CHAPTER XI.

DELL, OF THE “DOUBLE D.”

“Waugh! Jest lis’en ter thet, will ye? Ther pizen noise seems ter come from every which way. Trailin’ tracks ter ther place whar they goes is er heap easier than trailin’ er noise like thet ter ther place whar et comes from. Whoa, you gangle-legged ole hide-rack, y’u! Stand still fer a brace o’ shakes while I tries ter sense ther location o’ thet distressin’ whoop.”

The speaker was Nick Nomad. As was quite frequently the case when Nomad was journeying alone, he was conversing with himself.

The “gangle-legged old hide-rack” to which he referred was his horse--a rangy, ranch-bred cayuse, all leather and springs.

Horse and rider were in a high-walled basin, formed by the opening out of a gulch through which ran the wagon-trail from McGowan’s mine, to the town of Phœnix, in Arizona.

At its widest, the basin would measure probably an eighth of a mile across. Its bottom was level as a floor and overgrown with mesquit, greasewood, and thorn.

Nomad, entering the basin from the gulch on the north, was crossing to the gulch on the south. He was close to the center of the basin when he heard a prolonged:

“Whoo-yah-h-h!”

The walls of the basin caught up the sound and sent it echoing and reechoing across the intervening spaces, the result being a bewildering clamor coming from everywhere at once, and from nowhere in particular.

“Sartain shore,” muttered old Nomad, cocking up his ear and puzzling his brain, “thar’s another human in this hyar place, an’ he ain’t feelin’ jest right in his mind, someways. But whar is he? Thet’s ther p’int. Ther noises aire all tangled up, an’ et seems like thar was er hundred voices callin’. We got ter make er try, anyways, ole hoss. As er starter, we’ll bushwhack ter ther right.”

The trapper turned from the wagon-trail and spurred into the chaparral. “Whoo-e-e!” he shouted, as he forced his way through the brush.

The echoes of his call were taken up by another “Whoo-yah-h-h!” from the unseen man, and the basin fairly roared with voices.

Nomad forced a passage clear to the basin wall on the right without locating the person he was seeking. Thereupon he rode some fifty feet southward, and cut clear across the basin.

Luck was with him that time, for he came upon a low structure of cottonwood logs, bolted strongly together at the corners, and with other logs bolted to the top, the whole forming a sort of cage.

At one side of the cage was a door of strong, two-inch planks, fastened to slide up and down in grooves. This door was closed, and the top edge of it weighted down with a big stone.

“Waugh!” exclaimed Nomad, pulling up his horse. “Ef et ain’t er b’ar-trap I’m er Piegan.”

“Whoop-yah-h-h!” came the howl of distress once more, and there was not the least doubt about its being inside the trap.

Nomad slid down from the saddle, dropped to his knees, and peered between the logs. Then he began to laugh.

Inside the trap, likewise on his hands and knees, was a caged man.

The man had fiery red hair, and his broad face was fringed all around with fiery red whiskers.

“Divil take yez!” snorted the man in the trap, with a brogue that was rich and fluent. “A laughin’ matther, is ut? Come insoide a whoile, like mesilf, an’ see av yez can laugh.”

“Sufferin’ varmints!” chuckled the trapper. “Et’s an Irish b’ar, blamed ef et ain’t.”

“Begorry,” came the response, “Oi’m Irish, an’ proud av bein’ from th’ ould sod, but it’s no b’ar Oi am. Rub yer eyes, an’ look ag’in. Did yez iver hear a bear _talk_? G’wan wid yer funnin’.”

“I’ve seen er b’ar do everythin’ but talk. What’s yer name, my unforchnit friend?”

“Golightly.”

“An’ how did ye come ter git in ther trap?”

“Och, wurra, Oi didn’t come t’ git in. Oi was on me way t’ Phanix, an’ was shtopped on th’ road an’ put in.”

“Whar ye from?”

“Th’ Three-ply Moine. Oi do be worrukin’ f’r McGowan.”

“I don’t riccolect seein’ ye at ther Three-ply, Golightly, an’ I’ve been thar fer two er three days.”

“Oi’ve seen yersilf there, wid Buffalo Bill an’ th’ little redshkin yez call Cayuse. Are yez goin’ t’ let me out, or are yez goin’ t’ set there chinnin’ wid me on me hands an’ knees an’ me back half-broke?”

“I’m goin’ ter let ye out, pilgrim,” said Nomad, getting up and walking to the door of the trap.

Throwing off the stone, he lifted the door, and Golightly rolled out, with a shout of satisfaction at finding himself free.

Clenching his fists, he shook them in the air; then, jumping high and knocking his heels together, he stooped down and patted the earth with one hand.

