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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77347 ***
+
+
+                         The Pony Express Rider
+
+By Earl C. McCain
+
+A rangy sorrel, dead tired from the long, hundred-mile trip from the
+Mormon settlements along the Great Salt Lake, lifted his ears sharply as
+he stumbled down from the rim of the desert and caught the smell of
+water. In a little depression among the blistering rocks and sand-dunes
+nestled a group of buildings; small, yet marking Ross’s Post, the most
+important place on the Pony Express route between Salt Lake and
+Placerville.
+
+The rider, quick to catch the awakened interest of his horse,
+straightened in the saddle. Slight though it was, the movement showed
+the buoyancy of youth; natural enough, since Dixie Rollins was only five
+days past twenty-one. Ross’s Post was his destination and his dark eyes
+brightened as the horse quickened its step.
+
+The trading post, two stories in height and housing a bar along one
+side, was the most important building in the settlement. It was flanked
+by several small shacks, sparingly built of boards.
+
+Across the street from the trading post stood a small, squat building,
+with a big corral at one side. This was the Pony Express change station,
+and it was in front of it that Dixie halted the sorrel and slid to the
+ground.
+
+Inside the office a tall, thin-faced man sat at a rough table, glancing
+over some papers as he talked to another man whose clothes stamped him
+as the station keeper. It was to the man at the table that Dixie
+directed his question:
+
+“You’re Jim Slade, the superintendent?”
+
+Slade nodded, meanwhile searching Dixie’s face with his keen, appraising
+glance. Slade was known as a real power in the Pony Express, with the
+ability to ride as hard and shoot as straight as any man under his
+direction. He possessed an uncanny ability at judging men; something
+that made Dixie a bit nervous as he went on:
+
+“I rode down to try and get on as a Pony Express rider.”
+
+“Can you handle a horse and gun?” Slade asked sharply, letting his gaze
+wander to the new Colt that swung at Dixie’s side.
+
+“As for the first part of your question, I’m from Kentucky,” Dixie
+answered smiling. “With a gun, I’m only fair.”
+
+Slade hesitated an instant, then said: “You’re pretty young to be
+tackling work as dangerous as the Pony Express.”
+
+“I know, but I’d like a chance to make good at it. I have a brother,
+Clint Rollins, riding for you, and I’d like to show him that I can hold
+a man’s job.”
+
+A change of expression flitted across Slade’s keen face.
+
+“So you’re Clint Rollins’s brother. It seems to me I’ve heard something
+about you.”
+
+“Good or bad news?” Dixie inquired, forcing his eyes to meet Slade’s
+across the table.
+
+“Not the best,” Slade made reply, “but we’ll pass that. In the Pony
+Express, we don’t care so much about what a man has done as what he’ll
+be in the future. When we hire a man he starts with a clean page, and
+it’s up to him to write his own record on it by the way he conducts
+himself.”
+
+Dixie merely waited, and Slade, after a moment, went on:
+
+“I guess I can use you, Rollins, because we’re short a man between here
+and Salt Lake. I’ll start you on the Red Pillar run, which is one of the
+easiest we have. You relieve the eastbound rider here each afternoon,
+ride twelve miles north to the last station you passed coming down, lay
+over there at night and come back with the westbound mail in the
+morning. It’s what we call a ‘turn around,’ because you have to ride
+both ways each day, but you only make twenty-four miles. Most of the
+riders on the straight runs have to do forty or fifty miles a day.”
+
+Slade turned slightly toward the station keeper and continued:
+
+“Potter here will have a horse ready for you when the mail gets in from
+the White Rock station tomorrow afternoon. That will give you a chance
+to rest tonight and to visit with Clint, who ought to be coming in from
+the south pretty soon now. If you’re anything like your brother, you
+won’t have any trouble making good. Clint is one of the best riders we
+have, and a man all the way through.”
+
+“Thank you, Mr. Slade,” Dixie said, meaning it both for the tribute of
+praise to his brother and the job Slade had given him.
