JT

EDSON

TROUBLE

TRAIL

TROUBLE TRAIL

While underneath for the third time, Hack gripped the lash of the whip in both hands and on surfacing gave it a savage jerk which shot the girl towards him. As he saw her coming, Hack’s mind worked with its usual speed. Once he laid hands on her, he would half drown her, maybe give her a damned good licking to boot as an added lesson not to resist the honourable intentions of Milo Hack in future.

At that point his day-dreams ended. Using a trick taught her by whip-fighting freighters, the girl permitted Hack to believe he was dragging her helplessly forward into his clutches, then when she came into range brought up a kick under his jaw to show him the error of his ways.

Milo Hack reckoned to be a smart man, but he never made a worse mistake than when he tried to rough-hand1e Martha Jane Canary. Not that anybody in the West would know her by that name. They called her Calamity Jane.

TROUBLE TRAIL

A CORGI BOOK 552 07892 1

Originally published in Great Britain

by Brown Watson Ltd.

PRINTING HISTORY

Corgi edition published 1968

Corgi edition reprinted 1969

Corgi edition reprinted 1972

Corgi edition reprinted 1976

Copyright © 1968 by Transworld Publishers Ltd.

This low-priced Corgi Book has been completely reset in a type face designed for easy reading, and was printed from new plates. It contains the complete text of the original hard-cover edition.

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1. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

2. This book is sold subject to the Standard Conditions of Sale of Net Books and may not be re-sold in the U.K. below the net price fixed by the publishers for the book.

This book is set in

Baskerville 9/10 pt.

Corgi Books are published by Transworld Publishers Ltd.,

Century House, 61—63 Uxbridge Road, London, W5 5SA

Made and printed in Great Britain by

Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd., Bungay, Suffolk.

CHAPTER ONE

MISS CANARY HOPES TO TAKE A BATH

THE air was warm and the sun’s rays splashed through the trees on to the surface of the Witch Fork of the North Platte River. At one point a good-sized tree had fallen into the water, creating a large, deep hole beyond its effective brake on the current. In the big hole a large brook trout finned lazily, not actively hunting food, but ready to take any morsel canted to it in the swirling eddy beyond the dead-fall. The trout had grown large because it learned wisdom early. Once it had shared the hole with many of its smaller brothers and sisters, but cannibal tendencies exploited while young gave it growth and bulk until it reigned supreme on that stretch of river. Dwelling in the most choice spot, it lived on such smaller squaretails as ventured into its domain, while frogs, snakes, small birds and animals all fell grist to the big fish’s mill.

However, like all tyrants, the big fish had enemies. The ubiquitous black bear and the rarer but even more deadly Great Plains grizzly had long been catchers and eaters of fish and were large enough to take even a big brook trout. Once a cougar tried to hook out the fish while lying on the dead-fall and slashing with its claws. Recently another menace had been added to the list of enemies. Soldiers from Fort Connel discovered the big trout early in their stay and many an attempt was made, the enlisted men dunking worms and other live bait, the officers trying their fancy artificial flies, to bring the fish to the bank. All failed, for the trout knew caution and had a secret advantage. At that point the bank was a mite overhung and some property in the bank’s soil transmitted vibrations from any feet approaching the hole. Once such a warning had been received, the big squaretail faded into the depths of the hole and remained there unfeeding until the danger passed.

Just as the trout had engulfed an incautious little squaretail which ventured into the hole, it felt warning vibrations strike its lateral line. They were danger vibrations—the big trout ignored such harmless four-legged creatures as wapiti or whitetail deer—heralding the arrival of a two-legged, human animal, With a lazy flick of its powerful tail, the brook trout sank down into the depths and withdrew to its submerged cave under the dead-fall.

The figure which strolled along the Witch Fork’s bank did not have fishing in mind—and if she had would not have wasted time trying to take a nine pounder that was likely to he as tough as old saddle leather when in the frying pan. Miss Martha Jane Canary hoped to take a bath. For ten days she had been on the trail, handling the reins of a six-horse Conestoga wagon, eating dust and growing more dirty by the hour, for there had been too much urgency to reach Fort Connel to allow time out for ablutions Her one desire in life at that moment was to strip off her clothing and soak away the dirt and dried sweat in the cool, inviting waters of a mountain stream.

The river lay ready, cool and waiting before her. She had not broken either of her arms and so stood full capable of stripping off her clothes. One way and another Martha Jane Canary reckoned she ought to be able to satisfy her whims.

The still waters behind the dead-fall reflected the picture of a girl in her late teens and who, wearing her Pawnee moccasins, stood maybe five foot seven in height. A battered U.S. cavalry kepi perched on top of her shortish, curly mop of red hair; and the face framed by the hair was good looking without being ravingly beautiful, Tanned and sprinkled with attractive freckles, the face had happy blue eyes, a slightly snub nose and a mouth which looked made for laughter and kissing, but which could cut loose with a hide-blistering flow of coarse invective when a situation called for it.

Laying down the small bundle of clean clothing she had brought to wear after her bath, the girl unfastened and removed her tight-rolled dust-smothered old bandana. The man’s shirt and jeans she wore looked like they had been bought a size too small and further shrunk during washing. Clinging firmly to her torso, the round full swell of her breasts straining against its material, the shirt’s upper three buttons lay open and revealed there was little other than girl under the cloth. Her waist slimmed down without the aid of a corset, then swelled out into shapely rounded hips which held tight the washed-out blue jeans. Nor could the jeans hide the firmly-muscled curves of her shapely and powerful legs.

A gun belt hung around the girl’s waist, its holster tip lashed to her thigh by a pigging thong and supporting an ivory-handled Navy Colt butt forward at her right side. On some women such an outfit might have been regarded as a stupid piece of ostentation. Martha Jane Canary could handle her gun well enough to prevent folks laughing twice at the sight of her wearing it. Thrust into her belt at the left side was a coiled, long-lashed blacksnake whip; and, like the gun, she did not carry it just for decoration.

Taking off her kepi, the girl folded her bandana and placed it into the hat’s crown, putting them down by her clean clothing. Next she unfastened the holster’s pigging thong and un-buckled the belt, laying the gun and whip where she could reach one or the other’s working end even while standing in the water. Again this was no affection; Martha Jane had been long enough in the West to know the folly of being out of reach of one’s weapons.

With a wriggle, she extracted herself from the shirt’s tight embrace and underneath it wore a man’s sleeveless undershirt which revealed more than it concealed. Just as she reached to unfasten her waist belt ready to take off her jeans, she heard the dry pop a stepped-on twig made as it broke.

Bending down, the girl’s right hand closed on the butt of her Colt, sliding the gun from its holster and thumb-cocking it even as she turned. Then she gave an annoyed grunt, lowered the Colt’s hammer on to its safety notch and replaced the gun in its holster once more. Scowling her disgust, she studied the man who walked from the trees towards her.

‘I might’ve known nobody but a shiny-butted, desk-scraping, blue-belly three bar’d make that much noise sneaking up on a gal,’ she said contemptuously.

Coming towards the girl, Quartermaster-Sergeant Milo Hack worked his loose lips into what he fondly imagined to be a masterful grin; but which came out as a slobbering sneer. He was a man just over middle height, fatter than any hard-riding combat soldier ever became, and with a face that only a mother could love—most folks thought Hack’s face would show at its best advantage upon a tray and with an apple thrust between its teeth. If his uniform looked better and smarter than most soldiers on the frontier sported, it was only because his position in life gave him opportunities of augmenting his salary and enabled him to patronise a higher class of tailor than who served the needs of his fellow, enlisted men.

‘Figured you might like a guard,’ he told the girl, ‘seeing’s how we’re in Injun country.’

Actually Hack’s intention had hardly been so noble and chivalrous, for he did not intentionally come into view at that moment—nor had he come to defend her from marauding Indians, but rather to watch her disrobing and had no desire to be noticed at such an early stage in the interesting process.

Hack figured himself to be gifted with intelligence beyond that of his enlisted comrades and reckoned he could think right smartly. So when he saw the girl talking with the boss of the freight outfit, he listened to the conversation. On hearing the girl say she aimed to find someplace to take a bath, he decided the sight would be worth seeing and possessed possibilities of amorous adventures. So he followed her at a distance until she reached the dead-fall and halted to commence her bath.

At first he decided to stay put and watch her preparations, but decided the view might be better closer up. Not being a man who went for such outdoor pleasures as stalking alert prey, he trod on a twig while moving up for a better view and the sound warned the girl that she did not have the woods to herself. Hack would never know how close he came to getting a .36 calibre bullet in his favourite belly. In fact, only one thing saved him from a not undeserved fate.

‘Mister,’ the girl said, explaining the reason she did not shoot, ‘the only Injuns in these parts are the Army’s Crow, Ankara and Osage scouts—and they know better’n to bother me. Happen I’d not seen your uniform, you’d knowed it, too.’

‘Yeah!’ grinned Hack, coming closer and his eyes staying like they were magnetised to the front of her undershirt. ‘Well, how’s about me’n’ you getting to know each other better?’

‘I know me, all I want to,’ the girl answered. ‘And I sure as hell don’t want to know you.’

‘Now that’s not friendly, gal. I saw you come in with Dobe Killem’s freight outfit. If Cap’n Bigelow sees you, you’ll be headed back for wherever you come from and fast.’

‘Will, huh?’

‘Sure will, gal. He’s a real stickler for the rules, is Cap’n Bigelow. He lives by the good book, which to him’s Field Service Regulations. And they says no unattached females is allowed on military trains.’

‘Is that the living truth?’ asked the girl.

‘It sure is. Now me, I’m not as hide-bound and bow-necked as the cap’n when it comes to some things.’

‘You wouldn’t be.’

‘Shucks, be nice, gal,’ Hack warned, moving closer all the time. ‘I’m nice to be nice to, but I’m hell to rile.’

Even as he spoke, Hack reached out his right hand, aiming to lay it where he had been looking all the time—and that was not at the girl’s face. If he had studied the grim set of her features, Hack might have saved himself a fair piece of the trouble that was fast coming his way.

Up came the girl’s hands, clamping hold of Hack’s advancing wrist. Holding the trapped wrist, the girl carried her arms upwards, pivoting under them and bringing them down again. Hack found himself with the choice between going over or receiving a dislocated shoulder. He chose the former, his feet leaving the ground as he sailed into the air and then lit down heavily on his back. Snarling with rage, he forced himself up although the girl still held his wrist. Bracing herself, she suddenly heaved, catching Hack off balance. The man let out a howl as he shot forward and went head-first into the water.

Bending down, the girl scooped up her whip, its lash coiling out behind her as she watched Hack surface. He stood belly deep in the water and a fair way out.

‘You cheap whore!’ were the first understandable words to follow water out of his mouth. ‘I’ll—’

Out flickered the whip’s lash, wrapping itself around Hack’s fat throat and choked off what he aimed to say next. Bracing herself, the girl gripped her whip’s handle in both hands and heaved back on it. Hack pitched forward and under the water’s surface again. Coming up, he began to snarl out more curses until the girl jerked on the whip and returned him to beneath the water.

While underneath for the third time Hack gripped the lash of the whip in both his hands and on surfacing gave it a savage jerk which shot the girl towards him. As he saw her coming, Hack’s mind worked with its usual speed. Once he laid hands on her, he would half-drown her, maybe give her a damned good licking to boot as an added lesson not to resist the honourable intentions of Milo Hack in future. Then when she felt good and sorry for herself, he would stretch her out on her back upon the bank-strip—

At that point his day-dreams ended; although probably not in a fashion, he would have selected had he been given his choice. Given his way, he would have preferred to carry on savouring the forthcoming rape of the girl rather than have his thoughts ruined by being kicked under the jaw with the full power of a young woman’s shapely right leg.

Using a trick taught her by whip-fighting freighters, the girl permitted Hack to believe he was dragging her helplessly forward into his clutches, then when she came into range brought up a kick which learned him the error of his ways.

Returning beneath the water’s surface with a churning splash, Hack found himself free of the whip’s lash. His right hand went down and brought the Army Colt from its closed-topped issue holster. A wise fighting man would have known better and called the game quits at that moment. While Hack had the advantage of a reasonably good education and a certain shrewd, unscrupulous cunning, he was not and never had been a fighting man and so did not know the vitally important lesson of having the prime good sense to yell ‘calfrope.’ Lurching himself upright from the water, he began to raise the revolver.

If he expected the sight of a drawn gun to quell the girl into submission, or drive her into swooning helplessness, he would be sadly mistaken. Even as he rose from the water and began to lift his long-barrelled revolver, the girl dropped her whip and bent to scoop the Navy Colt from its holster.

‘Drop it!’ Hack snarled—or as near a snarl as his chattering teeth would allow him, the water being very cold for so lengthy an immersion. ‘Drop it, you cat-house whore, or I’ll—’

‘Sergeant Hack!’ roared a voice that was masculine, familiar to Hack’s ears and which did not originate from the girl.

Both the girl and Hack turned to look in the direction of the speaker. He had come hurrying along the river’s bank unnoticed by either of them; a tall young man with a sun-reddened face sporting the latest eastern fashion in side-whiskers, and wearing a well-groomed Quartermaster Corps’ captain’s uniform. Letting the fishing rod he carried slide from his fingers and rest against the trunk of a tree, the captain stamped along the river bank and jumped over the dead-fall to halt before the girl and his soaking, still water-bound sergeant. Being Army, the captain directed most of his annoyance against the civilian element. Yet he had his duty to do and aimed to do it come what may.

‘Get out of there and return to the fort, Sergeant!’ he ordered. ‘I’ll attend to you later.’

‘Yes—sir,’ Hack replied sullenly, holstering his revolver.

‘That’s the first sensible thing you’ve done so far, Fatso,’ the girl stated as she replaced her Navy Colt. ‘An 1860 Army Colt’s as good a gun as can be had, but even it won’t shoot after that long in the water—and my old Navy’s bone dry.’

‘So?’ snarled Hack, dragging his sopping wet form from the water.

‘So happen you’d pulled that trigger, misfire or not, I’d’ve blowed a hole in your fat-gutted belly sure as they call me Calamity Jane.’

If the way Hack’s eyes bulged out like twin organ stops went to prove anything, he knew the name the girl dropped out. So did the captain, for he glanced at the girl with cold, unfriendly eyes.

Calamity Jane. A name spoken of around the campfires throughout the West. In a man’s world, Calamity Jane stood almost unique. Her father died on a wagon train and her mother, a bright and lively girl in her own right, left the Canary children in a St. Louis convent then disappeared into the West. Charlotte Canary figured she acted for the best, knowing a girl with her talents could not keep a family and that the kids would have a better life than she could offer them. However, Martha Jane had too much of Charlotte in her to take to the strict life of a convent. On her sixteenth birthday she pulled up stakes. Hiding out on a freighter’s train, she had been twelve miles from St. Louis before making her appearance. Even then she might have been returned in ignominy if the cook had not been too drunk to make the men a meal. One of the things the nuns taught Jane was how to cook and she laid to and whomped up a mess of mouthwatering victuals for the freighter’s men. From then there had been no thought of sending her back. Jane went the full trip with Dobe Killem’s outfit, cooking, lending a hand with the stock and making herself useful. At the end of the trip Killem offered to take her on the next run and she agreed. How she picked up the name Calamity was not known. She learned to do a man’s work in handling a six-horse wagon team. The freighters taught her to wield a whip with the best of them and through necessity she learned to handle firearms. After taking a licking from a saloon girl who rolled one of the boys for his poke, Jane added fist-fighting to her growing repertoire. She returned the saloon-girl’s licking with interest and developed a taste for fighting which often led her into throwing out a challenge to take on the toughest gal in the house when visiting a saloon. Nor did she lack takers, for saloon-girls prided themselves on their toughness and tried to put down that kid in the man’s clothes. None of them succeeded in doing so and Killem’s outfit made many a handful of money betting on Calamity.*

Many stories were told of Calamity’s achievements in various fields, some of them exaggerated. One thing Hack did know for certain sure. If that red-headed girl was Calamity Jane—and he had every reason to believe she was—he had never been more fortunate than when Captain Bigelow arrived and prevented his trying to line his gun.

‘You heard my orders, Sergeant?’ Bigelow barked, scowling at Hack.

‘Y-yes, sir, Cap’n Bigelow!’ Hack answered, tearing his fascinated eyes from the girl and throwing up a salute which came straight off the pages of the drill training manual and disregarded the fact that his hat floated away on the river’s current.

After Hack took his hurried departure. Bigelow turned and faced Calamity. A flush came to his cheeks as his study of the girl reached the undershirt and what lay beneath it. With an effort that showed the high standard of will-power West Point instilled in its cadets, Bigelow jerked his eyes up to the girl’s face. Like Hack, Bigelow had heard stories of Calamity Jane, but he discounted most of them as being mere fallacies built up around a rather unsavoury frontier woman. If anyone had asked Bigelow to describe what he imagined Calamity Jane looked like, he certainly would not have been within a good country mile of getting her right.

‘And what, may I ask, are you doing out here?’ he asked, fighting to keep his eyes on her face. ‘I gave orders that nobody was to leave the post.’

‘Figured to take me a bath,’ Calamity replied. ‘Only lard-guts back there thought I needed somebody to wash my back, which same I don’t.’

‘And what are you doing at Fort Connel?’

‘Driving for Dobe Killem.’

‘You! A woman!’

‘Me,’ Calamity grinned. ‘And I reckon that by now you’re sure I’m a woman.’

The flush deepened on Bigelow’s face as he jerked his eyes guiltily upwards once more. Being a red-blooded young man, under the Manual of Field Service Regulations, he found it hard to resist the temptation to glance downwards.

‘I’ll not have it!’ he barked.

‘Mister,’ Calamity replied, ‘you’re some too late to stop me being born a woman.’

‘I mean I’m not having Killem taking along his camp foll—’

‘How’d you like to go into the river?’ Calamity interrupted, anger glowing in her expressive eyes.

‘I’m senior off—’ Bibelow began. having been fed respect for his rank back east and reckoning it to be his God-given right.

Once again Calamity chopped off his pompous words. ‘Dobe pays me as a wagon driver and that’s what I’m here to do. No less—and no more, as that barrel-gutted shiny-butt just found out!’

Being a ‘shiny-butt,’ as the combat soldiers impolitely termed all office staff of the Quartermaster Corps, like Hack, Bigelow did not care for the name. A scowl creased his brow and he pointed in the direction of the fort.

‘Get back to your wagons!’ he barked.

While Calamity was an obliging girl most times, she had a well-developed streak of mule in her when riled. She sure did not care for the way that bow-necked shiny-butt officer talked to her and objected to his giving orders to a civilian.

‘I’ve not took my bath yet,’ she stated.

‘Damn it, woman!’ Bigelow bellowed. ‘Get g—’

Slowly, never taking her eyes from his face, Calamity drew the undershirt from her pants and began to raise it. For a moment Bigelow thought her to be bluffing and aimed to call her bet, However, the undershirt lifted to expose her navel and an even-widening strip of bare flesh. Give him his due, he stood his ground like an officer and a gentleman until the bottom of the undershirt almost reached the lower slopes of Calamity’s breasts. Then he turned and headed into the trees as fast as his legs would take him, leaving his fishing tacle behind him.

Calamity watched him go, then grinned and continued her undressing. Somehow she did not figure there would be any further interruptions to her bath.

CHAPTER TWO

MISS CANARY MEETS AN OFFICER’S LADY

AN hour later, on her return to the circle of six big Conestoga wagons which stood outside the log-walled confines of Fort Connel, Calamity found that some business must have detained Captain Bigelow, for the young officer stood with Dobe Killem and had just commenced the discussion on the subject of Miss Martha Jane Canary’s return to wherever she came from.

Although Bigelow was a tall man, Killem towered over and bulked out on either side of him, The freighter stopped six foot three and weighed around two hundred pounds—none of them flabby fat either. He shoved back his dust-covered black Stetson hat; his whisker-stubbed face showed a kind of benign innocence that never left it even when anger filled him, From the hat, through his fringed buckskin shirt, levis pants and boots, Killem looked a typical hard-case freighter. A gunbelt hung around his waist, a James Black bowie knife, sheathed at the left side, an 1860, Army Colt in a contoured holster at the right.

Behind the two men stood a grinning quintet of drivers and Chan Sing, the outfit’s cook whose lapse from grace gave Calamity her first chance of staying with Killem’s crowd. All had heard enough to know, or guess what had happened at the river, and waited to hear how their boss dealt with the situation.

‘So you figure Calamity’s got no place out here,’ Killem said mildly as Bigelow finished his demand for the girl’s eviction.

‘I do. Of course, the Army will pay her return fare to the East. But as commander of the train—’

Poor Bigelow, it appeared to be his day for having folks interrupt his well thought-out speeches and trample all over his flaunted military authority. Before he could state what he, as commander of the train, thought, Dobe Killem interposed a statement.

‘Mister, without my outfit, you don’t have no train to command.’

Which, bitter and unpalatable as the thought might be to Bigelow, was the truth. While Bigelow had all kinds of important orders and instructions pertaining to the removal of his supplies from Fort Connel to Fort Sherrard in the Dakota Territories, he still needed those half-a-dozen civilian-owned Conestoga wagons to do the actual carrying. Nor could he get tough and commandeer the wagons. Handling a big six-horse Conestoga wagon took specialised training and even if his escort could supply men with that knowledge, he was not in a position to spare them.

‘You signed a contract to deliver the supplies,’ Bigelow pointed out in a desperate attempt to regain control of the situation.

‘And to supply six wagons, teams and drivers,’ Killem answered calmly. ‘Which same, Calamity’s one of my drivers. And afore you say she’s a woman—don’t. That gal handles a team as good as any man. If she don’t drive, then my outfit goes back where we come from, there’s work in plenty there.’

No man could ask for a plainer answer than that. However, Bigelow did not care for the idea of civilians laying down the law to him. While he must get the supplies to Fort Sherrard, he was just bow-necked enough to half-decide to make a stand and refuse to take Calamity along. In which case things would reach an hopeless impasse, with neither side willing to back down from the stand taken.

Fortunately, a face-saving sight made its appearance. A rider topped a distant rim, coming down the slope towards the fort. Then first one then more white-canopied wagons lurched up into view and trundled down in single file after the rider. A few women and children walked at the side of the wagons and men rode herd on a small remuda of working and saddle horses, or hazed along a bunch of cattle. There looked to be around forty wagons in the party, a good-sized, well-equipped bunch which amounted to being a complete town on the move.

‘Looks like an immigrant train headed west,’ Calamity remarked, strolling forward to join Killem and Bigelow.

‘Now that’s a real good guess, for a woman, ain’t it, Cap’n,’ drawled Killem, squinting at the leading rider. ‘Feller up front looks kinda familiar.’

Bigelow could hardly make out more than the fact that a man rode at the head of the party. However, he had seen enough of the long-sighted ability of western men to know the freighter was not trying to job him.

‘Looks like he’s in a tolerable hurry to get acquainted,’ Calamity went on.

A few seconds later Bigelow could see that the rider had spurred his horse and was galloping down the slope towards them, leaving his wagons to make their steady pace in his wake. The captain wondered why the man hurried, but felt it under his dignity to ask for suggestions from Calamity or Killem.

‘Yep!’ Killem remarked with satisfaction. ‘Thought I knowed him. That’s Beau Resin there.’

One thing was for sure; the man who rode towards them knew how to handle a horse. No immigrant traveller he, but a man born to the West. He rode a sixteen-hand, spot-rumped Appaloosa stud horse—one of the much sought-after breed reared by the Nez Perce Indians of the Pelouse River country and highly prized for speed, stamina and hardy nature. A wide-brimmed, low-crowned black Stetson hat trailed behind him on its storm strap, leaving his straw-coloured hair exposed to view. A scarlet bandana, tight-rolled around his neck, trailed long ends over his fringed buckskin shirt. He wore levis pants tucked into knee-high Sioux moccasins. Around his waist hung a gunbelt, a walnut-handled Remington Army revolver at the right balanced by an Ames Rifleman’s knife with a spear-pointed, eleven and three-quarter-inch long blade sheathed at the left.

Watching the man come forward, Calamity noticed that he had wide shoulders that tapered down to a lean waist; and looked about as handsome as a girl could ask a rugged weatherbeaten plains scout to be.

On approaching the party, he dropped from his horse’s saddle and left the big Appaloosa standing with trailing reins. Calamity noticed that he rode a low-horned, double-girthed saddle of Texas cowhand pattern, with a coiled rope strapped to the horn and a Spencer carbine in its saddle boot.

‘Howdy you-all,’ he greeted, coming forward with a long-legged, mile-eating stride. ‘Was I asked, I’d say you was Cap’n Bigelow.’

‘I am,’ Bigelow agreed stiffly, very much on his dignity as became an Army officer when dealing with a mere civilian scout; and a Southerner to boot or his voice lied badly.

‘Got me a letter for you from General Sheridan. Lil Phil told me to look out for you and pass it on.’

Bigelow stiffened like somebody had poked his. butt-end with a red-hot iron at the irreverent manner in which the scout addressed him and made use of General Sheridan’s first name. Before he could make any comment, the scout reached into his shirt and extracted a much-crumpled, none too clean envelope from an inside pocket. Taking the envelope with a cold expression, Bigelow opened it and removed an official-looking sheet of paper.

‘Says for you to give this train of mine an escort up as far as you go,’ Resin remarked.

‘I can read!’ Bigelow answered.

‘Yeah,’ drawled the scout. ‘I reckon you can at that.’

Turning, the scout left Bigelow reading the letter and walked towards Killem. The big freighter gave a broad grin and said, ‘Howdy, Beau, ain’t seed you—’

‘Hey!’ Resin yelled, interrupting his old friend’s greeting as he saw Calamity walking towards his Appaloosa. ‘He’ll chaw your hand off up to the shoulder happen you give him half a chance.’

‘Mister,’ the girl replied, ‘ain’t nothing but something that’s worsen me could do that—and that I ain’t met yet.’

‘That’s a lot of thats, gal,’ grinned Resin, expecting to see his horse chase Calamity half-way back to the wagons.

Then the smile died off his face and surprise took its place. Calamity walked straight up the stallion without any hesitation at all and gave it a confident slap across the neck. Her very lack of fear warned the big horse to attempt no such liberties as kicking or biting. Also knowing better than take liberties. Calamity contented herself with just the one pat. Turning from the horse, she, walked back to its amazed owner and her grinning employer.

‘Don’t reckon you’ve met Calamity, have you, Beau?’ Killem inquired.

‘Can’t say I—are you Calamity Jane, ma’am?’

‘Happen I’m not, somebody’d best watch out, I’m wearing her clothes,’ Calamity replied.

‘And you sure look good in ‘em,’ answered Resin. ‘It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am.’

‘Then take hold and get pleasured some more,’ grinned the girl, holding out her right hand. ‘And for Gawd’s sake stop calling me “ma’am.” ’

‘What I like about Dobe here’s the polite way he introduces folks,’ Resin drawled, taking her hand. ‘Anyways, I’m Beau Resin—.’

‘Best danged Injun scout, fighting man, poker player and gal chaser I ever come across,’ Killem went on. ‘Specially the last.’

‘That I can well believe,’ Calamity grinned. ‘Happen a gal’d any sense at all, she wouldn’t run too hard to get away.’

‘Mind one time down to Kansas City—’ Killem began.

At that moment—and before Killem could go into further details, probably to Resin’s relief—Bigelow finished the letter. Folding it almost reverently, it being his first personal communication from anybody as high up in Army circles as General Phil Sheridan, Bigelow turned towards the westerners.

‘This says you have an officer’s lady aboard and we’re to offer her transport to Fort Sherrard on the supply train.’

‘So Lil Phil told me when he wrote it,’ Resin replied. ‘She’s been using the front wagon, but I reckon she could finish the trip with Calamity here.’

From the sound of it. Resin would not be entirely displeased to relieve himself of the officer’s lady’s presence. However, his mention of her alternative accommodation brought to mind the subject of Bigelow and Killem’s earlier disagreement. A solution, and a face-saver for all concerned, lay before them and Killem took the first step to grab it.

‘Beau’s got him a good idea there, Cap’n,’ he said, unbending sufficiently to give Bigelow his formal title.

‘Yes. Mrs. Tradle will need a chaperone,’ Bigelow agreed.

‘Is he insulting me?’ breathed Calamity into Resin’s ear. ‘ ‘Cause if he is, I’ll trample his fancy buttons in the dirt.’

‘He’s not. He means that she needs a wet-nurse,’ grinned the scout. ‘You’ll get on with her real good. Calam gal.’

‘I’d better ride out and meet her,’ Bigelow said, neither confirming nor denying Calamity’s presence with the supply train, but ignoring it in the best Nelsonian tradition.

‘Why waste sweat and hoss-lather?’ asked Calamity. ‘She’ll be here in ten or fifteen minutes at most.’

Giving a sniff which might have meant anything, Bigelow waited; partly because he did not have a horse with him and doubted if he could handle the Appaloosa even in the unlikely event that Resin offered to loan it to him. Without answering Calamity, he turned and watched the approaching wagon train.

‘I’ll go tell ‘em to make their night circle down back of your outfit, Dobe,’ Resin said.

Walking towards his horse, he went afork it in a lithe bound and caught up the reins. Turning the Appaloosa, Resin galloped back towards the line of wagons and called orders to the driver of the first in line, pointing towards the Killem outfit’s circle.

Bigelow studied the woman seated by the first wagon’s driver. At that distance he could tell little or nothing about her, but as the wagon came closer he discerned more. She looked to be about the same height as Calamity, with a small Eastern-style hat perched on her black hair. There was a haughty imperiousness about her beautiful face and it bore an expression of distaste as the wagon lurched along. The black Eastern travelling outfit she wore looked expensive, had been tailored to set off what must have been a marvellous body, but the clothes looked worse for wear and dust spattered.

All this Bigelow saw as the wagon rolled towards him, then it swung off to start forming the night circle. The following wagons kept on their leader’s tail, swinging by the watching soldier, Calamity and Killem. With the exceptions of Mrs. Tradle and one other wagon, the travellers looked the usual kind to be making such a trip across the plains. Dirt farmers ever seeking a land which would sprout crops better than their last home; townsmen and their wives moving West in the hope of finding a land flowing with milk and honey; people in search of a new home and willing to sweat, bake, freeze or die in trying to find it. The other exception to the normal pattern was a smaller, two-horse wagon driven by a thin, short, rat-faced man who wore a derby hat and a loud check suit. No farmer or townsman him. He looked like the kind of jasper who roamed the West selling gold-bricks or peddling secret medicinal brews guaranteed to cure all ills. There were four women in the wagon or four in sight, one seated on the box and the other three standing behind her.

Calamity studied the women with knowing eyes. All wore low-cut, torso hugging dresses of louder colours than the other women of the train sported. From the way they dressed and made-up their faces, they worked at the saloon-girl’s trade, but none were good looking and all packed considerably more heft than most men would care for—unless of course, there was no other female company to be had. All that applied to the girls in the body of the wagon counted even more so for the blonde on the front seat next to the driver. She was a medium-sized, stocky woman, dressed a mite better than the others, but with an age-coarsened face that rouge and powder fought to make look young. Studying the blonde, Calamity gained the impression that she would be a real tough cuss in a brawl. Calamity tended to study most saloon women on their potentialities as a fighting rival and she decided the blonde would take some licking.

‘Fancy outfit,’ she remarked to Killem; Bigelow stood slightly away from them as if wishing to assure the travellers that he did not belong to their outfit.

‘Yeah!’ Killem grunted. ‘I’ve seed that red-faced jasper and the blonde someplace afore.’

‘She’s a hard-looking cuss,’ Calamity said—just a mite too innocently to fool Killem.

Especially as he remembered where he had seen that particular bunch of travellers before and recalled how the blonde made her living. The very last thing Killem wanted was for Calamity to learn the blonde’s identity, for Killem liked a peaceful life—and also did not want any of his drivers out of action even for a few days.

‘Handle their wagons well,’ he growled, changing the subject.

Calamity flicked a glance at her boss, knowing him as well as he knew her. From the way he replied, he knew that bunch—and did not want her to know them. In such matters Calamity had her full share of woman’s perversity and curiosity. She reckoned it might be worthwhile to look into the identity of that bunch of travellers, if only to find out why Killem did not want her to know them. Not that Calamity mentioned that to Killem, but gave her attention to watching the handling of the Wagons.

At last the circle had been formed and the lead wagon came to a halt almost before Killem’s party. Striding forward in the best traditions of U.S. Cavalry’s chivalry, Bigelow saluted the woman on the wagon box and removed his hat.

‘Captain Wade H. Bigelow at your service, ma’am. I have the honour to command your escort to Fort Sherrard.’

Thrusting his hat on again, he reached up and swung the woman down from the wagon box. Calamity watched the move and noticed the way the woman’s hands clung to Bige1ow, testing the power of his biceps while her beautiful face studied him in a calculating, predatory manner.

‘My pleasure, Captain Bigelow—or may I call you Wade?’ Mrs. Tradle replied, her voice husky and cultured. ‘You must forget formality and call me Eileen.’

‘Thank you, Eileen. May I escort you to the fort. Colonel and Mrs. Ferris will wish to meet you.’

‘Of course, Wade,’ Mrs. Tradle replied. ‘Oh, could you arrange to have my baggage transferred to one of your wagons?’

‘I’ll send my striker to attend to it,’ Bigelow promised.

‘Get my boys to move it over for you, Cap’n,’ Killem said.

‘It’s marked with my name, they can’t miss it,’ the woman said, glancing at Killem. ‘I trust the next wagon is more comfortable than the last, Wade. That one was an absolute horror—and the language of the driver!’

‘Which shouldn’t be any problem in future, Eileen,’ Bigelow replied. ‘Miss—Canary here will be your driver.’

