An outlaw's pledge; or, The raid on the old stockade

Title: An outlaw's pledge; or, The raid on the old stockade

Author: Spencer Dair

Release date: October 9, 2022 [eBook #69119] Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Arthur Westbrook Company, 1910

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69119

Credits: David Edwards, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

AMERICAN INDIAN WEEKLY

BY COLONEL SPENCER DAIR

VOL. I THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY, CLEVELAND, OHIO, U.S.A. NO. 1

Copyright 1910 by the Arthur Westbrook Company, Cleveland, Ohio.

AN OUTLAW'S PLEDGE

OR

THE RAID ON THE OLD STOCKADE

By COL. SPENCER DAIR

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS.

Red Rogers—A daredevil outlaw, who has broken from jail, killing four men in his escape, and returns to the scenes of his early crimes, that he may carry out a pledge made to a dying member of his gang, being pursued and eluding hundreds of troopers before he is finally sent to his doom, at the Old Stockade. Rose Landon—Daughter of the man to whom Red Rogers made his pledge, who helped the outlaw to break jail and then accompanied him on his dash into the Bad Lands to carry out his vow. Repenting of her vicious life, she finally marries a young trooper whom Rogers has captured. Pedro—A former member of Red Rogers' gang, who also assisted in his escape from jail, and, after accompanying the outlaw to the mountains, is captured by the troopers. Jennings, Shaw, Scotty—Members of the Mounted Scouts, who have their horses stolen by the outlaw, and are afterwards taken prisoners by him and held as hostages. Alkali—A half-breed scout, who eventually tracks Red Rogers to his doom. Colonel Edwards—Commandant of Fort Griswold, the officer who

takes charge of the pursuit of the outlaw. Troopers, Deputy Marshals and Sheriffs and their posses.

CHAPTER I.

THE MYSTERIOUS SIGNAL.

"His-s-t!"

With startling suddenness, the cry shattered the stillness of the night that lay upon the foothills of the "Bad Lands."

As they heard it, three men who, rolled in their army blankets, were sleeping in the protecting shadow of a huge boulder, rose to their elbows and peered into the darkness, at the same time whipping out their "Colts" with their free hands.

But only the silence of the night, seeming more intense as the echo of the strident cry died away, greeted them.

"That must have been a signal," breathed one of the trio, after several minutes of listening.

"If it was a signal, it would have been answered," rejoined a companion.

"Sure it would," asserted the third member of the party.

"Then what was it?" demanded the first.

"May have been a snake, or a mountain lion," suggested the man who had doubted the startling cry being a signal.

"Snake? Mountain lion?" repeated the other, in disgust. "Say, you'd better go back to the recruits till you learn the difference between a human voice and an animal's cry."

The three men were members of the Mounted Scouts, out on patrol duty from their station at Fort Griswold.

Two of them had been in the service three years, while the other was on his first detail, having only just been promoted from the band of recruits at the Fort.

Consequently, the sneering allusion to his inexperience cut deep, and he was about to retort fiercely, when the third scout prevented.

"Jennings is right, Scotty. It was a man's voice uttered that cry," he whispered.

"Then what does it mean?" persisted the youngster.

"Just keep yer tongue in yer head and yer eyes and ears open, and we may find out," grunted Jennings.

This reply had the intended result of effectually silencing the recruit, and, with every sense alert, the three men awaited some sound that would explain the mysterious signal.

Unlike most details of mounted scouts that patrolled together, there was no affection, bred by perils and dangers shared, between the men. Indeed, there was not even good feeling. The veterans, Jennings and Shaw, had long been rivals for the honor of being the best shot at the Fort, and both resented being sent out with a "rookie."

The personnel of the patrol, however, had been arranged by Colonel Edwards, commandant of the Fort, with a purpose.

So many had become the raids and robberies that the officers began to suspect connivance between the outlaws and some of the scouts, and the names of Jennings and Shaw had been linked with these rumors.

Knowing the rivalry existing between them, the colonel had decided to send them out together, confident that each would be only too willing to report any suspicious actions of the other, and, to prevent such an anomaly as an alliance in wrong doing, he had added the recruit, instructing each to report in detail all that his companions did.

The surprise of being awakened from his sleep had driven the memory of these orders from the youngster's mind. But as the monotony of the watch grew, they recurred to him.

"I'll bet that was a signal for either Jennings or Shaw," he said to himself, "and whichever it is, is afraid to answer because I'm here. I'll have to keep my head about me all right, all right."