+
+From the station, he led his horse into the Pony Express corral after he
+had told Potter that he wanted to use the animal part of the time on his
+run, then walked across the street to the post. He had bought a cigar at
+the bar and was just lighting it when a shout from across the street
+drew his attention. Several men who were loitering in the room moved
+toward the door and Dixie followed.
+
+Up from the south, where the desert sloped away toward the horizon, came
+a fast-moving rider, trailed by the dust clouds kicked up by his horse’s
+hoofs. In front of the change station Potter had tightened the cinch on
+a long-legged bay and a wiry-looking little man swung to the saddle and
+trotted out to meet the other man.
+
+As the incoming rider came closer and closer the man on the bay swung
+his horse back toward the station and broke into a gallop. By the time
+the horses were running neck and neck Dixie could recognize Clint, who
+raised himself in one stirrup, lifted the mochilla, or leather
+saddle-cover containing the mail-pouch, and passed it to the other man.
+
+A moment and the bay was racing past the station, with never a halting
+of the mail-bag in the change of riders. Dixie had seen Pony Express
+riders before, but never one of those whirlwind changes, and it thrilled
+him to think that tomorrow he would be riding from Ross’s Post on that
+same duty. He turned as Clint’s horse, already slowing, neared the
+station.
+
+With an ease that came from long experience Clint slid gracefully from
+the saddle in front of the corral gate and turned his horse over to
+Potter. His face and clothing were covered with fine, white dust. He was
+slapping this from his trousers with his wide-brimmed hat when Dixie,
+touching his arm, said:
+
+“Hello, old timer!”
+
+Clint turned quickly, evidently surprised by the familiarity of the
+voice. He was no heavier than when Dixie had last seen him, seven years
+previous, but somehow, he looked different. His face was leaner and
+stronger, with a certain hardness that had not been there before.
+
+He took Dixie’s outstretched hand, but it seemed as if there was a lack
+of warmth in his voice as he asked:
+
+“What the devil are you doing here?”
+
+“I’m going to work for the Pony Express. Mr. Slade has already given me
+a job riding between here and Red Pillar.”
+
+There was a touch of pride in Dixie’s voice as he made the announcement,
+but not in Clint’s reception of it. Clint spent a moment in thought,
+then ignored Dixie’s remark as he said:
+
+“I thought you were in California?”
+
+“I was, until a few months ago.”
+
+There followed an awkward pause, broken by Dixie asking:
+
+“What’s troubling you, anyway, Clint? I know there’s something wrong
+from the way you act.”
+
+“There is,” Clint said evenly, and his blue eyes, hard as steel, met
+Dixie’s. “I’ve heard you were mixed up in a mine robbery out in
+Sacramento and had to skip out to save your hide. I think you’ve got
+lots of nerve, trailing me here and asking Slade for a job, when you’ve
+got that kind of a reputation.”
+
+The fighting blood of the South came leaping to Dixie’s head at Clint’s
+words, but he checked the angry reply that came to his mind. Clint was
+his brother—an older brother, who, in former years, had always led
+him—and besides, there was something in what Clint had said.
+
+But Clint’s assumption that he was guilty before he had had a chance to
+explain rankled him, and he showed it in his reply.
+
+“I’m not saying that I haven’t done some things I wish I hadn’t, Clint,
+but fortunately for me, Slade’s a little more generous than you are. I
+did tell him I was your brother, because I was a little proud of what he
+said about you. But after all, I got the chance I asked for, and I’m
+going to show him and you, too, that I can make good.”
+
+Clint said nothing to that, and Dixie, knowing that he probably
+wouldn’t, turned sharply and walked back to the trading post. He knew
+that Clint would have to lay over in Ross’s Post, and he had intended to
+share his brother’s room. But Clint’s attitude had made that impossible,
+so he walked into the office of the trading post.
