I could not see into the hollow beneath the wall because it was some distance off and the snow whirled about it, but I could imagine the Winchester barrel resting on the sods while a steady eye stared through the sights, and knew that neither Ormond nor Harry carried weapons. So I started at a flounder toward them, roaring as I went:
“Go back—for your life, go back!”
They evidently did not hear me, though we were afterwards to hear the reason for an apparent act of madness. Harry was always reckless, and Ormond coolly brave, while as I ran I saw the two horses flying at the wall. A streak of red flame blazed out low down in the snow, a mounted man passed me leading two horses, and I neither knew nor cared whether he noticed me, for I felt suddenly dizzy, wondering whether the bullet had gone home. Neither did I hear any report at all, for my whole attention was concentrated on the black shapes of the riders breast high beyond the wall. Then one beast rose into the air, and I saw Ormond swing a riding crop round backward as though for the sword cut from behind the shoulder. A soft thud 87 followed, Harry’s horse cleared the sods like a bird, and I blazed off my rifle at a venture toward the hollow as they thundered neck and neck past me. It was clear that empty-handed they had ridden either over or through the foe.
After that events followed too rapidly to leave a clear impression. A pair of half-seen figures which appeared at the other end of the hollow scrambled for the empty saddles, and one seemed to help his companion. Then they vanished into the whirling haze, and Colonel Carrington’s Winchester rapped as he emptied the magazine at the flying foe, while by the time the new arrivals had mastered their excited beasts there was only a narrow circle of prairie shut in by blinding snow.
“Very glad to find you safe, sir,” said Ormond. “We met the Blackfoot who peddles moccasins, and he told us he had seen four men he thought were Stevens’ gang heading for Carrington, so we pushed on as fast as we could. Perhaps if we three went on with rifles we might overtake them.”
Harry looked eager, and I was willing, but Colonel Carrington was wisest:
“You have done gallantly,” he said, “but it would only be throwing lives away. The snow is coming in earnest, and it strikes me they have gone to their account unless they find shelter in a coulée.”
Then they dismounted, and a hired man, who had lagged behind through indifferent horseflesh and no fault of his own, was despatched to prepare breakfast, and it was a merry party that assembled round the table. Even the ruler of Carrington’s grim face relaxed.
“I am glad to make the acquaintance of both of you,” he said. “You will make the best of Carrington I hope for a day or two.”
We were nothing loth, for twenty miles of deepening 88 snow lay between us and our homestead, where we had little to do, while to complete my satisfaction Grace and her train arrived in the Lone Hollow sleigh early the next morning, and on hearing the story her eyes glistened as she thanked me. “I am so glad I sent you,” she said, “and I feel I owe my father’s safety, perhaps his life, to you. It is a debt I can never repay.”