Turning, Eileen Tradle looked Calamity up and down in the cold, impersonal manner of a farmer examining some poor quality animal. Always willing to be friendly, Calamity stepped forward, her hand going out.

‘Howdy,’ she said. ‘Reckon we’ll get on all right.’

‘I’m sure we will,’ Eileen replied, ignoring the hand and answering in her most chilling manner before turning to Bigelow. ‘I believe I know your father, General Haywood Bigelow?’

‘My uncle,’ Bigelow corrected, taking the woman’s offered arm. They strolled away chatting amiably and leaving a pot-boiling mad Calamity staring after them.

Shooting out a big hand, Killem caught Calamity by the waist-belt as she took a step after the departing couple.

‘Hold it, Calam gal,’ he warned. ‘You start mean-mouthing her and you’ll find yourself in bad trouble.’

‘Danged snooty, high-toned old hag!’ Calamity spluttered, her face getting redder by the second. ‘I’d sure like to kick her right in the tail.’

‘Blast your ornery side, Calam!’ growled Killem, scooping her kepi off and running his big fingers through her hair. ‘You’re more trouble than a dozen bull-whackers. Danged if I know why I keep you on.’

As suddenly as it came the anger left Calamity and she grinned up at her boss. ‘ ‘Cause I’m the best blasted hosshandler you’ve got—and ‘cause if you fire me I’ll tell everybody your real name’s Cecil.’

Digging his fingers into her curls, just stinging but not really hurting her, Killem scowled down at the girl. ‘Happen you ever tell anybody that, Calam, I’ll fix your wagon good. See if I don’t.’

‘Get your cotton-picking hands offen me,’ she replied with a grin, then her eyes fell on Bigelow’s fishing tackle which she had put down while approaching the wagon train scout’s big Appaloosa stallion. ‘I know one thing for sure. That two-legged man-trap’s not having any fresh trout for supper.’

‘Huh?’ Killem grunted.

Crossing to the tackle, Calamity lifted up the wicker creel and opened it to expose a pile of plump, frying-size brook trout. An appreciative glint came into Killem’s eyes as he looked into the creel and he ran a tongue tip over his lips.

‘Now they look nice,’ he said.

‘Sure are,’ the girl answered. ‘Get them cleaned and I’ll.fry them up for supper tonight.’

‘Where’re you going?’

‘Back to the river to put the rod and this fancy box down where he left ‘em,’ grinned Calamity. ‘They do say the mink in this area’ll steal a man’s fish plumb away, happen he leaves it lying around unwatched.’

‘Darn it, Calamity,’ Killem chuckled. ‘There’s a mean streak in you when you’re riled.’

‘Why sure,’ she replied and glanced at where Beau Resin rode towards them. ‘But I can be right loving with it.’

Saying that, she took up the fishing tackle and strolled off in the direction of the river.

At about the same time Bigelow was promising Eileen a treat, a speciality of the area which was a gourmet’s delight, fresh-caught brook trout fried in butter.

CHAPTER THREE

MISS CANARY MEETS A SCHOOLMARM

WHILE strolling through the wagon train camp in search of Beau Resin, Calamity thought she detected a faint hint of disapproval from the womenfolk. While the men at the various fires and attending to their chores looked at Calamity with open admiration, the women clucked their tongues and gathered in peeking, talking groups after she passed by. Not that Calamity cared, she had met with disapproval in better places than a wagon train camp on the North Kansas plains. She dressed the way she did as being practical for her work and did not give a damn what other folks might think about it.

In passing Calamity studied the rat-faced man’s outfit. They appeared to be accepted by their fellow travellers as being part of the train, but not of it. All the women looked to be busy setting up their camp, but the man sat on a box and watched them work. Even while Calamity passed, the plump blonde laid hold of a heavy-looking box and toted it to the wagon without raising any sweat. She looked to be a tolerable strong gal, Calamity mused, then regretfully decided the folks of the train would not approve of a female brawl. Not wishing to make any trouble for Dobe Killem, Calamity passed on without stopping to speak with the blonde.

After making almost a tour of the camp, Calamity decided Resin must be out of the circle. Most likely he might be visiting the fort, talking with the Army scouts and learning of conditions ahead. Calamity felt disappointed for she figured Beau Resin to be a man worth getting to know better. With that in mind she had planned to invite him to supper; working on the belief that the best way to a man’s heart was through a mess of well-cooked brook trout.

Just as Calamity was about to return to Killem’s outfit, she heard a considerable commotion among the trees outside the camp. Turning, she passed between two of the wagons and headed in the direction of the sound. She came into view of the cause of the commotion and one look told her she ought to insert her presence.

School should have been in progress among the trees. A small, very pretty blonde girl in her early twenties stood at the side of an erected blackboard and easel, trying to attract the attention of and bring order to a class of youngsters. Some twenty or so children aged between ten and fifteen were in the clearing, although not taking advantage of the educational facilities offered to them. All appeared to be making some kind of noise and the ring-leaders, a boy and girl alike enough to be fifteen-year-old twins, encouraged the others. With his thumbs hooked into his belt, the boy swaggered around and leered at the teacher, while the girl twisted a younger girl’s ear and made her screech.

‘Children!’ the teacher called, her face showing desperation almost as she tried to control her unruly class. ‘Children, sit down and take your slates. Come on now, please.’

Politeness got her nowhere and so Calamity figured to cut in and help the schoolteacher bring order to her class.

Swinging free her whip, Calamity flipped its lash forward, the end exploding with a gun-shot crack a couple of inches from the boy’s left ear. Letting out a startled squawk, the boy clapped a hand to his ringing ear and leapt into the air as if stung by a bee.

All eyes turned towards Calamity as she walked forward, coiling the whip’s lash one-handed. For a moment the twin sister stared open-mouthed, then considered her audience and stepped forward with the intention of making a grandstand play to show the others that nobody pushed her or her brother about. She was a big, plump girl with a mean glint in her eyes and a sullen twist to her mouth.

‘What do you think you’re do—!’ she began.

Bringing up her left hand, Calamity laid it palm-first against the girl’s face and pushed hard. Taken by surprise both by Calamity’s temerity and strength, the girl staggered back a few steps and landed flat on her rump with a thud which gladdened at least one watcher’s heart.

Springing forward, the boy yelled, ‘Hey, you can’t d—!’

Calamity showed him she not only could do that, but could also improve on it. Swinging her right arm, she gave him a flat-handed slap across the face which knocked him staggering and made him howl in pain. Both he and his sister headed for the trees in the direction of the camp, screeching like they had been scalped.

A flush of red crept into Molly Johnson’s cheeks as she watched Calamity’s arrival and the hurried departure of the twins. Being on her first post as schoolteacher, Molly wanted to make a good job of it, but had found the theory gained in college proved little practical use when it came to handling the Bloom twins. From the start they had been the bane of her existence and although she approved of Calamity’s actions in part, both her training and knowledge of the twins’ mother made her wish the red-haired girl had not interfered.

‘All right, you slab-sided, mis-shaped, yowling. caterwauling bunch of milk-soaked half-pints!’ Calamity barked, swinging to face the class. ‘Get sat and stay sat before I tan the hides off you!’

Never had Molly seen her class take their seats with such speed and silence. Almost before the words died away, every member of the class had taken a seat upon the ground and sat nursing slate and chalk in becoming humility.

‘Want the other two back?’ Calamity asked, turning to the teacher.

‘I—I think you’d better go,’ Molly replied, trying to hold down a smile. There was something refreshingly different about Calamity and Molly had not been long enough out of college to lose her fascination for anything or anybody new and unconventional. ‘Mrs. Bloom doesn’t approve of anybody punishing her children.’

‘Yeah,’ Calamity said dryly. ‘I could see that.’

From the start Calamity liked the look of Molly Johnson. The girl stood at most five foot two, but had a shapely figure that a severe gingham dress and tightly taken back hair could not hide. Molly affected the dress and hair style to try to make herself look older and more in keeping with the popular conception of a school teacher.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Molly went on, glancing nervously at the camp.

‘Shucks, these half-pints don’t know what they’ve got, having a chance at book-learning.’ Calamity replied, ignoring the glance and pleading look Molly gave her. ‘Mind if I set a spell and listen to the lesson?’

At that moment Mrs. Bloom made her appearance, advancing through the trees like the battle-ram Albemarle steaming to war, and followed by the full conclave of her cronies. Since leaving St. Louis, those half-dozen women had ruled the train and put fear into the hearts of all the men. Mrs. Bloom led them, a commanding figure almost six foot tall and with a hefty build. When she bore down bust-first on some offender, the offender’s heart quaked at the sight—usually. When she yelled, it sounded like the crack of doom and as a last resort she commanded a fine and spectacular burst of hysterics which drove her mild-mannered husband almost frantic with worry.

Are you the one who struck my children?’ she demanded in her finest aggressive manner, glaring at Calamity with an eye that had never failed to quell.

‘Reckon I am,’ answered the un-quellable Calamity calmly. ‘You struck my little Rodney with that whip?’ bellowed Mrs. Bloom, patting her son fondly upon the top of his head as he clung tearfully to her skirt at one side, his sister at the other.

‘Nope, I popped it clear of his ear.’

‘He said—’

‘If I’d wanted to hit his ear, I’d’ve done it—only he wouldn’t have any ear left now,’ Calamity interrupted.

‘How dare y—!’

‘Wasn’t nothing daring about it. I saw those pair of over-fed lard-heads fooling and making fuss for their schoolmarm instead of buckling down and learning what she could teach ‘em. Figured from the hawg-mannered way they acted that they didn’t belong to anybody to teach ‘em better—so I took ‘em in hand. Which same I didn’t treat ‘em too mean—the first time,’

Never had anyone stood up to Mrs. Bloom in such a manner. For a full minute she stood with her mouth open and working spasmodically while she tried to decide if physical assault or hysterics would be the best tactics to use. Behind her, the other members of her band stared horrified at Calamity and wondered why lightning did not strike down the girl for her blasphemy to their leader.

‘Whup her good, Maw!’ ‘little’ Rodney suggested and then ducked hurriedly out of sight behind his mother as Calamity scowled at him.

.‘How dare you address me like that,’ Mrs. Bloom gasped, ignoring her son’s words and disappearance. ‘You—’

‘Afore you say it—don’t,’ Calamity warned. ‘I can name-call and mean-mouth you and all your crowd to a stand-still without needing to draw extra breath.’

Just what might have been the outcome had the matter gone further would never be learned. Even as Mrs. Bloom tried to decide what course to follow, there came an interruption which washed all thoughts of taking Calamity to task out of the big woman’s head.

A pallid-faced youngster maybe two years younger than the twins, but clearly a member of the Bloom clan, staggered out of the trees. He held his left wrist in his right hand, bawled unmelodiously as he came and dripped blood over his right fingers and pants legs.

‘Hubert!’ Mrs. Bloom screeched. ‘Hubert! Oh, my Lord! Fetch the doctor, one of you. Fetch help!’

‘The doctor’s with Mrs. Schmidt, she’s in heavy labour,’ moaned one of the other women.

‘Oh heavens! What can we do?’ Mrs. Bloom wailed, realising her inadequacy to deal with the situation.

‘You could try getting the hell out of my way and letting me take a look for a starter.’

Calamity gave out that sage advice as she stepped forward. Much to the surprise of the other women, Mrs. Bloom moved aside. There was an air of confidence about Calamity that Mrs. Bloom found reassuring at that moment and so the woman stood aside and let the girl take charge of the situation.

‘Oooh!’ Hubert howled.

‘Shut up, damn you!’ roared Calamity.

Gripping the suddenly silent Hubert’s left wrist in one hand, Calamity pulled his right hand away from it. A long, shallow gash showed in the flesh of his forearm, painful, messy, but far from dangerous.

‘It hurts!’ Hubert groaned.

‘Of course it hurts!’ Calamity spat out. ‘Anybody fool enough to whittle with the knife’s point sticking inwards asks to get hurt.’

Surprise caused Hubert to stop his moaning and he stared at Calamity. ‘H-how’d you know?’

‘Done the same fool trick when I was ten,’ she replied, looking around her and seeing what she wanted.

‘C-can’t you stop the bleeding?’ asked Mrs. Bloom; but for once it sounded like a mild request for help, not a royal command,

‘Just now figuring to,’ answered Calamity, hauling Hubert after her towards one of the trees. ‘Where at’s your knife, boy?’

‘I dropped it back there.’

‘Then soon’s I’ve fixed this scratch, you’re going straight out to find it. Hey one of you fellers loan me a knife.’

Several young hands darted into pockets and Calamity had the offer of half-a-dozen assorted knives. Taking a jack-knife from one of the boys, Calamity—who could never resist a chance to grandstand a mite—drew admiring gasps by opening its blade with her teeth. The tree had a number of blister-like swellings on its bark and the girl slit one open, allowing a flow of thick syrup-like gum to ooze out. Dipping her forefinger into the flow, Calamity coated the wound with the gum.

‘Wh-what is that you’re putting on?’ asked Mrs. Bloom.

‘The best damned wound salve you’ll find anyplace,’ Calamity replied. ‘It’ll stop the bleeding and help the wound heal. One of you girls haul up your skirt and tear a strip off your underskirts so’s I can bandage this.’

Departing behind a bush, Molly Johnson followed Calamity’s orders. She returned with a long strip of white cloth in her hands, giving it to Calamity and watching the other girl swiftly bandage the wound.

‘That’s as good as any doctor could do it,’ one of the women remarked.

‘Most times out here there’s not a doctor around,’ Calamity answered. ‘Gal gets to know how to do her own doctoring. There, boy, now go find that knife and bring it back in here.’

‘Shouldn’t he be in bed?’ inquired Mrs. Bloom.

‘It’s not night yet,’ Calamity grunted. ‘Anyways, it’s no more’n a scratch. But there’s an open knife lying someplace out in the trees, maybe some poor fool critter’ll step on it and get hurt. You fetch it. boy, and don’t waste time. You should be attending the class.’

Like his brother and sister, Hubert tended to be unruly and disobedient; but for once he did not argue. Turning, he scuttled off into the trees and his mother stared after him. Then she became aware that Rodney and her daughter, Beryl, were both pulling at her skirt and demanding her attention.

‘How’s about what she done to us, Maw?’ Rodney asked.

‘Yeah,’ Calamity agreed. ‘What about that. They was making fuss and stopping the class.’

‘That’s a 1—!’ Rodney began.

His words chopped off as his mother landed a ringing smack across his ear and sent him staggering. Then Mrs. Bloom brought her hand around to apply its palm in a slap to Beryl’s rump that lifted the girl almost a foot into the air.

‘Just let me hear of you misbehaving in class again!’ she snorted. ‘Miss Johnson is here to teach you. See that you behave and try to learn something.’

If somebody had walked up and handed Molly Johnson a diamond necklace, she would not have felt more pleased than she did at that moment.

‘Take your seats, please,’ she said.

Without fuss, noise or objection the youngsters hurried back to their places and prepared to start their lessons. Behind them Mrs. Bloom’s party gathered around Calamity.

‘What sort of tree is this?’ Mrs. Bloom asked, indicating the one from which Calamity drew the gum.

‘Balsam fir,’ the girl replied. ‘It’s good for stopping bleeding. So’s powdered witch hazel leaves, or a poultice made by stewing bark, buds or twigs of a slippery elm. Fact being, there’s medicine for nearly all your ailments growing in the woods happen you know what to look for.’

‘How can we tell which sort of trees to use?’ a woman inquired; forgetting her earlier comments at the sight of Calamity walking through the camp.

‘We’ve maybe four weeks travelling together. Likely I can show you most of what you’ll need before Fort Sherrard.’

‘Would you please?’ said Mrs. Bloom.

‘I’ll make a stab at it,’ Calamity promised. ‘Not tonight though. You ladies most likely have food to cook for your men.’

Her words caused a hurried departure. Not because she shocked the women or failed to hold their interest, but because all of them remembered leaving food on their fires when coming to lend Mrs. Bloom moral support in defence of her mistreated children. Promising to see Calamity at the next camp, they hurried away.

‘I’d like to thank you, Miss—’ Molly said, coming to Calamity’s side.

‘Never been one for “Missing” with folks I like. The name’s Calamity Jane. You can call me Calam, like most of my friends, or be real formal and make it Jane.’

‘Thank you, Calam,’ Molly smiled, taking a better liking to the other girl. ‘They were getting out of hand and too much for me.’

‘Try slapping their ears down a mite next time.’ Calamity suggested. ‘I’d say Mrs. Bloom won’t mind.’

‘According to Professor Strubacher “physical punishment arouses resentment and creates the desire to make more mischief”,’ Molly quoted.

‘How many kids has he got?’ asked the practical Calamity.

‘The professor? He’s a bachelor.’

‘Then where in hell did he learn about kids? Way I see it, happen you treat a kid same way as you treat a hound pup, you bring ‘em both up right. Praise him when he does right and take a switch to his hide when he wets on the wagon bed, only do it right off so he knows what he’s getting licked for.’

A smile came to Molly’s lips as she heard the wild, poorly educated young Western woman argue against the learning and instructions of the great Professor Strubacher. Or was the red-head so poorly educated in practical matters? Molly admitted that she, for all her college education, would have been helpless to deal with the cut on Hubert Bloom’s arm. From a more personal point of view, Molly had only to look at her class’s decorum to see that Calamity’s views on handling children apparently worked better than had Professor Strubacher’s.

‘You could be right at that,’ Molly smiled. ‘Go cut me a switch.’

‘Gal, you’re the first eastern dude I ever saw who knowed good sense when she come face to lace with it,’ Calamity replied.

After the class ended, with Calamity sat by and listening as attentively as any of the pupils, Molly walked back to camp with the western girl.

‘Are you coming to the dance?’ Calamity asked as they entered the camp circle.

‘Which dance?’ asked Molly.

‘The one they’ll hold tonight.’

‘I haven’t heard of any dance.’

‘There’ll be one, you mark my words,’ Calamity grinned.

‘Do you reckon all those soldier boys down to the fort are going to miss a chance to come here and dance with you unattached females?’

‘I’m not much for social life,’ Molly admitted.

‘Then it’s time you started,’ Calamity told her. ‘Go let your hair down, put on your best party dress and you ‘n’ me’ll celebrate until the last dog’s shot and all the pups are hung.’

‘Do you want my company?’

‘Why sure,’ Calamity chuckled. ‘It’s not every day I get a chance to go to a dance with a schoolmarm. Say, come over to our camp and I’ll fry up a mess of brook trout. If you’ve not ate fresh-caught Kansas brook trout, then you’ve never tasted fish.’

CHAPTER FOUR

MISS CANARY ATTENDS A BALL

MOLLY Johnson caused something of a stir when she arrived with Calamity at Killem’s camp-fire. In fact, she scared a group of tough, efficient and hardy men into stammering inarticulation and brought about a hurried disappearance in search of washing water and shaving tackle. Probably the fluster came about through Calamity insisting that Molly let down her hair from its severe schoolmarm style and wear a dress which showed off her figure. As a stout supporter of the newly started feminist cause, Molly tried to object to fancying herself up, but Calamity could be mighty persuasive when she wanted. Seeing the reaction her change of costume caused, and being pleased despite herself at it, Molly decided that Calamity might have a real good point in suggesting she changed.

With some amusement Calamity watched her male friends over the meal, as they strove to remember half-forgotten or hardly learned social manners. One man spilled his stew over his pants and turned red in the face as he fought down the words which rose naturally at such a mishap. Not even the pleasure of eating Bigelow’s trout could break the ice.

‘Colonel’s having the Regimental Band come out this evening,’ Beau Resin remarked, having joined the party for a meal. ‘They’ve got a dance caller who’ll set your feet to tapping, Miss Johnson.’

At that moment one of the freighters bumped into the man next to him and jolted a cup of coffee from his hand. Naturally the bumped one swung around and said, ‘You clumsy—’

Then he flushed as he realised he stood close to a for-real lady who should never have her ears sullied by the last word he spoke in his haste. With this thought in mind, he turned to the girl and made amends.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ he said, ‘this bastard pushed me.’

For a couple of seconds silence fell over the group. Then Molly began to laugh. She could not help herself, the sight of the men’s shocked faces, and the way the words came out. struck her as amusing. The nervous air of the men sagged off a mite as they realised the girl was not only human like themselves, but also had a real keen sense of humour.

Showing timing that a professional comedian might have envied, Calamity continued with the ice-breaking progress. With her usual gusto, she started to tell Molly how she humiliated the pious, sanctimonious boss of a freight outfit.

‘Wouldn’t let his boys stay on in town overnight to celebrate,’ Calamity explained. ‘So I runs up to him and throws my arms round his neck, like this,’ she demonstrated on Beau Resin. ‘Gives him a kiss, like this,’ once more she gave a spirited demonstration. ‘And then I says, ‘Why, darling, don’t you remember how you n’ me set up drinks that night on the North Platte?” I tell you, Molly, gal, that feller looked sicker’n a skunk-stunk beagle. He tried to pull away from me and kept gasping about never seeing me, or there being some mistake. “Now that’s not what you said that night, honey,” I tells him. Then he jerked free from me and lit a shuck out of town like the devil after a yearling. Never did show up again that night and the boys had them a time.’

By the time the meal ended Molly found herself on friendly terms with the freighters and looked forward to a night’s fun at the dance.

Just as Calamity predicted, the soldiers from the fort made their appearance as the day’s work ended. By the time Calamity and Molly returned to the wagon circle, they found that practically everybody who could had left Fort Connel and come a-visiting. First to arrive had been the unmarried enlisted men, followed some time later by the single officers who had not wished to show ungentlemanly haste, but were just as eager to see some female company. Lastly came the families and the senior officers, mingling with the travellers and exchanging gossip.

One thing Molly noticed as she walked with Calamity through the wagon train circle was how like gathered to like. Without any hint of snobbery the senior officers and their families gathered with the better class citizens of the train; the Blooms and Molly’s aunt and uncle among others. So it went on through the camp, the different social levels finding equals among the travellers. A group of young officers swarmed around Molly and Calamity, gay blades fresh out of West Point or with only a few years service, all hot and eager to get better acquainted with the pretty little blonde. For her part Molly revelled in a chance to talk with somebody of her own age and class. Five minutes flashed by and the little blonde saw that Calamity had backed away. Excusing herself, Molly went after the other girl.

‘Where are you going, Calam?’ she asked.

‘Back to my kind of folks. You stay there and have fun with yours.’

‘But I—’

‘Look, honey.’ Calamity said with a smile. ‘You wouldn’t be happy down there with us when we start celebrating; and I sure as hell couldn’t set down and enjoy myself among the brass.’

‘But—but—’

‘Hey, Molly, come on!’ called one of the officers.

Laying her hand on Molly’s arm. Calamity squeezed it gently, smiling. ‘Go on. gal. Have your fun. Comes morning I’ll visit and we’ll “woman” over tonight.’

Without another word, Calamity turned and walked away. Molly could see no sign of dejection in Calamity’s walk and the red-head called out cheery greetings to various people, being received with laughter and friendly attitudes that had not shown while the girl stood with Molly and the officers. Then Molly realised that her social chatter with the officers must have been over Calamity’s head and probably bored the other girl. It was just another case of like calling to like. She and Calamity were worlds apart in social life and neither could be truly happy in the other’s area.

Molly turned a head towards the young officers, glancing back over her shoulder. It seemed that Calamity must have been thinking about her, for the red-head had turned, Calamity gave Molly a broad grin, turned after waving and mingled with the crowd.

Music sounded as the Regimental Band approached. Night was falling and eager hands built up the various fires so that all who wished to dance would have plenty of light by which to do so.

Joining Beau Resin, who showed considerable pleasure at her company, Calamity headed for where the crowd of poorer folk congregated to have their fun. While heading for the dance ground, Calamity saw the piggy, sullen face of Sergeant Hack. His presence did not worry her any; having handled him once, she figured she could do so again, even without the help of the big young scout.

Watching the girl and Resin join the crowd. Hack gave thought to taking revenge on her. He knew something of his captain and guessed Bigelow would not be overkeen on taking Calamity along on the train. Nor would the train’s women if it came to a point; a girl as unconventional as Calamity would be an anathema to them. If she became involved in some unseemly incident, the women would demand that she be expelled from the train.

Once having decided that, Hack put a smart and scheming brain to causing an incident. All he needed was the right sort of man to carry his plans out, for Hack was a thinker not a fighter and as such never put himself in a position of danger if he could help it. A booming roar of laughter from a group of soldiers drew Hack’s attention to them. They were tanned. tough, hard-riding combat non-coms, fighting sergeants and corporals who had little but contempt for an office soldier of Hack’s type—unless the shiny-butt showed up suitably supplied and equipped. Hack had just the kind of equipment he needed. Turning, he headed back to the fort and collected something guaranteed to sweeten the heart of any combat non-com.

Not knowing the fate in store for her, Calamity joined in the dances and threw herself into having a good time with her usual verve and spirit. She and Resin led the sets, urged more and more folks to dance and led the applause which came at the end of each dance. At odd intervals as the time passed Calamity saw Hack standing with the group of non-coms, but she thought little of it. There was some drinking being done and combat soldiers had always been known for sociability when bending their elbows. Catching the eye of one of the drinkers, a big. burly, red-haired man with a face that was so Irish it might have been painted emerald green. Calamity gave him a friendly wink, showing that she understood how he came to be in such company. Unfortunately, he read the sign wrong.

Turning from his friends, the big sergeant came forward and joined the dance set being formed. With casual ease, he planted himself alongside Calamity and beamed down to her.

‘The name’s Paddy Muldoon, colleen,’ he told Calamity in a brogue so thick it could have been cut with a knife. ‘Sure and they say you’re Calamity Jane.’

‘Sure and they’re roight.’ Calamity answered, ever willing to be friendly at such a moment.

‘And there’s not another girl like you anywhere in the world.’

‘If there is, I’ll whip her so fast she’ll think the hawgs have jumped her.’

‘You could do it!’ Muldoon bellowed. ‘Let’s get married and raise the finest fighting family that’s ever been born.’

At that moment they separated and Calamity found herself partnering Beau Resin. She nodded towards Muldoon and grinned. ‘I’ve just been proposed to, Beau.’

‘By Paddy Muldoon?’ asked the scout, showing a remarkable lack of concern. ‘If you agreed, and he thought you meant it, he’d take off out of here faster’n a Neuces steer.’

‘That’s what I figured.’ groaned Calamity. ‘I no sooner get a decent offer than the feller heads out.’

‘Don’t let it bother you, honey-chile,’ Resin drawled, giving her waist a squeeze. ‘I’ll allus love you.’

Another change in partners brought Calamity to Muldoon again, although under the rules she should not have met up with the sergeant in that set. They whirled around together, Muldoon dancing with gusto, abandon, but little skill. However, Calamity had long been spry on her feet and used to avoided being trampled on by her partner.

At the end of the set Muldoon started to head towards Calamity, but she went back to Resin and her freighter friends. The big sergeant stood watching her, not exceptionally bothered, when he felt a hand on his sleeve. Turning, he looked down at Hack.

‘Now that’s no way for a gal to treat a cavalryman, is it, Paddy?’

Normally Muldoon’s reaction would have been to tell Hack where to go. However, pay day was a few days away and Muldoon had never been a man to look a gift-horse in the mouth, especially when it toted a load of good Old Stump-Blaster in its chubby hand.

Taking the offered bottle, Muldoon drank deeply, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and scowled after the departing couple. ‘It is not,’ he agreed, then slapped Hack on the back in a friendly manner which almost caved his spine out through his chest. ‘You’re not as bad as I allus reckon you was.’

Three dances went by, with Muldoon joining in every set and imposing his bear-like scowl on anybody who tried to get near Calamity. Of all the crowd only Beau Resin ignored the scowls. The soldiers at the fort knew better than cross big Paddy Muldoon and the travellers on the wagon train recognised him as a dangerous when wet proposition. For his part Muldoon knew he possessed but one rival for Calamity’s affections. Beau Resin, a civilian—normally Muldoon had respect for the abilities of a good scout such as Resin, but not when the scout became his rival for the affections of a real good-looking girl—was grabbing Calamity every time the caller announced a change of partners and Muldoon had never been a man to stand mildly by while the ground was cut from under his feet.

So Calamity found herself with only two partners. which had never been the intention of square dancing. She also attracted the disapproving glances of the other women. Normally such glances would not have worried Calamity, but they did that night for Calamity realised the delicacy of the situation.

‘Let’s go see how the other half live, Beau,’ she suggested at the end of a set, taking Beau’s arm and hauling him with her just as he aimed to walk over and settle matters with Muldoon.

‘Damn it to hell, Calam!’ Resin growled angrily. ‘No bog-trotting Pat-lander’s going to steal my gal.’

‘Which same you can start worrying when he does,’ Calamity replied calmly. ‘If I start squalling and pulling you, he’s surely going to come a-running to help.’

Calamity figured that Muldoon would have the good sense, and be sober enough, not to come making trouble in officers’ country and so led Resin to where the upper classes celebrated. Officers and their wives mingled with the cream of the wagon train, talking, dancing the same kind of dances as the peasants performed—although with less vigour and more style—or gathered at the hurriedly-made bowl of punch before the Blooms’ wagon.

Looking across the fire, Calamity saw Molly standing in the centre of a group of the younger bloods. Clearly the little schoolmarm was enjoying herself and it appeared to Calamity that Captain Bigelow had his sights set on Molly. It also became clear that Mrs. Eileen Tradle had designs on Bigelow. Eileen, wearing a fancy ball gown that trailed its hem on the floor, hung on to Bigelow’s arm like she was scared it might fall off, showing great attention to every word he said and making herself agreeable in every way to him.

‘Make up your sets, please,’ the colonel’s wife announced. ‘After this dance we will break off and eat. Gentlemen, the lady with you at the end of the dance is your partner for the buffet.’

Watching the dance proceed, Calamity saw that Mrs. Tradle intended to wind up with Bigelow. Twice Eileen cut in front of Molly to grab the captain for a partner and Calamity’s fingers itched to make some bar-room-style improvements to the officer’s lady’s elegantly combed and preened hair.

‘Ease off, hot-head!’ Resin growled in her ear. ‘This’s officers’ country, not the Texas House in Dodge City.’

The gods of fortune decreed that Bigelow, Molly and Eileen should arrive before Calamity as the dance drew towards its close, the fourth member of their set being a stout, red-faced and middle-aged major. Whoever did not collect Bigelow as a supper date would wind up with him as an escort and it became clear Eileen did not intend to be the one. By what looked like the sheerest accident. Eileen placed her hip against Molly’s side and shoved, staggering the smaller, lighter girl a couple of steps away from Bigelow. With a cat-vicious smile Eileen started to advance on her prey—then came to a sudden halt.

‘Why, mercy-me!’ Calamity gasped, looking down at the cause of Eileen’s sudden halt. ‘I got all clumsy and trod on the bottom of your dress.’

For all her apparent contrition, Calamity made no attempt to move her foot from the fuming Eileen’s dress until Molly reached Bigelow. All the time Eileen glared over her shoulder in a manner that in saloon circles would have wound up in a cat-clawing brawl. Then the music came to an end and Calamity moved her foot. For a moment she thought Eileen aimed to turn and jump her, especially as Molly passed by laughing, on the young captain’s arm.

‘Come on, Eileen gal!’ whooped the major, bearing down on the brunette. ‘Dammit, I thought young Bigelow’d lick me to you, only it looked like he preferred a younger gal.’

Which proved that while the major might be a real brave man in action, and he was, and a fairly smart man at his work, he would never make a diplomat.

‘So he did, Harold,’ Eileen replied in a tone that would have sliced tough meat. ‘How fortunate for me.’

‘Sure was. Come on. I want to tell you how that husband of yours hung a chamber pot on the roof of the White House on the night of Grant’s Inaugural Ball.’

Eileen Tradle allowed herself to be led off towards the buffet table, nor did she find another opportunity that night to get near Bigelow. The major, Bigelow and Molly all took their full share in making sure of that. By the end of the evening Eileen had worked up quite a hate for both Molly and Calamity.

Long before the evening ended Calamity had troubles of her own.

‘Hey, Calamity!’ whooped a voice as she and Resin walked back to their own section of the camp circle. ‘Come on, gal, ‘tis time we started dancing again.’

Walking up, Muldoon laid hold of Calamity’s right arm in an insulting and proprietary manner. Before he could make a move to lead the girl anywhere, a cold Southern drawl cut in.

‘Just take your hands off her, Muldoon,’ Beau Resin ordered.

‘So that’s the way of it?’ asked Muldoon, shoving Calamity gently to one side and facing the big scout. ‘All right, bucko, ‘tis time you civilians learned respect for us who’re making this country safe for the likes of yez.’

‘Start trying to teach me,’ Resin replied and countered the soldier’s claim with an old scout’s insult. ‘You’ll find me a mite harder than tangling with a village full of squaws and kids.’

Silence dropped over the area. Cold chilling silence as everybody stared at the two big fighting men facing each other. As if drawn by magnets Killem’s men arrived to move in behind Resin and Muldoon’s cronies appeared to form a half circle behind the big sergeant. Other soldiers and civilians showed interest in the affair and there was the makings of a good old-fashioned riot in the air. To one side, in a position which offered him a clear line of retreat, Hack watched his plan approach fulfilment. Once the fighting started, it would ruin the dance and the wagon train’s women were going to look for somebody to blame. The blame would fall smack on Calamity’s curly red head.

Hack knew that—and so did Calamity.

Although attending a range-country ball, Calamity was, in Western terms, dressed. Her Navy Colt rode its holster and her long whip hung coiled at the left side of her waist belt. Reaching down, Calamity jerked the whip free and measured the distance between herself and her two suitors with a practised eye. Resin and Muldoon were moving towards each other, crouching slightly in a manner which offered good defensive and offensive potential but did tend to stick out their butt-ends in a manner which looked mighty promising to providence and Calamity Jane.

