Perfection City had further cause for amazement and hurried meeting in Assembly.
Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton Wood Creek which she reached and crossed by the last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out of the bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by the sound of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck grass again, for the fire had not crossed the Creek, she determined to camp. It was a black night, but she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her horse blindfold. Taking her saddle and shawl out of the circle of Rebel’s night-range, she wrapped herself up to wait until daylight should permit her again to go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although the prairie wolves were yelping in the distance. The nervous terrors that had beset her when sitting in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog at her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead, were quite gone. Yet there was enough to frighten a more valiant person than our poor little Olive, with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.
What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition? First of all to overtake Cotterell and his captors, and then to do what the wit of woman could devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance of prairie feelings and ideas she attached no importance to the fact that he would have been captured riding the well-known brown mare belonging to Perfection City. He would of course explain that she had lent him the animal, and that question would at once drop out of the debate. Then the terrible one of the shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled. That was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where her testimony and pleading might avail. She knew from his own lips how the fatal affray had occurred, and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro who out of revenge was going to swear away Cotterell’s life. Olive hated to do it, but she knew she could say things to any western jury that would make it difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once in a way the mighty race-prejudice could be relied upon to work for justice, and poor Olive, fanatical friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to have so strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful emergency.
Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How long, how unutterably long are the hours of darkness to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried to fix her eyes steadily on one or two of them in order to convince herself that they really did move after all. Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became weary, and the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.
She must have slept some little time, for when she awoke the stars had certainly changed places and were moreover becoming pale in the first grey streaks of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold and drenched with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered, so she could hear them like a piece of broken machinery moving inside her head, while her fingers were almost numb. As soon as she could make out Rebel in the approaching dawn, she saddled him, and, woman-like, did not forget the lariat-rope, picket-pin and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible anxiety. She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and the recollection came back to her, like a blow that almost stunned her, that this would be the last time he would ever see the sun rise unless she hurried to his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity, the horror of it drove the chilled blood with a rush to her heart. She caught her breath, and then felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and her chattering teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She clambered up on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop towards that house where she would get positive news which would help her to find the lynching-party quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party! She urged Rebel into a harder gallop, for the sun was just beginning to appear over the horizon, and she could see where she was going. She reached the cabin where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t know her, but they invited her to breakfast with prairie courtesy. She saw the negro man who had told the news to Napoleon Pompey.
“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.” There was never any doubt in Olive’s mind as to the fact that they had caught him, what she wanted to know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed dey was gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder was whar dey hang de las’ man; den dey jury-try him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar heaps o’ trees dar.”
Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which the negro saw, and so did the Halls. She would not stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast, notwithstanding their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to the shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away on her errand of mercy.
Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure, and remembering the look of misery on her face, “reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly gals as is cotched by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She ’lowed if the boys hed hung ole man Cotterell when Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t marry her, ’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband was of opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter strangers an’ furrin fellers, not bein’ content along o’ their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em, app’inted by the hand o’ Providence.”
Olive rode through the hot September day feeling very faint and tired, but never for a moment faltering in her determination; and well on in the afternoon she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses standing and the stakes for three more stuck into the ground to signify possession. There was only one woman in the place along with a flock of children. No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know much about the movements of the “boys.” “They hadn’t passed that way at all, but she hearn tell they had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told, and it was a shame those foreigners should be allowed to come to America to steal honest folks horses, and true born Americans too, as always worked for every cent before they spent it. They had taken him to Union Mills to try him and she hoped—well she didn’t want to say anything unbecoming to a professing Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit and rest before going further, she didn’t look fit for such hard riding.” Olive, feeling sick with disappointment, accepted a morsel of food, and asking her way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight miles already, and if she had only known where to go she would have been there hours ago. It was nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not hope to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless although the sun was getting low in the west. The horrid thought kept pressing against her heart: was she already too late? But no, she would force it out of her mind, and come what might she would never stop until she had done her utmost to save him. She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed signs of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly and tried to roll. This would never do. All depended on her horse, if he failed her then Cotterell’s last chance of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following a prairie track and now riding along side it, because Rebel stumbled in the ruts. It got dark, she did not know where she was, but followed the track for some time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on her left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards it. After some difficulty she reached the door. Could they harbour her for the night? She was caught out and could go no further.
“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar in sin was she gwine that time o’ night ’thout nobody, not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case of life and death and she must do it. They were deeply sorry, they fed her with corn-bread and bacon, they fed her horse, and were kindness itself. The cabin had only one room with a bed in one corner for the man and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The wife said “she’d be doggauned sick ’less she went to bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and the settler’s wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the floor with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long before daylight he went out and fed her horse. The wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive again and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent her off with many good wishes as to her finding her husband better, who, she was sure, ’ud be tickled to death at seeing her.