+
+A tall, gray-haired man came forward and Dixie stated his business,
+explaining that he was to begin work as a Pony Express rider the next
+day. The tall man was old Dick Ross, founder of the post and friend to
+white man and Indian there for twenty years. When Dixie gave his name,
+Ross inquired:
+
+“Any kin to Clint Rollins? He stays here every other night.”
+
+“I’m his brother, but I’d like a separate room if you have it.”
+
+Ross nodded and turned to a doorway at the side of the office. He spoke
+to some one in the adjoining room, and a girl came to the door. Her
+eyes, black and sparkling, seemed to find something of interest in Dixie
+as Ross said:
+
+“This is my daughter, Mildred, Mr. Rollins. She looks after the boarding
+end of the business while I handle the trading post and the bar.” Then
+to her: “Mr. Rollins is Clint’s brother, and he’s going to stay with us
+tonight.”
+
+“I am glad to meet you, Mr. Rollins,” the girl stated, emphasizing it
+with a smile that brought out all the beauty of her pretty little face.
+“I know your brother quite well, and I hope we shall become as good
+friends as Clint and I have always been.”
+
+“I’m your friend already,” Dixie replied, and though he smiled as he
+said it, he knew that he had never made a truer statement.
+
+The girl was small, with the lithe grace of an Indian in her movements.
+Her manner of meeting him showed courage and sincerity, and back of his
+instant liking for her was the age-old appeal of youth to youth.
+
+A call from the bar took Ross away from them and Dixie spent a few
+minutes chatting with the girl. She told him they had supper at six,
+then directed him to his room and disappeared toward the rear of the
+building.
+
+As he climbed the stairs he heard the sound of a horse stopping in front
+of the bar, but he reached his window too late to see the rider.
+
+There was a home-made rocker in the room and Dixie pulled this over to
+the window, lighting a cigarette as he sat thinking of the meeting with
+Clint. He felt a keen resentment at his brother’s treatment, but he knew
+that he might have expected this if Clint had heard of the trouble he
+had been in at Sacramento.
+
+Brothers though they were, there was a vast difference in the two men.
+Clint had always been stern and strong—a man at eighteen with rigid
+ideas of right and wrong. Their mother had come from Virginia, and from
+her Dixie had inherited his brown eyes and his tolerance and sympathy
+for others. He believed that any man, like a picture, deserved the best
+light, and it cut him that Clint, instead of showing him sympathy, had
+treated him like an outlaw.
+
+An hour or so had slipped by when the girl called Dixie from the foot of
+the stairway and he went down to the dining room. Supper was being
+served on one long table, and he found Clint, Slade, Ross and several
+other men seated. Dixie took the chair opposite Clint, but while both
+joined in the general conversation, neither directly addressed the
+other.
+
+There was one pleasant feature of the meal for Dixie. The girl waited on
+the table and engaged in conversation with every one present. But to
+Dixie it seemed that she showed him a bit of favoritism. Twice he
+glanced up to find her dark eyes studying him, and each time he was
+rewarded with a smile.
+
+When supper was finished, Dixie, like all the other men except Clint and
+Slade, strolled into the barroom. He was standing at the bar, talking to
+Ross, who had relieved the bartender, when he heard his name called. He
+turned to face Jack Settes, a man he had known in California and the one
+person he had dreaded to meet.
+
+Settes had the reputation of being one of the deadliest gunmen in the
+West, with a gun-trick that had cost many an unsuspecting man his life.
+The butts of two big guns protruded from his belt.
+
+He was a big man physically, with a commanding personality to match his
+giant frame, and by the merest inclination of his head he motioned Dixie
+aside.
+
+“I reckon you’re a mite surprised to see me here, but I had business
+with you,” Settes began, when they were some distance from the bar. “I
+heard in Salt Lake that you had headed this way to join the Pony
+Express, so I rode down to see you.”
+
+“What for?” Dixie asked, wondering if Settes’s appearance in Ross’s post
+was the signal for another battle with his past.