But the recruit's suspicions did his fellow members of the Mounted Scouts injustice—as he was soon to learn.

With a suddenness almost as startling as the mysterious signal, came the thumpety-thump of a stone as, dislodged from its resting place, it bounded down the mountainside.

"That's above us," breathed Jennings, leaping to his feet and feeling his way cautiously to the edge of the boulder, whence he strove to penetrate the inky darkness that enveloped crags and trees alike.

As their companion jumped to his feet, Shaw and Scotty did likewise, following him as he crept along the rock.

"What do you make of it?" queried the veteran of his fellow.

"Somebody's discovered us and is either trying to get away or to warn others," asserted Jennings, with positiveness.

"But how could any one see us in the shadow of the boulder?" demanded Scotty, resenting the indifference of his companions to his presence.

"Men who can travel these hills in the night, don't have to see a man to know he's around, they can smell him," returned Shaw.

"Say, you fellows might as well cut this jollying out right now," flashed the youngster. "I'm not going to stand for it any longer—either you'll treat me decently or I'll mix it up with fists or guns, whichever you like. Smell a man, rats!"

"Now don't get het up, rookie," rejoined Jennings. "Shaw's right. A good woodsman or an Injun can scent a man as easy as you can a grizzly. Besides, if they didn't scent us, they could the horses."

"Queer we ain't heard a whimper from the cayuses," exclaimed Shaw, as his comrade's mention of their mounts recalled their existence. "My old Bonehead usually don't like these night surprises."

"You don't suppose whoever it was has stolen 'em?" suggested Scotty, to whose excited brain nothing seemed impossible.

"What, take three iron shod horses and me and Shaw not know it?" snorted Jennings. "It would be easier to have 'em run off with one of us."

"Just the same, I'm going down to see if they're all right," declared the recruit, moving away.

"Hold on. We'll go with you," whispered Shaw. "Being nervous, as they will, you may scare 'em—and we'd be in a pretty fix fifty miles from the Fort and no ponies."

And, placing the youngster between them, the veteran scouts crept cautiously down to the plateau, some fifteen yards from the boulder, where they had left the horses to feed on the sweet grass.

Already, the heavy darkness in the east was giving way to the grey-greens of dawn, enabling the three scouts to make out the outlines of the rocks and trees above them.

But, as they turned a crag whence they could get a glimpse of the plateau, they stopped in amazement.

Not a horse was to be seen!

"So they couldn't steal our ponies with you and Shaw 'round?" grinned Scotty.

"Keep your tongue in your head," growled Jennings. "That cry probably frightened 'em, and they've gone down the trail. Come on. It won't be hard to track them."

Again were the scouts destined to be surprised, however.

Though the steadily-increasing light enabled them to find the shoe-prints, where the animals had moved about during the night and those made when they entered the plateau, not a trace could they find indicating the direction of their departure!

With blank faces, the two veterans stared at one another.

As they stood in baffled perplexity, of a sudden, from above, there rang out a mocking laugh.

Whirling, Colts ready, the scouts looked up.

Outlined against the sky, stood a powerfully-built man, red of hair and beard, wearing a scarlet shirt.

"Red Rogers!" gasped Jennings and Shaw, in chorus.

Another jeering laugh greeted the exclamation, then with a defiant wave of his hand, the figure disappeared.

CHAPTER II.

SCOTTY LEARNS SOMETHING ABOUT THE "SERVICE."

"No more mystery about what's become of our ponies," growled Shaw, giving relief to his feelings in a torrent of curses.

"You mean Red took them?" queried Jennings.

"My, but you're getting to be the quick little thinker."

"Well, if he did, I'd like to know the trick. Red's cute, I know, yet it's some stunt to get three horses up a mountain on a dark night without leaving any trail."

"Oh, we'll be able to learn how it was done when it gets lighter. Now, let's get back to the boulder before Red swipes our rifles, blankets and saddles while our backs are turned."

"Lot of good our saddles will do us now," grunted Jennings. "Red might as well have taken 'em."'

The silence of his comrades, deeply ashamed that they should have been tricked of their horses without even knowing it, gave Scotty the first chance to speak since the discovery of the man on the rock and he lost no time in making the most of it.

"But that can't be Red Rogers, he's in jail!" he exclaimed.

"Was, you mean," corrected Shaw, with a feeble attempt at raillery. "I didn't know he'd got out. But no other man than Red Rogers ever had hair and beard like that."