“Yez hear me?” he roared. “Oi can lick th’ blackguards wid me wan hand tied behind me back!”

“Ef ye’re able ter do thet, Golightly,” grinned Nomad, “fer why did ye let ther blackguards put ye in ther b’ar-trap?”

“Oi was taken by surprise, that’s whoy!” glared Golightly.

“Tell me erbout et,” returned the old trapper, climbing into his saddle and hooking one knee about the horn.

“This is th’ way av ut,” went on Golightly, ramming some tobacco into the bowl of a short clay pipe and scratchin’ a match on the sole of his boot. “McGowan is expectin’ av his girrul from ’Frisco th’ marnin’, an’ it was mesilf he sint t’ Phanix t’ mate her. McGowan was busy an’ couldn’t go himsilf. Oi got an early shtart wid th’ buckboard, an’ whin Oi was goin’ through here, a mon wid a mask over his face--bad cess t’ him f’r th’ blackguard he is!--rode out av th’ bushes an’ grabbed th’ two horses by th’ bits.

“Simulchuniously, an’ whoile Oi was arguin’ wid th’ mon t’ let go av th’ bits, two more wid masks rode out, wan on each soide av me, laid hold av me collar an’ tipped me aff th’ sate av th’ buckboard. They had guns, d’ye moind, an’ sorry a thing had Oi but me two fists. What could Oi do? I ask yez that. Not a thing, says you, but do as yez was bid. I did that same, an’ was poked into th’ thrap, th’ door was closed, an’ th’ blackguards wint aff wid th’ buckboard.”

“Thet was a pizen queer move, Golightly,” remarked Nomad, the humor of the situation dying out with the serious business that seemed back of it.

“Queer, is ut? Oi do be callin’ ut worse than queer. What did they want iv th’ ould man’s buckboard? An’ what did th’ ould man’s girrul do whin there was no wan t’ meet her at th’ thrain in Phanix?”

“Ther ole man’s darter’s name is Annie, ain’t et?”

“Annie McGowan--ye’ve shtruck ut. She’s been visitin’ in ’Frisco, an’ was expected home this marnin’. By th’ same token, she was expectin’ some wan from th’ moine to mate her, an’ that same was what McGowan tould me t’ do--which Oi didn’t do, account av bein’ penned up in th’ thrap f’r six mortil hours. Och, wurra, but Oi can’t ondershtand ut at all!”

Golightly had not lighted his pipe. He scratched half a dozen matches on his boot-sole, but each time he became interested in his explanation, and allowed the match to flicker out between his fingers. It was a keen expression of his state of mind.

“I knowed McGowan was expectin’ his darter from ’Frisco,” said Nomad, “an’ thet he’d sent some ’un ter meet her; but why ye’d be stopped on er peaceful journey like thet thar, an’ ther buckboard took erway from ye, is somethin’ I don’t understand. What use hev a lot er men on hossback fer a buckboard, anyways? An’ why was they masked? A feller don’t wear a mask onless he wants ter hide his identity; an’ ef he hides his identity, ye kin bet yer moccasins thar’s somethin’ onlawful up his sleeve.”

“Where are yez bound f’r, Nomad?” asked Golightly.

“Phœnix. Buffler, an’ Leetle Cayuse, an’ me aire startin’ fer Fort Apache. Leetle Cayuse an’ Buffler will start from ther Three-ply this arternoon. Hevin’ er piece o’ bizness ter attend ter in Phœnix, I started on ahead.”

“What had Oi betther do? Go on t’ Phanix, or back t’ th’ moine?”

“Ef Miss McGowan was comin’ on ther mornin’ train----”

“She was that.”

“Then she reached Phœnix three hours since, an’ prob’ly hes gone ter ther hotel. Yore cue, Golightly, is ter mosey back ter ther Three-ply, an’ report what’s happened. Someway, I don’t like ther looks o’ things. This underhand work may p’int ter some big villainy er other, an’ McGowan ort ter be informed o’ et as soon as possible.”

“Oi do be sizin’ av ut up in th’ same way, Nomad; but it’s severeal moiles back t’ th’ Three-ply, an’ Oi’ll be some toime coverin’ th’ ground on foot.”

“Ye’ll not kiver the ground on foot, Golightly, fer I’m goin’ ter give ye a lift. I’ll erbout-face an’ make front on thet Three-ply camp, so’st ye kin give McGowan ther nub o’ this diffikilty in short order. Climb up behind me.”

Nomad kicked his foot out of one of the stirrups, and Golightly was just mounting, when a clatter of hoofs reached their ears from southward.