Drawing back her right arm, Calamity shot it forward and the whip’s lash curled out. Beau Resin let out a yelp of pain and leapt almost three foot into the air as the lash’s tip caught him. Before Muldoon or any of the other men could make out just what happened, Calamity struck again. Once more the lash hissed out and not even Muldoon’s saddle-toughened butt could resist the impact of what felt like a king-sized bee-sting.

With the two main protagonists handled, Calamity proceeded to damp down the ardour of any other mean-minded cuss who aimed to stir up a fight. Her whip’s lash hissed and cracked like gun-shots between the men.

‘I’ll take the legs from under the first one to start anything!’ she warned. ‘Anybody’s wants a busted ankle step right out and get one from Calamity Jane’s dispensary.’

And she could do it, too. Every man in the two groups knew it for sure, or guessed it with enough accuracy to believe her. Yet Calamity knew she must settle the issue in a more permanent manner and her eyes flickered around. In one glance she saw the way—and a possible reason for the trouble, taken with certain things she remembered from earlier.

Hack saw his chances of revenge on Calamity fading away and decided to follow their example. Once Muldoon quietened down, he was going to start thinking; although thinking had never been the burly three-bar’s strongest suit. While Muldoon might not be a mathematical genius, he could add up two and two and make the answer come out four. Hack had never been noted for generosity or mingling with the lower elements of society and Muldoon might suspect a nigger with a bottle of Old Stump-Blaster dwelling in the wood-pile of the shiny-butt’s sudden flow of hospitality.

With that in mind, and knowing something of Muldoon’s way when roused. Hack turned to take a hurried departure. Before he had taken two strides he found his progress halted as surely as Eileen Tradle’s had been earlier, through the same person though in a less gentle manner. The lash of Calamity’s whip coiled around his fat neck and dragged him back on his heels. Angrily he turned to face the girl as she bore down on him. His anger oozed from him when he saw her change the whip handle to her left hand and draw her gun. While Calamity could not truthfully claim to be fast with a gun—in the West one needed to be able to draw and shoot in at least three-quarters of a second and the best Calamity could manage was a full second—she sure as hell looked fast to Hack.

Stepping forward, Calamity stabbed out the barrel of her Navy and sent it deep into Hack’s lard-soft belly.

‘Talk, Fatso!’ she said. ‘Talk up a storm!’

‘Huh?’ Hack gurgled. ‘Ooof!’

The first exclamation had been to indicate his lack of understanding, the second came when the Navy’s barrel jabbed home again.

‘Talk, you lard-gutted shiny-butt!’ Calamity growled. ‘Tell Paddy why you fed him rot-gut whisky and stirred him up agin me.’

‘Now that’s a good point, Hack,’ Muldoon said thoughtfully, rubbing his sore butt-end. ‘I never remembered you being generous afore.’

‘Was I you. I’d talk up, hombre,’ Resin commented, ‘afore ole Calam pokes that ‘Navy clear through your backbone belly first.’

‘I—I don’t—ooof!’

‘I’ll tell you why!’ Calamity snapped, after ending his protests with another savage jab. ‘It’s ‘cause of what happened on the river bank this morning.’

‘And what did happen on the river bank this morning, darlin’?’ asked Muldoon eyeing Hack with renewed interest.

‘Ask him,’ replied Calamity.

‘Now you’ve got a real smart point there, gal.’

On hearing Muldoon’s reply, Hack decided the time had come to depart, and had been passed several belly-aching minutes before. The whip’s lash had come free and so Hack turned and fled. Letting out a bellow, Muldoon took after him and most of the soldiers followed to see the fun.

The crisis had been postponed and Calamity decided to make an end to it. When he returned, Muldoon might still retain his amatory interests and Resin would not take kindly to that. So Calamity figured to remove temptation from Muldoon’s way.

‘That hurt?’ she asked as Resin rubbed his whip-stung rump.

‘Stings like hell.’

‘I got me a real good cure for what ails you,’ she told him, ‘only I can’t do it here.’

‘Then let’s go someplace where we can.’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

Together they walked from the camp circle and into the darkness. At dawn Resin returned to the wagon he shared with the wagon boss’s outfit. His rump no longer hurt him and although he had missed the end of the dance, Resin had no complaints, Calamity’s cure had been well worth it.

CHAPTER FIVE

MISS CANARY INCREASES AN OFFICER’S LADY’S ENMITY

‘THOSE are my bags, the ones marked with my name,’ Eileen Tradle told Calamity as they stood by the lead wagon of the train. ‘I suppose you can read?’

Eileen would never know how close she came to getting hand-scalped at that moment. It was the morning after the dance and the wagon train’s travellers prepared to move on. At such a moment Calamity’s temper had never been the best and she did not take kindly to sarcasm. The harnessing of a six-horse team took time and Calamity wanted to get her guest’s baggage loaded so as not to delay the start of Killem’s outfit. Due to loading the stores on the previous day, Killem failed to collect Eileen’s baggage earlier, but had sent Calamity and two of his men to collect it as soon as they hitched up their teams in the morning.

‘Reckon I can,’ Calamity answered. ‘Only those do-dads are marked “Tradle,” ’ she pronounced the word to rhyme with ‘saddle,’ ‘and everybody calls you “Tray-dell!” So I figured they couldn’t be yours.’

Fortunately, the colonel’s wife was present and had been out West long enough to have lost her preconceived ideas of superiority; and plenty long enough to read danger signs without needing spectacles.

‘Now leave Calamity to handle the baggage, Eileen,’ she said, stepping forward. ‘It couldn’t be in better hands. I talked with Dobe Killem last night and he left you a space in the front of Calamity’s wagon. I’ve had a camp-bed rigged in it and all you’ll need.’

‘Thank you, Monica,’ Eileen answered. ‘I suppose she is competent?’

Again Eileen had more luck than she deserved, for Calamity had never heard the word ‘competent’ and did not know what it meant. The Colonel’s wife did know and hurried to assure Eileen that Calamity was quite competent.

‘You couldn’t be in better hands,’ she finished.

‘Lay hold of those fancy do-dads, boys,’ Calamity said. ‘And don’t scratch ‘em up, they belong to a lady.’

‘That woman is insufferable!’ Eileen gasped as Calamity and the men walked away with her baggage.

‘She probably feels the same way about you, although I don’t think she’d express it in that way.’

‘She’s—she’s——’

‘She’s unique,’ the colonel’s wife replied. ‘There’s only one Calamity Jane, my dear.’

‘I would imagine that was one too many,’ Eileen sniffed.

‘Look, Eileen.’ said the older woman, laying a hand on the other’s sleeve. ‘This isn’t Boston. People out here don’t care that you come from the best Back Bay stock, that your father is a Congressman and that you have two uncles who are generals. It’s what you are that counts with a girl like Calamity. I don’t often give advice, except to young wives going out to their first frontier post, but I’d advise you to make friends with Calamity. You could learn a lot.’

‘I’ll remember your advice,’ Eileen promised coldly.

‘I doubt it,’ smiled the colonel’s wife. ‘Goodbye, my dear, and good luck—you’ll probably need it.’

Stiff-backed and tight-lipped, Eileen stamped off after her baggage. Nor did her annoyance lessen when she found Molly Johnson standing by the side of the wagon into which her belongings were being loaded.

‘Asked Molly here to ride with us this morning,’ Calamity remarked in a tone which implied she did not give a damn whether Eileen objected or not.

‘If you think there won’t be room, I’ll go back to my own wagon, Mrs. Tradle.’ Molly remarked, being more susceptible than Calamity to atmosphere and realising Eileen did not approve.

‘Shucks, there’s more’n room for the three of us on my wagon,’ Calamity put in. ‘Ain’t none of us that fat. Hop aboard, gals, and we’ll be all set to roll.’

Turning, Eileen stared up at the wagon’s box and found it to be higher than she imagined. Of course, the other wagon had been high, but supplied a step-ladder to allow her to mount. She watched Calamity climb the spokes of the front wheel and hop lightly aboard.

‘Here, Molly, take hold!’ Calamity ordered, extending her hand to the little blonde, then glared at the freighters who hung around in the hope of seeing a well-turned ankle. ‘Get the hell to your wagons or I’ll peel the stinking hides offen you.’

Which caused a rapid departure for the men knew better than to cross their Calamity at such a moment. Molly, with Calamity’s help, made the climb on to the box and took her seat. Being on her dignity, Eileen declined assistance.

‘I’ll manage,’ she stated as Calamity offered a none-too-clean hand.

‘It’s your notion, not mine,’ replied Calamity calmly and sat down.

Eileen tried to climb aboard without help, but could not manage it. However her pride refused to allow her to ask for assistance.

‘Hey, Calam!’ yelled the man in the wagon behind them. ‘Get rolling.’

‘Do you want help, or shall I have a couple of the boys come boost you up?’ Calamity asked and bitterly Eileen conceded defeat.

After being helped on to the box by a pull from Calamity’s strong arms, Eileen sat down hard and looked into what would be her home for the next four weeks or more. Although the rear of the wagon carried a load of wooden boxes, a piece at the front remained clear, apart from her baggage and a camp-bed—and a war-bag, bed-roll and a wooden box of battered aspect which certainly did not belong to her.

‘Don’t worry,’ Calamity remarked, seeing the way Eileen eyed the latter. ‘I sleep under the wagon most nights.’

Already the wagon train had started to roll, following the wagon master’s vehicle in single file. Killem’s outfit would bring up the rear and it only remained for the cavalry escort to make its appearance. Which it did, bringing an exclamation of surprise and amazement from Calamity.

With Bigelow at their head, a force of twenty troopers under a lieutenant and Sergeant Muldoon swept from the fort. Only they looked like they were riding a general’s review, not handling an escort duty through wild country. Each man wore his regulation uniform blouse over his shirt and their short-legged boots had a shine to match the glint of their brass work. More than that, each man carried a sabre in addition to his carbine and revolvers; a thing which, artists’ impressions or not, rarely if ever went into action against the horse-Indians of the plains.

‘Land-snakes!’ Calamity gasped. ‘Just lookit old Paddy Muldoon there. My, don’t he look right elegant and becoming all togged up in his shiny best. Say, they must be expecting good buffalo hunting, way they’re toting them over-growed carving knives along.’

‘Those are sabres!’ Eileen answered.

‘Do tell. What do they use ‘em for, ‘cepting looking fancy?’

‘They fight with them!’

‘Whooee!’ Calamity gasped, although she knew well enough what a sabre was for. ‘I’d sure as hell hate to tangle with a Cheyenne or Sioux buffalo lance with one of them things in my hand.’

Not wishing to encourage familiarity, Eileen let the matter drop and Calamity stopped talking as she prepared to start her wagon rolling.

‘Wagon roll!’ Killem roared.

‘Hang on, gals,’ Calamity warned. ‘And don’t blush if I have to do some cussing. These hosses are common cusses like me and don’t take to soft talking.’

The wagon ahead started and Calamity swung her whip, yelling to her horses. She gave her full attention to the team as it took up the strain on the harness, and flicked the centre near-side horse with the tip of her whip to make sure it did not shirk its share of the load. With a lurch, the big wagon began to roll, but Calamity gave her horses a blistering string of profanity just to let them know she was still around. At last the team settled down and Calamity relaxed, turning with a grin to Molly.

‘Wasn’t that a party last night?’

‘Did you enjoy it?’ asked Molly.

‘I always enjoy a good—dance,’ Calamity answered with her reckless grin. ‘That Beau Resin’s got his points, Molly, gal. If you see what I mean and I reckon you don’t.’

An angry flush crept to Eileen’s cheeks as she read an implication into the words that Calamity had not meant to be there. On the way West Eileen had shown some considerable interest in Resin and thought Calamity knew of this. Eileen took it that Calamity knew of the friendship and tried to annoy her by hints at a very close relationship with the big scout.

‘I really enjoyed myself last night,’ Molly admitted, seeing the expression on Eileen’s face and changing the subject—or so she hoped—to safer ground.

‘Sure,’ grinned Calamity. ‘I saw you and that bow-necked shiny-butt.’

‘Wade’s not bow-necked, or a shiny-butt!’ Molly put in hotly. ‘He’s just unfortunate in having been assigned to the Quartermaster Corps, but he’s hoping for a transfer when he reaches Fort Sherrard and—’

Molly’s defence had come just a shade too quickly and her cheeks reddened as she saw the tolerant smile on Calamity’s face, so stopped her details of the life of Wade H. Bigelow, frustrated captain of the Quartermaster Corps.

Once more Eileen breathed her annoyance; for she had hoped to become much better acquainted with Bigelow during the trip to Fort Sherrard and saw her chances going out of the window in the face of the pretty, single schoolmarm’s competition. Naturally Bigelow would prefer an unmarried girl, with its attendant possibilities, rather than squiring an officer’s lady which could only pass mild, innocent flirtation with the gravest risks to his career.

To give her credit, Eileen had no intention of extending her friendship with either Resin or Bigelow beyond the mildest flirtation. She loved and was loyal to her husband and reared in the strictest Back Bay Boston traditions—which were about as strict as one could get. So her interest in both men was more mercenary than licentious. Resin had been third from the top in the wagon train’s hierarchy during the trip from the East and the two higher members of the social scale were both married, with their wives along. Bigelow, as commander of the military escort, now was the head man. All her life Eileen had tried to be around the top people, not out of snobbery but because she had been born into that class. She knew the value of friendship with men in high places as an adjunct for obtaining her own way. So she planned to be known as the escort of the leader of the train; it was always a good thing to be.

Only it appeared that Molly, who Eileen had previously regarded as a rather plain, sexless little mouse, was cutting the ground from under her feet one way and the coarse, common, vulgar Calamity Jane taking her place in the other.

All in all the earlier stages of the drive were not happy for Eileen. In the course of her talk, Calamity let it slip out that she had appropriated Bigelow’s trout; which further annoyed Eileen who had been offered a supper from the fish and was disappointed not to receive it after hearing so much about the taste of fresh-caught squaretails. She resisted all attempts to make peace, snapping out chilling answers until Molly’s even temper started to wear thin and Calamity sat debating to herself whether to boot the officer’s lady from the wagon box.

Fortunately for Eileen, before Calamity reached a decision on the matter there came an interruption. Muldoon galloped his horse up from the rear and pulled in alongside Calamity’s wagon. After mopping his sweat-streaked face with an enormous bandana, he grinned at the girls.

‘The top of the morning to yez, ladies,’ he greeted.

‘Sure and ‘tis elegant yez look, Pathrick, me darlin’,’ replied Calamity. ‘If ‘twas Indian country, sure they’d see yez coming five miles off with the flash of yez fancy buttons.’

‘Elegant!’ answered Muldoon, snorting like an old bull buffalo faced with a pack of Great Plains wolves. ‘It’s the idea of that bow-neck—’

‘Now hush up there, Paddy,’ grinned Calamity. ‘Can’t you see I’ve got a lady aboard. Anyways, that shavetail from Connel’s been out enough to know better.’

‘And so he does; for hasn’t he had the teaching of Pathrick James Muldoon to show him what’s right. Sure, we’d be riding in comfort but for that—’

‘Sergeant!’ Eileen snapped. ‘Do you usually cut down your officers before civilians?’

Stiffening into a brace, Muldoon looked at the young woman. ‘No, ma’am. Only Calamity isn’t a civilian at all—’

‘Aren’t you going somewhere on duty?’ Eileen interrupted coldly.

‘That I am, ma’am,’ Muldoon answered.

Anger glowed in Calamity’s eyes as the burly sergeant sent his horse along the line of wagons. Eileen met Calamity’s stare without flinching and it appeared that an open clash could not be avoided.

‘Will we see any buffalo this trip, Calam?’ Molly asked mildly.

‘Huh?’ Calamity grunted, then smiled at the little blonde. ‘We might.’

Eileen decided that having two enemies might be a mite more than she could handle, so reckoned she ought to make her peace with one of them. Of course, there could only be one choice. While Molly Johnson was in employment, schoolteaching stood on a different plane to other kinds of female labour; and Molly was socially acceptable both by birth and education. With that in mind, Eileen turned and smiled in her most winning manner at the blonde.

‘My father came out here hunting last year, with another congressman,’ she said, deciding to show Calamity that she possessed a string of imposing relatives, ‘and my uncles, Generals Brackstead and Porter. They all shot several buffalo.’

‘Never could stand these dudes coming here and gunning down poor fool critters then leaving the meat to rot,’ Calamity put in.

‘Nobody asked you!’ Eileen spat out. ‘I’ll thank you to continue driving and mind your own business.’

‘Yeah!’ snorted Calamity. ‘Well, you can g—’

‘I think I’ll go to my own wagon.’ Molly interrupted. ‘It’s humiliating to see two grown women acting like children,’

‘I assure you, Molly—’.

‘Danged if she didn’t start—’

Both girls started to speak at the same moment, stopped and glared at each other then relapsed into silence.

‘Of course, I could talk with one of you for, say ten minutes, then turn to the other,’ Molly remarked, hoping the introduction of a light note would break the hostility.

‘Don’t put yourself out for me!’ Eileen snapped.

‘I got work to do!’ Calamity snorted. ‘Blasted dudes coming out here and shooting up the country.’

‘I always say a woman should dress like one!’

‘Yeah? Well, let me tell you something, you high-and-mighty Boston—’

‘Don’t you insult Boston, you—you—’

‘I’ll insult what I want on my blasted wagon!’

Fortunately. Captain Bigelow rode up at that moment and Eileen, somewhat red in the face, turned to speak with him. Although he prevented any further rift between the girls, he did not bring peace. For the rest of the day’s travel Calamity and Eileen ignored each other.

After being dismissed by Eileen, Muldoon galloped his horse to the head of the train, paying little attention to its occupants. Once clear of the train, he brought his horse to a halt and let out a long chuckle.

‘Pathrick James.’ he said, ‘happen she gets some of that Boston fuddy-duddy knocked out of her, that gal’ll make a real fighting officer’s lady.’

‘Always reckon it’s the first sign when they start talking to themselves,’ drawled a voice from behind Muldoon.

Turning, the big sergeant grinned at Beau Resin and showed no sign of animosity over the previous night’s affair.

‘Sure and I’ve always been after having an intelligent and superior person talking with me, and having an intelligent and superior person to talk with, Beau.’ he explained.

‘You’ve got a right smart point there, or a damned good excuse. You boys are sure fancied up.’

‘That we are. He’ll learn, Beau, he’ll learn. There’s a man’s heart under that shiny-butt’s uniform.’

‘He’d best learn; and fast!’ Resin stated. ‘Word has it that Sand Runner’s gathering the Cheyenne bad-hats.’

‘Which’s why they sent us soldier lads to defend all you civilians,’ grinned Muldoon. ‘Say, where’d you and Calamity go last night, I was looking for to apologise for me unseemly behaviour and give her a little something to remember Fatso Hack by.’

‘We were around, and how we were around,’ the scout drawled. ‘What happened to Hack?’

‘The poor darlin’ fell over something. The fort surgeon says he’ll be right as ever in a week or so. Sure though, isn’t that Calamity a lil darlin’?’

‘She thinks the same about you.’

‘Then she shows good taste.’

‘Yep.’ drawled Resin. ‘Couldn’t stop talking about you offering to marry her. Asked me if you’d want a white wedding in a church.’

‘Holy Mother of God!’ croaked Muldoon, horror replacing the delighted beam on his face. ‘I hopes you stood true by an old friend, Beau lad, and persuaded her what a lousy husband I’d make. Sure ‘tis no use I’d be to any woman, I drink, never save a dime—’

‘Reckon I talked her out of it,’ grinned the Scout.

‘Then ‘tis me thanks you have, Beau, lad,’ said Muldoon, gripping Resin’s hand in a heart-felt manner. Letting out a shudder, Muldoon went on, ‘Faith, a gal as strong-willed as Calamity might’ve—hey, just look who’s there.’

While the two men sat talking, the wagons passed them and the outfit belonging to the rat-faced jasper with the four hefty girls was just going by. It was to the buxom blonde not the man that Muldoon nodded.

‘Joined us on the Kansas line. Keep to themselves and pay their way,’ Resin replied. ‘Which’s all we ask.’

‘Does Calam know who she is?’

‘Lordy-lord. I hope not. If she does—’

‘Yeah,’ grinned Muldoon. ‘It’d be a sight to see though, happen Calamity finds out.’

CHAPTER SIX

MISS CANARY TAKES A CHANCE

‘COFFEE, Mrs. Tradle?’

‘If you please, Miss Canary.’

A week had passed since leaving Fort Connel and the association between Calamity and Eileen was in the dangerous stage of studied politeness. Each tried to out-do the other in avoiding giving reason for a further clash—which brought them closer to it many times than would more ordinary behaviour.

In several ways Eileen had changed. On the first night Calamity growled an order for Eileen to start a fire while the freight outfit’s crew tended to their chores. It had been on the tip of Eileen’s tongue to refuse, but a further comment from Calamity to the effect that Eileen would not know how to make a fire without a flock of Boston servants to help brought a change of plan. Angrily Eileen went to the rawhide possum belly under the wagon and drew out dried buffalo-chips and wood. Refusing Molly’s help, Eileen made a fire as her father taught her in the days of her rather tomboy youth. Next day Eileen lent a hand to harness the team and each day since had taken more and more of a share in the work load. Her soft white hands hardened with washing dishes and doing other manual labour that had for years been the prerogative of her family’s servants.

Both Calamity and Eileen looked for an excuse to bury the hatchet, but each time the way opened something would happen to start them feuding again.

As an onlooker, Molly found the situation highly diverting and amusing. Although the British writer Rudyard Kipling was still many years from writing about the under-the-skin kinship of the colonel’s lady and Sarah O’Grady, Molly was in an ideal position to understand what he would mean.

Calamity’s energy amazed Molly. Not only did the girl rise in the first light of dawn, tend to and harness her team, drive all day; but after caring for the six horses in the evening would visit the class Molly taught, then organise a lecture on various western subjects for the women of the train and throw herself wholeheartedly into any festivity she found herself invited to attend after dark.

Eileen helped Calamity around the wagon and attended all the girl’s lectures although always standing at the back and pretending not to be listening, or showing her disbelief if the red-head happened to glance her way.

Storm clouds were gathering in the sky as the two women stood by the fire and drank their coffee, after eating the breakfast Eileen had helped cook. Killem slouched over to them and nodded his head.

‘Looks like rain,’ he said.

‘Tastes a mite like coffee though,’ Calamity answered.

Once more the possibility of burying the hatchet went flying by. Calamity’s joke had been harmlessly meant, but it was Eileen’s coffee—and well-brewed at that. Giving an angry snort, Eileen doused the fire by up-ending the coffeepot and pouring out a good three mugs full, one at least of which Calamity had hoped for and looked forward to drinking.

In angry silence the two girls prepared to travel and neither spoke as the wagon rolled. Molly had not joined them that morning, finding the situation on the wagon too disconcerting and, having taken a liking to Eileen, wished to avoid antagonising either of her friends.

Each morning the order of travel changed so that the same people did not spend all their days eating the dust at the rear of the column. On this day Calamity found herself in second position behind the wagonmaster’s vehicle which always took the lead. Before they had gone a mile, dust was not the thing the travellers needed bother about.

Suddenly the blackened skies split with a flash of lightning and rain began to gush down, coming in slanting sheets that drove towards the wagons. There was no chance to take precautions and almost everybody on the train found themselves soaked to the skin.

‘If you’d any sense you’d get in there and put your slicker on,’ Calamity told Eileen, hunching miserably on the box and sending her whip’s lash flickering out to keep the idle centre near-side horse doing its share.

‘When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it!’

‘So soak and the hell with you then! Easy there, you stab-gutted, spavined crow-bait. You’re not on. Boston High Street.’

For fifteen minutes the two girls sat side by side, soaked to the skin and both too damned hog-stubborn to give in. At last Eileen decided to call it quits and turned to slip through the dawn-down canopy into the lurching wagon. Although her oilskin coat and hat hung ready for use, she doubted if she could change while the wagon rolled, jerked and pitched. Donning the coat, she was about to climb back on to the box when she saw Calamity’s wet-weather clothing lying on the battered box.

Picking up the Stetson hat and yellow oilskin slicker, she opened the flap and climbed out.

‘Here!’ she said.

It was on the tip of Calamity’s tongue to tell her to go to hell, then sit out the storm unprotected, but she changed her mind.

‘Thanks.’

‘I’d have done it for a dog,’ Eileen sniffed. ‘Let me take the reins and you get dressed.’

‘You?’

‘You’ve been boasting about how good your team is, so I should be able to manage them—if they’re that good.’

‘Don’t you insult my horses!’ Calamity squealed. but handed over the reins and donned her protective clothing.

Suffering a mutual discomfort might have brought peace to the two girls. but the fates decreed that before they could forget their differences a fresh cause of strife would arise.

Beau Resin came galloping through the rain towards the wagonmaster and Bigelow as they rode at the head of the column. The rain had been slashing down for over an hour and the ground under foot grew soggy and uncertain.

‘We got trouble. Sam,’ Resin drawled, water trickling from his Stetson brim in a steady stream.

‘When did you ever come back like that and not have trouble?’ asked the wagonmaster calmly.

‘That’s what you pay me for, to bring you bad news.’

‘What is it?’ Bigelow asked, slightly irritated even after a week at the way Resin failed to respect his rank and position.

‘A damned great valley, Cap’n. Come on ahead and take a look at it.’

On riding some three miles ahead with the two civilians, Bigelow saw the cause of the trouble. A wide valley stretched ahead of them, its left slope sheer, the right, on which they sat, fairly gentle and the bottom along which the train planned to move turned into a roaring torrent by a storm-flooded stream.

‘That’ll be hell to get by,’ remarked the wagonmaster.

‘Plumb hell,’ agreed Resin.

‘We could go along the top there,’ suggested Bigelow.

‘Could,’ Resin answered. ‘Only there was a big burn-out up there a few years back and its grown over with thick young stuff and loused out with fallen dead trees. It’d take us a month to cut a way through.’

‘How about the other side?’

‘Happen we could cross that stream, which same’s not likely, there’s a fork down the valley about half a mile, you can’t hardly see it for the rain. It’d take us near a hundred mile out of our way to get round that fork and back on to our line and there’s no way we could cross.’

‘Do we wait it out?’ asked Bigelow, which showed that something of a change had come over him. He now asked for advice instead of giving orders.

‘Now that’s a good question, Cap’n,’ answered the wagon-master. ‘I only wish to hell I knew the answer.’

‘If one wagon broke the ground across this slope, the others could follow,’ Resin remarked.

‘Sure,’ agreed the wagonmaster dryly. ‘Only I’d hate like hell to be the first one.’

None of the party spoke for a few moments for both Resin and’ Bigelow knew that if it came to the point, the wagon-master most likely would be the one who made the pioneer trip across the treacherous mile or so of slope.

Riding forward with Bigelow at his side, Resin found the slope’s soil to be soft, soggy and slick. Yet their horses found little or no difficulty in keeping their feet. Of course, the Appaloosa and Bigelow’s bay did not haul a damned great Conestoga wagon behind them. On returning to the wagon-master’s side, the two men found Killem and the train’s segundo present.

‘Means going a good two mile along the slope before it’s clear to hit the top,’ Resin remarked, glancing at the halted wagons behind the men.

Jumping down from her wagon. Calamity slouched forward and looked at the scene ahead, reading its implications. Her eyes went to the lead wagon from which the wagonmaster’s family were climbing.

‘Way I see it,’ she said, joining the men, ‘my wagon’s carrying the least important stuff. Right, Cap’n?’

For a moment Bigelow thought then nodded. ‘If it comes to a point, your load is the most easily replaced.’

‘I’ve got the best danged team, too,’ the girl said calmly. ‘Have all the stock pushed across ahead of me, and let them with hosses ride across. Sam, get your kids back in your wagon out of the rain.’

Five startled pairs of male eyes stared at Calamity. In a way she spoke the truth. Of all the wagons hers could probably be most easily spared; every other carried a family’s home and belongings or vitally needed military supplies. Yet the men could not risk a girl’s life on the dangerous task ahead; not even a girl like Calamity Jane.

Without waiting for their permission, Calamity returned to her wagon and climbed aboard.

‘What’s the delay?’ Eileen asked.

‘Nothing. Get out.’

‘What?’

‘I’m taking the wagon across that slope ahead and can’t tote extra weight,’ Calamity growled. her nervous tension preventing her from explaining that she could not risk the other girl’s life in the crossing.

‘But how do I get across?’ asked Eileen, the rain making her temper rise.

‘Look down there!’ Calamity snapped, pointing to the bed of the wagon. ‘See them things sticking out from under your dress? They’re feet, use ‘em.’

‘But I—’

‘Get out or I’ll throw you out!’ Calamity screamed. Something in the girl’s voice warned Eileen not to push Calamity any further. While Eileen willingly swapped word-warfare, she drew the line at physical conflict and so climbed from the wagon. A squeal left her lips as she sank ankle-deep into the mud. Hearing the sound of men approaching, Eileen turned. The wagonmaster, Bigelow and the other men came towards Calamity’s wagon but one look at their faces warned Eileen not to worry them with, petty troubles. One thing Eileen had learned young and early was when not to trouble the men-folk and such a time was at hand.

‘All right, Calamity,’ Killem said. ‘I’ll take your wagon over.’

‘Like hell you will,’ she replied.

‘Come on, Calam,’ Killem growled. ‘Let me handle it.’

‘Nope!’

‘I said I’d take it!’

‘And I said go to hell!’

‘Damn it, Calam!’ Killem barked. ‘You’re fired.’

‘Swell!’ she answered. ‘Then I don’t have to take your orders any more.’

Giving an angry snort, Killem stepped towards the wagon. Then he came to a sudden halt, he and the other men who started to follow him with the intention of lending their moral support. While Calamity’s Colt rode under her fastened slicker, a Winchester carbine lay in a boot on the side of the wagon—or did lie there for Calamity jerked it out and fed a round into the chamber.

‘Get your hand off the wagon. Dobe!’ she warned as her boss reached for the wheel to climb aboard. ‘Damn it, I mean it. Get your hand off or I’ll put lead into you.’

And she meant it, too, every man present knew that. Calamity had pride in her work and nobody, not even her boss, took over her wagon no matter how dangerous the situation.

‘It’s damned risky, gal,’ Resin pointed out.

‘Reckon I don’t know it?’ she snorted. ‘Dobe, Sam and all the boys have kin depending on ‘em. You’re needed as scout and the cap’n doesn’t know how to handle a six-hoss team well enough to take it across there. I’ve got nobody needing me to support ‘em, so I’ll take her over.’

‘All right, you blasted ornery female,’ Killem said, his voice gentle. ‘Go bust your fool neck and kill yourself. Only don’t you come blaming me when you do.’

On receiving his permission, Calamity booted the carbine, leaned over to remove Killem’s hat and planted a kiss on the top of his head. ‘I love you, too, Cecil!’ she whispered, then raised her voice. ‘Get that stock run across, Beau.’

Even with all the spare stock run across the slope so as to chum up the ground a mite, Calamity could see her task was anything but a sinecure. She started her team moving, conscious that almost every member of the train stood behind and watched her. The story of what Calamity hoped to do passed around and Eileen forgot her position to watch the girl, realising why Calamity ordered her from the wagon.

Ignoring the crowd, Calamity sat her wagon’s box and concentrated on handling her team. She kicked off her moccasins and sat with bare feet on the wagon bed, the better to feel the vibrations of movement under her. With her eyes on the horses, she gave low-voiced encouragement.

‘Slow and easy, blast you!’ she said, gripping the reins between delicate yet strong fingers to steady or urge on as the situation demanded. ‘You make me trouble, Muley, and I’ll skin your hide tonight.’

This last came as a warning to the near-side centre horse as she felt it slack its pull. Usually the horse tended to idle and needed the spice of a whip-flick to keep its attention on work, but it sensed the danger of the situation and buckled down to pull its weight.

Never would Calamity forget that trip across the slope. Once she felt the rear wheel begin to slide and her fingers controlled the reins, giving the horses confidence while keeping them pulling. Although the rain beat down and she was wet to the skin, Calamity felt sweat soaking her and the few seconds during which the wheels slid downwards seemed like an hour. Then the great horses’ strength held it and the wagon rolled on once more. Behind her Calamity heard a roar of cheers that followed on the concerted gasp of horror which rose as the slipping started. She ignored the crowd’s approval, knowing that she was far from being in safety.

‘I sure hope they mark that place down,’ she breathed. ‘Pull, boys, pull!’

On went the horses, fighting their way along. Ahead of her, where she could turn to safety on top of the slope, Calamity saw Resin, Muldoon and a number of the biggest, strongest men of the train gathering. So intent had been her concentration before that she could not remember them passing her and wondered what they were doing. Then she got the idea and gave a sigh of relief. After a pull like they had just been through, the horses would find difficulty in hauling a heavy Conestoga to the head of the slope. The party of men had come to lend a hand at a time when their aid would be of the most use.

Even with the aid of the men, Calamity felt her wagon’s wheels skid and saw the horses straining and fighting to move it. For a long moment everything hung in the balance and then Calamity felt the wagon inching forward and upward. Then the horses topped the slope and her wagon lurched up and on to level ground.

‘Yahoo!’ Resin whooped, coming alongside the wagon and grinning up at the girl. ‘You done it, Calam!’

‘It looks a mite that way.’ she replied. ‘Hey, get some hosses up top here and ropes, the others won’t have teams like mine. I’ll head down to the bed ground and settle in.’

‘Sure thing, gal. Go on about half a mile, you’ll find a big clearing. Stay there, the stock’s down there already.’