"What would he want of our horses, and how'd he know we were here anyway?" asked Scotty.

"Scented us," asserted Jennings, positively, answering the last question first. "I told you a good woodsman or an Injun can always scent a man—and Red Rogers can give any Injun or woodsman cards and spades and then beat him at his own game. As to why he took our ponies, he probably wanted 'em."

"I have it!" cried Shaw, slapping his thigh. "I'll bet Red has just broken jail. He's probably hiking it to his old hiding place, and, coming across our ponies, helped himself."

"But they're army horses. They'll be recognized by any one who sees 'em," objected the youngster.

"Little Red cares," returned Shaw. "Possession is no nine-tenths, it's the whole law to him—and he's quick enough with his gun to defend anything he decides is his."

"I suppose we ought to be thankful Red didn't need shooting irons, or he'd probably have helped himself to our rifles," exclaimed Jennings, as they found their weapons and blankets undisturbed.

"Oh, cut it out," retorted Shaw. "We'll have to stand enough joshing from the boys at the Fort, without your trying to get funny.

"Scotty, start a fire and put on the coffee pot—there's enough water in it."

And, while the youngster obeyed, the others rolled up their blankets.

"What are you going to do with the saddles and bridles?" asked Scotty, as he joined them.

"Leave 'em in the cave yonder, so's they'll be waiting when we get our horses back," declared Shaw, picking up his own and carrying it to a crevice in the rocks, some ten feet away, into which, after a short examination, he placed the now useless accoutrements.

"Then you're going to track Red?" asked the youngster, in surprise.

"Surest thing you know, kid. We've not only got to trail him, but we've got to get back our ponies!" rejoined Jennings. "If it should get out how Red tricked us, and then we didn't recover the cayuses, the Mounted Scouts would never be able to hold down the gun men, horse thieves and outlaws ever again.

"It's the knowledge that the Mounted Scouts never let up when they want a man that makes 'em feared!"

"That's what!" chimed in Shaw. "You're working for the honor of the Mounted Scouts now, not merely for Uncle Sam, Scotty. Remember, if you get done to death, there'll be another to take up the task from where you dropped."

This forceful explanation of the simple but unrelenting code of the Service impressed the youngster as nothing else could, and he grew silent in contemplation of the dangers entailed.

Of all the Outlaws who made the "Bad Lands" their hiding place, dashing forth to raid an isolated settlement, rob a bank or hold up a train, there was none whose name caused such terror or who had such a reputation for daredevil fearlessness as Red Rogers.

It had taken the Mounted Scouts three years of ceaseless trailing to run him down—and the presence of a full squad to effect his capture.

Indeed, his arrest had done more to inspire a wholesome respect for the Mounted Scouts in the breasts of desperadoes and renegade Indians than any other of their acts.

And here the notorious bandit was back in his old haunts after serving less than five years of his life sentence—and he had given notice of his liberty by running off with three horses belonging to his mortal enemies, from right under their very noses.

"How do you suppose he broke jail?" asked Scotty, as the three crest-fallen men squatted cross-legged about the fire eating their beans and sipping the coffee.

"We'll hear—if we ever see any one from the Fort again. But, I'll stake my saddle against a blanket pin he left a trail of blood if any one was in his way," responded Jennings.

This suggestion that they might never live to return from the pursuit sent Scotty's heart into his throat.

"If we ever see any one from the Fort?" he repeated in dismay. "Aren't we going back to get horses and reinforcements?"

Their eyes twinkling, the veterans looked at one another and laughed.

"Say, have you forgotten your 'rules and regulations' so quick?" demanded Shaw. "Don't you remember that only in 'cases of dire emergency may a scout give up a trail and return to the Fort?'" he added, drawling in imitation of the colonel when quizzing the recruits.

"Well, isn't this such an occasion?" returned the youngster.

"Hardly," rejoined Jennings. "We're not dead, we're not injured, we're——"

"But we've lost our ponies," interrupted Scotty.

"And it's up to us to get 'em back," declared the veteran. "To save you a 'twigging' by the colonel, the sooner you get it into your noddle that 'dire emergency' means only when you're so wounded you can't get back to the post, the better.

"So, as soon as you've finished grub, we'll be starting."

"I'm game," rejoined the youngster. "It seems to me, though, we ought to get some word to the Fort that Red Rogers is loose."

