The Sunset Trail

by Alfred Henry Lewis

The door was locked. There was a turning of the key; the bolt was shot, and the door swung open.

“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Masterson, to whom the voice and words of the Wild Rose had come but faintly.

At the opening of the door Sergeant King thrust aside the Wild Rose. Next came a flash and a roar! There could be no talk of missing; the pistol was pressed against the side of Mr. Masterson. He staggered with the awful shock of it as the lead tore through his body; but he kept his feet, holding by the door.

There came a second roar, a kind of double roar, and this time there were two flashes instead of one. The trained senses inside the Lady Gay averred later that the space to elapse between the roar and the double roar was less than the tenth part of a second.

However brief that measure of time, it was crimson with multiplied tragedy. With the thought of defending her love, the Wild Rose, uttering a cry of horror, and clutching at the murderous pistol, threw herself between Sergeant King and Mr. Masterson. She was a breath too late for the first; the second, meant also for her idol, drove its way into her young breast. The Wild Rose fell; at her side fell Sergeant King, snuffed out by the unfailing six-shooter of Mr. Masterson.

Hard hit as he was, Mr. Masterson raised the Wild Rose in his arms. She opened her brown eyes, swimming with love.

“He said you wanted me,” whispered the Wild Rose.

Mr. Masterson, looking into the soft depths, saw that love and knew it for his own. Even as he gazed, the warm lights failed and faded; the rose flush deserted the cheek. In the arms of Mr. Masterson the Wild Rose lay dead.

[CHAPTER V—THE STRATEGY OF MR. MASTERSON]

This came long after the battle at the ’Dobe Walls, and was of the year next before Dull Knife, that Red Richard of the Cheyennes, with one hundred and forty-eight followers, two-thirds of whom were squaws and pappooses, broke from the soldiers and fought his way to his old home in the North, whipping the cavalry once, twice, thrice; yielding only and at last to the lying treachery of Red Cloud and his Sioux police. It was a great trail that last long running fight of Dull Knife, and proved his heart good and his “medicine” strong. Some one some day ought to write the story high among the gallant deeds of men. However, here is not the place nor this the time; for what comes after is to be a tale of stratagem, not battle; politics, not war.