After moving her wagon on to the appointed bed ground, Calamity attended to her horses. The rain, having made things as dangerous and awkward as it could for the travellers, eased off and, by the time Calamity had halted her wagon, finished to allow a watery sun to creep through cracks in the clouds. Calamity ignored her own soaked condition as she worked on her horses, drying their coats and then taking them to water in the brook at the edge of the camp. After watering and feeding the horses, Calamity headed back to the slope to see if she could help out. On her way she found that Eileen had crossed and was also very busy.

Although she slipped once and slid several feet in the mud of the slope, and lost both shoes in the process of crossing, Eileen had come to the other side on foot. She forgot her own discomfort as she watched the others straggling across; men, women and children walking so as to relieve the weight on the wagon teams and lessen the risk if anything went wrong. Something stirred inside Eileen, the spirit which lifted her family above the rest of the herd and made them leaders instead of staying among the led.

Finding Molly Johnson, Eileen made her suggestions and the two girls started a fire. Then Eileen bustled around the women, making them work and taking their minds off their misery. The results of her drive showed quickly enough in the other fires that appeared and then in the smell of brewing coffee and cooking food. By the time half of the wagons had made the still dangerous crossing, hot coffee and food awaited the hard-working men. Not until everybody had been fed did Eileen manage to get to the wagon and start to change her clothes.

The flap of the wagon lifted and a naked Eileen gave a gasp, swinging around and hiding as well as she could behind the towel she held. Calamity swung in and looked at. the other girl. Tossing aside her hat and slicker, Calamity unfastened her bandana and removed it.

‘Come out from behind there,’ she said testily as Eileen continued to hold up the towel. ‘I’ve seen all you’re likely to show me and got about the same.’

‘I’m not used to sharing a changing room,’ Eileen replied, cold and exhaustion bringing an edge to her voice.

‘Yeah, well in that case you go out of the wagon, I don’t aim. to,’ Calamity snapped back. ‘I’m getting sick to my guts of you!’

‘The feeling is quite mutual!’ snorted Eileen, turning her back and continuing her drying.

Calamity tried to peel the sodden shirt and undershirt from her, but the already tight material stuck. Giving a harder tug, she jerked them over her head but the force of the pull sent them slapping on to Eileen’s back. A squeal of fury left Eileen’s lips and she swung around, dropping the towel.

‘You did that deliberately!’ she hissed and drew back her hand.

‘Don’t try it!’ Calamity warned angrily. ‘You start slapping and I’ll take you apart, you Boston hoity-toity.’

Commonsense warned Eileen that Calamity spoke the truth. While Eileen could more than hold her own in a slanging match, she knew that Calamity had the advantage in any other kind of brawl. Then she realised how she was—or was not— dressed. Blushing, she bent hurriedly and grabbed up the towel, rubbing herself savagely with it. Once dry, she dressed and pushed by Calamity, leaving the wagon. Calamity stared after Eileen, gave an angry snort and finished her drying, then put on dry clothing and went in search of Beau Resin.

Once again a chance mishap had ruined their hopes of peace for both girls had formed a respect for the other during the day. With luck they might have ended their feud in the wagon, but things went wrong and both were pot-boiling mad at the other.

Leaving the wagon, Eileen went in search of Bigelow, but he was at supper with the Johnsons. In her loneliness, Eileen fell into conversation with Muldoon who she met on his way to inspect pickets. While walking through the camp, he told her much of Calamity, expressing his admiration for a number of most unfeminine talents shown by the girl.

‘Now there’s an outfit for you, ma’am,’ Muldoon remarked as they passed the rat-faced dude’s wagon. ‘You’d never guess what they do.’

‘Are they actresses of some kind?’ she replied.

On hearing of how the outfit made its living, Eileen first thought that Muldoon must he joking. Then she saw he appeared to be very serious and listened to what he said about the blonde in particular. Nothing might have come of it, but after separating from Muldoon and walking back to her wagon Eileen saw the blonde away from her friends hanging clothes to dry.

For a few minutes, Eileen tried to fight down the temptation, then she gave an angry snort. Calamity had asked for it, and needed to lose some of her conceit. With that in mind, Eileen walked over to the blonde and started talking. It seemed that Muldoon told the truth about the blonde, and she was willing to help Eileen out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MISS CANARY MEETS A LADY PUGILIST

THE wagonmaster and Bigelow declared the day after the rains a rest period in order to allow the travellers a chance to dry out their belongings. Men went out to cut timber and the women did their chores.

During the morning, after having slept on the matter all night, Eileen felt tempted to call off the arrangement she had made with the blonde. However, a trivial incident which neither of them could be blamed for sparked off a blazing quarrel and so Eileen went to see the blonde, taking money with her to finalise the arrangements. In these Eileen showed considerable planning skill that might have been worthy if applied to a better cause.

In the late afternoon Eileen walked over to where Calamity sat cleaning her carbine, watched by a couple of admiring youngsters.

‘There’s some trouble down at the stream, Miss Canary,’ she said. ‘Molly—’

‘Is Molly needing help?’ asked Calamity, laying aside the carbine. ‘I’ll go right along.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘That’ll be as much help as an udder on a bull,’ Calamity sniffed.

While listening to Calamity’s haste to go to Molly’s aid, Eileen had come almost to the verge of calling off her scheme, but Calamity’s sneer changed her mind. Tight-lipped and angry, Eileen turned and walked off through the camp. Behind her, Calamity told the two boys to ‘scat and keep out of mischief’ then followed on Eileen’s heels.

The boys headed back to their wagons and on the way they met Molly returning from conducting a class.

‘Gee, Miss Johnson,’ one said. ‘We thought you was in trouble.’

‘Now what gave you that idea?’ Molly smiled.

‘Mrs. Tradle told Calamity you was and they went out of camp together.’

Molly stared at’ the boy in horror. ‘Quick, Pete!’ she said. ‘Which way did they go?’

‘Down by the edge of the stream, following it down river.’

‘The fools! But Eileen Tradle wouldn’t—’

‘Wouldn’t what, Miss Molly?’

‘Nothing. You boys had better go back to your wagons and see if there are any chores for you.’

Leaving the boys, Molly hurried out of the camp and through the woods, keeping to the banks of the stream. She covered almost a mile, well past the last working party and began to wonder if she was the victim of a schoolboy prank. Then she heard noises ahead. Moving forward, Molly saw there really was trouble on the bank of the small stream.

Neither Calamity nor Eileen spoke as they walked through the trees along the bank of the stream. Eileen had learned the futility of trying to appear well-groomed and attired to the height of Eastern fashion and she wore a cheap old gingham dress instead of her fancy outfit; apart from her wedding ring, she had stored away all her jewellery, and her hair hung in a tidy fashion instead of being piled up in formal style.

‘Are you sure it’s this far?’ asked Calamity after they had passed the last of the train’s working parties.

‘I’m sure.’

‘I hope I’ll not need my medicine bag,’ Calamity went on, looking down at the buckskin bag containing various herbs and items for rough-and-ready frontier doctoring.

‘You probably will,’ Eileen answered.

‘I hope to hell you haven’t got lost,’ Calamity sniffed. ‘I haven’t. It’s just around the bend here.’

Turning the bend, they came through the bushes into a clearing. Calamity saw a blonde woman sitting under a tree, but it was not Molly. On seeing Calamity and Eileen, the blonde rose, a long, flowing black robe hanging around her from neck to ankle.

‘What is this?’ Calamity growled. ‘Where’s Molly?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eileen replied.

‘But you said—’

‘I started to say that Molly wasn’t involved, but you never gave me a chance. Anyway, I thought you’d jump at a chance of meeting Miss Petrosky.’

‘So who the hell is she?’ asked Calamity, looking at the buxom blonde who had aroused her interest earlier.

‘Her professional name is Russian Olga,’ Eileen replied. ‘She’s a lady pugilist.’

‘A what?’

‘Fist lighter, girlie,’ the blonde answered. ‘I’m champion of the world and never been licked.’

Then Calamity saw what had been worrying Killem and the reason he changed the subject every time she mentioned the rat-faced dude’s outfit. Killem thought that if Calamity learned of Russian Olga’s claim to fame, she would go hell-blatting out looking for a chance to disprove the blonde’s statement. Calamity had heard of girl fist-fighters—they enjoyed a vogue much as girl wrestlers in later years—but had never connected the buxom blonde with the name Russian Olga.

‘Never been licked, huh?’ said Calamity thoughtfully, remembering something she had heard some time before.

‘Never, girlie.’

‘How’s about with that German gal up to Quiet Town?’

A scowl creased Olga’s face at the mention of the incident, for her defeat still rankled. Yet she had met a defeat at the hands of an erstwhile member of the troupe while supposed to be fighting a fixed bout to cheat a rich miner out of his wager money.*

‘I just aimed to whup you a mite, girlie,’ Olga growled, unfastening her cloak. ‘But now you’ve riled me and I’m going to lick you good.’

On removing the cloak, Olga showed that she had come prepared for a fight, for she wore the outfit used in the ring. Calamity studied the woman, noting the powerful fat legs in black tights, the firm condition of her torso under the upper part, which resembled a man’s sleeveless undershirt, and the muscular state of her arms. There might be fat around Olga’s middle, but under the fat lay hard muscles or Calamity missed her guess.

‘You fixing to tangle with me?’ Calamity asked.

‘If you don’t shoot me first,’ Olga answered.

‘I’ll soon settle that,’ Calamity said, the light of prospective battle glowing in her eyes.

She removed her bandana, a simple precaution for a saloon girl once almost choked her by grabbing it in a brawl, and placed it in the crown of her kepi, putting them under a tree. Next Calamity removed her shirt, figured that if Olga could fight in an undershirt, so should she, and lastly she unfastened the pigging thong and unbuckled her gunbelt, placing it by her hat.

Turning to face Olga, Calamity grinned. ‘Ready or not, here I come!’ she said, then looked at Eileen. ‘Is this how you do your fighting in Boston, with somebody else to take the bruises?’

A flush crept into Eileen’s cheeks. ‘I—I thought you might like to show me how tough you were and I wouldn’t be a match for you.’

‘Which you wouldn’t. But when I’ve whupped the champeen here, I’m going to whale the tar out of you.’

Eileen felt that she deserved the ‘whaling,’ although she doubted if Calamity would be in any condition to do it. Standing under the tree by Calamity’s clothes, Eileen watched the red-head move towards the blonde.

Much to Calamity’s surprise and amusement, Olga adopted the fighting stance used by male boxers of the period. Calamity had tangled with several saloon-girls at different times in her hectic young life, she had never seen one adopt such a posture.

The amusement did not last for long!

Out stabbed Olga’s left fist to crash under Calamity’s unprotected and offered chin. Taken by surprise both by the speed and force of the blow, Calamity went back on her heels. Olga came in fast, her left slugging Calamity in the stomach and folding the gasping girl over to take a right behind the ear. Down went Calamity in a winded, dazed heap on her face, Through the whirling mists that filled her head she heard Eileen and Russian Olga talking.

‘That will be enough, Miss Petrosky.’

‘Like hell. She reckons she’s tough. I aim to see how tough.’

A hand gripped Calamity by the waistbelt and another dug into her hair. She felt herself being dragged along and then dropped. The ice-cold shock of landing face down in the stream drove the mists from her head and she rolled over, sitting up. Standing on the bank, hands on hips and a grin on her face, Russian Olga looked down at Calamity.

‘Had enough. girlie?’

Slowly, Calamity rose, spitting out a mouthful of water. She put up a hand to feel at her chin and winced. Then she climbed from the water and swung a punch which ripped into Olga’s cheek. On the heels of the first, Calamity brought around a second blow, and the blonde staggered back putting up her hands again.

Watched by Eileen. Calamity and Olga slugged it out like two men for almost three minutes. Although Calamity landed good punches, she lacked Olga’s skill and training, which gave the blonde a distinct advantage. Twice Calamity went down and each time, much to her surprise. Olga moved back to let her rise. While on their feet and slugging, Olga’s skill went against her in one way; when she threw a feint to draw Calamity’s guard, the girl ignored it for Calamity had never learned such tactics. Blood trickled from the blonde’s nose and Calamity’s left eye was swelling when Olga sent the girl down for the third time. Rolling on to her face, Calamity tried to force herself up and shook her mist-filled head.

‘Calam. gal!’ she told herself. ‘You’ve got to fight her your style, not her’n, or get the licking of your young life.’

With that in mind Calamity levered herself up into a one-knee crouch. She saw Olga advancing and flung herself forward, head ramming into the blonde’s middle and arms locking around the fat thighs. To the accompaniment of Olga’s gasp of pain, they went backwards and crashed to the ground. Now Calamity held the advantage for Olga was not used to all-in roll-around bar-room fighting. For all that the blonde gave a fair account of herself in. the hair-tearing, thrashing session, but soon she realised it would be to her advantage to be on her feet. Unfortunately, Calamity also understood Olga’s point and determined to keep the fight on the ground.

Eileen watched the fight with growing horror. For the first time she realised just what she had started—although to be fair to her, she had expected to see Calamity decline the challenge or be speedily defeated. Back Bay, Boston, being rather sheltered from the rawer side of life, Eileen had never seen two women fight before and had no conception of how rough they could get. Suddenly scared, she moved forward to try to stop them; which showed a considerable lack of experience on her part.

With Olga trying to rise and Calamity struggling to get her back on the ground, the fighters had almost made their feet when Eileen reached them.

‘Stop it!’ Eileen gasped, trying to push them apart. ‘St—’ Feeling a hand on her shoulder, Calamity swung at its owner, driving her bunched fist into Eileen’s nose. The force of the blow brought a squeal of pain from Eileen and she staggered back. Freed of the hindrance, Calamity hooked a leg behind Olga and tripped her, dropping to kneel astride her. Holding her nose, Eileen howled in fury. Her Back Bay training left her and she became a primeval, hurt woman. Springing forward, she grabbed a double handful of Calamity’s hair and heaved at it. Calamity squealed, feeling as if she was being scalped. Just as she was about to turn and deal with the fresh menace, Olga, bucking wildly to free herself, grabbed hold of Calamity’s waistbelt and prevented Eileen from dragging the red-head from her.

At that moment Molly came on to the scene. What she saw brought her to a shocked and sudden halt. Like Eileen, Molly had been brought up in an area where women fought with catty remarks not fists and Molly made Eileen’s mistake.

‘Eileen, Calam!’ Molly said, running forward and catching Eileen’s arm. ‘Stop it, bot—!’

Releasing Calamity’s hair with the arm Molly held, Eileen thrust the smaller girl away. Then Eileen used the free hand to land a slap that Calamity would remember for some time across the red-head’s ear. Once more Molly came forward and caught the back-hand swing from Eileen’s blow at Calamity. It landed hard enough to stagger Molly back again.

Then Molly changed from a pacifist to an active and enraged belligerent. With a wild squall of pain and fury, she threw herself bodily at Eileen, landing with flailing fists and hair-grabbing fingers. Locked together, Eileen and Molly sprawled over Calamity and went down together. For a Boston-bred officer’s lady and a sedately-reared college-educated New England schoolmarm, Eileen and Molly put on a highly spirited rendition of a hand-scalping bar-room brawl. Nothing fancy like the Calamity Jane—Russian Olga fracas, but fast, lively and with plenty of spirited hair-tearing, slapping, kicking and general female battling tactics.

For almost ten minutes the two separate fights carried on, then the four of them rolled into an unholy mixed-up tangle during which Olga gave Eileen a black eye, Eileen tore one shoulder strap from Olga’s outfit, Calamity completed the destruction of Molly’s blouse and Molly sank her teeth into Calamity’s leg as it waved before her face; all this in addition to whatever they did to their opponents.

Somehow they managed to untangle themselves still fighting the same opponent and Calamity gained a momentary advantage on Olga. A wild-swung punch sent the fat blonde sprawling on her back and Calamity dropped down to sit on Olga’s belly to end the battle.

Whether by accident or a desire to help, Eileen lashed out with a bare foot, she and Molly having lost their shoes earlier. The kick caught Calamity at the side of the head and knocked the girl off balance just as Olga gave a heave. Lurching up, Olga reversed the position by diving on to the dazed Calamity.

Shoving Eileen backwards, Molly was about to attack when she saw Olga knelt on Calamity, one knee on the red-head’s belly and a hand dragging her head up to be hit. Dazedly, Calamity saw what was coming and waited for the end. The blow never came. Instead Olga suddenly let out a screech and jerked backwards, dragged by the double handful of hair Molly held.

Freed from Olga. Calamity started to rise, saw Eileen rushing forward and tackled her around the waist. Down they went and for a couple of minutes got a whole belly-full of dislike out of their systems. Give Boston her due, Calamity thought as they thrashed over and over fighting, she had sand to burn and could sure fight. Nothing fancy mind, but she packed a mean slap, could punch, kick, yank hair and use her knees as good as many a saloon-girl who had had the advantages of a correct upbringing in such matters.

However, Back Bay social life did not compare with western freighting as a training ground for a fight and Calamity would have finished Eileen off had she not seen that Molly needed help.

At first Molly’s speedy, furious attack prevented Olga from doing anything effective, but weight and strength were on the fat blonde’s side. With a heave, Olga threw Molly backwards and started after her. Pure instinct caused Olga to put up her fists boxing style and Calamity knew Molly would stand no chance once Olga started slugging. Leaving Eileen with a slap that knocked her staggering, Calamity headed towards Olga. Linking her fingers, Calamity slugged the fat blonde behind the neck and knocked her sprawling by Molly, then followed to bound on to Olga’s back and bring her down.

Calamity had expected that after the roughing-up Eileen received, the brunette would be only too pleased to get away. Not so. Eileen managed to rise and staggered after Calamity, then swerved and re-tangled with Molly.

Just how it happened none of them would ever know; but Molly caught Eileen by the wrist and swung the girl, meaning to throw her. Instead, Molly retained her hold, swinging right round in a circle, making Eileen stagger on the end of her arms. Once more Molly swung the gasping Eileen around and the sigh gave Calamity an idea. She and Olga were struggling weakly on their feet and she caught the blonde’s wrist then heaved her around in a circle, going the opposite way to Molly.

Gasping in saw-scraping croaks, Molly brought Eileen around again, just missing Olga’s swinging body in passing. Calamity moved a step closer and the two bodies swung towards each other. Olga’s squeal of fear mingled with Eileen’s wail of exhausted realisation and merged in a thud as they collided. On the impact between Back Bay, Boston, and Lower Eastside, New York—from which sprawling slum area Olga originated—New York came off slightly the better. Eileen went down, collapsing backwards and dragging the little blonde after her, Molly falling over Eileen’s body and lying across it. Olga sank to her knees and Calamity threw a punch that caught the fat blonde’s ear and draped her across Molly. Then Calamity staggered and collapsed, falling face down over Olga.

Back Bay socialite, New England schoolmarm, New York lady pugilist and western female freighter lay in a pile on the ground. A philosopher once said that war was a great leveller and from the look of the girls he spoke the truth.

Almost a minute passed before any of the girls showed any sign of getting up. Apart from a little involuntary movement of arms and legs, they lay still, until as last Calamity levered herself on to her knees, then managed to rise. Looking down, she saw Molly weakly attempting to rise but falling due to the weight on top of her. Reaching down. Calamity gripped the still motionless Olga’ and rolled the fat blonde from Molly. The little schoolmarm came up trying to fight and Calamity caught her by the wrists, steering her to the edge of the stream.

Reaction flooded over Molly and she started to cry hysterically, but Calamity splashed cold water over her and the sobs died off.

‘Easy, gal,’ Calamity said.

‘Wh-what happened?’ gasped Molly.

‘We licked ‘em is what,’ grinned Calamity. ‘Let’s go wake the sleeping beauties, shall we?’

Anything less beautiful than Eileen and Olga would have been hard to imagine as they lay side by side, half naked, bruised, bloody and with their hair in matted tangles over their faces. Not that Calamity and Molly could feel superior for they were in no better condition.

Dragging first Olga then Eileen to the edge of the stream, Calamity dumped them into the water. While she bathed her face and torso, Calamity watched the two women recover and sit up gasping.

‘If you want any more.’ she told them, ‘my pard and I’ll be pleased to hand it to you.’

‘I’ve had enough!’ Olga gasped, much to Molly’s relief, for the little blonde did not relish the thought of another fight.

Or did she? Much to her amazement Molly found herself thinking that the fight had been exciting. In it she worked off a number of frustrations and petty inhibitions which had troubled her all the way West.

‘How about you. Boston?’ asked Calamity, but for once the name did not come out as a sneer.

For a few seconds Eileen could not speak, she managed to catch her breath and nodded her head, agreeing she was satisfied with the result.

‘Get my medicine bag, Molly,’ Calamity said, helping Olga then Eileen out of the water. ‘Hey, Boston, you was right, I do need it.’

Taking the bag from Molly, Calamity extracted a horn of the type usually employed to carry gunpowder. She shook some powder from it on to her palm and sniffed the grains up her blood-trickling nostril. Tipping some more out, she offered it to Molly.

‘Sniff her up, Molly, gal,’ ‘she ordered. ‘It’s that powdered witch-hazel leaves I told you about.’

All four nose-bleeds were treated with powdered witch-hazel and Calamity turned her attention to the other injuries. She found a balsam fir and punctured one of the bark blisters then smeared the gum on a nick upon her cheek and over a gash on her arm.

‘You’d best let me put some on that nick on your forehead, Boston,’ she said; turning to the others.

‘Thanks, Calam,’ Eileen replied.

Not until she had treated the gash did Calamity realise what’ Eileen had called her. A grin came to her face and she held out her hand. ‘Friends, Eileen?’

‘Friends, Calam, only make it Boston.’

For the rest of the time—and it covered twenty years—Eileen was on the Great Plains country, she was affectionately known by all who met her as ‘Boston.’

‘How about you, champeen?’ asked Calamity after attending to Eileen’s cut.

With a bitter frown on her face, Olga allowed Calamity to apply the gum to her minor abrasions. It hurt the woman to think that a kid had whipped her in a fight. From a mercenary point of view, she knew that her boss would not hesitate to offer Calamity a place in the troupe when he heard. Olga held her position as boss’s favourite because none of the other girls could displace her, but that would soon change should Calamity become a member.

‘Whooee, gal!’ Calamity said, smearing gum on a scratch on Olga’s back. ‘I see how you got to be champeen. I tell you, Olga, if Molly there hadn’t helped me, and I’d stayed on my feet instead of rough-housing, you’d’ve whipped me for sure.’

Apart from the piece about Molly’s aid, Calamity spoke the, truth and her words relieved the bitterness Olga felt.

‘How’d you like to be a fist-fighter?’ she asked.

‘I wouldn’t, if it meant tangling with gals near-on as tough as you,’ Calamity replied and she saw Eileen wink. It appeared her words had not fooled the officer’s lady at all.

‘We’d best get back to camp, I think.’ Eileen said.

‘Oh my lord!’ Molly gasped, staring at Eileen and Olga’s tattered clothing, and knowing she was not more completely attired. ‘How can we get to camp like this?’

‘It’ll be dark afore we get there,’ Calamity replied. ‘We’ll sneak in and get into me ‘n’ Boston’s wagon, then see about getting clothes for you two. What’s wrong, Boston?’

Eileen had been touching her blackened and puffed-up left eye with a delicate forefinger. Giving a wince, she replied, ‘Can’t our native medicine woman do any thing for a shiner?’

‘A lump of beef-steak’d help, which same we can get back to the camp,’ Calamity replied, then looked at the other girls’ battle-marked faces. ‘It’ll fix ‘em a mite, but we’ll sure as hell cause some talk when folks see us in the, morning.’

oooOooo

* Told in ‘Quiet Town’ by J. T. Edson.

CHAPTER EIGHT

MISS CANARY HANDS OUT ADVICE

‘GOOD morning, Mrs. Tra—’ Dobe Killem began as Eileen limped stiffly towards the camp fire after coming up from the river. Then his words trailed off as he saw her face. Fine poker player though he was, Killem could not prevent his surprise showing as he studied the condition of her face.

‘I walked into a door, Dobe,’ Eileen said and put a hand to her temple. ‘Ooh! Must the cook make so much noise?’

Yet it was not her usual imperious complaining. From the slight scraping noise being objected about and Eileen’s obvious headache, Killem might have suspected a hangover, but that could not be in her case—or could it?

Just then Calamity came up, throwing a towel into the wagon as she passed and Killem found his day for surprises instead of ending had only just begun. Taking in Calamity’s battle-scarred features and adding them to Eileen’s fist-marked face, he reckoned there must have been the expected explosion between them—No, that could not be. That hoity-toity Boston gal could never have marked up Calamity in such a manner, and yet the signs showed plain enough.

‘I bumped into two doors,’ growled Calamity before her boss could ask the questions buzzing in his head. ‘Now get the hell out of my way and let me at the coffee. Hey, Boston, pour out a cup for a gal.’

Which same, from past experience, told Killem that Calamity had tied on one of her still rare benders and carried a whisky-head to show for it. Yet she addressed Eileen in a friendly manner.

‘Go to hell and pour your own, you idle slut,’ Eileen replied, but not in her usual tone; and she poured out a cup of coffee before Calamity reached her.

Killem wondered if he ought to go back to bed and see if he had got up that morning. Anyway, he thought, nothing more could surprise— At that point he saw Molly hobble up from the river sporting as fine a brace of shiners as he had ever seen and a nose to match them—and showing much the same hung-over symptoms as the other two.

‘Who gave you them eyes?’ he gasped, long past, politeness and western waiting to be told about private affairs.

‘Nobody,’ Molly replied. ‘I had to fight like hell for them.’

That was when Killem decided to call it a day. Turning, he slouched away from the girls and met Muldoon coming with more puzzlement and news. Apparently Russian Olga was hobbling round her fire, looking like her face had been tromped by a mule and mean-mouthing her friends like she toted a hell of a sore head which did not come from a bout of fist-fighting.

‘Reckon Calem might know anything about it?’ asked Muldoon.

‘I reckon she might at that,’ agreed Killem.

‘You mean that Calam went and took Olga on and never told all her good friends, so let us miss it?’

‘From what I just saw,’ Killem replied in a dazed manner, ‘you don’t know the half of what we must have missed—and neither do I.’

The previous evening the four girls sneaked unseen back to camp and into Calamity’s wagon. Being the only one at least acceptably attired, Calamity visited the Johnson wagon, keeping in the shadows, and collected a change of clothing for Molly, saying the blonde would be staying with her for the night. In doing so, Calamity kept her face out of sight and Molly’s aunt did not even know that her favourite niece had been acting in a most unladylike and unschoolteacherlike manner.

On her return, Calamity produced steaks—to be applied externally to bruised eyes—and completed the deflation of Eileen’s Boston ego. Nobody could even attempt to maintain frigid superiority when sat on the floor of a wagon wearing the tattered remnants of a cheap dress and holding a steak to either eye. Calamity produced a jug containing, she claimed, a cure for what ailed them. It worked. Neither Eileen nor Molly had ever tasted raw home-brewed whisky until that night and did not know its deadly power. Luckily, the freighters had been invited to the Army lines for a meal or they might have heard some remarkable confessions from Calamity’s wagon as the four girls got quietly, happily, but completely drunk.

Molly had quoted Professor Strubacher, said to hell with him and gone to sleep, leaving Eileen telling Calamity and Olga about her best friend who she hated like the devil hates holy water and wished had been in the clearing. At which point Eileen joined Molly. Half an hour later Olga, having told Calamity the story of her life, joined the majority of the party and Calamity decided not to bother sleeping under the wagon that night.

In the very early dawn the girls recovered. Olga returned to her outfit and the other three crept to the river to bathe their stiff, aching bodies and compare headaches. Any intention Eileen might have possessed about returning to her old behaviour departed in the hangover. It never returned.

Speculation ran rife through the wagon train when word and sight of the four girls’ appearance went among the travellers. The four participants maintained silence over the affair and appeared to be on the best of terms. Nobody ever did really discover what had happened the previous evening and two days later they left the woodland to start crossing the Great Plains. The change of scenery and conditions took interest away from the cause of the girls’ injuries.

A week later an informal gathering of the leading members of the train met around Killem’s fire after the day’s journey was over. Killem. the wagonmaster, Beau Resin and both Army officers stood by the fire drinking coffee handed out by Eileen and Calamity, when a scared-looking youngster dashed into camp.

‘Injuns!’ he howled, pointing back up a rolling slope above the camp.

Bigelow dropped his cup and swung around, his right hand going to the flap of his holster.

‘Easy, Cap’n,’ Resin said calmly. ‘I been watching ‘em for the past ten minutes.’

‘Te—!’ Bigelow squawked, and no other word could describe the sound. ‘Then why didn’t you say something?’

‘Figger they was watching, not fighting.’

Every eye turned towards the top of the rim a good half mile away from the edge of the camp. Even as they watched the group of Indians on top grew larger until they numbered around fifty, all braves and wearing war-paint with arms to match.

This was the moment Bigelow had been waiting for— hoping for, too, maybe. A successful encounter with a band of Indians would greatly enhance his chance of obtaining a transfer to a fighting regiment and out of the dreary limbo of being a shiny-butt. Ever since leaving Fort Connel he had been preparing his strategy for such a moment and presented his subordinate with plans for almost every conceivable circumstance. He would have arranged practice circle-forming and other drills for the travellers, but found the idea met with a point-blank refusal when he put it to the wagonmaster.

Some confusion showed among the travellers as they watched the Indians gather on the rim. Weapons were caught up and women and children sent scuttling to the safety of the wagons. In a bull-voiced bellow that rang around the camp, the wagonmaster ordered that there be no shooting; beating Bigelow to the command by a good thirty seconds.

Bigelow used the breath drawn to give the no-shooting order to snap a command to the young lieutenant at his side.

‘Mr. Grade, parade the troop twenty yards outside the circle and facing the hostiles.’

The tall, slim lieutenant threw an appealing glance at Bigelow, then relayed the order to Muldoon as the sergeant brought up the men. Not so well-disciplined, Muldoon growled out a startled curse, but long training caused him to obey orders.

‘On the double, mister!’ Bigelow barked. ‘We’ll impress them with our numbers. Mr. Resin, would you come and act as interpreter, please?’

‘Reckon so; but—’

Whatever Resin wished to ‘but’ over did not get said. Bigelow led off his men, filing through the wagons and out of the circle to halt a single line facing towards the Indians. The young captain glanced at the line of blue-clad troopers, each extra-well armed if one counted the sabre he wore in addition to his Army Colt and the Springfield carbine, and decided they would impress the Indians. In that he was right. He impressed the watching braves with the inadequacy of numbers of his force and also with his own inexperience.

Calamity, Eileen and Killem followed the soldiers to the edge of the wagon circle and stood watching. Turning her head, Calamity exchanged a knowing glance with Killem. While not setting themselves up as great minds—which invariably think alike—Calamity and Killem had the same thought in mind; neither of them cared for Captain Wade H. Bigelow’s version of tactics.

‘What are they, Mr Resin?’ asked Bigelow, maintaining his pose of the cool, calm and polite officer in a crisis.

‘Fox, Owl and Pony Lodge Cheyenne,’ the scout replied. ‘I don’t like Cheyenne war lodges any time and even less when they’re all mixed together. You watch ‘em good, Cap’n.’

‘They’re under a white flag,’ answered Bigelow, pointing towards a war-bonnet chief who rode out of the party holding a flapping piece of white cloth on the tip of his buffalo lance.

‘Which same’s another I don’t like. Injuns in general and Cheyenne in particular don’t put no trust in white flags after what Yeller-Hair Custer done to Black Kettle’s village on the Washita back in ‘68.’

A flush of annoyance crept on to Bigelow’s face at the scout’s flat-spoken condemnation of a man the captain regarded as the beau ideal of cavalry leaders. Bigelow tended to regard the Washita business in the light of brilliant strategy on the part of the ‘Boy General,’ George Armstrong Custer, instead of, as it had been, a bloody, treacherous massacre of innocents.

‘We’ll respect their flag of truce!’ he snapped.

‘Sir—!’ croaked the lieutenant.

‘Call them in, Mr. Resin!’ Bigelow barked, ignoring the possible warning.

‘What in hell’s he doing?’ asked Calamity.

‘Inviting the Indians to come in for a truce,’ Eileen replied.

‘Like hell!’ spat Calamity. ‘Boston, that officer-boy’s ‘going to get us ‘all massacred way he’s going on.’

All the Indians rode slowly down the slope, following the flag of truce with an apparent trust in its protective powers that worried Beau Resin more than he cared to admit even to himself. With each approaching pony-stride, Resin’s worry increased; those Cheyenne brave-hearts had a feller among them who could read military character and had a shrewd idea of the kind of man they dealt with.

‘Hey great soldier-coat chief!’ yelled the, war-bonneted flag-of-truce hearer in passable English. ‘We good Injuns, make peace with white brother. We come into your camp, trade with your people.’

‘Certainly!’

‘Not on your scalp-taking lives!’

Bigelow and Resin spoke at the same moment. Swinging towards to tall scout, Bigelow let out an angry hiss. ‘I’m in command here!’

‘Then for gawd’s sake command right!’ Resin snapped back. ‘Didn’t they teach you nothing at West Point?’

Just what might have come of the exchange had the two men been left to their own devices is uncertain for at about that moment Calamity and Eileen took a hand in the matter.

While watching the approach of the Indians, Calamity let out a blistering string of curses which might have made Eileen blush a few days back but that now merely made her inquire what caused the profanity.

‘What the hell’s he doing letting them red-sticks come down like that?’ asked Calamity.

‘Answering their flag of truce,’ Eileen replied.

‘I don’t like it,’ Calamity stated. ‘Happen they come much closer, they’ll be in the camp!’