"They'll hear of it, right enough. Don't worry about that," declared Jennings. "I'll stake my Colt they knew it before we did."

"Still, as this is the trail the others will have to hit to get to Red's hang out, it won't do any harm to leave word we're without ponies," suggested his fellow veteran. And, no objection being made, the scout produced a stub of a pencil from his breeches and wrote laboriously on a piece of paper torn from a can label.

"Read it," commanded Jennings, as the task was completed.

Willingly Shaw obeyed.

"Red Rogers lifted our ponies early Thursday morning. We're hitting the trail. All well. Shaw, Jennings, Scotty."

"But you didn't say anything about the saddles," exclaimed the youngster, as the reading was completed.

"Sure not. Whoever follow us won't need two saddles, and besides, we'll want 'em ourselves when we get back our ponies," returned Shaw.

"Then, if we're going, let's be on our way," said Jennings.

And, getting to their feet, the Scouts quickly packed their outfits.

CHAPTER III.

TRAPPED.

Having adjusted their blankets to their shoulders, Shaw set about finding a suitable hiding place for his note, while his fellow comrade made ready a "broken staff"—a sign which, seen by any Mounted Scout, told him that important information had been hidden by a fellow member of the service.

The preparation of the symbol was simple.

Cutting a green branch from a near-by shrub, Jennings broke the top, letting the end hang down, and then set the "broken staff" in the middle of the trail, with the hanging tip on the side toward the spot where Shaw had hidden the note—which happened to be under a stone placed against the boulder.

Interestedly the youngster watched the placing of this signal that served as a method of communication between the scouts not in the "rules and regulations," being one of the many signs that had been devised by the men themselves and, therefore, only to be learned by experience.

"Suppose some one else sees the signal. Won't they remove it or read the note?" asked Scotty.

"Not much," returned Shaw. "That the 'broken staff' is one of the Scouts' signals is known to most travelers of the trails. But, just what it means, they don't know, and they have a mighty wholesome respect for it. Why, I've seen men ride ten feet around one of 'em so's to be sure not to interfere with it."

"But, hasn't any scout told what it means?"

"Not yet!" returned Jennings, with an emphasis that was significant. "And there's a bullet waiting for the man who betrays the secret signals of the Mounted Scouts. It's a part of our unwritten code. You'll find, kiddo, after you've served a bit, that there's more in our unwritten rules than in the ones the colonel beat into your noddle."

"But, how can I learn them?" the youngster inquired, his eagerness to master the mysteries of his calling evident in his voice.

"By keeping your eyes and ears open when you're on patrol," replied Shaw.

During the latter part of this conversation, the trio had made their way, for a second time, down to the plateau, whence their horses had been spirited away.

And, as Shaw had predicted, the sunlight enabled them to learn the manner of their silent departure.

Dropping to his knees with a sudden exclamation, the veteran studied intently for a few minutes the ground surrounding a spot where the shoe prints showed where one of the horses had stood, then got up, a look of utter disgust on his face.

"Say, Jennings, you and me ought to go back to the 'rookie' school," he snorted. "Red worked the old game of binding the hoofs in rags, and here we never thought of it."

Without reply, the other veteran scanned the marks discovered by his fellow, evincing his confirmation by a corroborative nod of his head as he rose to his feet.

But his next move showed that he did not take the trick calmly.

"You may have caught us napping this time, Red Rogers!" he hissed, shaking his fist menacingly. "But, before Andy Jennings is through with you, you'll wish you'd never lifted his pony!"

"Same here," grunted Shaw.

And without more ado, the three scouts who had been so humiliated by the notorious outlaw, took up the task of recovering their horses and bringing the desperadoes to justice.

Cautiously, with eye and ears alert, they followed the tracks up the mountainside.

Far above them, on a plateau to the right of the trail, a different scene was presented.

At the back of the shelf of land, which was some forty feet wide, rose a wall of rock, severed by a wide cleft. Deep within this, the fitful flare of a camp fire glowed, disclosing the forms of two men and a woman, while browsing contentedly near the entrance, but on the plateau, were the three army horses.

Fairly bristling were the men with guns and knives, while only by her skirts did the girl differ in appearance from her companions, for she, too, wore a cartridge belt about her waist, into which were thrust two six shooters and a bowie-knife.

"It was worth all the risk to hear the scouts cry 'Red Rogers,'" declared the outlaw, as he recounted the incidents of his discovery to his companions.

And jeering were the comments made upon the stupidity of the scouts by the others.