Deane hesitated only an instant, his eyes bleak. At least twenty of his men were behind him. Brian Coyle was sided by only two, Elam Brooks, the hard bitten former stage driver, an Indian fighter and mountain man, and Matt Bardoul.
Yet Logan Deane was no fool. No doubt there entered his mind the thought that by tomorrow they would be coming up to Fort Reno and its soldiers.
“All right, Bat. Go back to your wagon!” Deane said.
Hammer glared at him for an instant as if he did not believe his ears. Then with an oath he stepped back and holstered his gun. Ben Sperry got slowly to his feet. “Not much man in you, is there? Pistol whup a man after he whupped you man to man! Hit him while that damn’ gunfighter holds a gun on him!”
“That will be enough of that, Ben!” Coyle said. He swung to Logan Deane. “Deane, when you have any complaints about the personnel of my wagon company, you come to me. If any wagons are to be searched, I want to be there to search them with you! I want the complaint to have a public hearing.”
“I reckon,” Matt said quietly, “that goes for my company too!”
Deane’s eyes shifted and his glance lay upon Bardoul like a rapier touch. For an instant their glances crossed, Deane cold and ready, Matt completely relaxed and smiling half amused. Yet his eyes were alert.
“Maybe,” Logan Deane said, “we’ll have something to settle one of these days!”
Bardoul smiled. “Maybe we will, Logan,” he said quietly, “maybe we will. An’ maybe again you’ll realize what a stinkin’ mess you’re walkin’ into of your own accord.” He reined his horse around. Then turned in his saddle, his right hand on the cantle, he said, “I have an idea, Deane, there’s a lot more honest man in you than most folks think!” Brian Coyle’s eyes shifted from one to the other, puzzled. Then as Bardoul started to move off, he moved up beside him. “What did that mean, Bardoul?”
“Nothin’, maybe.” He glanced over at the father of Jacquine. “I don’t want to ask for trouble, Coyle, but why don’t you put this alongside of that Bain affair and what I warned you about back in Deadwood? It might make some sort of sense.”
As he rode back to his own company he was scowling. He knew why Logan Deane had backed down. The answer, of course, was Fort Reno. On the other hand, what had Bat Hammer been doing in Ben Sperry’s wagon? It was unlikely that he would be doing any petty thieving at this stage of the game. If not that, then what could he be looking for?
Clive Massey had been up ahead with Barney Coyle. Had Massey been back there, what then would have happened?
One reason for the ending of the affair, and perhaps the only reason, had undoubtedly been Brian Coyle’s reaction. It was totally unexpected, and Matt Bardoul grinned at the startled look in Deane’s eyes, and the shocked expression of Bat Hammer when Brian Coyle interfered. They had all taken the man too lightly. This might be a new sort of life for him, but he might have a lot behind him. After all, he must have been through the war. When faced with a situation Coyle had reared right up on his hind legs and told them off. No wonder Barney and Jacquine had fire!
Somehow Matt realized, they were going to have to draw Coyle into their councils and acquaint him with their suspicions, for there was every chance he would put all this down to just a minor squabble and not to a symptom of something more serious.
Yet the lines were drawing sharper and cleaner now. The pattern had not yet displayed itself, but the cleavage had appeared, and the sudden strength of Coyle might cause them to rearrange their plans. However, there was small chance that anything would happen between this time and their leaving of Fort Reno. After that, it would be every man for himself unless he was greatly mistaken.
Dust arose in a cloud over the wagon train. The oxen moved with slow, ponderous steps, barely crawling over the Prairie that was almost a desert. In the distance the snowcapped peaks beckoned them with uplifted fingers. Dust caked the faces and lay in a mantle over the clothing of everyone in the train. Once, late in the afternoon, riding far off on the flank, Matt found a pool among some rocks. He filled his canteen, and a spare he was carrying just for that purpose. Then by the time the dun had drunk, the pool was only gray mud, slightly damp.
He rode back to the train and stopped it. Then carefully, they walked along, sponging out the mouths and nostrils of the oxen. With care, they succeeded in giving a little attention to all the oxen in the company. Then they moved on, crawling slowly along the flank of the main body.
It was almost dark when Matt Bardoul dropped back toward the light wagon that still lagged behind them. Joe and Joe’s brother sat side by side on the wagon seat as he came alongside.
“We’re pulling up to Fort Reno,” he said, “and we should make it shortly after midnight. Why don’t you join my company from there on in? We’d be glad to have you.”
Joe shook his head. Bardoul doubted if he were more than twenty, and his brother, if brother it was, looked even younger. “Thanks, we better stay to ourselves.”
“Then keep an eye open for Indians. This is the old Bozeman Trail country, and the Sioux never did like the white men coming in here. Now, they have resigned themselves to it on the surface, but whenever they get a chance, they attack and kill stragglers.”
“Thanks again, we will.”
He rode back toward his own wagons. There was something here that puzzled him, something he did not understand. Certainly, Joe’s brother might be a girl, but if so, why wouldn’t she welcome travelling closer to the other women of the train? Especially, after the fright she must have received from Abel Bain.
It was long after midnight before Matt, riding far ahead, sighted the first lights of Fort Reno. He turned then and rode back along the line of the wagons. The movement was painfully slow, and the drivers sat heavily on their seats or walked beside the teams, sodden with weariness. The big wagons seemed scarcely to inch along, each turn of the wheel a special effort, each step a dogged battle with deep lying dust and the cumbersome weight of the wagons.
Even Jacquine was in the saddle. She showed up beside him suddenly as he remounted after putting his shoulder to the wheel to get the wagon over a rock. “Are we almost there?”
He nodded. “Right over that rise. Thank God, the last little way is down hill. If it wasn’t, I doubt if we could make it.”
“Two of Dad’s teams have stopped. The last three or four miles a lot of them have been dropping out.”
He glanced ahead. They were the first houses they had seen in days. They had come fifty-five miles without water.
Several uniformed horsemen were riding toward them. The officer in command reined in. “Are you in command here?” he demanded of Bardoul.
“Only of the company. Colonel Orvis Pearson is in command of the entire train.”
“Colonel Orvis Pearson? Well, I’ll be damned!” He noticed Jacquine. “Oh? I beg your pardon!” He looked back at Bardoul. “We’ve orders to search this train,” he said, “we’re looking for a woman, Rosanna Cole. She’s wanted for murder!”
CHAPTER VIII
“Rosanna Cole?” Bardoul shrugged. “Never heard of her. I’m quite sure that Colonel Pearson will lend you every possible aid, however.” Matt hesitated. “For murder, you say? Where did all this happen?”
“In St. Louis. She has been traced as far as Deadwood, but they lost track of her there.”
“Since when did the Army start doing police business?” Matt grinned at the young officer.
“The Army does everything out here!” He looked from Matt to Jacquine. “My name is Lieutenant Powell.”
Bardoul’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “My name is Bardoul, and may I present Miss Jacquine Coyle?”
“Miss?” Powell’s eyes brightened. “Say, that’s jolly! I was sure you two were married when you rode up! Something about the way you look.”
Matt grinned. “Sorry, I got that cut over my eye in a fist fight.”
The burly sergeant sitting behind the lieutenant spoke suddenly. “Sir?”
Powell turned. “What is it, Sergeant?”
“This man is Matt Bardoul, sir.”
Matt glanced quickly at the sergeant. He had never seen him before. The name evidently meant something to the lieutenant for he turned quickly and looked at Matt again. “Sorry,” Powell said, “I didn’t connect the name. We’ve heard a lot about you, sir. You’ll find friends at Fort Reno, a number of them.”