From the way Calamity emphasised the last three words, having Indians—even apparently peaceful and under a flag of truce—in the camp struck her as being mighty undesirable. Yet Eileen knew that the objection did not stem from mere racial prejudice; for Calamity treated all races and creeds to the same cheerful, friendly open-handed courtesy, unless they riled her. So there must be some deep-seated reason for her objection to allowing the Indians to enter the camp.

‘Why not?’ asked Eileen.

‘And you’re Vint Tradle’s wife?’ Calamity answered.

‘So they tell me, but we don’t have many hostile Indians in Boston.’

‘Likely. One thing you never want to forget, Boston, gal. Feed an Injun, give him some presents—but never, never let him come into your camp. That way you’ll stay alive long enough to go home and whup that Back Bay dame you told us about.’

‘I see,’ said Eileen.

‘But ole shiny-butt don’t,’ Calamity growled as the shouted conversation between the men reached their ears. ‘Land-sakes. don’t let him do i—Hey, where in hell are you going, Boston?’

Eileen had strode determinedly between two of the wagons and headed across the open towards the soldiers. After throwing a startled glance at Killem, Calamity went after her friend, more out of curiosity than for any other reason.

Just as Bigelow opened his mouth to give permission for the Indians to enter the camp, he heard a cool feminine voice at his side,

‘Captain Bigelow, may I speak to you?’

Now whatever faults Eileen Tradle might have shown in the early days of their acquaintance, stupidity had not been one of them. So Bigelow found himself staring in some surprise to see her committing the apparent folly of leaving the wagon circle and approaching him at such a time.

‘Not now, Bo—Mrs Tradle!’ he answered. ‘Return to the—’

‘Right now!’

Although a bachelor, Bigelow knew enough about women to recognise the futility of arguing with one when her voice held that tone. He glanced at the Indians who had come to a halt, threw an imploring look towards Resin who ignored him, then walked towards Eileen as she drew away from the men. Showing surprising tact, Calamity moved clear of the other girl and waited to see what Eileen aimed to do.

‘Wade,’ Eileen said in a voice pitched low enough for his ears alone. ‘I know you are in command and don’t wish to interfere, even if that’s just what I’m doing, but Vint wrote me more than once on the matter of never allowing Indians to enter one’s camp. Of course, the safety of the train is your responsibility and I don’t wish to impose—’

Bigelow sucked in a long deep breath and thought fast. All too well he knew that Eileen’s husband was known and respected as a real smart Indian-fighter and had won his promotion in the field for untangling the mess a glory-hunting fool led a battalion into. Even the Army scouts, who would give few officers credit for being able to breathe air in and blow it out again, had high regard for Vinton Tradle’s Indian fighting skill and knowledge of the hostile’s ways. Advice, even at second-hand, from such a source was not to be lightly ignored.

‘Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Tradle,’ he said stiffly.

‘Let your brace slip, Wade,’ she smiled. ‘It was Boston when you wanted another cup of my coffee.’

Marvelling at the Calamity-wrought change in the formerly snooty Mrs. Tradle, Bigelow returned to his men. Above them the Indians were getting restless and the war-bonnet chief called out another request to be allowed to come down and trade.

‘How about it, Mr. Grade?’ Bigelow asked.

‘Keep them out, sir,’ the lieutenant answered immediately and Muldoon could not hold down his mutter of agreement.

‘Hey, soldier-coat chief!’ yelled the flag-bearer. ‘You let us come in and smoke-um peace-pipe?’

‘Where’s your chief to light it?’ Resin yelled back.

‘I am chief!’

‘I mean where’s your big chief!’ Resin countered. ‘Where’s Sand Runner?’ and without turning, he spoke over his shoulder. ‘Calam, Boston, get the hell back to the wagons. Cap’n, get set to fight or run. If she’s due, she’ll pop real soon.’

‘The hell’s being got,’ Calamity replied, taking Eileen’s arm and heading at an unladylike run towards the safety of the wagon circle.

Up the slope considerable consternation showed among the assembled Cheyenne brave-hearts. They came posing as friendly Indians and if there be one certain thing in the world, it was that Sand Runner had never been anything like friendly to the white men. So none of the Indians offered to reply, but sat their suddenly restless horses and cast sheepish glances at each other. The flag of truce lowered, but the expected attack did not come and Resin pressed his advantage.

‘What’s wrong?’ he bellowed. ‘I thought I spoke with Cheyenne brave-hearts who do not hide true words. Or am I wrong, are these before me Crows, Ankara, Pawnees, or,’ he paused and gave the conventional spit to one side before mentioning the lowest of the Plains Indians low, ‘Osages?’

The insult brought results. While the war-bonnet chief had been to mission school and knew the value of lying and deceit, none of his party had received the benefits of a white brother’s education. One of the braves jumped his paint horse from among his lodge brothers and waved his buffalo lance over his head. He was a tall young buck wearing three eagle feathers in his hair and sporting as his war-medicine a U.S. cavalry blouse, its front smothered with dried blood from the lance-thrust which smashed through the chest of the original wearer. Such a brave had a high pride in his tribal honour.

‘Know you that Sand Runner is over there beyond the hills behind your camp and waiting for the time!’ he announced. An exclamation of annoyance left the war-bonnet chief’s lips for, as has been mentioned, he bore the results of white man’s education and knew that, despite tribal traditions of truthfulness even to an enemy, there were times when a good lie licked the pants off telling the truth. However, the rest of the party gave out their deep-grunted, old-time Cheyenne approval for the young brave’s spirited and honest reply.

‘How many brave-hearts ride with him?’ called Resin,

Bigelow fidgeted at the apparently pointless delay in negotiations. Just as he opened his mouth to insert a comment designed to bring the subject to a conclusion, he heard a whisper that contained a thick Irish brogue in his right ear.

‘With the Cap’n’s permission, sir. I’d not be interfering was I him. It might sound long-winded, but we’ll learn plenty from them red varmints afore we’re through.’

‘What do we do while this goes on then, Sergeant?’ Bigelow inquired over his shoulder and trying to avoid showing his mouth working.

‘Stand and look dignified, sir, which if yez’ll pardon me for saying, you should be pretty good at.’

A smile flickered to Bigelow’s lips, one of some pride, for never before had Muldoon treated him with anything but strictly Manual of Field Regulations military courtesy, although the sergeant often made unmilitary comments to the shave-tail lieutenant. Bigelow remembered a lecture from his West Point days on the subject of officer—senior non-com relationship. It appeared that he was winning the burly sergeant’s respect and he hoped he could live up to Muldoon’s high standards. One way to do that was to take advice when given it by reliable sources and he had already proven capable of doing that.

‘You talk well, white brother!’ boomed the war-bonnet chief before any of his men answered Resin’s question. ‘Are you Indian?’

Like the white man, the Indian believed that Indian blood made a man full native stock, but unlike the white man allowed the Indian blood made its owner a mite more trustworthy than the forked-tongued pale-faces.

‘I lived three years with them after the big war of the white men to the east,’ Resin replied.

‘What tribe?’ asked an elderly warrior, hefting his powerful war bow and eyeing the rank of soldiers to select a worthwhile target should the fun begin.

‘The Tshaoh!’ Pride rang in Resin’s voice as he boomed back the answer.

‘The Tshaoh!’ muttered a dozen Indian voices and even at that distance Bigelow could see the warriors on the slope were impressed.

‘Who are the Tshaoh?’ he asked over his shoulder.

‘The Enemy People, sir,’ replied the lieutenant.

‘That’s right, sir,’ Muldoon confirmed. ‘You’d know ‘em as the Comanche.’

Tshaoh, Enemy People, Comanche: if a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, those stocky fighting raiders from the Texas plains spelled the same by any name—bone-tough warriors with few peers and no superiors. The Osage might be low men on the Plains Indian totem-pole, but the Comanche stood way up the top. Even the race-proud Cheyenne admitted that and found no shame in so doing.

Having duly impressed the Cheyenne warriors with his right to ask questions as became a member of a noble, brave-heart tribe contemplating war against an equally brave and honest enemy—and three years among the Comanche made a man part of the tribe—Resin repeated his request for information.

‘Ten hands,’ replied the war bonnet chief.

‘Which’s a hundred at least, them heathen savages not having learned to count with accuracy, sir,’ Muldoon remarked. ‘And took with that bunch up there, a hundred and fifty no less.’

‘Not many against a party this size,’ Bigelow answered.

Yet more than enough for a surprise assault, especially with a third of the fighting force mingling with the people of the train, lulling their suspicions and ready to change from peaceable traders to savage killers on a signal. A shudder ran through Bigelow as he visualised the scene. The sudden rush from outside the circle, the change among the Indians in the circle. His people would have been demoralised, panic stricken and fallen easy meat to the Cheyenne band.

And the matter went deeper than that, although Bigelow did not know it. Nothing succeeds like success, even among unlettered savages. Should Sand Runner’s strategy work, he would have loot and coups to flaunt before his more peaceably inclined brothers, living proof that the white man was far from being invincible and that even a large wagon train guarded by soldier-coats fell before Sand Runner’s medicine-inspired thought—no chief dare claim he made up any plan without the divine assistance of the Great Spirit’s medicine.

‘How many men have you?’ asked the chief, as Resin knew he would.

‘Over seven hands,’ the scout replied. ‘Many of them with repeating rifles.’

A low mutter ran among the braves and they studied the wagon circle’s condition of readiness to meet any attack. Everything appeared to be prepared in a most unsatisfactory manner from the Indian’s angle. The wagonmaster was no novice at Indian-fighting and knew better than to relax or concentrate all his attention on the bunch which showed themselves. So he did not allow his people to relax and, aided by his blistering tongue, made the men watch their front instead of standing gawking at the conference on the slope and ignoring what went on in other directions. Any attempt at making a sudden rush upon such a ready train would be repulsed with much bloodshed among the rushers, for any hope of surprise had gone.

An Indian might be brave, but he was no fool and could add up odds with the ease of a professional gambler. One hundred and fifty to seventy meant the Indians possessed a two to one advantage, but the repeating rifles and other firearms owned by the white men reduced those odds and changed them out of the Cheyennes’ favour.

‘Can we make talk?’ asked the chief.

‘Who?’ asked Resin.

‘You, the soldier-coat chief and me.’

‘Where?’

‘Half-way. On my lodge-oath there will be peace while we talk.’

When a Cheyenne war-bonnet chief swore on his lodge oath, he aimed to keep his word, even if he had been educated at a mission school and in the face of knowledge of innumerable times when the white man gave peace-words and broke them.

‘How about it, Cap’n?’ Resin asked, knowing the above. ‘He’s got something else on his mind. Some tricky lil game Sand Runner thought up in case his idea for sneaking in on us didn’t work.’

‘Let’s talk then,’ Bigelow replied. ‘If this is a formal truce, do we remove our weapons?’

‘Not less you want to insult him. He’s treating us as men of honour who can be trusted.’

‘What’s happening, Calam?’ asked Eileen, watching the scout and captain walk up the slope after the shouted conversation.

‘Them Injuns, and that includes Beau Resin, dang his Comanche hide, are smart, Boston, gal,’ Calamity repLied. ‘Happen two different tribes come up against each other they don’t just bust in head down and guns roaring. They talk a mite first, learn how much power the other side’s got and how ready they are for war. Then they figger their chances and happen they don’t like the way the other side stacks up, they allow their medicine’s gone bad on ‘em and pull put. It sure saves a heap of grief.’

‘But do they always tell each other the truth?’

‘Only Indians I ever seed as liars were the ones we civilised,’ Calamity answered, spitting out the last word. ‘Don’t reckon there’ll be no war today. What’d you tell ole shiny-butt?’

‘Oh, a little white lie,’ smiled Eileen. ‘But it worked.’

On reaching the half-way point between his men and the soldiers, the war-bonnet chief dropped from his horse, strode forward a couple of paces and went into a heel-squat. At a sign from Resin, Bigelow sank on to his haunches and the big scout sat Indian-style. Bigelow knew enough about diplomatic tactics not to open the jackpot, but waited for the Indian to break the ground.

There appeared to be no hurry to get down to business. Resin took a pipe from his pocket, primed the bowl with thick black Burley shag tobacco. With the bowl full, he handed the bag courteously to the chief and glanced at the officer.

‘Got anything to smoke, Cap’n, there’s going to be some time to pass.’

‘Will a cigar do?’ asked Bigelow.

‘Light her away,’ drawled the scout, rasping a match on his pants seat and firing the tobacco in his pipe.

For almost five minutes none of the trio spoke, but smoked. in quiet enjoyment. At last the chief removed his pipe, knocked out the remaining embers and doused them in the hard palm of his hand. Although Resin did not move, Bigelow could almost feel the big scout sense in a manner which said, ‘This is it.’

‘This is Cheyenne land,’ the chief announced.

‘Not by treaty,’ Resin countered. ‘The Cheyenne old man chiefs gave their sacred oath that this area would be left open to passage of white man’s wagons. Are you going against the oath to the Great Spirit?’

‘Great Spirit sides man with most warriors,’ answered the chief.

Bigelow stared as he heard the Great Plains version of Napoleon’s statement that God favoured big battalions. However, the captain did not speak, but left the handling of the matter in Resin’s hands.

‘We have the most guns,’ Resin pointed out.

A pause followed while the chief digested the unpleasant and unpalatable fact that the white men carried superior arms in a long-distance fight. He gave a low grunt, spat reflectively and remarked. ‘Sand Runner war chief, not make any treaty with white brother.’

‘So?’

‘So Tshaoh, Sand Runner make fresh treaty with soldier. coat chief here. If he can make-um that is.’

‘How about it, Cap’n?’ asked Resin.

‘I’m permitted to negotiate temporary terms to ensure the safety of the train.’

‘That means “yes” or “no?” ’ asked the Cheyenne.

‘Yes,’ answered Bigelow.

‘You make-um talk in small words so I know ‘em. Talk best left to Tshaoh, him savvy what Indian understand.’

‘What does Sand Runner want?’ asked Resin, hiding the grin which rose inside him and getting down to business.

‘Him want tribute from wagon train. Get it, not make trouble, leave ‘em alone all time.’

‘That can be arranged. But no guns, powder, bullets or lead.’

‘Ugh! Not want-um. Want money.’

‘Money!’ grunted Resin, coming as near as Bigelow had seen to showing any emotion.

‘Fifty dollars for each wagon,’ replied the chief and went on with a touch of pride, ‘At mission school me learned to count white-man style.’

‘We’ve forty-six wagons,’ Bigelow breathed. ‘That would be two thousand, three hundred dollars.’

‘Yeah,’ answered the scout. ‘But what in hell does a bunch of Cheyenne want with money?’

‘You pay-um?’ asked the chief.

There was one possible reason why the Cheyenne wanted money, although Resin doubted if it could be. However, a man did not hand over such a vast sum to Indians, or anybody else, without giving the matter plenty of thought.

‘We’ll give you blankets, see-yourselves,* some knives, axes, decorations for your women and shoot you forty-six horse-loads of meat,’ Resin said.

‘No good. Want money or make-um plenty hell same as teacher feller told us at mission school.’

‘No money!’ Resin said flatly. ‘And that’s final. You can tell Sand Runner I said so.’

‘I tell him. Him not like. That plenty good tobacco, Tshaoh.’

Taking out his tobacco pouch, Resin handed it to the chief. ‘Help yourself. They don’t have it in the Spirit Land and that’s where you and plenty of your men’ll be headed happen you try forcing us.’

Helping himself to half the tobacco, the chief returned the pouch to its owner. ‘Think well before you refuse and ask no more questions.’

‘Which same stops us asking why they want the money, Cap’n,’ drawled Resin. ‘How about Sand Runner’s offer?’

‘You already gave my answer.’

‘We don’t pay and that’s final.’

‘Not think Sand Runner’s plan would work when he made it,’ admitted the chief calmly, and with just a hint of satisfaction in his voice. Sand Runner was a mite too much of the bright-idea Johnny-come-lately to suit his taste apart from the detail about the aspiring Cheyenne war leader. ‘Speak Long to the Comanche Great Spirit, Tshaoh, and make your war medicine. You’ll need it.’

‘Ka-Dih favours those with repeating rifles,’ Resin replied, mentioning the Great Spirit of the Comanche. ‘Remember that well, brother.’

A grin twisted the Indian’s lips. ‘You sure you not full Indian?’ he asked and came to his feet.

Turning, the chief walked back to his waiting horse and went afork it in a single bound, plucking the buffalo lance from the ground where he had stood it. He gave a wild whoop, whirled the horse in its own length and rode back to his party. Swinging their horses away from the train, the Cheyenne galloped out of sight over the rim.

Will they tell Sand Runner not to attack?’ asked Bigelow as and Resin walked back towards the waiting soldiers.

‘He’d know near on as soon as we did,’ Resin replied. ‘There’d be wolf-scouts watching the camp from the moment the others appeared, only you don’t spot wolf-scouts, that’s their job.’

‘Lord!’ Bigelow breathed. ‘And I nearly let them walk into camp. You must think I’m a helluva fool.’

‘Nope, just inexperienced. We all make mistakes, that’s why they put them big, burnable mats under spittoons in fancy saloons. You ever figger how me, or young Dave Grade’d make out handling the kind of work you’ve come to do natural—until we learned how to do it?’

‘I never thought of it like that.’

‘Shucks, making a man captain don’t turn him into an expert on every blasted thing under the sun,’ grinned Resin. ‘Not until he’s been out and learned some about it.’

‘Take the men into the circle, Mr. Grade,’ Bigelow ordered. ‘Rendezvous with me at Mr. Killem’s fire after standing them down, and you, Muldoon.’

‘Yo!’ Muldoon replied.

On entering the wagon circle, Bigelow walked to Eileen and smiled at her.

‘Thanks for passing on Vint’s knowledge.’

‘I’ve a confession to make, Wade,’ Eileen smiled. ‘And take your hand off my arm, Molly’s coming and I don’t want to annoy her, I’ve just lost the marks from the last time.’

‘So you and Molly did tangle?’

‘Never you mind. Vint never mentions his work, not to any great extent, in his letters, Wade.’

‘Then how—?’ Bigelow began.

‘Calamity gave me some of her sage-advice and I acted on it. Only I thought that—’

‘That I’d be too bow-necked a shiny-butt to take her advice,’

‘Something like that,’ Eileen admitted.

‘You probably guessed right,’ grinned Bigelow. ‘Anyway, Miss Canary’s sage advice was well worth having. She’s quite a girl—and so are you, Boston. I wonder what Molly would do if I kissed you right in front of her?’

‘I don’t know what she’d do,’ Eileen answered. ‘But I know what I’d do. Calamity gave me some sage advice on that, too.’

oooOooo

* Mirrors.

CHAPTER NINE

MISS CANARY GOES TO WAR

A COUNCIL of war gathered around Killem’s fire, with the same men attending as had been present before the Indian-alert and augmented by the presence of Muldoon. After serving coffee, Calamity, Eileen and Molly kept tactfully in a woman’s place in the background. Bigelow outlined Sand Runner’s proposals and then awaited his more experienced subordinates’ comments.

‘That’s the first time I ever heard of a free Indian asking for money, sir,’ said Lieutenant Grade with all the wisdom of twenty-three years of age at his back.

‘Or me,’ Muldoon agreed. ‘Happen they was tamed Injuns on a reservation I’d like it some better.’

‘Reckon you refused, Cap’n?’ asked Killem, idly whittling a stick, which was a sure sign to those who knew him that he regarded the situation as being grave.

‘I did.’

‘So we’ll likely be having fighting soon, sir?’ asked Muldoon.

‘Possibly, Sergeant.’

‘Then could I make so bold as to suggest we start wearing our campaign hats, sir? ‘Tis shady to the eyes they are when doing fine sighting along the barrel of a carbine.’

‘You’re officer of the day, Mr. Grade,’ Bigelow said with a wry smile. ‘Make whatever dress arrangements you feel are needed.’

‘Yes, sir!’ answered Grade eagerly. Wearing official blouse and kepi might look smart and formally soldier-like, but they were sure hell to fight in under the hot plains sun.

‘What do you think Sand Runner will do now, Beau?’ asked Bigelow.

After relaxing his stand on the subject of Dress Regulations, Bigelow figured he might as well go the whole hog and adopt a less formal attitude towards the big scout; whose knowledge and aid might prove invaluable.

‘Fight!’ came the one word but encyclopaedic reply.

‘Right now?’ asked the captain, looking around the camp and noting its condition of readiness.

‘Nope. Night’s too near on us. Most Injuns don’t fight in the dark, figure a man gets killed at night might not be able to find his way to the Spirit Land. ‘Sides, it’ll be long gone dark afore they whomp up another mess of war-medicine, us having spoiled their last boiling.’

‘Sand Runner may not be able to persuade the others that his medicine holds good after his failure to get into the circle, sir,’ Grade remarked.

At that moment the men heard a distant crackle of shots, the deep booming of a Dragoon Colt and the sharper crack of a carbine, the Dragoon’s roar sounding again after the carbine’s shot. Silence dropped on the men and Bigelow remembered that none of the party he had spoke with carried firearms. His eyes went to Resin and the scout gave a low grunt.

‘Happen all I heard’s true,’ Resin drawled, ‘Sand Runner’s just done some persuading. They do say that he uses an old Colt Dragoon that throws flame like a cannon.’

‘Who is this Sand Runner?’ asked Bigelow.

Slowly Resin filled his pipe and lit it, while none of the others offered to make any reply. Sucking in a lungful of air, he breathed it out again and then answered the captain’s question, without helping any.

‘Don’t ask me. I’ve never seen him. Nor have any of the scouts at the fort.’

‘That’s true enough, sir,’ Grade admitted. ‘We know most of the Cheyenne war leaders: Wooden Leg, Two Moons, Iron Thunder, Wolf Voice. But not Sand Runner. He came into prominence two years ago when he led a bunch that wiped out a company of infantry up along the Rosebud. Since then his name’s grown bigger every month, but he never shows at any of the peace meetings.’

‘He’s always in the background and out of sight when white men are about, sir,’ Muldoon went on. ‘I was with the colonel when he went to talk with the old man chiefs. We’d orders to try and speak with him, but the others allowed it was his medicine not be seen by white folks. Far as I know, every white who’s seen him wound up dead.

‘Won’t the Cheyenne talk about him?’ asked Bigelow.

‘Not if it’s medicine business,’ Resin replied. ‘They take their religion a damned sight more serious than most white folks do.’

‘And what was the shooting about?’

‘Likely somebody reckoned Sand Runner’s medicine’d gone bad on him,’ Resin guessed. ‘Which’d be the same’s calling a real proud gun-fighter a liar; fast and deadly. From the sound, Sand Runner done made his point.’

‘So he’s still their leader?’ asked Bigelow.

‘I’d say that,’ agreed the scout.

‘Then he’ll attack us.’

‘Likely.’

‘When?’

‘Dawn, maybe. That’s a favourite time for Injuns to attack, when folk’s good and slowed down from just waking,’ Resin replied. ‘It all depends on how many Sand Runner has to convince his medicine’s still strong. Only that Sand Runner’s a smart cuss, he’ll likely have something slick up his sleeve.’

‘Like what?’ asked Bigelow.

‘That, Cap’n,’ drawled Resin, ‘is what we’ll have to wait to find out.’

‘You figuring to sit talking, or going to do something?’ asked Calamity, coming forward with the coffeepot.

‘Just talking for now, Calam, gal,’ Resin replied. ‘No point in figuring or doing until we know what’s happening.’

‘Are they still watching us?’ Bigelow inquired after drinking his coffee.

‘Sure,’ Resin answered, jerking a thumb in the direction of the slopes at the rear of the camp. ‘I got two of their wolfscouts spotted now.’

‘Are there more of them?’

‘Likely two more at least.’

‘Could you find them in the dark?’ asked Bigelow.

‘The two I saw, happen they stayed in the same place after dark, which same they won’t. A man don’t get to he a wolf. scout without he’s slicker’n a bad-hunted buffalo-wolf.’

‘Hum! I thought we might get rid of their scouts and pull out during the night, travel as fast as we could through the darkness—’

‘Which’d be twice too slow for a Cheyenne war-relay to follow, and follow they would. Then hit us at dawn, when all our folks were tuckered out.’

‘Amen!’ drawled Killem piously.

‘Then what do we do?’ asked the wagonmaster, ‘sit and wait?’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Resin. ‘That’s just what we’re going to do—or so it looks to them scouts.’

Calamity came forward and squatted by Resin’s side. ‘Tell us about it,’ she suggested. ‘I’ve never knowed you flap your lip unless you aimed to do something at the end of it?’

‘How good are our folks with their wagons, Sam?’ the scout asked the wagonmaster.

‘Good as any I’ve seen.’

‘Good enough to harness their teams in the dark, without making a helluva noise doing it?’

The wagonmaster did not reply for a few seconds as he thought out the implications of the question. Then at last he nodded. ‘I reckon they could.’

‘Then I say we get every thing ready to roll in the morning afore daylight,’ Resin said. ‘And as soon as it’s light enough to see start them rolling out.’

‘Will that help?’ asked Bigelow.

‘Injuns are funny. They get a plan all figgered out and stick to it. But happen things go wrong, they’re plumb likely to get discouraged and give it up. So they all plan an early morning rush on the circle and expect us to fight from it. When they come in, find us pulling out fast, they could get to thinking their medicine’s gone bad on ‘em. Won’t be so eager to push home their attack then.’

‘It could work,’ Grade remarked.

‘Can’t think of a better idea off-hand,’ Killem went on. ‘Them scouts won’t be too all-fired eager to stay out on the places when they see us settle down for the night.’

‘I’m counting on it,’ Resin replied, then stopped his next words and looked at Bigelow. ‘The final decision lies with you, Cap’n.’

Bigelow did not answer immediately. Never had he been faced with such an important decision. The fate of well over a hundred lives, including one which had become very important to him, depended on the decision he made. If they stayed in a defensive circle the Indians might not attack, but they would hang around the camp, pin down the travellers and this area did not have water for a prolonged stay, nor did the train carry sufficient food for an extended siege. Yet if they broke the circle and Resin’s plan failed, they would be vulnerable to a mass assault that might easily cost every person—including his Molly—their lives.

Looking at the Scout’s face, Bigelow tried to read something from it but could not penetrate the inscrutable mask. Yet Resin would never suggest an idea he did not expect to have a better than fair chance of succeeding.

Some officers, as Bigelow knew, might have asked their subordinates to take a share of the responsibility, even to the extent of requesting Grade and Muldoon to sign statements to the effect that they took the share of arranging the plan. Bigelow could not bring himself to do that. If the decision had to come, he intended to make it himself.

Then his eyes met Eileen Tradle’s and he saw the way she smiled and nodded. Eileen must guess at his problem, but was signalling to him that she thought he could safely follow Resin’s plan.

‘We’ll give it a whirl,’ Bigelow said. ‘Now let’s get down to. arrangements. The more we plan now, the less confusion in the morning.’

After the men separated to pass word of the arrangements, Calamity, Molly and Eileen fetched in the six-horse team and hobbled it close to the wagon. While they worked none of them spoke, but at last the work ended and they had time to stand and think.

‘Will it work, Calam?’ asked Eileen.

‘Could do. Like Beau says, Injuns are funny critters. If they see we’re doing the plumb unexpected they may not make a solid attack. If they do make it—’

Calamity let her words trail off and the other two girls realised just how serious she regarded the situation, Six eyes looked at each other and then Eileen gave a shrug.

‘Oh well,’ she said, which if not very explanatory, covered her feelings.

‘Can you shoot, Boston?’ asked Calamity.

‘A little.’

‘Got a gun?’

‘Papa sent Vint a shotgun and shells along. I can use that.’

‘Less chance of loosing off and missing with shot,’ said Calamity calmly. ‘How about you, Molly?’

‘I’ve no gun and can’t shoot, but I know how to reload.’

‘That’ll do us then,’ Calamity grinned. ‘We’re riding my wagon tomorrow.’

‘But my aunt and uncle?’ asked Molly.

‘They’ll be all right. One of ole shiny-butt’s soldiers’ll be with ‘em.’

‘Come with us, Molly,’ Eileen said in a pleading tone. ‘I—l know it sounds silly, but I feel sure we’ll be lucky if we stick together.’

Calamity laughed. ‘Damned if I wanted to admit it afore you well-eddicated city gals, but I feel the same way.’

‘And what if the plan fails?’ Molly asked.

Slipping an arm around the little schoolteacher’s shoulders, Calamity gave her a gentle squeeze.

‘Then we’ll know our medicine’s gone bad on us, gal—and I’ll make damned good and sure the Injuns don’t get either of you alive.’

‘Will the Cheyenne destroy everything if they succeed?’ Eileen asked.

‘Likely,’ Calamity replied.

‘Oh!’

‘Hey, now, cheer up, Boston, gal. Hell, we’re not licked yet.’

‘I know,’ Eileen smiled. ‘Now you children be good and go play while I write a letter.’

‘A letter?’ Molly gasped.

‘A funny, silly letter to my husband,’ Eileen explained. ‘Telling him how much I love him, how sorry I am that I never gave him children to carry on our family name, how I’ve been a prideful fool, and how a girl I wouldn’t have thought fit to hire as a scullery maid, much less call friend, taught me humility and—oh, a lot of silly things. I know Vint will probably never get it. But I feel that if I write it, all will go well with us.’

‘Go write it,’ Calamity said gently. slipping her other arm around Eileen’s shoulders. ‘We need all the luck we can get going for us. How about you, Molly?’

‘I—I’m frightened, Calam,’ Molly replied. ‘Afraid of death, of dying before I fulfil myself as a woman, before I even know what it is like.’

‘There’s a way of finding out,’ Eileen told her, ‘I’d talk to old shiny-butt and see what he can do about it.’

‘Before we’re married?’ Molly gasped.

‘Happen things go wrong tomorrow, gal,’ Calamity said dryly, ‘you won’t need to worry about that.’

Without another word Molly turned and walked off into the darkness. Eileen left Calamity’s side and went to the wagon where she found a pencil and paper. Sitting in the light of the fire, she wrote her letter. For a time Calamity stood alone, for Killem’s men were all preparing for the next day. A brooding silence hung over the camp, oppressive when one remembered the laughter and noise that usually rang out around the fires. At last Calamity gave a shrug and walked towards Eileen.

‘To hell with it, Boston,’ she said. ‘So we’re due to be massacred comes morning. I aim to enjoy life while I can.’

‘You may have a point, Calam,’ Eileen replied, folding the letter and placing it in the bosom of her dress. ‘Unless these folk are livened up, they’ll be licked before they even start in the morning.’

‘Old Jack Topman plays a mean fiddle,’ Calamity remarked.

‘Have you heard the Deane boy play a jew’s harp?’

‘Nope, but I figger it’s time we did.’

Together the two women from such different environments went around the camp and brought to bear the force of their personalities. At first the musicians they found did not seem inclined to perform, but were bullied and cajoled into doing so. Inside ten minutes of the music starting, the people of the train had forgotten their troubles and started dancing as if they had no cares.

‘Calamity’s a living wonder, so’s Boston,’ Bigelow told Molly as they stood side by side in the shadows and watched the dancing.

‘And me?’

‘You’re a darling,’ he said and his arm slid around her waist. ‘Molly—’

She looked up at him, then her arms went around his neck and her mouth met his hungrily, passionately, far different from the gentle pecks handed to him on other nights.

‘Molly!’ he breathed once more.

‘I spoke to Calamity and Eileen earlier,’ she breathed. ‘Just after the dance started.’

‘Well?’

‘Calamity’s wagon will be empty all night,’ she whispered and took his hand to lead him towards the wagon.

Half an hour later Molly knew what it was like.

At ten o’clock the dancing ended for Resin did not want a sleep-drugged force on his hands in the morning. The scout wondered where Bigelow might be, seeeing Grade making the rounds, and so went to find Calamity to see if she could offer any suggestions.

‘Let’s go look down by my wagon,’ she replied.

‘Sure,’ he answered, but on reaching the side of the girl’s wagon could see no sign of the captain. ‘Where’s Boston at?’

‘Gone to spend the night with Molly’s aunt. Johnson’s on guard and she don’t cotton to being alone.’

‘Molly’d be there.’

‘Nope,’ Calamity answered and something in her tone stopped any further questions Resin might have felt like asking on that subject.

‘In the wagon?’ he asked.

‘Underneath,’ Calamity replied. ‘There’s no room inside.’

‘Huh huh,’ said Resin.

Although he had never owned a watch, Resin woke just after half-past two in the morning. As he moved in the blankets, Calamity stirred beside him and her bare arm slid around his neck. Hungrily her mouth crushed up to his.

‘Time we was thinking about moving, gal,’ he said.

‘So move,’ she replied sleepily.

Fifteen minutes later Resin sat on the blankets, drawing on his shirt and ignoring a pair of cavalry boots which swung down from the wagon. Calamity hurriedly buttoned her shirt and reached for her gunbelt as Bigelow walked away from the wagon carrying his weapon belt in his hands.

‘Get going, Beau,’ she breathed. ‘And good luck.’

All around the camp people were stirring as the sentries went around waking them up. The fires had been allowed to die down, except for one in the centre of the circle and that did not give much light. However, the travellers had been handling harness for long enough to know how to hitch up their teams whether they could see properly or not. Of course, the business could not be done in absolute silence, but it was handled with the minimum of noise.

Following Bigelow’s orders, the men and older boys handled the harnessing of teams and saddling of horses while the womenfolk stayed in the wagons and kept the children quiet. Everything went according to plan, with only minor, easily handled problems coming up.

Carrying a darkened lantern, Eileen arrived at Calamity’s wagon and found one of her friends spluttering sotto voce curses while harnessing the six horse team. As for her second friend—on climbing into the wagon and removing the cover from her lantern, Eileen found Molly seated glassy-eyed on the bed and still wearing her underclothes, her frock lying on the floor with her stockings and shoes.