The trapper hoisted himself in his saddle and looked across the tops of the bushes toward the gulch opening at the south side of the basin.

“Waugh!” he cried, startled; “thar comes er gal on er white pinto, slashing erlong ter beat four of er kind, with two handy boys in masks in hot persoot! Take er look, Golightly! Is thet Annie McGowan?”

“Annie! Jest from ’Frisco in that rig? Niver! That’s Dell, av th’ Double D Ranch--a fri’nd av Annie McGowan’s.”

“Whoever she is, Golightly, she needs us, an’ we’ll cut her out o’ thet bunch in er couple er jerks. Hang on, kase I’m goin’ ter plow through ther chaparral at top speed.”

Pointing straight for the wagon-trail, the old trapper made quick use of his spurs, and the double-burdened horse crashed away on the jump.

By the time Nomad and Golightly had reached the wagon-trail, Dell of the Double D was well to the north of the basin. The old trapper and the Irishman thus came out of the scrub between her and the two pursuing men.

Facing about in the trail, old Nomad unloosened “Saucy Susan” and “Scoldin’ Sairy”--as he called his forty-fours--and the result, as he afterward expressed it, was “shore comical.”

The masked pursuers, evidently, were not expecting interference, and the sudden materializing of the trapper and the Irishman from the bushes was in the nature of a disagreeable surprise.

Although their faces were masked, it could easily be seen that they were ruffians of the border brand--the sort who can be very brave when there are two of them in pursuit of a woman, but immediately experience panic when the odds are more nearly equal.

The bullets fired by the trapper went into the air, and the horses of the pursuers were stopped so suddenly that the men on their backs almost went over their heads.

Frantically the two ruffians whirled about and went slashing along on the back trail, plying whip and spur for all they were worth.

To follow them was the last thing Nomad would consider, with his own horse so heavily burdened.

“Aire them plug-uglies two o’ ther gang thet put ye in ther b’ar-trap, Golightly, and run off with ther buckboard?” asked the trapper.

“Faith, they look like ut,” answered the Irishman. “They didn’t shtop t’ tell us whoy they took th’ buckboard.”

“Nary, they didn’t,” chuckled Nomad. “Mebbyso they’ll send their explanations by mail. Let’s see what ther young woman has ter tell us. What did ye say her name was.”

“Dell av th’ Double D Ranch.”

“Dell, hey? Ain’t thar nothin’ more to et?”

“Dauntless, Dell Dauntless, Oi belave, is her full name, but nobody iver calls her that. F’r ivery wan in these parts she’s Dell--Dell av’ th’ Double D.”

Nomad, after watching the two masked men disappear in the gulch, had turned his horse the other way.

“Dell Dauntless,” he muttered, his eyes on the girl as she came riding back on her white cayuse. “Waal, thet’s er great name. Et somehow tickles my fancy like, an’ appeals ter my imagination. Et makes Dauntless Dell, when ye turns et front-end to, an’ shore stacks up ther clear quill. Ther name’s purty, an’ ther gal thet wears et is ther same. She looks like she was got up ter play ther star part in ‘Ther Cowboy’s Pride,’ er some other mellerdrammer with lots er blue fire and trembly music. Mebbyso ther name’s er false alarm, an’ thet war-rig o’ her’n is on’y fer looks.”

“Arrah, ye’re wrong!” declared Golightly; “they do be sayin’ Dell av th’ Double D is nervier than any mon in these parts. She can hit a squirrel in th’ eye as far as she can git a sight av him, an’ she can shtand aff twinty feet an’ throw th’ p’int av a bowie through anny pip ye name in a playin’-card.”

“Waugh! Ye’re gittin’ me plum inter_est_ed; but go lightly, will ye, ef thet’s yer name. What ye tell me is more’n ary woman kin do.”

“Yez don’t know Dell av th’ Double D,” muttered Golightly.

As she came loping easily toward the trapper and the Irishman, perfect mistress of her horse and her lithe body swaying rhythmically in the saddle, the girl was certainly a “picture.” Nomad, who cared little for the sex feminine, felt a mighty stirring of admiration in his old heart. Certainly, Dell of the Double D appealed to his admiration for the picturesque.

The girl could not have been more than nineteen or twenty years of age, and that she was athletic by training and temperament was manifest in every graceful move.

Her blouselike waist was of softest doeskin, fringed and beaded and secured about her trim waist by a carved Mexican belt, from which depended an ornate knife-sheath, showing the pearl handle of a bowie; her short skirt was of buckskin, likewise fringed and beaded; below the skirt’s edge were laced tan leggings, and below the leggings were small russet shoes, with silver spurs at the heels. Her hat was a rakish brown sombrero.