+
+Settes, usually deliberate, took his time about replying. When he spoke
+again, his voice had been lowered almost to a whisper.
+
+“It’s about that affair at Sacramento. I reckon you knew that Tom
+Lakeman died after the robbery?”
+
+Dixie nodded, and Settes, after glancing around went on:
+
+“Lakeman thought you had a hand in the robbery and told the Vigilantes,
+so you were wise in making your get-away when you did. But when the
+sheriff learned that Old Age Hardy, a teamster, had quarreled with
+Lakeman that day and found Hardy hanging around the mine after the
+robbery, he arrested Hardy for the shooting.
+
+“Of course, you and I know that Hardy never shot Lakeman, and that he
+didn’t have anything to do with the robbery. But the sheriff at
+Sacramento was anxious to show that his office could maintain law and
+order without the help of the Vigilantes, so he bent all his efforts to
+convicting Hardy. He succeeded, and Hardy is to be hung at Sacramento on
+the twenty-fifth of this month, which lets you and me out, so far as the
+murder is concerned.”
+
+“You know I had nothing to do with it, anyway,” Dixie stated.
+
+“I know it, yes; but a lot of people think you did, and that’s what I
+wanted to see you about. After the robbery the men who were with me at
+that time scattered, and Pete Crosby and Ed Dickson drifted to St.
+Louis. They got caught trying to rob a store there and Pete was shot
+through the stomach. Before he cashed in he got tender-hearted about Old
+Age being hung for something he didn’t do, so he made a statement to the
+St. Louis officers.
+
+“Dickson wrote me at Salt Lake, saying that Crosby’s statement, all
+properly witnessed by the St. Louis officials, is being rushed to
+Sacramento over the Pony Express to save Hardy’s life. It left there on
+the second, so it ought to be here on the tenth. You’ll be working as a
+Pony Express rider. I want you to grab that letter when it comes through
+and turn it over to me.”
+
+“But what will happen to Hardy if I do?”
+
+“He’ll most likely hang, but that’s the best thing that can happen for
+you and me,” Settes answered calmly. “You see, Crosby always figgered
+that you were hooked up with me in that robbery, because he had seen us
+together several times. His letter probably mentions us both, so it’s a
+matter of protecting yourself as well as me that you get that letter.”
+
+Dixie was debating his answer to Settes, but he was saved a decision at
+the moment. The door leading from the office had opened and Clint stood
+at the end of the bar, quietly watching Settes and his brother.
+
+For the first time since his arrival in Ross’s Post, Dixie felt ill at
+ease under Clint’s scrutiny. He evaded the issue with Settes by
+promising to see him later and walked across to where Clint stood.
+
+“Who is that fellow?” Clint wanted to know, indicating Settes.
+
+“A man I knew in California. Why?” Clint’s dominating manner nettled
+Dixie, and his own attitude became half-belligerent.
+
+“He looks like a bandit to me,” Clint replied, “and you’d better be
+careful who you’re seen with if you want to hold a job in the Pony
+Express. What does he want around here, anyway?”
+
+“Perhaps you’d better ask him,” Dixie answered angrily. “Only, I’d
+better tell you that he has the reputation of being the best revolver
+shot in California.”
+
+“I don’t give a damn about that. It’s _your_ reputation I’m worrying
+about. The reason I came back here was to offer to share my room with
+you tonight.”
+
+“I don’t want to share your room, since you insist on looking upon me as
+an outlaw,” Dixie snapped, and deciding that was a good thing to let
+Clint think about, he strode from the barroom.
+
+Back in his own quarters Dixie felt a little sorry for the clash with
+Clint. Had he been less tolerant, he might have blamed Clint indirectly
+for his trouble.
+
+At twenty, Clint had quarreled with their father and left home to seek
+his fortune in the west. His letters were pages of romance to Dixie,
+then hardly more than a boy, and when Clint, a few years later, had
+written for Dixie to join him in California, the younger brother had
+eagerly accepted.
