The Night Riders: A Romance of Early Montana

by Ridgwell Cullum

At dawn the position is unchanged. The man still droops over his saddle-horn, a little lower perhaps, but his general attitude is the same. As the daylight shoots athwart the horizon and lightens the darkness of the bush to a gray twilight the horse raises his head and pricks up his ears. The man’s eyes glance swiftly toward the south and his alertness is intensified.

Now the soft rustle of flurrying snow becomes audible, and the muffled pounding of a horse’s hoofs can be heard upon the trail. The look that leaps into the waiting man’s eyes tells plainly that this is what he has so patiently awaited, that here, at last, is the key to his lonely vigil. He draws his horse back further into the bushes and his hand moves swiftly to one of the holsters upon his hips. His thin, drawn features are sternly set, and the sunken eyes are lit with a deep, hard light.

Daylight broadens and reveals the barren surroundings; the sound draws nearer. The silent horseman grips his gun and lays it across his lap with his forefinger ready upon the trigger. His quick ears tell him that the traveler has entered the bush and that he is walking his horse. The time seems endless, while the horseman waits, but his patience is not exhausted by any means. For more than a week, subsisting on the barest rations which an empty pocket has driven him to beg in that bleak country, he has looked for this meeting.

Now, through the bushes, he sees the traveler as his horse ambles down the trail toward him. It is a slight fur-clad figure much like his own, but, to judge by the grim smile that passes across his gaunt features, one which gives the waiting man eminent satisfaction. He notes the stranger’s alert movements, the quick, flashing black eyes, the dark features, as he peers from side to side in the bush, over the edge of the down-turned storm-collar; the legs which set so close to the saddle, the clumsily mitted hands. Nor does he fail to observe the uneasy looks he casts about him, and he sees that, in spite of the solitude, the man is fearful of his surroundings.

The stranger draws abreast of the black sign-board. His sidelong glances cannot miss the irregular, chalked characters. His horse comes to a dead stand opposite them, and the rider’s eyes become fixed upon the strange message. He reads; and while he reads his lips move like one who spells out the words he sees.

“This is the One-Way Trail,” he reads. And then his eyes turn in the direction of the pointing finger.

He looks down the trail which leads to Battule, whither the finger is pointing, and, looking, a strange expression creeps over his dusky features. Instinctively, he understands that the warning is meant for him. And, in his heart, he believes that death for him lies somewhere out there. And yet he does not turn and flee. He simply sits looking and thinking.

Again, as if fascinated, his eyes wander back to the legend upon the board and he reads and rereads the message it conveys. And all the time he is a prey to a curious, uncertain feeling. For his mind goes back over many scenes that do him little credit. Even to his callous nature there is something strangely prophetic in that message, and its effect he cannot shake off. And while he stares his dark features change their hue, and he passes one mitted hand across his forehead.

There is a sudden crackling of breaking brushwood within a few yards of him; his horse bounds to one side and it is with difficulty he retains his seat in the saddle; then he flashes a look in the direction whence the noise proceeds, only to reel back as though to ward off a blow. He is looking into the muzzle of a heavy “six” with Arizona’s blazing eyes running over the sight.