‘It was wonderful, Eileen,’ she sighed.

‘So I recollect,’ Eileen replied dryly. ‘Come on, kid, get dressed while I see if Calamity needs any help.’

However, Calamity needed no help for she had harnessed her team and was already swinging aboard. All around the camp leather creaked and silence fell as men finished their work and prepared for the departure that would come with the ever growing light. Soon it would be light enough for them to see and when that happened—well, maybe it would be the last dawn any of them saw. Somewhere in the darkness the Cheyenne were gathering and already their coyote-yip signals began to ring out.

‘Got your gun ready, Boston?’ asked Calamity, uncoiling her whip and shaking the kinks out of it.

‘Right here,’ Eileen answered, lifting a magnificent Purdey shotgun from a walnut and brass case.

‘Load it,’ Calamity ordered. ‘Is it clean?’

‘I did it while you pair were holly-gagging around last night.’

‘You scared, Boston?’ grinned Calamity.

‘I’m scared, are you?’

‘Sure. So scared that I reckon I’ll do every blasted thing right when the time comes, same as you pair will. You did last time there was a mite of fuss. Say, I wonder how the champeen’s making out?’

‘She was doing all right last night when I saw her,’ smiled Molly, her fear dying at the other pair’s example. ‘She and Muldoon disappeared into the darkness.’

‘There was a lot of that going on,’ Calamity remarked. ‘Break open a box of shells for my carbine, Molly, gal, and stop blushing.’

Bigelow and Resin appeared, leading their horses. Looking like butter would not melt in his mouth, and acting as formal and polite as if attending a ball at the White House, the captain touched his hat brim.

‘Everything all right, ladies?’ he asked.

‘Right as the off-side of a hoss,’ Calamity replied. ‘And for the Lord’s sake climb up here and give the gal a kiss afore you go. Me ‘n’ Boston’ll look the other way.’

‘Calam!’ Molly gasped, blushing like a schoolgirl.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ suggested Eileen. ‘I’ll close both my eyes, Beau can come up the other side, that way you’ll both get kissed.’

‘Go on, Wade,’ grinned the scout. ‘Kiss your gal, or damned if I don’t.’

‘Let’s both kiss Boston,’ Bigelow countered.

‘Now that’s what I call a real good idea,’ smiled Eileen. ‘Only hurry and do it or we’ll have to start without.’

Both men climbed into the wagon, each kissed his girl, then both gave Eileen a resounding sthack at the same moment. With the service rendered, and their innocence of favouritism established, Resin and Bigelow. jumped from the wagon box, took their horses and rode off.

‘Damned if I ever thought I’d be kissed by a pair of unshaven men before breakfast, neither of them my husband, and like it,’ Eileen stated.

‘Reckon you’ve done a lot of things you wouldn’t’ve thought possible afore you left Boston,’ Calamity answered.

Thinking of the fight on the river bank, Eileen smiled. ‘You can say that again, Miss Canary.’

The sky grew brighter by the second. Hands lifted reins, coiled around whip handles, gripped weapons. Men threw glances at their loved ones and silence lay like a cloud over the wagons. This time Calamity did not think about music, her eyes kept flickering towards the slopes around them as she waited for the signal to roll. To one side the cavalry mounted their horses and drew the Springfield carbines from their saddleboots ready br use. Other mounted men gathered around the train’s livestock and spare horses ready to start them moving when Bigelow gave the word. From beyond the rim came coyote-yips which did not originate through four-legged throats.

‘Now?’ asked Bigelow.

‘Not just yet,’ replied Resin, gauging the distance to the Coyote-yips.

Suddenly the Cheyenne appeared, topping the surrounding rims and racing their ponies down towards what they hoped was as helpless a bunch of white brothers as could be found. The drumming of something over a hundred and fifty sets of hostile war pony hooves rumbled out but as yet the war yells had not started, they were being reserved to shatter the travellers’ sleep, to jar them into awoken confusion and add to the certain defeat of the hated people who had taken the Cheyenne lands.

Which would have worked a treat if it had not been for Beau Resin’s plan.

‘Let ‘em roll,’ Resin hissed in Bigelow’s ear.

‘Charge!’

Out rang Bigelow’s command, sent forth on the expelled air from a powerful pair of lusty young lungs. Echoing the shout came the wild war scream of the Comanche and that whole column sprang into movement.

Up rose the wagonmaster’s arm, then his whip lash snapped out to crack over the expectant heads of his team. The horses, waiting restlessly for their signal to go, thrust into their harness and the wagon lurched forward, turning from the circle and off in the direction of the west coast. Showing his attendance to orders, the driver of the second wagon started his team moving an instant later and the herd handlers closed in to move the stock into wakefulness ready to go. Wagon after wagon, as its turn came, rocked forward, urged on by cracking whip and bawled out profanity. The Cheyenne braves’ wild war shouts rose and faltered in confusion as they saw the exodus begin.

‘Fire!’ roared Bigelow to his men as half the circle disintegrated and became a moving line.

Flame lashed from the barrels of his men’s carbines, lead ripping into the exposed Cheyenne line. Two men and three horses went down; not bad shooting from the back of a fiddlefooting horse, aimed at a fast-moving target, with the notoriously inaccurate singleshot Springfield carbines the U.S. Government saw fit to issue to their loyal cavalrymen.

‘Yeeah!’ screeched Calamity and her whip’s gun-shot crack exploded over the heads of her team. ‘Get to running, you slab-sided crow-bait.’

‘Imagine you’re on Boston High Street!’ Eileen squealed, clutching the Purdey in hot, sweaty little hands. ‘Pull!’

With a heave that almost lifted the wagon’s wheels from the ground, the six great horses pulled; even the centre off-side critter for he had been around long enough to know when he might slack with impunity and when he must pull his guts Out.

On the heels of the preceding wagon and last in the line, Calamity’s outfit rolled out. Miss Canary was going to war.

CHAPTER TEN

MISS CANARY RECEIVES A COMPLIMENT

EVEN as Resin cut loose with his Remington, he could see the surprise tactic had caused some consternation among the attacking Cheyenne. Having planned all their strategy on raiding a sleeping camp circle, it shook them to their breech-clothes to suddenly see the circle break up and the wagons pull out like the devil after a yearling, their occupants anything but bewildered and half-asleep.

Resin’s bullet flipped a hard-riding brave backwards off his war pony, although it must be admitted that the scout did not take deliberate aim, singling out one special man. Rather he threw a bullet in the direction of the thickest concentration of hostiles and hoped Ka-Dih would still look kindly on his adopted follower. Thumb-cocking the Remington, Resin fired again but without result.

The deep bellow of a Dragoon caught Resin’s ears—its forty grain powder load gave a distinctive sound, deeper than the cough of a lighter charged revolver, different from the sullen boom of a shotgun or muzzle-loader and unmistakable in comparison to the sharper crack of a cartridge-firing rifle. Instantly Resin became all attention for only one man he knew around that area toted a Dragoon—Sand Runner showed preference for the four pound, one ounce, thumb-busting old Colt giant. If Sand Runner died, his followers were sure to break and would not come back to a place which harboured so much medicine-breaking power.

Before Resin could locate the mystery leader, he found himself engaged in a shooting match against a group of fast galloping bucks who were coming rapidly into buffalo-bow range.

Over to Resin’s right and towards the rear of the column a wild shape in the dress of a Cheyenne war-bonnet chief, his face covered with yellow ochre and hands concealed under much decorated U.S. cavalry gauntlets, fired another shot from his old Dragoon Colt. Caught by the smashing impact of the .44 ball, Lieutenant Grade’s horse went down. Grade managed to kick his feet free of the stirrups and lit down running, spitting curses as he looked for the man who killed his horse. If ever a young shavetail lieutenant had found trouble, it was Grade at that moment. The wagons went streaming by him and unless he could make it to one of them, he would be unlikely to see noon that day. With that in mind, he ran towards the wagon line, making for the second from last and hoping like hell that he made it. His chances did not look any too good for a young brave bore down on him, buffalo lance tip dropping ready to split him like a chicken on a roasting stick.

‘Mr. Grade!’ roared a voice from behind him and he saw Bigelow charging in his direction, only the captain had further to travel than had the Cheyenne. Twice Bigelow fired, emptying the last two chambers in his gun, without hitting the brave. An Army Colt was probably the finest percussion-fired revolver ever made, but like all its kind it could not be quickly reloaded; and time was something Grade was fast running out of

On Calamity’s wagon the girls saw Grade’s danger and it threw Eileen into one hell of a predicament. She held a loaded shotgun, nine buckshot in each barrel just waiting to be turned adrift. Yet Eileen felt scared. She remembered conversations heard when her husband and father—both keen shooting men—discussed something called the spread of the shot. According to them, the buckshot balls would spread about an inch apart for every yard of range. Which meant that in shooting the Indian, she might also catch Grade with one or more of the .32 calibre balls.

‘Cut loose, Boston!’ Calamity screeched, although the Lord only knew how she managed to see what was happening and guess at Eileen’s problem. ‘He’s dead if you don’t!’

And that, as Eileen well knew, was the living, gospel truth. Muttering a prayer, Eileen sighted the gun and pressed the trigger. The shotgun kicked like a Missouri mule and black powder obscured the girl’s view; nor, if the truth be told, did she want to see the result.

Calamity let out a wild ‘Yahoo!’ as the Indian tipped backwards over his pony’s rump and she overlooked the sight of Grade’s hat being ripped from his head by one of the buckshot balls. However, Grade was on his feet still and Calamity allowed he would rather lose a replaceable hat than his irreplaceable life.

‘Calam!’ Molly screamed, catching the red-head’s arm and pointing to the other side of the wagon.

Unnoticed by Calamity, one of the braves had cut in and headed his horse alongside her team. He lowered his buffalo-lance and aimed it at the heaving sides of the lead horse. If he thrust home and tumbled the horse, he would effectively bring the wagon to a halt.

There was no time for Eileen to try her shaky aim, nor for Calamity to draw and fire her Navy Colt, nor with any chance of making a certain hit. Yet she did not care, for in her good right hand she held as deadly a weapon as either shotgun or Colt under the circumstances.

Taking aim, she sent the whip’s lash licking forward to curl around the man’s neck. Then she heaved back on the handle and, taken by surprise, the man came jerking backwards off his horse. He lit down on the ground between his horse and Calamity’s team. A steel shod hoof smashed on to his head and unconsciousness came down on him. Which might be claimed fortunate, for the wagon’s wheels passed over his body.

Then as suddenly as it began, the attack came to an end. Demoralised by the white men’s unusual tactics of running and fighting instead of allowing themselves to be slaughtered, the Cheyenne had no heart in the battle. Nor did the spirited opposition from the travellers do anything to increase the Cheyenne desire for war.

Bigelow had come alongside Grade, caught the young shave-tail’s hand and heaved him up on the rump of the horse. Swinging the double-loaded animal towards the wagons, Bigelow headed for the nearest.

‘Jump for it, Dave!’ he said, dropping the formal ‘Mr. Grade’ in his excitement, then seeing whose wagon he made for, went on, ‘And keep your hands off the little blonde gal. She’s mine, boy—and how she’s mine.’

Which, as Eileen was married and Calamity appeared to be well hooked by Beau Resin, did not give Grade much of a chance in the romance line, even if he had the time or inclination for it at such a moment.

Even as he let his burden off in a flying leap that carried Grade to the box of Calamity’s wagon, Bigelow saw the Cheyenne attack break and warriors go streaming up the slopes taking their dead and wounded with them.

At the other end of the train Beau Resin achieved one of his objects. He picked out Sand Runner, guided by the bull-roar of the Dragoon as the mystery chief cut down one of the soldiers. Unfortunately, Resin was not in much of a position to do anything about the chief for his Remington hung empty in his hand and Sand Runner raced his fancy palomino stallion up the slope to safety.

Holstering the empty revolver, Resin bent down and jerked the Spencer carbine from the saddleboot, drawing back the side hammer as the gun came to his shoulder. He took careful sight and touched off the shot. Although Sand Runner’s attack medicine had gone sour, it seemed that the Great Spirit still looked with favour on his fair-haired boy. Just as Resin touched off the shot, a young buck swung between Sand Runner and the lined barrel of the Spencer. At that range even the forty-five grain powder charge which powered the gun could not throw its .56 calibre bullet through the brave and into a man several yards beyond. The annoying thing to Resin’s mind being that the point of impact on the brave showed he held true and Sand Runner ought to have become, in Western terms, a good Indian.

Instead the buck went down and Sand Runner raced on unharmed up the slope. The Spencer was a good gun, easy to reload with a further seven rounds, accurate and far more powerful than any of its repeater rivals, but it had faults. One of the worst being that after working the loading lever to eject an empty case and feed a loaded round into the chamber, one had to manually draw back the hammer before being able to fire—which proved to be one of the reasons the gun fell by the wayside in competition with the less powerful but more easily operated Winchester Model of 1866. Before Resin could complete the reloading process, Sand Runner had passed over the rim and out of sight. With him went the remaining members of his band.

Tearing his horse up the slope, Bigelow, flush-faced and excited, brought it alongside the scout’s Appaloosa and yelled,

‘Let’s run them back to the hills.’

‘Nope!’ Resin replied. ‘Least-wise, I wouldn’t, Wade.’

‘We’ve got them on the run now—’

‘Sure. But take after ‘em and dog-my-cats if you afore you now it you don’t catch up with ‘em.’

‘Would that be bad?’ asked the captain, holding in his restive horse where a few short weeks, days even, ago he would have gone head down and hell bent for glory without thinking of asking for any advice.

‘Not if you caught ‘em on ground of your choosing,’ admitted the scout.

But we wouldn’t do that,’ Bigelow stated rather than asked.

‘Put yourself in Sand Runner’s shoes. Would you stop and make a fight against men better armed than you unless the ground suited you and your weapons—And don’t throw West Point training at me, Wade. There’s hoss-Indians out here who’ve forgotten more than most cavalry officers know about light cavalry tactics. You might that happen you get to be a line officer and I reckon you’ll maybe stay alive long enough to call Molly “Grandma.” ’

A slightly red tinge crept back into cheeks that had lost the flush of eager excitement. Then Bigelow grinned and slapped the big scout on the shoulder.

‘All right, blast you,’ he told Resin. ‘I’ll accept your advice and plead insanity at the court martial.’ He paused then looked into Resin’s eyes. ‘Your plan worked, Beau.’

‘Your plan, Wade,’ the scout corrected. ‘If it’d gone wrong, they’d’ve held you responsible, so damned if you don’t get the credit now it’s come off. It was a fool notion anyways, just how risky you’ll get to know when you’re handling your own company out here.’

From the way the usually unemotional scout spoke, Bigelow gained some slight inkling of how serious the risk had been. Surprise had been the plan’s sole virtue; and even so it had been a desperate gamble. While the gamble came off that time, such a plan could hardly be written into the books as offering a standard guaranteed safe method of defeating an Indian attack.

Even so victory had not come without cost. Three soldiers and two civilians died during the hectic mêlée, several more had wounds of greater or lesser severity. Yet the toll might well have been higher and probably would have been, even to the death or capture of every man, woman and child present had they fought in a circle.

‘What now?’ asked Bigelow, watching the line of wagons drawing to a halt, his eyes anxiously searching the team and box of the last in line.

‘Call up a few of your boys, then me ‘n’ you’ll go up then and see Sand Runner’s boys on their way.’

Already Muldoon’s bull-voiced roars had gathered and formed up his men and an order from Bigelow brought a corporal’s escort of four troopers to his side. Not enough men to tempt the captain into rashness, but plenty to fight off an attempted ambush by the departing Cheyenne. On reaching the top of the slope, they saw the last of the Indians disappearing over slopes and down valley bottoms ahead of them.

‘And that’s that,’ said Bigelow.

‘You sound a mite regretful,’ answered the scout.

‘Do I? I reckon I might be, a little. Terrible as it sounds, Beau, an officer can win more distinction in one day’s Indian fighting than by working like a dog for years behind a desk, And in the final estimate, distinction carries the promotion in the end.’

‘Yep,’ drawled the scout. ‘Only there’s ways of getting that distinction, Wade. Way Custer does it is charging in head down, flags flying, band playing—and civilian newspaper writer friends looking on, and to hell with planning—’

‘You don’t sound to like General Custer,’ Bigelow interrupted.

‘He’s either the bravest man in the whole danged U.S. Cavalry, or so damned stupid he ain’t got the sense to be scared. And, whichever way, one of these days he’s going to wind up getting him and a lot of his men killed.’

On June 28, 1876, while watching and listening to the Crow scout, Curly, bring the news of Custer’s defeat and death on the Little Bighorn River—Bigelow being aboard the steamboat Far West with the reserve troops—the captain was to remember Beau Resin’s words.

‘And the other kind who gain distinction?’

‘Oh them. They don’t get their names in fancy dude newspapers. But they come out here willing to admit some hawg. dirty, grease-stinking civilian scout who’s lived among ‘em likely knows more about Injuns than they do. So they listen to advice, ask questions, learn and use what they learn. Maybe they never have the glory of wiping out a whole damned great village, but happen they do, it’s warriors and not old men, women and children they kill. Which’s what Custer killed in, how’d they call it, his “signal success” against Black Kettle’s village on the Washita. Nope, the other kind don’t do that. Young Dave Grade’s one of the other kind—and so are you.’

A flush of pleasure tinged the young captain’s face. ‘Thanks, Beau.’

For what, speaking true? I lived among the Comanche long enough to get so I reckon the truth never hurt nobody. If I don’t like a man, I tell him, stay out of his way and expect him to keep clear of mine. So why’n hell shouldn’t I tell a man when I like what he is?’

‘Damned if I know why not, Beau,’ replied Bigelow, grinning like a schoolboy. ‘And I’m not objecting; especially as it’s me getting praised. Did you see the mysterious Sand Runner?’

‘See him?’ growled Resin and for a couple of minutes spat out a comprehensive flow of invective, finishing with, ‘I’ll say I saw him. That jasper’s got more luck than a man’s got good right to. I had him meat-in-the-pot under my sights and a damned young buck rode ‘tween us just as I touched off the shot. If Sand Runner knows about that, he’ll use it to claim his medicine can’t be all bad.’

‘Then we might still have trouble with him?’

‘Might do. There’s something about that Sand Runner I can’t savvy, and it worries the hell out of me. We’ll have no more fuss with him and his boys today, and that’s for sure.’

‘Then let’s head down to the wagons and see about cleaning up. I want to make sure M—everybody’s all right.’

‘Everybody being a lil blonde schoolmarm,’ grinned Resin. ‘Was I you, I’d be real polite and well-behaved when she gets fool enough to marry you. I don’t know who handed who a licking that night back there afore we reached the plains, but she’d been plumb in the thick of it and that was mighty rough company.’

‘There are times you civilians think you’re so smart,’ sniffed Bigelow. ‘Head back to the train, Beau, we’ll move on for a mile or so, then make camp and attend to the burying.’

At the end of the attack Calamity started to slow down her racing team. It was no easy job, even for one as skilled at horse-handling as Calamity, for the big horses ran hard and packed power to spare. Spluttering curses, she hauled back on the reins with both hands, a moccasined foot ramming down on the brake to hold it fully home. With a casual disregard for the safety of his limbs, young Grade bounded from the wagon box and sprinted to the heads of the slowing team. Grabbing the two lead horses, he lent a hand at getting them under control and helped Calamity halt the wagon within a foot of the preceding one.

‘Are you pair all right?’ Calamity asked, looking at the two pallid faces at her side.

‘I’m going to faint,’ Molly answered.

‘Drop first so I can land on you,’ Eileen told her in a strained voice. ‘I—I—I killed a man.’

‘Lean over the side of the wagon and let it go, Boston,’ Calamity said gently. ‘There’s no disgrace in it.’

Neither girl did faint and although badly shaken by the experience of taking another human being’s life, Eileen did not need to follow Calamity’s advice. With an effort, she controlled her rising stomach and then settled down on the wagon box to await orders.

The wagons moved on for a mile, halting upon the banks of a pleasant stream and forming a defensive circle. Bigelow sent out pickets around the area to watch for any return of the Cheyenne and then started to organise the burying; and care of the injured.

Towards evening Eileen sat with Calamity at the freight outfit’s fire. Molly had departed earlier to take her school class and the two girls were conscious of the brooding air that hung over the camp. Before either could speak of the situation, they saw a deputation approaching. One look told Calamity that Sergeant Muldoon, the corporal and two oldest troopers did not come on a social visit, nor to see her.

‘I’ll just go check the horses, Boston,’ she said, rising. ‘Stay put, gal, I can manage.’

Eileen opened her mouth to object, followed the direction of Calamity’s gaze and closed it again. One look told her that something unusual was in the air. The men all appeared to have taken extra care with their appearance, not only by trying to clean up their uniforms, but taking the trouble to shine their brass work and polish their boots.

‘Asking your pardon, Miz Bos—Tradle, ma’am,’ Muldoon aid, coming to a halt in a parade ground brace and throwing her a salute straight out of the drill manual. ‘Could we speak with you?’

‘Certainly, gentlemen. Would you care to sit down?’

‘ ‘Tis a formal thing, ma’am,’ the burly sergeant replied. You’ll be knowing we lost three men in the fighting.’

‘I know,’ Eileen agreed.

‘T’would be the senior officer’s lady’s place to write to their kin, ma’am, only the cap’n’s not married, yet. So we wondered if you’d do it for us.’

A lump rose in Eileen’s throat as she realised the honour the men gave her. She saw young Grade standing to one side of the men, clearly having given his permission for them to approach her with the request.

‘Have I the right to do so?’ she asked.

Taking off his hat, the young lieutenant looked at the hole in the top of its crown and thought of the hooves of the attacking brave’s pony as they sounded behind him. He knew what Eileen must have gone through deciding whether to chance shooting with the risk of killing him while trying to save his life.

‘Yes, ma’am, Boston,’ he said. ‘You’ve earned the right.’

‘We’d take it kind if you’d do it, ma’am,’ put in one of the troopers, a grizzled veteran who had joined years before the Dragoon Colt appeared to be damned as a new-fangled contraption that would never last.

‘Gentlemen,’ Eileen replied and, had he been there to see it, her husband would have marvelled at the quiet, genuine humility in her voice. ‘I’d count it a privilege to do it.’

Coming to her feet, Eileen went to the wagon and returned with pen, ink and paper. Muldoon produced a box for her to sit upon and the men gathered around her. While she had known none of the dead men, except as familiar faces among Bigelow’s troop, Eileen wrote letters to their next-of-kin which would long be treasured. She wrote simply, sincerely, without mawkish sentiment; and the wet-caused wrinkles the distant readers found on the paper were not placed there as an affectation but came from the tears which trickled down Eileen’s cheeks as she wrote.

‘Damned smoky fire,’ she said, wiping a hand across her eyes after finishing the last letter.

‘Yes, Miz Bos—Tradle.’

‘Make it Boston and save your spluttering, Muldoon,’ Eileen said.

‘Yes, ma’am, Miz Boston, ma’am!’ grinned the burly sergeant. ‘And thanks.’

‘You could have asked Miss Johnson to write the letters,’ Eileen pointed out. ‘She and Captain Bigelow are engaged.’

‘Aye. But she’s not Army—yet.’

‘Stick your chest in, gal,’ Calamity said, walking up after Muldoon’s party threw Eileen salutes and marched away. ‘You look like to burst.’

‘I’ve become accepted as Army, Calam,’ Eileen replied.

‘Sure, I always knew you would. Soldiers always go for mean, ornery gals like you and me. Which’s why you ‘n’ me never got on at first, we’re too damned much alike.’

‘Time was when I wouldn’t have taken that as a compliment,’ smiled Eileen, then the smile died. ‘Everybody looks miserable, Calam.’

‘Sure do,’ agreed Calamity. ‘Most of ‘em, especially those who lost somebody, or got wounded on their hands, are asking themselves why the hell they came West. Happen they come up with the wrong answer most of them’ll be licked right now.’

‘Then we have to make them forget today, or get them over it,’ Eileen stated firmly but grimly.

‘You’re the eddicated one, Boston, gal. You tell me how.’

Eileen explained her plan and together the Boston socialite and the wild Western girl went around the train. Using the power of their combined personalities, they gathered every man and woman who could walk, calling them all together around the main fire in the centre of the camp. There Eileen addressed them, speaking as she had earlier written, saying the things those gloom-ridden travellers wished to hear and urging them to carry on. Then Eileen stopped talking and Calamity stepped forward. In a quiet voice, she told them of the future, the land ahead of them, the new life waiting for them and of the importance of looking forward instead of back.

‘By cracky, ladies,’ said an elderly man whose youngest son died with a Cheyenne arrow through his chest. ‘You’re right. My Jimmy wouldn’t want us all to sit grieving for him and letting everything we all worked for go.’

‘Thank you, Mrs. Boston, Calamity,’ a woman who had lost her husband went on. ‘You’ve given me heart to finish the trip.’

Once more Calamity and Eileen had helped hold the wagon train together and given it their strength at a time when such strength stood badly needed.

Molly came through the crowd followed by her children, forming them up in a neat block facing her two friends. Raising her right hand, she halted the crowd as it prepared to break up.

‘Before you go,’ she said, ‘the children and I would like to pay a tribute to two gallant and for-real ladies. In doing this, Boston, I don’t want you to think I’m belittling you, or holding a grudge for our little contretemps at Battle Creek—’

‘If that means when you had the fight, who won?’ called a man.

‘We’ll say it was a stand-off,’ Molly answered, her eyes sparkling. ‘Anyways. here is a little tribute to two real game girls. You would have been included in this, Eileen, but who in the world could make a rhyme with Boston.’

Turning, she motioned to the children and they began to sing.:

‘Calamity, Calamity,

The best danged gal you ever did see,

There’ll never be, there’ll never be,

Another girl like Calamity.’

And Miss Martha Jane Canary, that rough, tough reckless and unemotional hard-case frontier girl stood blushing like a house on fire and promising herself what she would do to a certain little blonde schoolmarm when they were alone. While the song would not cause Stephen Foster to turn in anxiety in his grave at a threat to his position as America’s greatest song writer, it went down well with its biased little audience and by morning when the wagons rolled the words rang out from mouth to mouth across the plains.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MISS CANARY HUNTS BUFFALO

‘No sign of the Cheyenne,’ Beau Resin announced, halting his Appaloosa by Calmity’s fire and looking at the three girls, Bigelow and Killem who sat around it. ‘But I saw a fair-sized herd of buffalo not a mile off.’

It was two days after the fight with the Indians and the wagon train had made good time. However, Bigelow knew that fresh meat would come in very handy, saving the train’s depleted food supply. Hunting had been restricted for the past couple of days due to the chance of a further Cheyenne attack. If such an attack came and wiped out a hunting party, it might give Sand Runner’s followers heart to make a further attempt upon the train.

‘Buffalo!’ Calamity whooped. ‘Boston, gal, you’ve got to try roast buffalo hump.’

‘I was supposed to try fresh-caught brook trout fried in butter, I seem to remember,’ Eileen replied, ‘but somebody else wound up eating them.’

‘Shucks, didn’t Molly and me apologise for that?’ asked Calamity.

‘You didn’t.’

‘Must’ve been so busy we forgot,’ Calamity remarked.

‘Calamity tried to catch some. I saw her throw a couple of worms into a river one night,’ Molly went on.

‘Want me to fetch Russian Olga fora partner, Boston?’ asked Resin hopefully. Then he swung round from his horse and looked at Bigelow. ‘Do I take a small party out and collect us some meat, Wade?’

‘We sure need it,’ Bigelow replied. ‘Is it safe out there?’

‘Like I said, there’s no sign of the Cheyenne—and I looked careful.’

‘Then how about you and I doing the hunting? I reckon Dave Grade can handle things at this end, with Muldoon helping him.’

‘Reckon they can. Muldoon’s so lucky that if they got the train lost, they’d wind up in San Francisco,’ grinned Resin.

‘If it’s that safe, why not take Molly along, Wade?’ Eileen asked. ‘In which case I will have to come along as chaperone.’

‘I think that’s why you suggested it,’ grinned Bigelow.

‘It is. It is,’ chuckled Eileen.

‘Declare a school holiday, Molly, gal,’ Calamity ordered. ‘We’re going buffalo hunting in the morning.’

‘Hold hard there, red top!’ barked Killem. ‘I ain’t said you can go yet.’

‘If you don’t, you’ll wish you had,’ Calamity threatened.

‘Eileen and I will see to that,’ Molly warned.

‘Danged if one of ‘em wasn’t more’n enough!’ groaned Killem. ‘Now I got three to pester and bedevil me.’

‘We’ll fetch back a wagon-load of meat,’ Calamity promised. ‘And I’ll save you the two biggest tongues.’

Which was a prospect Dobe Killem could look forward to with pleasure. No food in the world appealed to his palate as much as buffalo tongue prepared as only his cook could handle it.

‘All right, Calam, we’ll empty our chuckwagon. Take a couple of fellers along to do the butchering,’ Killem said. ‘And make damned certain sure that I get them tongues or I’ll tan your hide for sure—all three of you.’

‘Love those masterful men,’ smiled Eileen.

At dawn the following morning the party prepared to go on their buffalo hunt. Calamity used two of her team horses in the now empty chuckwagon and a couple of the train’s men who were skilled butchers had agreed to go along and attend to cutting up the meat. After some discussion the previous night Molly and Eileen elected to travel on horseback for the trip, especially as if the hunt proved successful the wagon would be piled high with meat on the return trip.

The remainder of the wagon train would continue on its way under Grade’s guidance and the hunters expected to join up with it at its next camp ground, or during the day’s march whichever came first.

‘I’ve never been on a buffalo hunt,’ Molly said, although her enthusiasm stemmed more from going with Bigelow than because she liked the idea of hunting.

‘I have,’ Calamity grunted, sounding anything but excited.

‘My father and his friend, the other congressman, both killed their buffalo on a straight run,’ Eileen stated and smiled as she remembered the last time she had mentioned her father and his influential, important friends.

‘That’s one way of doing it,’ Calamity answered, refusing to be drawn into an argument about dudes hunting for fun and sport.

‘How do you mean, on a straight run?’ asked Molly.

‘When the herd is started running and you ride after it, pick the animal you want, gallop alongside it and shoot it on the move,’ Bigelow explained, his eyes gleaming with the thought of the thrill to come.

‘That’s how they do it,’ agreed Calamity and in his excited anticipation Bigelow Overlooked the emphasis she placed on the word ‘they.’

‘It’s the only sporting way, ladies.’

‘Huh huh!’

‘And what might that mean, Calamity?’ Eileen asked.

‘Means “huh huh”,’ explained Calamity. ‘Let’s get moving.’

Having told Calamity the direction to take, Resin had pulled out earlier to locate the herd. The rest of the party showed considerable faith in Calamity’s judgment and skill, for none objected as she led them across the range. Mostly the talk dealt with various types of hunting and was carried out between Bigelow and the other two men for Calamity did not say much and Eileen and Molly appeared to be quite content to enjoy their ride while listening to the men’s conversation.

‘There’s ole Beau wig-wagging for us,’ remarked Calamity after they had covered almost two miles at a tangent from the train.

All the others stared ahead, searching for some sign of the big scout and his spot-rumped Appaloosa stallion on the rolling, bush and tree dotted range. Much to their surprise, they could see nothing of Resin.

‘All right,’ Eileen sniffed. ‘So you can see him and we can’t, But I can embroider better than you.’

‘And I can write a better song,’ Molly went on. ‘Where is he?’

‘See that clump of bushes ahead there, on top of the humpbacked rim we’re coming to?’

‘Yes,’ replied Eileen doubtfully, squinting her eyes.

Raising her hand, Calamity waved it over her head. Not until the scout gave an answering wave did any bf the others pick out his position, for his clothing tended to blend into the background. Once he moved, all could see him and wondered how they ever managed to overlook anything so obvious.

‘Keeping still’s the best way to stay hid,’ Calamity commented when the others complimented her on her keen sight. ‘And the best way to find something’s to look for it all the time.’

‘I’ll go on ahead,’ Bigelow told the others and sent his horse forward at a faster pace.

‘My mother warned me not to marry a hunting man,’ smiled Eileen, glancing at Molly.

‘What happened?’

‘I married one and spent most of my honeymoon on a deer hunt in the Adirondaks. It was wonderful.’

Molly glanced at Eileen, caught the other girl’s wink and started to blush as she remembered using the same words in much the same tone on the morning of the fight with the Cheyenne.

Bringing his horse to a halt by Resin’s side, Bigelow reached for the rifle in the saddleboot. An exclamation of annoyance left his lips as he found that his striker, usually a most reliable man who obeyed orders to the letter, had mistakenly given him the single-shot Remington Rider rifle instead of his Winchester.

‘Damn the man!’ he growled, although mostly he would never think of his striker in such terms. ‘He’s given me the Remington.’

‘I know,’ drawled the scout. ‘I told him to.’

‘You?’

‘Why sure. I come across him taking your Winchester to the hoss lines and told him you’d need something with more power and range, so to get that fancy Rolling Block rifle you showed me.’

‘But the Winchester is handier to use from the saddle,’ Bigelow objected.

‘Sure is,’ agreed Resin, glancing to where his horse stood concealed among the bushes, ‘if we aimed to shoot ‘em off hoss’s back that is.’

‘That’s the only sporting way to do it.’

‘Yep. Only we’re not here for sport, we’re shooting meat for the train, so we want the critters down close together not spread out over a good country mile.’

After Bigelow secured his horse, Resin led him up the slope. Flattening down on the top of the rim, they looked to where a small herd of black, shaggy-humped Great Plains buffalo grazed some three hundred yards from their position. A trophy-hunter’s gleam came into Bigelow’s eyes as he studied the herd and picked out a big old bull as his first target. Bringing up the rifle, he aimed at the old bull; but, before he could squeeze the trigger, Resin caught him by the arm and gave a warning head-shake.