+
+The long trip by slow-moving wagon train had taken months, and by the
+time Dixie had arrived in Sacramento, Fortune had called Clint
+elsewhere. Thrown upon his own resources in a strange land, and too
+proud to let his parents know of his predicament, Dixie had fallen into
+the company of Settes, who had befriended him.
+
+Dixie had finally got employment in a prosperous mine as a bookkeeper,
+when Settes, presuming on their friendship, had tried to get him to
+participate in a robbery of the place. Dixie had refused, but hesitated
+to report the intended robbery to his employers because of knowing
+Settes.
+
+The mine safe held a fair fortune in gold that was awaiting shipment,
+and Dixie, thinking that he might be able to avert any robbery, had gone
+back to the office that night to make certain the safe was locked. He
+had been talking to Tom Lakeman, the night watchman, when Settes and
+several companions made their appearance, and in the fight that
+followed, fatally wounded Lakeman.
+
+The fact that none of the outlaws had fired at Dixie had led Lakeman to
+believe that Dixie had been a party to the robbery, and he had expressed
+this opinion to a member of the Vigilantes. Hearing that these stern but
+often misguided advocates of law and order were searching for him, Dixie
+had made a hurried escape.
+
+Since then, he had traveled from place to place, realizing that he was
+under a cloud that warranted suspicion, yet afraid to return and try to
+establish his innocence. He had known nothing of Hardy’s arrest and
+conviction until his meeting with Settes, and that had come almost at
+the moment when he had been given a man’s chance by Jim Slade.
+
+Dixie was still thinking of the case when he fell asleep that night, and
+by the time he went down for breakfast, Clint had ridden away with the
+westbound mail. Because he had slept so late, Dixie found no one else in
+the dining room except Mildred Ross, and he enjoyed quite a talk with
+her as he ate.
+
+After that, he spent awhile with Ross and Potter, killing time until
+noon. In the early afternoon, Slade called him to the office and gave
+him a few final instructions about his work and the route to follow.
+
+It was nearly four o’clock when Dixie, watching from the door of the
+change station, noticed a moving speck on the desert. A few minutes more
+and it took the form of a horse and rider; the Pony Express rider from
+White Rock. Mounted on a trim little roan and with a Spencer carbine in
+his saddle-holster, Dixie rode out as he had seen the other man do the
+day before.
+
+The little roan, trained in the work, swung around of her own accord as
+the other horse drew near. The other rider was small and lean, with a
+face tanned by sun and wind until it resembled old leather. He grinned
+as he passed over the mochilla and said:
+
+“New man, eh? Well, luck to you, Buddy, but you’ve sure picked out a
+hard way to make a living.”
+
+“I’ve had it that way before,” Dixie called back, placing the mochilla
+on his saddle.
+
+As the fleet little roan raced past the station, Dixie noticed Jim Slade
+watching him, and he also caught a glimpse of Mildred at the door of the
+trading post. It thrilled him to think that the man who had trusted him
+and a girl who had already found a place in his heart were watching him
+as he started on his first run as a Pony Express rider, both expecting
+him to make good.
+
+Dixie knew that Slade had favored him by starting him on the Red Pillar
+run. The mail pouches, starting each day at Sacramento and St. Joseph,
+Missouri, met at regular intervals throughout the two thousand mile
+route. Here and there the meeting of the mails at points where stations
+were far apart made it necessary to insert a “turn around” run; short,
+but necessary to keep the mail moving.
+
+Slade had said there was little danger on the Red Pillar run, but Dixie
+knew that didn’t apply to other runs. South of Ross’s Post, the Piutes
+were on the warpath, and half a dozen Pony Express riders had paid for
+their bravery with their lives.
+
+To the north, peace held over the land of the Mormons, but beyond that,
+along the Sweetwater and the Platte, the riders were in constant danger,
+and Dixie felt a warm admiration for his brother riders as he settled
+down to a steady gallop, with only the thud of the pony’s hoofs and the
+creak of saddle-leather to interrupt the silence.
