A Christmas on the Arkansas [pp. 26-40]

A4 Christmas on the Arkansaw.
"You're playing a trick on me, some of
you; you're hiding my girl from me.
I'11 shoot you, every one of you,-"
Long Rupe laid his hand on his shoulder. "0 come now, Dave, you know
there ain't one of us so mean as that.
She has strayed off somewhere; we'll
find her."
But a half hour's further search was
unavailing, and the men's hearts were
filled with dread as they looked at the
wretched father.
"It's queer where the Mexican is all
this time. He's been gone two days
and nights," said Jack, as they stood
deliberating. "I thought a good streak
had struck him, and he had gone to
Pueblo alone to buy things."
"I knew better than that. He's gone
off to get drunk. He regularly does; it's
a failing of his," said Horace Greeley,
with the just contempt of one who never
erred in that direction.
"Maybe he has come back and hooked
Dolly to make a Charlie Ross of her,"
hazarded Jim. His wild guess fell like
a conviction upon all.
"That's it; he has stole her out of
pure cussedness!"
Acting on this idea they soon discovered the tracks of two horses which had
left the neighborhood of the camp. It
was the work of but a few minutes for
three of the men to make themselves
ready and start with Milton for the
chase.
"I own I don't understand these two
tracks. It would be a heap easier for
him to carry the child than to make her
ride alone. She couldn't do it long
anyways," said Rupe.
"I reckon he has hired another Mexican to help him do the job. It will be
a double lynching when we get'em,"
said Montana Jack with a sinister laugh;
"but they've got an hour's start of us,
and Gomez has the best horse in the
outfit."
Milton turned his white face to the
speaker. "It won't make no difference.
The Devil himself can't keep that man
from me. I'll hunt him to the ends of
the earth."
"And we will follow you," cried the
three men. Then they rode on in silence.
The air was clear and bitterly cold; the
moon and stars shone with wonderful
brilliancy; nothing broke the glittering
splendor of the wide plains, until the
deep blue of the sky shut down upon
them in the distant horizon; on the west
foothill and mountain peak alike were
wrapped in snow. For many miles they
kept on their way, and it was nearing
midnight when Milton, ever straining
his eyes to catch a glimpse of what he
was pursuing, saw afar off something
dark dimly outlined against the surrounding whiteness; he pointed to it without
a word and spurred his horse. Montana
Jack felt for the knife in his boot and
put his hand on his pistol. They soon
discovered that the object, whatever it
was, did not move, but to the anxious
men it seemed an age before they could
reach it.
"If I've got the right idee that is just
the other side of Arapahoe Crick," remarked Rupe, "and if I see straight
there's a critter there off its feet."
Milton struck his horse a sharp blow;
the animal may have felt that his long,
hard ride was drawing to an end; he
dashed forward vigorously, and bore his
rider to the place far in advance of the
others. A horse lay there with a broken
leg, the pain happily benumbed by the
cold. Close against his side, getting
some warmth from the beast's body, was
huddled a woman. A light shawl was
drawn over her head and shoulders, but
Milton had no need to uncover the face
to know it. Lying under the woman
and closer yet to the horse was something
wrapped in a warm sealskin sack. "My
little Dolly! God be thanked!" he murmured reverently, as the child woke fresh
and rosy, and smiled sleepily in her
father's face.
[Jan.
38