopers fell in in rear of Lieutenant Crosby and their
prisoner. He drew a quick, frightened breath, and then, throwing back
his shoulders, fell into step, and the six men tramped from the club and
out into the night.
III
That night at the post there was little sleep for any one. The feet
of hurrying orderlies beat upon the parade-ground, the windows of the
Officers' Club blazed defiantly, and from the darkened quarters of the
enlisted men came the sound of voices snarling in violent vituperation.
At midnight, half of Ranson's troop, having attacked the rest of
the regiment with cavalry-boots, were marched under arrest to the
guard-house. As they passed Ranson's hut, where he still paced the
veranda, a burning cigarette attesting his wakefulness, they cheered him
riotously. At two o'clock it was announced from the hospital that both
patients were out of danger; for it had developed that, in his hurried
diagnosis, Sergeant Clancey had located Henderson's heart six inches
from where it should have been.
When one of the men who guarded Ranson reported this good news the
prisoner said, “Still, I hope they'll hang whoever did it. They
shouldn't hang a man for being a good shot and let him off because he's
a bad one.”
At the time of the hold-up Mary Cahill had been a half-mile distant from
the post at the camp of the Kiowas, where she had gone in answer to the
cry of Lightfoot's squaw. When she returned she found Indian Pete in
charge of the exchange. Her father, he told her, had ridden to the
Indian village in search of her. As he spoke the post-trader appeared.
“I'm sorry I missed you,” his daughter called to him.
At the sound Cahill pulled his horse sharply toward the corral. “I had
a horse-deal on--with the chief,” he answered over his shoulder. “When I
got to Lightfoot's tent you had gone.”
After he had dismounted, and was coming toward her, she noted that his
right hand was bound in a handkerchief, and exclaimed with apprehension.
“It is nothing,” Cahill protested. “I was foolin' with one of the new
regulation revolvers, with my hand over the muzzle. Ball went through
the palm.”
Miss Cahill gave a tremulous cry and caught the injured hand to her
lips.
Her father snatched it from her roughly.
“Let go!” he growled. “It serves me right.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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