+
+The Red Pillar route for the most part was good, well-marked by the
+hoofs of the Pony Express horses as it stretched northward over
+blistering white sand and through desolate rocks and giant cactus. Dixie
+made good time, and he had been in the saddle only a little more than an
+hour when he came in sight of the Red Pillar station, so named because
+it stood at the base of a towering red cliff.
+
+Dixie turned the mochilla over to his relief rider, who sped away on a
+sixty-mile night ride, then slowed up in front of the little station.
+
+There was only one man at Red Pillar; a cheerful little Frenchman by the
+name of Le Ranier. He helped Dixie put away his horse, then returned to
+his work of cooking supper on the little box stove that stood at one end
+of the cabin.
+
+Le Ranier had formerly been a trapper for the Hudson Bay Company in the
+far north and he had the knack of telling tales. It was almost midnight
+when the two men finally crawled into their bunks.
+
+Daylight was just tinting the eastern sky when Le Ranier called Dixie.
+The Pony Express rider from the north was due there about five, and
+Dixie saddled his horse while the Frenchman finished getting breakfast.
+
+They had eaten and Dixie was sitting in the door of the station, smoking
+a cigarette, when a horse came loping through the rocky defile to the
+north. A moment more and Dixie was in the saddle and riding out from the
+station.
+
+“There’s some mail for Ross’s Post, sent down from Salt Lake,” the other
+rider stated, handing over a packet of letters with the mochilla.
+
+Dixie waved his hand to Le Ranier as he passed, then swept out upon the
+desert, glimpsing an occasional coyote as he rode.
+
+A few miles from Ross’s Post the trail passed through a group of bleak,
+sandstone buttes, similar to those at Red Pillar. As Dixie galloped
+along the sandy path, he heard the sound of a horse approaching.
+Instantly he thought of Settes, but when the other horse rounded a high
+rock, he recognized the lean figure of Jim Slade, bound for Salt Lake.
+
+The superintendent lifted his arm as a signal to halt and Dixie reined
+up alongside.
+
+“Make it all right?” Slade inquired tersely.
+
+“Fine.”
+
+“I figured you would when I hired you,” Slade said, more slowly. “I had
+a talk with Clint the other night, after he saw you talking to that
+fellow in the barroom. Clint was right worried about you, but I told him
+all you needed was a chance to make good. I’m considered lucky in
+picking out men.”
+
+“Whether you’re lucky or not, you sure know how to get at the best
+that’s in a man,” Dixie rejoined with feeling. “I’m going to do my best
+not to disappoint you.” And when Slade had said “So long” and ridden on,
+Dixie knew that he would keep that promise, even though it meant an
+actual clash with Jack Settes.
+
+That it meant trouble, he knew only too well. There was plenty of iron
+in Settes’s massive frame; something that made all the more terrifying
+the lightning quickness of his gun trick. He hadn’t bothered to ask
+Dixie to get that letter; simply demanded it, and he was accustomed to
+getting what he demanded.
+
+Dixie had one advantage in facing Settes. He knew of his gun trick; that
+sudden sideways fall of Settes’s big body, while his right hand, meeting
+a lurching holster, held a belching gun by the time his body struck the
+ground. Settes wore two guns, but it was his right that always did the
+killing, and so well did it perform that the left was never called into
+play.
+
+As he had told Slade, Dixie was only fair with a gun; fairly accurate
+and fairly fast. He knew that in the matter of drawing he had no chance
+with Settes. But in thinking of that gun trick, he had hit upon what
+might prove a counter for it, and passing a cactus that threw its shadow
+at the right angle, he jerked out his gun and fired a shot that kicked
+up the dust in the center of the shadow.
+
+His first clash with Settes came sooner than he expected; almost by the
+time he reached Ross’s Post. He had turned over the mochilla and was
+almost at the door of the trading post when Settes, coming from the
+office, met him.