‘Not yet.’ breathed the scout. ‘And don’t drop that big old cuss, he’d be tougher to eat than old leather. This’s how we do it—and I tell you now, there’ll be damned little sport in it.’

‘Tell on. good mentor,’ replied Bigelow.

‘First we lung-shoot one of the bulls. Yeah, we go out to wound him instead of taking a straight kill. He’ll die in minutes anyway. The smell of blood and the way he staggers’ll hold the attention of the others. I figured four’ll be enough for what we need. Never took to shooting a critter just to see it fall and leaving its body to rot. Another thing, shoot for the head—’

‘That will spoil his skull.’

‘Sure, only we don’t ear the skull, so hit there instead of the body where we’d lose meat.’

The system, worked to perfection by hide hunters like Frank Myers—who frequently shot up to fifty buffalo at one stand by using it—produced good results. On Resin’s first shot, using a Sharps rifle borrowed from Killem, one of the young bulls gave a lurch and started to stagger, coughing frothy blood. Instantly the rest of the bulls gathered, hooking viciously with their horns at their wounded companion and ignoring the sound of the shot. With two bullets Bigelow tumbled over a pair of average-sized young bulls and Resin dropped the fourth. Then the remainder of the herd took fright at the noise of the shots and fled across the plains at a fair speed, considering their bulk and ungainly build.

‘Get the hosses and wave the others up,’ Resin suggested, rising to his feet and finishing the lung-shot bull with a bullet through the head.

However, there proved to be no need to go. Calamity knew enough about the principles of buffalo hunting to stay back until she heard the shooting start. Once she heard shots, she gave the signal to her party and brought them up the slope then down towards the killing ground.

‘You got ‘em,’ she said, eyeing the four bodies on the ground.

‘Naw!’ scoffed Resin. ‘These bunch up and died of old age. Them we shot at’s still running.’

‘The way you pair shoot, we can believe that,’ Eileen remarked and looked with interest at the dead buffalo. Somehow they seemed larger and more impressive than the mounted heads her father and his friend brought home from their hunt.

Not only Eileen looked at the bulls and took note of their size. The two butchers stared at the animals with growing concern. While both were skilled at their trade, neither had ever been called on to perform a piece of major butchery under such primitive conditions. Looking at the huge shaggy shapes, the two men could not even decide how to set about removing the skins. An average-sized Great Plains buffalo, such as Resin and Bigelow had shot, stood around five foot nine inch at the shoulder and weighed well over seventeen hundred pounds. To handle such bulky creatures the two men would expect to make use of block and tackle, which they possessed but had not brought along. Yet both knew enough about their work to realise that the hides must be removed quickly or would set Like iron upon the flesh underneath and be almost impossible to peel off.

‘You gals had best go back over the rim,’ Calamity said, jumping down from her wagon. ‘We’ve got some skinning to do.’

‘Is it as bad as that?’ asked Eileen.

‘Bad enough, Boston, gal.’

Neither Eileen nor Molly argued for they knew Calamity was giving them a frank, honest warning and not flaunting her superiority over Eastern-born women in a practical, if bloody, piece of Great Plains business.

Watched by an interested Bigelow and the two butchers, Resin drew his Ames knife and approached the buffalo. First the scout cut through the skin in a circle around the neck and just behind the horns, rolling some of the freed hide back. With that done, he slashed through the hide from neck to the end of the belly and opened the leg skin up to join the belly cut. Turning, he looked to see if Calamity was ready to do her share.

Telling the butchers to bring out the rope, spike and hammer with them, Calamity uncoupled the double-tree from the wagon but still left her horses harnessed to it. One of the butchers sprang down from the wagon and handed her the coil of stout rope, then stood back to see what she aimed to do with it. Securing one end of the rope securely to the clevis of the double-tree, Calamity carried the other end to where Resin had started to do his part in the skinning.

With his cutting done, Resin took the sledgehammer and stout, pointed iron rod from the other butcher. He drove the spoke through the buffalo’s nose and deep into the soil so it held firm, then took the other end of Calamity’s rope, gathered up a roll of skin on the animal’s back and lashed it firmly and securely to the rope. Testing the knot’s hold, he looked at Calamity.

‘Let ‘em go, gal!’ he ordered.

Cracking her whip with one hand and controlling the reins with the other, Calamity started her horses forward. She watched the rope grow tighter and made sure the knots would hold before giving her next order. On a shout and whip crack from Calamity, the two horses started forward, thrusting into their harness to get more power as they felt resistance. With a sickening, soggy, rending sound, the hide peeled backwards over the rump of the carcase and trailed on the ground behind Calamity’s horses.

All in all it had been a neat piece of skinning in the manner devised by buffalo-hunters. However, there was one difference between Calamity’s party and the buffalo-slaughtering hide-hunters; where the hide-hunters left all but the skin to rot—unless they happened to take a tongue or other choice part—Calamity’s party planned to take along every piece of meat, hide and bone, leaving as little waste as possible.

‘There’s your hide, Wade,’ Resin remarked after unfastening the rope and rolling up the skin with the deft touch of a master.

‘Thanks,’ replied the captain, not showing the interest one might have expected at being presented with a prime buffalo’s hide; especially as he particularly wanted one to make into a carriage-rug for Molly. ‘I reckon I’ll go join the ladies.’

Resin and the other two men did not regard that as a show of weakness. Fact being the two butchers looked a mite green around the gills and Resin hated the sound of stripping off a hide in such a manner. So did Calamity and she wanted to get the work done as quickly as possible.

The other three hides were removed, though each took a longer time as the body under it cooled. A cursing Calamity watched the last hide come free and stopped her horses. Even though she felt sickened, Calamity’s first thought was for her team. She unhitched the two horses, watered them from the five-gallon keg fastened to the wagon, then left the animals to graze. Walking up the slope and passing over it, leaving the three men to handle the butchering and loading of the wagon, Calamity found Eileen lazing by the bushes, but no sign of Molly and Bigelow.

‘Hey, Boston,’ she said, shaking the dozing girl. ‘Where’re the love-birds?’

‘Huh? Oh, they went for a ride.’

‘They did what?’ gasped Calamity, staring in disbelief at the tracks of two horses leading from the bushes. ‘Didn’t reckon they was headed for the wagon train, did they?’

‘No,’ Eileen replied, standing up as she saw the concern on Calamity’s face. ‘They said they’d take a short ride and join us in an hour or so.’

‘Danged fools!’ grunted Calamity. ‘Wade’s a nice feller and smart in a lot of ways. Only he’s no plains scout and it’s hellish easy to get lost out here. I reckon I’d best go look for them.’

‘Shall I come along?’

‘Nope. I don’t want to fuss with that mean Appaloosa and there’s only one other hoss.’

‘Why not tell Beau and let him go?’ asked Eileen.

‘ ‘Cause he’s more use down there helping with the butchering and loading than I would be. And the sooner we get back to the train, the better me ‘n’ him’ll like it.’

‘I thought you said there had been no Indian sign?’

‘Time to start worrying about Injuns is when you don’t see ‘em,’ Calamity answered. ‘Can I take the hoss?’

‘Do you need to ask?’

‘Sure do, with a gal who fights as good as you do,’ grinned Calamity. ‘And don’t worry, gal. I’ll bring that lil schoolmarm of our’n back safe and sound.’

‘You see you do,’ Eileen replied. ‘Or you and I’ll take another walk in the woods.’

Eileen had been wearing a divided skirt and riding astride, which was fortunate, for Calamity had never been on a sidesaddle such as was popular among female riders back East. The way Calamity looked at the situation, she might need all her riding skill before the day was out.

Collecting Eileen’s horse, Calamity saddled and bridled it. For a moment she thought of borrowing one of the rifles from the wagon, but discarded the idea. If any Indians had been in hearing distance, the sound of the shots fired at the buffalo might bring them in. Not even settlers were hated by the Indians as were hide-hunters; and the Indian did not draw any distinction between slaughter for hides and folks hunting food. If a bunch of Cheyenne came on the party, they would attack and having three rifles could mean the difference between life and death for Calamity’s friends.

While Eileen walked down to the wagon to tell the others, Calamity took the departed couple’s trail. Although Calamity found little difficulty in following the tracks, she could not make even as much speed as Molly and Bigelow raised; and from the sign they had not been pushing their horses to any great extent. As she rode along, Calamity decided on just what she aimed to say to Captain Wade H. Bigelow when she caught up with him; it would not be ladylike, that was for sure, but aimed to tell him in pungent, profane terms just what she thought of his stupidity. Hell, not even being in love gave old Wade the right to take such damned fool chances with his and Molly’s lives.

‘Dang. that Wade!’ she spat out after trailing the couple for almost three miles. ‘Why in hell don’t he stop acting like a gentleman and take her off some place cool and shady?’

A flutter of white caught the corner of Calamity’s eye and brought her twisting around in the saddle, right hand turning palm out by the butt of her Colt. One glance told her two things: first, she would not have need for the gun; second, that Bigelow appeared to have taken Molly some place cool and shady. The little schoolteacher stood on the edge of a fair-sized clump of bushes and waved as happily as if on a New England Sunday-school picnic.

‘Hey!’ Molly greeted as Calamity rode up.

‘Where in hell’s shiny-butt?’ growled Calamity in reply, seeing no sign of the gallant captain.

‘I thought we’d dropped that name!’ Molly said a trifle stiffly.

‘We dropped it when he stopped acting it. Which same he started again, or he wouldn’t’ve taken you lolly-gagging off like this.’

‘We only took a ride!’ Molly answered, a blush creeping to her cheeks as she dropped a hand to the blouse, discovering its buttons to be fastened in the wrong holes—which they had not been in leaving the meat-hunting party.

‘Sure, honey,’ Calamity replied gently. ‘Where’s he at?’

‘He’s just like a boy,’ smiled Molly, although a few minutes before Bigelow’s actions had been anything but boy-like. ‘After we—Well, we went through the bushes and saw a herd of those little pronghorn antelope. I said I would like to examine one of them and Wade insisted on trying to ride one down for me.’

‘He went chasing a pronghorn on hoss-back?’

‘Yes.’

‘Danged if he’s not worse’n I thought. That’s like trying to out-swim a trout going up-stream.’

The fact that Calamity said ‘danged’ and nothing stronger told Molly that her friend had partially forgiven Bigelow.

‘They are fast,’ Molly admitted.

‘He’s not slow his-self,’ grinned Calamity. ‘Only he’s got about as much chance of catching one of them white-romped streaks of lightning as I have of becoming a for-real lady.’

‘Calam!’ thought Molly, knowing better by now than expess it in words. ‘You may not dress the part, but you’re a for-real lady now.’ She went on aloud, ‘Are they that fast?’

‘Danged fastest thing on four legs on the plains,’ replied Calamity, seeing Bigelow ride into sight. ‘Here he comes, without a pronghorn.’

The girls walked together through the bushes and halted at the other edge to wait for Bigelow’s arrival, keeping under cover for Calamity never liked to be unduly exposed when out on the Great Plains. Riding up. Bigelow came to a halt in the bushes and threw a glance at Molly.

‘He got away, darling. Say. while we’re waiting for my horse to cool out why don’t we—?’

‘Reckon I ought to close my eyes?’ asked Calamity who had been standing to one side and behind a bush.

‘Hey. Calam,’ Bigelow greeted. ‘We’ve just been resting Molly’s horse and I thought—’

‘Yeah,’ Calamity said dryly. ‘I know it. Only—Hell fire, Wade, we got us some real trouble!’

From where they stood, Calamity had a good view of the country traversed by Bigelow in his fruitless chase after the pronghorn herd. Turning, Bigelow saw what had turned Calamity’s voice from faintly ironic to dead serious. A cold, sick feeling hit Bigelow in the pit of his stomach as he saw the deadly danger into which he had brought the girl he loved.

They came into sight over a rim not half a mile away, riding slowly as one of their number followed Bigelow’s trail—almost twenty Cheyenne warriors led by a tall war-bonnet chief with a yellow-ochre covered face, wearing much-decorated cavalry gauntlets and with an old Colt Dragoon revolver thrust into his waistband. At that distance Bigelow could not pick out the details of the chief’s dress and Calamity had not heard a description of Sand Runner. So, although they did not know the great war-leader was present. both knew for certain sure they had found about as bad trouble as three palefaces ever came across upon the Great Plains.

One thing—and it was not much—remained in their favour. So far the Indians only knew of Bigelow’s presence. The bushes prevented the approaching Cheyenne from seeing the girls. No Indian would have contented himself in riding at so leisurely a pace had he known that two prime white-brother squaws stood just ready for the taking. However, that thought did not give Calamity any great joy. Happen they tried to run for safety, the Cheyenne could not miss seeing them and each man rode his war-relay. Using their spare, fresh horses, the Cheyenne could ride down the three palefaces before covering a mile, especially as Bigelow’s mount had been hard-ridden.

Yet if they stayed, Calamity, Molly and Bigelow would be in no better shape for one man and two girls—even if one be Calamity Jane—could not hold off the attack of a score of was-wise Cheyenne braves hot and eager for coups or glory. Calamity knew that all too well. So, it seemed, did Bigelow.

He had dismounted on arrival and swung to face Molly, placing his hands on her shoulders. Lowering his head, he kissed her.

‘Molly.’ he said gently. ‘I love you, my darling. I love you. Never forget that.’

Without any warning of what he meant to do, Bigelow bunched his right hand into a fist and drove it against Molly’s jaw. The little blonde collapsed, but Bigelow caught her and lowered her gently to the ground. Then he looked up at Calamity expecting to find her showing amazement, anger or curiosity. Instead all he could read was admiration and realised he did not need to explain his action or what he aimed to do next,

‘Let me go,’ Calamity said.

‘I’d never find my way back to the others, Calam.’ Bigelow replied. ‘Don’t argue, there’s no time and I don’t want to leave you lying by Molly. Take care of my little girl, Calam.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Calamity promised, gripping the man’s hand. ‘Try to get that damned war-bonnet chief there. Drop him and the rest might pull out. Good luck, shiny-butt.’

‘And you, red top. Tell Molly I love her.’

Vaulting on to his horse, Bigelow kicked it into movement and sent it charging out of the bushes, headed off at a tangent from the Indians. Even as he went, Bigelow realised that for the first time in his experience the words ‘shiny-butt’ had not been used as an insult, but came out full of Calamity’s unexpressed pride.

On seeing the captain burst out of the bushes, every Cheyenne voice lifted in a wild, ringing yell and each man started his horse forward at a gallop, in doing so, they swung clear of the bushes and headed away from the girls, just as Bigelow hoped they would.

He rode his tiring horse for almost half a mile, hearing the enemy hooves drawing closer. Pulling the Army Colt from his holster, Bigelow swung his horse to face the Cheyenne. His face grew set and grim as he went to meet them. Twenty against one. Yet he must face them for Molly, his darling, loving little Molly’s life hung in the balance.

Twice Bigelow fired as the men closed on him, but he did not find opportunity to take Calamity’s advice. Sand Runner’s name as a warrior had been long established and he did not need to take chances. So the chief hovered in the background and allowed the young bucks to bear the brunt of the attack. His bull voice roared out a deep-throated order and,- to Bigetow’s surprise the attacking braves made no attempt to use their guns or bows even though one of their number slid from the back of his pony.

Then one of the braves cut loose with his buffalo-bow, sending its arrow into the chest of the soldier’s horse. Feeling his mount going down under him. Bigelow kicked his feet free of the stirrups. His luck ran out for the horse landed awkwardly and threw him off balance. Down he went, rolling over as the hooves of the horses churned around him. Just as he reared up to try to shoot, the butt end of a buffalo lance crashed down on to his head and everything went black.

Calamity had watched everything and a shudder ran through her as she saw Bigelow taken alive. Even without being conscious of the action, her Colt slid into her hand. Just as Calamity prepared to charge out and attempt a rescue, or to kill Bigelow and save him from torture, a moan from Molly brought her to her senses.

‘Not a sound, honey!’ she whispered, dropping to her knees and laying a hand over Molly’s mouth. ‘Can I trust you?’

Surprise, puzzlement came to Molly’s glazed eyes, then realisation, remembrance and understanding cleared them and Molly nodded.

‘Where is he, Calam?’ she asked when the hand moved from her mouth.

‘Out there—Keep still, gal, we can’t help so don’t let it be in vain.’

‘I—I don’t want to live without W—him.’

‘I do, and he wants you to!’ Calamity growled, holding her voice down. ‘The red-sticks took him prisoner, gal. Now hold yourself. For gawd’s sake don’t go all woman on me, or I’ll have to quieten you.’

‘C—can’t we do anything?’

‘Only one thing. Get back to the others, head for the train and get help to go and rescue him.’

For once in her life Calamity had told a deliberate, serious lie to a friend. She knew in her heart that there was hardly a hope in the world of rescuing Bigelow.

CHAPTER TWELVE

MISS CANARY HEARS AN ULTIMATUM

A WHITE-FACED, dry-eyed Molly Johnson stared at Calamity as the full impact of the horror of the situation hit her. Yet she did not go ‘woman,’ turn hysterical. Moving cautiously, the two girls crept to the edge of the bushes and peered out, watching the Cheyenne ride away with Bigelow’s body draped across the back of a horse. Calamity could feel Molly trembling and laid a hand upon the girl’s arm.

‘We must do something, Calam!’ Molly moaned.

‘Sure, Molly, gal. We’ll let those red scouts get clear, then ride like hell to the wagon.’

‘Couldn’t we follow them?’

‘No.’

‘You mean I couldn’t!’ Molly gasped. ‘Leave me here—’

Turning to face Molly, Calamity gripped her by the shoulders and shook her gently but firmly.

‘Don’t act loco, gal. And don’t say that I can go and leave you to find your way back to Beau. You’d be lost in a mile. The quicker we get back to Beau, the quicker he can decide what to do.’

Molly nodded. Tears trickled down her cheeks and her shoulders shook with silent sobs. Taking the little girl into her arms, Calamity soothed her like a child, showing a gentleness which might have surprised many people who made an acquaintance with Martha Jane Canary at happier moments. When the flow of tears had passed and Molly regained something of a hold on herself, Calamity turned to look after the far-distant Cheyenne.

‘Let’s go, honey.’ she said, helping Molly to rise.

Taking their horses, the girls rode cautiously from the bushes. Clearly the Cheyenne believed Bigelow to be alone for none of them even offered to look back in the direction of the bushes. For all that Calamity forced the pace; for protection and also to make Molly believe there might be a chance of rescuing Bigelow.

By the time they returned to the wagon, they found that most of the butchering and loading had been completed. Eileen and the three men watched the girls ride up and all showed some curiosity as to why Bigelow did not come with them.

‘Where’s Wade, Calam?’ Resin asked.

‘Cheyenne got him.’

‘Huh?’

Quickly Calamity outlined the situation. None of the others spoke while she gave Resin every detail that came to her mind and described Bigelow’s gallant action to save the girl’s then his capture.

‘Poor bastard,’ said Resin quietly at the end of Calamity’s explanation.

Something in the big scout’s tone and attitude struck Molly with the impact of a mule’s kick. Suddenly she realised just how little hope there was of rescuing Bigelow from the Cheyenne’s clutches.

‘I’ll never see him again!’ she moaned.

‘Sure you will, honey,’ Calamity answered.

‘I won’t! I won’t!’ Molly screamed, turning on the other girl. ‘You lied to me! I could have gone to him. I hate you!’

And she threw herself at Calamity, little fists striking the girl’s face. Calamity just stood there like a statue, letting the blows land although they were far from light taps. Like Resin, Calamity hated to lie and she hated it even worse when dealing with a friend.

Resin caught Molly’s hands, drawing the girl gently away from Calamity and Eileen moved forward to take the blonde in her arms. After the rage-hysteria, the reaction set in and Molly collapsed sobbing into Eileen’s arms.

Slowly Calamity lifted a hand to wipe the blood that ran from the corner of her mouth. She looked at the red streak upon her hand, then turned and walked towards her horse.

‘Where the hell are you going?’ Resin growled, catching the girl’s arm before she could mount the horse.

‘Molly’s right,’ Calamity replied. ‘I lied to her. I’m going to see if I can rescue him.’

‘Damn your fool hide, Calamity!’ the scout snapped. ‘You know better—’

‘Let go! Get your goddamned hand off my arm!’

‘When you stop acting like a fool kid I will. You know damned well that you can’t handle a chore like that.’

‘Can you?’

Lifting his hand from Calamity’s arm, the scout rubbed his jaw. ‘I don’t know, gal. But I sure as hell aim to find out. It’s the only thing we can do, and at best I’ll make sure he doesn’t suffer.’

Resin and Calamity’s eyes. went to the Sharps rifle which leaned against his saddle. That gun would carry accurately at ranges of up to a mile and packed the power to knock down a bull buffalo with one shot at the end of the distance. Both knew to what end the accuracy and killing power might be put. If the worst came to the worst, Resin intended to use it to cut short Bigelow’s sufferings at the hands of the Cheyenne—even if doing so led to the scout’s presence being discovered by the same Indians.

‘I—I’m sorry, Beau,’ Calamity said contritely. ‘Times I act like a woman.’

Suddenly scooping Calamity into his arms, Resin kissed her hard, passionately and savagely. He felt no embarrassment at the act, nor did the girl. Way they saw it, a man who might not be alive at dawn the following day had a right to kiss a gal happen he felt that way inclined.

‘Yeah,’ he said, releasing Calamity. ‘Times you sure do—I’m right pleased to say.’

After that no time was wasted in preparing to leave. Resin intended to use all three saddle horses, riding relay on them and so having something in reserve if it came to a run for his life. While he saddled his Appaloosa, the two butchers finished loading the wagon and took the saddles from the two reserve horses, for Resin did not wish to have them toting extra weight. Calamity hitched up her team to the wagon, marvelling at the way Eileen soothed and cared for the still sobbing Molly and kept her out of the men’s way.

‘Get aboard, all of you,’ Resin ordered when all was ready.

‘Calam!’ Molly said. ‘I—I—’

‘Get aboard, honey,’ Calamity replied gently. ‘There’s nothing we can do here and folks need this meat.’

Camp was being made for the night when Calamity’s party arrived. A crowd quickly gathered but Calamity told them to start unloading and sharing the meat among them. In this she prevented any questions being asked, for she wished to give her story to the men who ran the outfit instead of wasting time answering a lot of fool questions.

‘What happened. Calam?’ Grade asked, coming up fast, Muldoon, Killem and the wagonmaster on his heels.

‘We found trouble,’ she replied.

‘Bad trouble?’ inquired the lieutenant.

‘As bad as it comes, Dave. Wade got took alive by the Cheyenne.’

‘The dirty, murderin’ spalpeens!’ Muldoon growled, sounding as mean as a winter-starved grizzly bear. ‘How’d they do it?’

Quickly Calamity told most of what had happened, finishing with, ‘Beau took out after them—with the Sharps.’

Her words met with cold, blank, guarded stares for the men knew exactly what she meant. Behind them, Eileen was already leading a sobbing Molly to the Johnson’s wagon, driving off any inquisitive spectators with cold stare, or brief, concise words if the stare failed.

‘Do we try to get him out. Paddy?’ asked Grade.

‘If there was only us to be thinking about I’d be after saying yes.’ the burly sergeant replied: and wondered what his reply might have been had the question been put at the start of the trip. ‘Only there’s these good folks to take care of and see through—and precious the little chance of finding the cap’n alive.’

‘First sight of the cavalry coming and he’s dead for sure,’ Calamity remarked.

‘We’ll wait for Beau.’

They waited and over an hour later, just after sundown, the scout rode in on his leg-weary Appaloosa: having left the other two horses behind as they tired. Dropping from his saddle, the scout slouched to Killem’s fire and the freighter sent one of his men to tend the Appaloosa.

Coming up with a pail of water, Calamity handed it to the scout and Resin dropped to his knees to sink his face in, drinking thirstily. At last he raised his wet face and looked at the silent circle around him. Grade, Muldoon, the wagonmaster, Killem and Calamity all stood waiting to hear what the scout could tell them.

‘He’s still alive,’ Resin said. ‘I trailed ‘em and found their camp. Moved in close, soon after they arrived and saw them get to talking. Some of ‘em wanted to get started on him, but Sand Runner did some yelling and hollering and they pushed Wade into a tent, tied like a hawg for slaughter. From what I could hear, they don’t aim to make a move until tomorrow.’

‘Then we might—’ Calamity began.

‘Yeah,’ Resin agreed. ‘We might. Like I said, they held a pow-wow. Seemed like Sand Runner was having to convince ‘em about something. Don’t know what, he don’t speak that distinct.’

‘And they aim to keep Wade alive?’ asked Grade eagerly.

‘That’s how it looked to me. There’s something about that damned Sand Runner gets me. I can’t put a finger on it, but he’s the weirdest Injun I ever saw.’

‘How’s about—?’ Mulduon started to say.

‘Hold hard, Paddy,’ Resin interrupted. ‘I’ve been all day without food. Let me eat, then we’ll decide. You boys get pickets out, tend to your work and come back here in an hour and we’ll say our pieces.’

Before any of the others could object, even if they aimed to, Calamity had come on them and hazed them away, leaving the big Scout to eat his meal in peace. Eileen returned with news that the train’s doctor had attended Molly and left her under sedation. Then for the first time Eileen heard the full story of what occurred on the plains.

The hour ended and the same party gathered around Killem’s fire watched by almost everybody from the train.

‘What we fixing—’ began Muldoon, but once again found his question interrupted.

First a rifle shot cracked out from the darkness well within the ring of cavalry pickets but beyond the wagon circle; then a voice boomed out ventriloquially so that nobody could say for sure from where it came.

‘Tshaoh! I come in peace to your camp-fire!’

‘Easy folks!’ Resin roared as travellers grabbed for their guns. ‘Just simmer down and don’t nobody make any moves. It’s all right.’ Then he raised his voice and called, ‘Come and go in peace, brother!’

Gasps and mutters rolled up as the same war-bonnet chief who had acted as spokesman for Sand Runner rode into the camp circle. He came proudly, sitting erect and with a Winchester rifle held by its foregrip in his right hand high over his head, its lever down, showing he came in peace and unable to defend himself.

‘How!’ he greeted, riding towards where Resin’s party stood.

‘How!’ Resin answered, watching the chief drop from his horse.

Johnson had joined the party for the conference and he said, ‘Ask him—’

‘All in good time, friend,’ Resin drawled. ‘You can’t rush these things.’

Once again the two men went through the formality of charging, lighting and smoking their pipes, squatting by the fire. People gathered around, staring with fascination at their first close-up sight of a real, genuine hostile Cheyenne war chief. There was some muttering among one section of the party and a burly man slouched towards Muldoon.

‘How in hell did that red devil get past your damned sentries?’

‘Rode by ‘em, darlin’,’ answered the burly sergeant, for he did not like the man; one of a bunch of political agitators fleeing to the West. ‘If you reckon you could do better, get out and do it.’

‘I ain’t hired to stand no guard.’

‘Nor do anything ‘cepting moan about any man’s got more than you have, watch to see that nobody does less than you and do damned little yourself,’ growled Muldoon.

‘Yeah?’ snarled the man. ‘Well, that damned Injun might not find it so easy to get back out again.’

Thrusting his sun-reddened face to within an inch of the other man’s sullen features, Muldoon growled a warning. ‘Don’t try it, darlin’, or I’ll take pleasure in stopping ye meself, even if Beau Resin don’t lick me to it.’

‘You make plenty good fight last time,’ remarked the chief, sucking appreciatively at his pipe. ‘Spoil Sand Runner’s medicine.’

‘It was a trick that won’t work twice,’ Resin replied.

‘Good enough trick this time anyway. You Comanche plenty smart fighters.’

At that moment the pipes ended and the serious business commenced. Both men knocked out their tobacco remains, placed their pipes away and the chief said: ‘We took the soldier-coat chief.’

‘Is he still alive?’ Johnson asked.

‘Leave it to me,’ Resin ordered. ‘Do you still have him, or do the women?’

‘He brave man, chief among his people. Not go to women.’

‘What does that mean?’ Johnson breathed in Muldoon’s ear.

‘Mostly they let the women torture the prisoners. But if they respect the man they catch, they don’t hand him over, keep him themselves. There’s devil the bit of difference in the end.’

‘Why tell me this?’ asked Resin.

The chief did not answer for a moment, but sat with his head hanging. Something appeared to be bothering him. At last he spoke.

‘These are the words of Sand Runner. He says he want five thousand dollars for soldier-coat chief. You give-um, soldier-coat come back. No hurt except for sore head.’

‘I’ve got the money in my wagon!’

‘I’ll get the money, Beau.’

Johnson and Eileen spoke at the same moment, but Resin shook his head.

‘Not yet,’ he said and turned back to the chief. ‘Is this the Cheyenne way of making war? Do they now sell their brave enemies like they were Comancheros who will trade their own mothers?’

Hanging his head in shame, the chief answered, ‘This is the word of Sand Runner. We will meet you by the place where you killed the buffalo tomorrow at dawn, you have money, get soldier. Try tricks, he gets dead.’

‘This is a big matter,’ Resin drawled.

Yet worry nagged him. Again had come the request, demand, for money. No hostile plains Indian had ever before demanded money and Resin mistrusted any change in the smooth order of things.

‘You still take Sand Runner’s orders?’

‘His medicine not all bad,’ replied the chief. ‘It guided a young brave-heart into your bullet when the bullet would have taken Sand Runner.’

‘So he knows about that,’ growled the scout. ‘A man who is a man does not blame a warrior for taking his chief’s orders, even though they be bad orders.’

‘My thanks, Tshaoh,’ said the chief, gratitude plain in his voice. ‘I am one called Bear Trailer. Someday I repay you. Now, for the matter of the soldier?’

‘We must talk on it among the council. Tomorrow you will know.’

‘It is well. I do not care for this way of Sand Runner’s.’

‘Why didn’t he come, don’t he speak English?’

‘Speak it good enough. Medicine say him not come near white man. I go now.’

‘That murdering red devil’s not leaving!’ yelled the man who spoke earlier to Muldoon and his cronies muttered their agreement. ‘We aim to string—’

Which was as far as he got. Muldoon’s huge right hand clamped on to the front of a greasy civilian shirt and jerked its wearer bodily forward.

‘Now don’t be a fool, darlin’,’ warned the sergeant. ‘Sure, I’d hate to be seeing your blood spilled. Look!’

The man looked, gulped and turned pale. Facing him, the Ames knife looking twice as long as a cavalry sabre as it lined on his favourite belly, stood Beau Resin.

‘The chief came here at my word,’ the scout growled. ‘He’s leaving with honour and unharmed.’

‘You’re as bad as h—’ began one of the sullen man’s friends.

His stoppage came as something landed lightly on the toe of his boot. Looking down, he saw the thing to be the lash of Calamity’s whip. The girl stood with legs braced apart, right arm holding the whip handle ready for use.

‘Now all of you back off there,’ she ordered. ‘I aim to start practising whip-cracking right where you’re standing.’

Being well-versed in political agitation, the sullen man knew better than ever place himself in a position of danger; and attempting to harm or impede the departure of the Cheyenne would be dangerous as hell. Turning, he slouched away and his gang followed him, being shepherded by a grim-eyed corporal who knew enough of Indians to respect them and did not intend any murder attempts to be made.

‘You’re free to go now,’ Resin said. ‘This soldier-coat chief will take you through our picket line.’

‘There is no need for them, Tshaoh,’ grunted the chief. ‘We do not attack you again.’

‘May as well fetch the boys in then, Dave,’ Resin suggested and it may be said that Grade took the chief at his word.

‘When do we go?’ asked Calamity.

And when her voice took on that note, no amount of arguing would move her. Knowing that, Resin did not even bother to try. Anyway, he reckoned Calamity could handle herself as well as any man on the train.

‘We’ll give him a couple of hours start,’ he said. ‘You, me ‘n’ Muldoon’ll be about enough.’

‘If Muldoon’ll volunteer,’ said Calamity, coiling her whip.

‘I never volunteered for anything in me life, Calam,’ Muldoon replied. ‘So happen Mr. Grade don’t order me to go, I’ll order meself.’

On his return Grade gave permission for Muldoon to accompany the rescue party. Instantly preparations were made. Not plans; Resin, Muldoon and Calamity knew better than try to plan ahead when on such a dangerous and practically impossible mission. When they reached the Cheyenne camp area, they would play the cards as they fell, make any arrangement necessary on the spot and hope that whatever Deity they subscribed to looked with favour on their endeavours.

‘Want to take my bowie knife, Calam?’ Killem asked.

‘I’d as soon tote along a camp-axe,’ she replied with a grin. Instead of the bowie, Calamity borrowed from the cook his highly-prized, seven-inch-bladed spear-pointed and razor-sharp Green River knife strapping its sheath on the left side of her belt. Being shorter and lighter, Calamity could handle the Green River better than the bowie and find it Just as deadly for she knew something of knife-fighters even though she had never tried her hand at it seriously. Calamity figured she could handle the knife well enough for her needs.

‘I’ll use my Appaloosa, like a hoss I know I can trust,’ Resin drawled. ‘So go pick the three best hosses you’ve got Paddy.’

‘Like me life depended on it,’ replied Muldoon cheerfully. ‘Which it does.’

Men moved fast, collecting and saddling the three horses selected as best by Muldoon. None of the party carried rifles, or anything but the bare essentials for they realised that an ounce saved on the horses’ backs might mean the difference between life and death to them.

At last all was ready. Resin ordered everybody to act normally, not to come fussing around, Just in case the Cheyenne had wolf-scouts watching the camp. The horses stood waiting in the darkness and the rescue party made their way to the waiting animals separately.