Her riding gear was decorated with silver trimmings, which dazzlingly reflected the sun.

The cayuse, white and pink-nosed, was as smooth as satin.

“A foine horse she has,” commented Golightly, in a low tone, as the girl came nearer.

“Never seen er white bronk thet was wuth his keep,” demurred Nomad.

“Yez are lookin’ at wan now, thin,” insisted Golightly. “She do be callin’ av him ‘Silver Heels.’”

“Silver Heels!” muttered the old trapper. “Et’s er name thet stacks up fine with Dauntless Dell. Mebbyso thar’s somethin’ back er all them fine feathers, but I won’t believe et till I’m showed.”

“Howdy?” called the girl, bringing Silver Heels to a halt. “Whyever did you push into this chase and scare those two ombrays away?”

This last question was a startler. Nomad rubbed his chin and silently turned it over in his mind.

“Golightly,” the girl went on, “you ought to have known better, even if that grizzly old warrior in front of you didn’t.”

Nomad gulped hard on a swear-word. What was the girl trying to get at, anyhow?

“Waal, I reckon!” growled the old trapper. “Say, I’ve been a grizzled warrior fer three times as many y’ars as you’ve been on airth, an’ I ain’t never yit seen ther time when I wouldn’t interfere with two masked tinhorns as was er chasin’ er lady.”

The girl leaned back in her saddle, stared a minute, then gave vent to a rippling laugh.

“Glory be, Dell,” said Golightly, “yez hadn’t ought t’ talk like that. This gint is Buffalo Bill’s pard, ould Nomad.”

A smile still twitched at the girl’s lips, but there was interest and gratification in her blue eyes as she held out one gauntleted hand to the trapper.

“Shake, old Nomad,” said she. “I’m Dell--Dell Dauntless of the Double D Ranch. Any fellow who trains with Buffalo Bill must be in the list of big high boys. You didn’t understand what I was trying to do, that’s all. But I’ll forgive you. Your intentions were all right, I reckon.”

Nomad took the small hand gingerly.

“What in blazes was ye doin’, miss, ef ye warn’t tryin’ ter git erway from them thar masked riders?”

“Well, I was plugging along for the gulch,” said Dell; “the gulch is rocky and crooked. I was intending to round in under the lee of a boulder, draw a bead on the two masked men”--she slapped at a brace of holsters as she spoke, such small holsters that they had, up till then, escaped the trapper’s eye--“and make them tell me what their game was.”

“Their game was ter ketch ye,” averred Nomad.

“But why? So far as I can tell, I never met the men before.”

“Them leetle poppers look ter be rale cute,” hazarded Nomad, “but them fellers is so hardened, I’m afeared yer toy bullets wouldn’t hev punctured ’em.”

“They’re sawed-off thirty-eights,” said the girl promptly, jerking one of the weapons into view. “I can take your sizing, all right, Nomad. You think I’m too much of a spectacle to make good in a fight. I’ll admit to you that I don’t like rowdyism. I try to be a lady, both at home on the ranch and when I’m abroad in the hills. But I don’t think any the less of a lady because she’s able to take care of herself. Do you?”

“Nary, I don’t,” said Nomad.

“I’m no second edition of Rowdy Kate or Calamity Jane; but when my father died”--the girl’s voice trembled, and a mist came into her fine eyes--“and left no one but me to look after mother and take care of the ranch, it was up to Dell of the Double D to show her hand. In self-defense I was obliged to learn the ways of the frontier. How well I have learned them, Nomad, any one in these parts can tell you.”

Nomad pulled off his hat.

“Ye’re all right, Miss Dauntless,” said he, “an’ thet shot goes as it lays.”

“I’m Dell to my friends,” said the girl, her eyes dancing again, “and I want to be friends with old Nomad, and with Buffalo Bill, too.”

“Thar won’t be no sort er trouble erbout thet. But I’d like ter hear more erbout them fellers thet was chasin’ ye.”

“They have been dogging my heels ever since I left Phœnix, picking up my trail about the time I crossed the Arizona canal. I don’t know why they did this any more than you. As I just said, I was going to make a play to find out when you came to my”--she laughed--“my rescue.”

“Waal,” grinned Nomad, “now thet ye’re rescued, ye kin jest trot erlong home ter ther Double D, an’ Golightly an’ me’ll pike fer ther Three-ply.”

“I’m piking for the Three-ply myself,” said Dell.

“Thet so?”

“Sure. You see, I have important business with Buffalo Bill.”

“S’posin’ we ride tergether?”

“Fine!”

The girl whirled Silver Heels, clicked her spurs, and both horses started off on an easy lope.