+
+“What the hell’s troubling that brother of yours?” he asked.
+
+“I don’t know. Why?” Dixie countered.
+
+“He came into the barroom the other night and tied into me. Gave me to
+understand that I was to lay off you, or I’d have him to settle with. I
+reckon you hadn’t told him who I am.”
+
+“On the contrary, I did tell him, with a little extra boost for you
+thrown in for good measure,” Dixie replied, conscious of a sudden joy in
+his heart that Clint, after all, had tried to help him. “But a little
+thing like a reputation doesn’t bother Clint. He figgers he’s pretty
+nifty with a gun himself.”
+
+“He’ll need to be if he tries to interfere with me again. That letter
+from Crosby will be in the mail tomorrow. I didn’t want any trouble with
+anybody until after I get it, but after that, he can get action with me
+any time he wants it.”
+
+“I guess it’s about time I put you right about that letter,” Dixie said
+evenly. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since we talked the other
+night. I don’t know whether I can clear myself on that case or not,
+considering the company they thought I was in and that I ran away as I
+did. But I’d rather risk a trial than let an innocent man be hung. I’m
+going to carry the letter through.”
+
+“If you do, you won’t need to worry about standing trial,” Settes said
+deliberately, though his eyes were like pinpoints as he met Dixie’s
+quiet gaze. “I came here for that letter, and I’m going to have it,
+whether you get chicken-hearted or not.” And as if further words were
+unnecessary, he turned down the street.
+
+Dixie had half turned, intending to follow Settes, when a sound caused
+him to glance up. In the doorway stood Mildred, and her expression told
+him that she had heard all that had been said.
+
+Instead of following Settes, he entered the office, and the girl, with
+an eagerness that gladdened his heart, asked:
+
+“What does all this mean, Dixie; about you having to stand trial unless
+you get a letter from the mail?”
+
+“It’s a letter concerning a robbery and murder in California that Settes
+wants. He expected me to take it out of the mail, but you heard what I
+said to him.”
+
+She nodded, then came another question: “How does he know that the
+letter will come through tomorrow?”
+
+“He got a letter from a man in St. Louis, telling him when it was to
+start. It’s easy to figure when it will be here, because the Pony
+Express always makes its regular time.”
+
+There was a pause, then Mildred said: “I’ve noticed that you and Clint
+aren’t very friendly. That you took separate rooms the other night and
+that you seldom speak to each other at the table. Is that because of
+this?”
+
+“Yes, or rather because of Clint’s attitude concerning it,” he
+explained, somehow finding it easy to unburden his chief worry to this
+girl. “Clint had heard that I had been in some trouble, and he jumped to
+the conclusion that I was guilty without even giving me the chance to
+explain. Shall I explain my part in it to you?”
+
+“You don’t need to,” she said quietly, with a look that said more. And
+after an instant, she asked: “Why is Settes so anxious to get this
+letter?”
+
+“Because it implicates him. He was the leader of a gang that robbed a
+mine and shot a night watchman. He is willing that an innocent man
+should be hung for the murder, rather than that his connection with it
+should become known.”
+
+The girl started to ask another question, then checked it, and Dixie,
+thinking that it might concern his part in the affair, didn’t urge her.
+Ross coming in a moment later, interrupted their conversation, and Dixie
+later drifted into the bar.
+
+Dixie was to relieve Clint that afternoon, and he debated telling Clint
+of Settes’s threat. But because Clint had cautioned him about Settes,
+and because, in his anger, he had told Clint that he could get along
+without his help he decided against that. He liked to stick with a
+decision, once he had made it, and when Clint rode in that afternoon,
+Dixie took the mochilla on the gallop and sped away on his run.
+
+Thinking of the clash with Settes and his threat Dixie rode carefully,
+though he knew he was in no particular danger as long as he held to the
+open desert. As he neared the sandstone buttes, he checked his horse a
+bit.
+
+There were a dozen trails through the buttes, but the one used by the
+Pony Express riders was the best. Tempering speed with caution, he
+turned into a trail that paralleled the one usually followed, but he
+rode through and on into Red Pillar without incident.
+
+Le Ranier must have found him a little quiet that night because he was
+worried, but he said nothing of the trouble on his mind. In fact, he
+waved the Frenchman a cheerful good-by when he took the mail the next
+morning and galloped away to the south; over a trail that ordinarily was
+safe, was now fraught with the gravest danger for him.
+
+In the early morning, what life there was on the desert was out, and
+twice Dixie’s hand slid to his holster as he glimpsed moving objects in
+the cactus. But they proved to be only coyotes. He knew that the buttes
+offered a thousand places from which he might be ambushed and like the
+day before, he turned into an old trail where the soft sand deadened the
+sounds of hoofs.
+
+Halfway through the danger zone, Dixie stiffened suddenly. He had caught
+the swish of a horse’s tail in a cluster of cactus beside the main
+trail. He slid from the saddle, and, gun in hand, made his way forward
+on foot.
+
+A little farther and he reached a jagged boulder that overlooked the
+trail. Silently as a cougar stalking its prey, he made his way around
+its base, then suddenly flattened himself against the rock.
+
+Fifty feet away and slightly below him, Settes lay behind a rock,
+watching the main trail with a cocked rifle in his hands.
+
+For several minutes, Dixie stood there, wondering just what to do. Below
+him, Settes lay, waiting to shoot him down, the rifle being ample
+evidence of his intent. At that distance, he could drill Settes with
+ease, and yet he couldn’t pull the trigger.
+
+There was sand at the base of the rock, and Dixie stepped out upon it,
+in full view had Settes been looking. But Settes had his eyes glued to
+the trail, all unsuspecting the danger behind, until Dixie’s voice, calm
+in spite of his excitement, called:
+
+“Expecting me, Settes?”
+
+Quick as a flash, Settes twisted about, the latter half of his gun
+trick. But that trick had always been practiced with a six-gun, and he
+now held a rifle.
+
+Dixie let him get the weapon almost to his shoulder, then he fired as he
+had been firing at the shadows, and Settes’s great body slowly relaxed
+onto the sand.
+
+Dixie had started forward, but he suddenly stopped, then moved back
+behind the rock. From the main trail came the sound of horses and Clint,
+with a rifle in his hand, raced into view. Behind him came Mildred, and
+both halted as Dixie stepped out into sight.
+
+“What happened?” Clint asked, trying to hide the excitement in his voice
+as he leaped from the saddle and ran to Dixie.
+
+“Settes tried to ambush me,” and Dixie pointed to the object that told
+the rest of the story.
+
+“Thank God, you got him first,” Clint said fervently. “I got here as
+soon as I could after Mildred told me of seeing Settes leave the post
+with a rifle, but I was afraid I would be too late. Maybe you know how I
+felt, after the way I’ve treated you. I didn’t understand, until Mildred
+told me what she had heard Settes say yesterday, and what she found in
+that letter.”
+
+“What letter?”
+
+“A letter that Settes had received from a man named Dickson. It showed
+that Settes killed a man in Sacramento, for which another man was to be
+hung. A pal of his had confessed, and he wanted to get this man’s
+statement from the mail to save himself. Mildred couldn’t get the letter
+until after Settes left his room.”
+
+The girl was coming up from the trail, and Dixie remarked:
+
+“So it was Mildred who saw Settes leave and got that letter. I wonder
+why she did that?”
+
+“Because she wanted to prove your innocence, and she wanted to do that
+because she loves you. She’s a good girl, Dixie, and there’s no reason
+why you can’t ask her to be your wife.” And later, as Clint, with the
+mochilla that contained Crosby’s letter, rode away to the south, Dixie
+again returned to his boyhood habit of following Clint’s advice.
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 28, 1925 issue
+of _Argosy-Allstory Weekly_ magazine.]
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77347 ***