Eileen and Calamity walked together to the horses. Neither spoke until they arrived. With a catch in her voice, Eileen said:

‘Good luck Calam.’

‘We’ll need it,’ replied Calamity. ‘Eileen, happen we don’t make it back,’

‘Yes?’

‘Tell Molly I tried.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MISS CANARY TAKES A WAGON RIDE

THEY rode through the darkness, two men and a girl who might not see the dawn of the following day. First Resin led them out of the camp in the opposite direction to the one they must take, swinging in a circle well beyond where any Cheyenne wolf-scouts might be hiding and watching the wagons. Guided by his plainsman’s instinct, Resin brought his party on to the correct line and led them through the night in the direction of Sand Runner’s hidden camp. None of the trio spoke much as they rode, for more than one reason. With the possibility of death in a painful manner close ahead of them, conversation did not come easily. Also all knew how sound carried on the still air of the night and of all sounds, none would be more likely to attract unwelcome Cheyenne attention than that of white folks’ voices.

Holding their horses at an easy pace that retained a reserve of energy in case it should be needed, they rode on. Although Calamity and Muldoon kept their eyes open, neither saw any sign of the Cheyenne camp-fires, which surprised them for more than one Indian encampment had been betrayed by the red glow rising from it. Then, topping a rise and looking down towards the wooded area, they caught the glimpse of a faint red flicker among the trees. Whoever picked the location for the Cheyenne camp knew his business. A raiding party might have ridden by the area a dozen and more times without seeing the tree-masked fires.

On riding closer, they could hear voices raised in war chants. At last Resin raised his hand, bringing the others to a halt.

‘This’s as far as we take the hosses,’ he said. ‘Paddy, stay here and keep ‘em quiet. Me n’n Calam’ll go in on foot. If you hear us yell for you, come like a bat out of hell.’

‘Huh huh!’ grunted Muldoon and took an obvious precaution. ‘Where at’s their hoss herd?’

‘With the camp, on the other side of that stream that runs through the wood and out beyond the trees. You’ll have no trouble from them.’

Being gregarious beasts, horses were inclined to signal to any others of their kind that they located. A stray horse whinnying would be likely to attract the attention of the Cheyenne horse herd and one of Muldoon’s duties was to make sure his horses did not sound an alarm.

‘Good luck, the pair of yez.’

‘Thanks, Paddy,’ replied Calam, suddenly throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him. ‘I’ll tell you now, I never intended to marry you, so you didn’t need to shy away from me like a rope-burned hoss all these weeks.’

‘Me father told me never to take chances with women, and according to me troop, he stayed a bachelor all his life,’ answered Muldoon, gripping Resin’s hand after being released by Calamity. ‘I’ll be right here when you comes back.’

‘We’ll let you know, happen they get us,’ promised Resin. ‘See you around.’

Side by side Resin and the girl faded into the darkness, moving on silent feet. They entered the wood and moved through with all the care possible, although from the noise rising from the camp excessive caution might not be needed. At last Calamity and Resin reached the banks of the stream and moved along it.

‘He’s in a tipi just about here,’ Resin said, halting by a tree on which he had carved a blaze in the bark and pointing straight towards the camp. ‘Only it’s on the inner circle, facing towards that danged council fire.’

‘From the sound of that pow-wow there’ll not be many folks missing from it,’ Calamity replied. ‘We could sneak through the camp, cut our way in the back—’

‘And what if there’s a guard in the tipi?’

‘You got a right smart point there. Sand Runner got the full tribe along?’

‘Only bucks and a handful of young gals to keep his boys happy.’

‘Other tipis ought to be empty then. Or if anybody’s being kept happy in ‘em, they won’t notice us tippy-toeing by. Or don’t Injuns get kept happy same way we do?’

Resin’s teeth glowed white in the darkness as he grinned at the girl. ‘You got a low ‘n’ vulgar mind, Calam, gal.’

‘I’m loving with it.’

‘Happen we get out of this alive, gal,’ the scout whispered, ‘I’ll—’

Whatever he aimed to do did not get said. They had waded through the stream while talking and both froze on the other shore as they saw a torch flickering in the hand of an approaching Indian. Swiftly and silently Calamity and Resin took cover, two hands holding knives; guns making far too much noise for dealing with such a situation.

The torch-bearer came into sight; a girl wearing Bigelow’s campaign hat on her head, the braids of her hair trailing from under its crown, and with his blouse on over her doeskin dress, carrying a pinewood torch in one hand, a pitcher in the other. Clearly she was coming down to the stream to collect water. The sight of the girl’s dress, particularly the hat and hair, gave Calamity an idea. Sheathing the knife, she turned to Resin and whispered:

‘I’ll take her.’

‘Do it fast and quiet, these Injun gals are tough.’

While the girl might have been tough and capable of giving Calamity a hard and rowdy fight, she did not have the chance. There was no time to think of fair play or giving the other girl an even break. Calamity timed her move just right and watching it, Resin had to admit he could not have done better.

In dealing with the girl, Calamity used her head—literally. She hurled herself forward as the Indian approached, ramming her head in a vicious butt full into the pit of the other girl’s stomach. So suddenly and unexpectedly did the attack come that the Indian could not scream or even think before Calamity’s head caught her in the belly, dropping her in a doubled-over, winded heap, the hat flying from her head and the torch and pitcher falling from her hands as she went down. Calamity followed the girl down, digging fingers into her hair and flipping her on to her back, then dropping to kneel astride her. Drawing up the girl’s head, Calamity brought around her other fist, driving it into the girl’s jaw. One blow was all Calamity needed and the Indian girl went limp, then flopped to the ground. Seeing no further action would be needed, Calamity rose to her feet.

‘What now?’ breathed Resin, catching up the torch and tossing it into the water, then scuffing out the blazing ground it left.

‘Got me a right fool notion,’ Calamity answered, dragging the girl into a sitting position and starting to remove Bigelow’s jacket.

‘Such as?’

‘How can we find out if there’s a guard in Wade’s tipi. I aim to go in and look; dressed like a squaw—this one.’

While he claimed that it took plenty to surprise him, Resin could not hold down his startled grunt.

‘How’d you mean, gal?’

‘Easy enough. I’m fixing to wear her clothes, walk around the side of the tipi and through its door. You be waiting out back and when I signal you’ll know you can come in. Now turn your back while I undress her,’

‘Spoilsport,’ grinned the scout.

‘Likely, only I hate competition, as Eileen would say.’

Calamity found little difficulty in undressing the other girl, for an Indian’s doeskin dress was simply made and its wearer never bothered with underclothing. Dropping the naked, still unconscious body back to the ground, Calamity looked at the dress. A further thought came to her and she drew the Green River knife. Bending, she slashed off the girl’s two hair braids over their fastenings. Then yet another thought came, the solution of which ought to please Resin.

‘Cut the legs of my pants off over the knee,’ she ordered. ‘Move it. The squaw’s stirring and we want her hawg-tied afore she wakes.’

Working fast, Resin slit Calamity’s pants legs up the seams, then around the leg maybe a mite higher than was necessary. One could not blame him for that. However, he wasted no time in admiring the view, but turned to make a start at tying up their prisoner, using the trouser legs as rope and his own bandana as a gag.

‘Sure hope she’s not loused out with seam-squirrels like most Injuns,’ Calamity stated as she drew the dress on over her clothes. ‘And stop looking like you’re enjoying your work, damn you.’

‘Me, honey?’ replied the scout, just as quietly as Calamity. ‘Now do you reckon I’d enjoy hawg-tying a gal?’

‘Likely,’ Calamity sniffed, putting on Bigelow’s jacket over the dress.

After slitting the dress to allow access to the knife or Colt, Calamity donned the campaign hat and thrust the two severed braids into position so they hung down from under it in a nearly natural manner.

‘Legs are a mite pale,’ Resin told her, having completed the securing of the Indian girl. ‘Happen you keep to the shadows, it might work. You scared?’

‘As hell.’

‘And me. Let’s go.’

Carrying the pitcher. Calamity headed towards the camp, Resin drifting on silent feet behind her. On entering the rough cluster of tipis which surrounded the open circle around the council fire, Calamity and Resin decided their guess had been correct, that all the camp were attending the pow-wow. At last they reached a buffalo-hide tipi on the very inner edge of the cluster and came to a halt.

‘This’s the one,’ Resin breathed in Calamity’s ear.

‘I’ll go ‘round the front and in,’ she replied no louder. ‘Reckon boys and gals do in heaven, Beau?’

‘Happen things go wrong. gal. we stand a fair chance of finding out, if you get there first, stay clear of them boy angels.’

‘First gal angel looks two ways at you get’s hand-scalped and wing-plucked.’ Calamity warned and sucked in a deep breath. ‘See you, Beau, one place or the other.’

Lifting the pitcher on to her shoulder so it hid her face, Calamity walked around the curve of the tent and into the fire light’s glow. This was the moment of truth, the supreme testing time for her simple disguise. In seconds, Calamity would be into the tent—or well on the way to being dead.

Somehow, illogically, perhaps. Calamity did not expect to be detected. So far luck had gone their way. The finding of the camp; the capture of the girl; the fact that this was a raiding party and did not have married squaws, children or dogs that might not have been at the council fire and so could have seen the intruders and raised the alarm; all those things seemed to be good omens to Calamity. Even the very fact that Wade H. Bigelow still lived might point to destiny not wishing him to die yet awhile.

Yes; one way and another Calamity reckoned luck was on their side. Which, while comforting, did not make the long—it seemed hellish long to Calamity—walk around the side of the tipi and to its door through the fire-light any the shorter or more pleasant.

Her eyes flickered to the council fire and the Indians gathered around it. At any second one of them might turn and see her, but none did. Every Cheyenne eye stayed on the war-bonnet chief with the yellow-ochre-covered face and the Dragoon Colt in his waistband. Sand Runner stood addressing them, but Calamity did not know enough Cheyenne to understand his message to his assembled people.

The entrance to the tipi lay ahead, four strides, three, two—she was there! Now Calamity would really see how her luck was going. If there should be a guard in the tent, she must silence him before he could give any outcry. Lowering the pitcher, she slid the Green River knife from it and ducked into the tipi.

Clad in his shirt, pants and boots, Bigelow lay in the centre of the tipi. He was trussed like a fowl for cooking—no Indian ever gave a prisoner a chance to slide free of his bonds—and his face showed the suffering the tight cords caused him. But, and this was most important, he had the tipi to himself. Clearly the Cheyenne figured that he could not escape and so did not bother to guard him.

‘Hold it down, Wade, boy!’ Calamity breathed, crossing the tipi and kicking its rear side.

Much to his amazement, Bigelow saw a knife blade drive through the tipi side near where Calamity kicked, cutting downwards. Even before Resin made his entrance, Calamity was slashing Bigelow’s bonds.

‘Want a gag, Wade?’ Resin asked. ‘It’ll hurt like hell when the blood starts flowing again.’

Weakly Bigelow shook his head. He might have been a damned fool to get into this mess in the first place, but he reckoned he could show courage. Within seconds of the circulation starting normal pumping Bigelow began to wish he had taken the gag. However, he gritted his teeth and held down the moans which welled in him. Calamity knelt by him, chafing his limbs, soothing him and whispering encouragement of a profane and uncomplimentary nature.

‘We’ll stay on a spell,’ Resin told the other two, seeing Bigelow would be in no shape to travel anyway. ‘Likely nobody’Il bother you for a spell. They been at you yet?’

‘No. Sand Runner’s girl-friend helped herself to my hat and jacket, as you seem to know. The rest of my belongings are there. The war-bonnet chief who acted as Sand Runner’s interpreter insisted they were left and returned with me. He and Sand Runner don’t get on very well.’

‘Bear Trailer’s a Cheyenne of the old school, even if he’s been to mission school,’ Resin explained, moving to the door and cautiously peering out. ‘He—’

‘What is it—’ Calamity breathed, moving to Resin’s side and listening to Sand Runner’s voice.

‘He’s asking where Fire-Rose is. That’ll be the gal we caught. Calam, gal, it looks like old Ka-Dih done stopped siding us.’

Any moment now the search for the missing girl would begin. Once she was found, it was unlikely to take Sand Runner long to figure out why she had been caught and hog-tied.

‘Get your gun, Wade,’ Resin ordered and the captain crawled to where his weapon belt lay.

A yell went up from among the Cheyenne and one pointed off into the darkness. For a horrible, shocking moment Calamity and Resin thought that the Indian girl had escaped from her bonds. Then they realised that the man did not point in any direction from which the girl might be expected to come. Sick and sore as she was likely to be, the girl would have headed straight for the camp, not swung around in a half circle.

Hooves clattered, shod hooves as a clink of steel striking a rock told the listeners, harness leather creaked and wheels rumbled. The sound told a grim story to Calamity and Resin, range-wise in such matters. While an Indian might ride a stolen or captured shod horse until its shoes fell off, he would never bother to shoe one; once in a while the Indian might even use a white man’s saddle; but he never troubled to harness a horse to a wagon.

So who came towards the Cheyenne’s hidden camp in a wagon?

One thing was for sure. The visitor appeared to be expected, or at least friendly, for the Cheyenne showed no fear, only eager anticipation.

A two-horse, light wagon entered the camp, passing from the trees through the tipi circle, by where Calamity, Resin and Bigelow crouched watching and came to a halt just beyond the entrance to their hiding place. In passing, the wagon’s driver gave Calamity’s party a chance to study him. He was a tall, bulky, bearded man wearing buckskins and having the appearance of a hide-hunter. Yet he did not make his money shooting buffalo; such a man would never be welcomed into an Indian camp.

‘Howdy, Sandy Runner,’ the man greeted, standing up and lifting a small keg from the box at his side. ‘Got you a fine selection of rifles, bullets, powder and lead.’

‘A lousy renegade!’ Bigelow hissed, fortunately being drowned out by the mumble of anticipation which rose from the watching Cheyenne.

Before the young officer could burst from the tent, Resin had caught him by the arm and held him.

‘Not yet, Wade, happen you want to get back to Molly.’

Despite his professed disinclination to meet and speak with white people, Sand Runner rose and advanced to greet the renegade.

‘They’d best be good rifles this time, Bernstein.’

‘You got the money for them?’

‘We’ll have it tomorrow,’ promised Sand Runner, speaking in good and remarkably accent-free English.

Fact being he appeared to handle the English language with greater facility than he spoke Cheyenne. At that moment everything became clear to Resin; the reason for Sand Runner’s apparent un-Indian ways and mannerisms; his reluctance to meet white people; the repeated requests for money; all were now explained.

Sand Runner was a white man!

Maybe a deserter from the Army, fleeing from some real or imagined injustice; perhaps a criminal on the run from the law; perhaps; even an ideologist who regarded the Indians as down-trodden martyrs. Whatever the reason, in some way he had become adopted by the Cheyenne and risen to war chief by virtue of his fighting prowess and skill in the arts of killing the hated white brother.

Not that any of the watching trio wasted time in trying to decide why a white man should turn against his own people in such a manner; being more concerned with thoughts of escape—if possible after destroying the wagon-load of firearms and ammunition.

Jumping from the wagon, the bearded man slouched towards the fire, carrying the keg in his arms.

‘I’ll see you made comfortable for the night,’ Sand Runner told him. ‘Got some cute lil gals. Hey, where in hell’s Fire Rose?’

‘Forget her and have a snort of redeye,’ growled the renegade. ‘I’ll throw in the first barrel free, just to give your boys the taste,’

‘Do that. And when they’re good and likkered, I want to see my bank account book to make sure you paid in the last money I sent east.’

‘It’s in the wagon. I’ll get it for you. Anybody’d think you didn’t trust me, or something.’

‘I don’t. Come on, let’s open the barrel.’

‘This’s our chance,’ Resin hissed as the two men returned to the fire and opened the top of the keg. With the prospect of free whisky, none of the Indians were likely to take their eyes away from the liquor’s owner and container.

‘Let me go first,’ Calamity suggested.

Before either of the men could confirm or deny the request, Calamity slipped from the tipi and to the rear of the wagon. The canopy at the rear had been lashed down, but the Green River knife made nothing of the securing ropes and she quickly lifted the cover to look inside. Despite having a pair of good, fast and powerful horses harnessed to it, the wagon did not carry a heavy load. Which did not entirely surprise Calamity. A man following the dishonourable business of trading whisky and guns to the Indians never loaded his wagon to the extent of slowing it down and rendering it incapable of outrunning pursuit.

Swinging up into the wagon, Calamity removed the hat, jacket and dress, then crept towards the box. Just as she expected, the bearded man’s whip lay upon the seat and the reins curled around the canopy’s forward support. A faint scuffling sound behind her heralded the arrival of Bigelow and he crept forward to the girl’s side, crouching down by her, his eyes following the direction of her nod. Deftly he drew his Colt and checked it was still loaded and capped in four chambers. A couple of minutes dragged by before Resin saw his chance and ran to the wagon, climbing in and crouching by the other two.

‘I’ll slash the ribbons, grab them and the whip, and start this old wagon rolling,’ Calamity suggested.

‘Hold hard there, gal!’ Resin whispered, moving back along the wagon and bending over the kegs. ‘Let me find one with powder in it, then run us close by the fire.’

‘Sure,’ Calamity replied.

An inch at a time, moving slowly and cautiously, Calamity drew the whip into the wagon and shook it loose. While it weighed a mite heavier than her own, she reckoned she might be able to handle it with no trouble. Next she unfastened the reins and gripped them between the strong capable fingers of her left hand. Now Calamity was all set to do her part and just waited for the word.

Resin had found what he wanted, a twenty-five pound keg of gunpowder. Taking out his Ames knife, he tried to separate a couple of the keg’s staves but the cooper who made it knew his business and they held firm. Which meant he had to drop it right on, or very close to the flames if he hoped to create the desired diversion. Still holding the knife, Resin hefted the keg in his hands and turned his head.

‘Let her go, Calam!’

‘YEEEAH!’

Letting out a screech near on loud enough to wake the dead, Calamity bounded on to the wagon box, swung the whip in an explosive pop over the head of the team and booted free the brake. Already restless, the high-spirited team horses lunged forward with a heave that jerked the wagon into motion like a cork plucked from a bottle.

Instantly pandemonium reigned around the camp fire. Few if any of the Cheyenne had other than knives with them at the pow-wow and even those who bore arms did not find a chance to use them in the confusion. Women screamed, clung to their men, or fled. Warriors bounded to their feet, cannoning into each other like so many pool balls and none knew for sure just what to do.

Bigelow added to the confusion by starting to throw lead with both hands. Not that he went in for any fancy aiming, but merely sprayed into the brown in the direction of Sand Runner and the renegade. Once more the gods of war favoured the white folks, for a bullet from the Army Colt in Bigelow’s right hand tore through the renegade’s throat. Sand Runner’s own luck held. A brave at his right went down with a Navy ball in his chest, the renegade fell at the other side, a bullet ripped a couple of eagle feathers from his hair, but he remained unharmed and Bigelow was carried by him on the rushing wagon.

A naked brave, knife in hand, sprang from a tipi followed by a screaming, naked girl. Howling his kill-or-die shout, the brave hurled himself forward, meaning to try to halt the wagon by knifing the nearer of the horses. He came on the side away from Bigelow and Calamity knew there would be no time to attract the captain’s attention and change his target. Being a resourceful young woman, Calamity did not waste time. Back drew her whip hand, sending the lash flying forward. The borrowed whip had a different feel from her own, but she let fly just the same.

Although Calamity’s aim proved to be a mite off, she could not argue against the results. Actually the Indian might have counted himself real lucky, for the whip curled around his knife wrist and snapped it like a rotten twig—instead of circling his neck and hauling him forward under the wagon’s wheels.

With the menace handled, Calamity concentrated on driving the team. Already they had passed the fire and were headed for the darkness.

At the rear of the wagon Resin stood gripping the powder keg and his knife in between his hands. A Cheyenne brave sprang for and caught hold of the rear of the wagon. swinging himself up. Without releasing the keg. Resin brought up his foot and stamped on the red face, pitching the brave over backwards. Then, with a swing of his powerful arms, the big scout hurled the powder keg in the direction of the fire. However, the awkward manner in which he held keg and knife prevented him getting quite enough distance in his throw. The keg landed, bounced and rolled into the embers, but not on to the naked flames.

Just as Resin decided to speed the explosion by shooting into the keg, he saw a familiar figure. A yellow-ochre face twisted into a devil-mask of hatred glared at Resin and a hand raised an old Dragoon Colt. There was no time to draw a gun. Resin whipped back his hand, gripping the Ames knife for a throw. Down came the hand, fire-light glinted on flying steel and the knife sped at Sand Runner’s body. If he had been less interested in trying to stop the wagon. Sand Runner might have avoided the throw. So intent was he on stopping the departure of the arms—and his bank-book, that he took a chance. Which was when his medicine ran out. The Ames knife drove down just over his waistbelt and sank almost hilt deep in his belly. Even so, he triggered off one shot that fanned wind by Resin’s ear in passing on through the top of the wagon’s canopy. He doubled over, clutching the knife to jerk it from his body and hurl it aside. Turning, he staggered blindly towards the council fire.

Then the powder keg blew!

With a roar like thunder and a sheet of flame that lit up the night and was seen at the distant wagon train, the keg, heated by the fire, exploded. It threw flaming wood into the air as the fire shattered, and pitched Indians off their feet by the blast. The wagon’s team hit their harness so hard in their panic to get away from the noise that they lifted its wheels from the ground and almost threw the three occupants out; then, man, did those two horses run, tearing through the wood like the devil after a yearling. Nor were they the only horses to run. The Cheyenne remuda came from sleeping to terrified wakefulness and the herd boys had no more chance of stopping the wild stampede than they would have had of stopping water flowing downhill. One thing was for sure, there would be no Indian pursuit that night.

Muldoon heard the explosion and fought to restrain his panic-stricken horses, but could only hold the Appaloosa and one more. Curses sputtered from his lips as the other animals raced away. With old cavalry skill, he brought the two remaining horses under control.

‘Muldoon!’ roared a voice. ‘This way, as fast as you can come.’

Leaping afork his horse, and leading the Appaloosa, Muldoon galloped into the night, heading for the distant sound of a wagon travelling at speed. He did not even start to imagine how Resin and Calamity came to be using a wagon, reckoned he might learn soon enough.

Calamity would never know for sure how she managed to steer the fear-crazed horses through the wood. Yet she did so. They crashed through the stream, flattened a few bushes, scraped a tree or two, then were out on the open range.

‘I got the renegade,’ Bigelow announced with some Satisfaction as Calamity brought the team under control.

‘And I got Sand Runner, me’n’ the explosion between us,’ Resin said.

‘You sound a mite sad, Beau,’ Calamity remarked.

‘Am a mite, gal. I’ll never be able to replace that old Ames knife.’

‘I’ve just thought,’ Bigelow went on, his voice flat and emotionless. ‘I will have to face a court of inquiry to explain how the hell I was captured.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MISS CANARY IS A WITNESS

‘WADE!’ Never would Calamity forget the sound of Molly’s voice as the wagon came to a halt outside the circle in the early light of the dawn. Nor the sight of the sedate, modest little schoolteacher springing from her uncle’s Conestoga and running forward clad only in a flimsy nightdress which did not conceal as well as the more conventional flannel bedwear what lay underneath.

The explosion had woken the camp and people peered from their wagons, then started to climb out and make their way towards Calamity’s party. Molly, oblivious of everything except that her beloved Wade had come back to her, flung her arms around the captain’s neck and kissed him. Nobody could blame Bigelow for grabbing a good double armful of his sweetheart and kissing her back.

‘All right, folks,’ Calamity snapped as people began to gather and stare at the lovers. ‘Let’s get back to our wagons, shall we?’

Her orders received backing from Resin and Muldoon, both of whom could turn a blistering phrase when needed and were used to enforcing their will on other folk. While the men held back the crowd, Calamity managed to separate the lovers and haze Molly back to the wagon with orders to get dressed afore she started every man on the train going love-sick.

Not until some time later did Calamity remember her own appearance. She had headed for Killem’s fire and noticed the way the men glanced down at her feet, as she thought, and grinned broadly.

‘As a fashion I can’t see it ever catching on,’ said Eileen’s voice from the wagon.

‘Huh?’ Calamity grunted.

‘The new style pants.’

Looking down, Calamity realised that she still wore the legless levis and for once in her life felt embarrassed. With an angry, squealing blanket curse at the grinning men, she dashed to the wagon and changed into a more conventional—Calamity’s own convention, that is—pair of pants.

Over breakfast Resin told the wagonmaster, Killem and Grade what had happened at the Cheyenne camp.

‘Get your boys out to take a good look ‘round,’ the scout suggested. ‘It’s my reckoning that the explosion stampeded the Cheyenne remuda to hell and gone and they’ll not get enough hosses back to come and try to re-take the arms wagon.’

‘Probably,’ Grade agreed. ‘You know, Beau, the colonel at Sherrard’s not going to look too hard at why Wade got himself captured when he hears what you’ve accomplished between you.’

‘That’s likely,’ agreed Resin. ‘Happen Sand Runner had come through with all these arms, he could have set this whole damned territory on fire.’

‘And he was a white man.’

‘Yep.’

‘I’d like to take a look through that book he mentioned,’ Grade said.

‘Wade’s got it, though how in hell he expects to find time to read it and convince Molly he’s all right, I’ll never know.’

Scouts went out and made a thorough search of the area, seeing no sign of the Cheyenne. So the wagon train resumed its journey at the usual hour, carrying on westwards. Eileen sat on the box of Calamity’s wagon, handling the ribbons and allowing the red-head to catch some sleep. With the well-trained team, Eileen found no difficulty in keeping the wagon moving over the gently rolling, open plains through which they travelled.

Along towards noon there came an interruption to the journey.

A shot roared out from behind a rim and Bear Trailer, the interpreting war-bonnet chief rode into sight, his rifle held in peace fashion. Leaving the wagon where he bad been sleeping, Resin borrowed a horse and rode to meet the advancing chief, wondering what had brought the other to the train.

‘Damned Comanche!’ grunted the chief, a twinkle in his eyes that belied his expressionless face. ‘You plenty spoiled Sand Runner’s medicine this time.’

‘You found him then?’

‘All over the camp.’

Neither man spoke for a time, but sat facing each other; hereditary enemies from the days when the white men first began his abuses against the Indian yet each capable of admiring the other as a fighter and a man.

‘Didn’t hurt you, did we?’ asked Resin.

‘A few bruises, nothing more,’ answered the chief and reached behind him to pull something from his waistbelt. ‘Reckon maybe you’d want this.’

For once in his life the taciturn, unemotional scout almost let out a whoop of joy as he stared at the object in Bear Trailer’s hand. Only a thousand Ames knives had been made and were issued to the 3rd Cavalry back in the days when they went under the name of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen, Resin had obtained his from a dead trooper at the Battle of Shilo during the War Between the States, taken a fancy to its heft and balance and retained it. One grew used to a good knife and Resin thought his Ames to be gone for ever and irreplaceable as the company no longer existed. Yet there the knife lay, in Bear Trailer’s hand, its hilt pointing towards him.

‘You treated me with honour, Tshaoh,’ the chief said. ‘I bring your knife.’

‘My thanks, Bear Trailer,’ said the scout, taking and sheathing the knife. ‘What do you do now?’

‘Go back to our people. The men have no wish for war and we must think of the future. Goodbye, Tshaoh, one called Bear Trailer will not forget you.’

‘Ride warily, brother,’ Resin answered and took out his filled tobacco pouch. ‘May the smoke remind you of me.’

With that the two men parted. Maybe the next time they met one or the other would die, but that did not mean they would ever lose their respect for a bold, noble, fighting man.

Although Bigelow listened to Grade and Eileen telling him he had nothing to fear, each mile he came nearer to Fort Sherrard the more he thought of thç court of inquiry he must face. It was all very well for Grade and Eileen to say the colonel would overlook his capture and think only of the death of the renegade, recovery of arms and ending of a major raiding party of hostile Cheyenne. Neither of them gave a thought to the fact that Bigelow belonged to the Quartermaster Corps and had hoped to obtain a transfer to the cavalry regiment at Sherrard. No colonel would willingly take an officer stupid enough to let himself be captured by the Indians.

Then one day the fort came into sight. A cavalry escort had come out the previous day and a rider returned with Bigelow’s full report. It also took a letter from Eileen to her husband and a second from the young lady to the colonel. The results of Eileen’s letters showed when the train pulled in at just before noon.

‘Captain Bigelow?’ said the officer of the day. ‘The colonel presents his compliments, and asks you to dine with him. The court of inquiry into your report will be held at three o’clock.’

‘Well, Molly,’ Bigelow said, taking the girl’s hands in his. ‘We’ll know by four whether your husband is still in employment or not.’

‘You won’t be my husband until five,’ she replied. ‘And I don’t care which way things go, as long as we’re together.’

‘We’ll be that. Here’s Eileen and her husband now.’

Captain Tradle, tall, handsome and more masterful than Eileen could ever remember, exchanged salutes with Bigelow and grinned. ‘You’re a blasted nuisance, Wade, why didn’t you hold back your report for a few days, Eileen and I were going—deer-hunting—for a three-day pass and now we’ve got to wait until after the court of inquiry. Congratulations, we’ve been after that renegade for some time now, and expecting Sand Runner to blow the whole territory apart and you’ve nailed them both. Come on. we’re all invited to dine with the colonel and his wife looks disapproving if her guests don’t arrive promptly.’

‘Is Calamity coming?’ Molly asked Eileen as they walked off together.

‘She excused herself,’ Eileen explained. ‘Said she was so damned scared at having to go witness at the court of inquiry that she daren’t come.’

For a scared girl Calamity looked mighty cool, calm and collected as she sat at the long table and faced the board of officers assigned to investigate Bigelow’s report. There was none of the awe-inspiring ceremonial seriousness of a court martial, the officers did not wear their best parade dress but sat in their working clothes, and the evidence was not given on oath. Anyhow, Calamity had never been a girl unduly worried by atmosphere. So she gave her evidence in a clear voice that bore the ring of pure, driven truth.

‘So you say that you and Miss Johnson went for a joy-ride while the men skinned out and dressed the buffalo,’ said the major in command after hearing the girl’s ‘truthful’ account of the incident, ‘and that Captain Bigelow came after you, then sacrificed himself to prevent the Cheyenne finding you.’

‘Yep!’ she replied, meeting his eye without flinching.

‘That is not what Captain Bigelow told us.’

‘Likely. He’s an officer and a gentleman, so wouldn’t want to show a couple of gals as having made a damned fool mistake. Nor would any of you!’

Grins flickered on to at least three faces and Captain Tradle went so far as to give Calamity a quick wink. However, one of the board of officers had to be a green young shavetail second-lieutenant on his first court of inquiry and full of remembrance o lectures on court procedure received at West Point. Being more inclined than the others to treat the matter seriously—after all, they were cavalry officers dealing with a mere shiny-butt—he did not smile.

‘Would Miss Canary give the same evidence under oath?’ he asked.

Grins died away and frowns took their place, promising extra officer-of-the-day and other onerous duties in the near future.

‘There is no need to go into extremes. Mr. Bolroyd,’ the major growled. ‘I accept Miss Canary’s st—evidence.’

Even a green shavetail with the mud of West Point hardly worn from his boots knew better than argue with a major, especially one holding the brevet rank of brigadier-general and next in line for command of their mutual regiment.

‘Yes, sir,’ Bolroyd said.

Taking up Bigelow’s report in one hand, the major extracted a pipe from his blouse, thrust its stem into his mouth and produced a match which he lit on his trousers seat.

‘Our friend Sand Runner appears to have made a fair profit over the past two years, according to his bank-book, but it gives no clue to his real identity. I think we will leave the disposal of his ill-gotten gains to the Adjutant-General’s department.’

While speaking, the major accidentally allowed the light of his match to come into contact with Bigelow’s neatly-written report. Even as the paper took fire, Tradle threw over his chair and came to his feet. First he rammed his elbow hard into the eager young Bolroyd’s ribs and staggered the young gentleman to one side; then, to make further sure of the safety of the report, grabbed at and knocked over the water jug.

‘That was clumsy of me,’ said Captain Tradle. ‘I’m afraid your report’s gone, Wade.’

‘The moral of which, gentlemen,’ the major went on, ‘is never smoke on duty. Now, I think we can say that no further action need be taken against Captain Bigelow and that he acted in the finest traditions of the U.S. Cavalry. I would also suggest that when he re-submits his report, he keeps it to matters of military interest, such as the death of the renegade and Sand Runner, the capture of the arms wagon and the disbanding of the Cheyenne war band. Anything else smacks of self-advertisement and I object to any officer assigned or transferred to my command acting in such a manner.’ He paused and ground the ashes of the report to powder under his thumb, then took out his watch. ‘Gentlemen, the time is four o’clock and I have it on good authority that my wife and Mrs. Tradle plan to give us all hell if we make Captain Bigelow’s wedding start late. Dismissed.’

Outside the building used for the court Bigelow left his fellow officers and walked up to Calamity.

‘Calam,’ he said. ‘I’ve never kissed a bare-faced liar before. But I aim to right now.’

‘Then get to kissing afore either Beau or Molly gets here,’ Calamity challenged, and much to her surprise he scooped her in his arms and gave her a kiss.

‘Now get the hell to the colonel’s house. Molly’s got a surprise for you,’ Bigelow ordered when he released the girl.

Which proved to be one hell of an understatement as Calamity discovered on entering an upstairs room of the colonel’s house. She found herself surrounded by Molly, Eileen, Russian Olga and Mrs. Bloom and something told her she was not going to like what they had in mind. Her eyes went to a white dress lying on the bed, it looked a mite too large for M—

‘Oh no!’ Calamity yelped.

‘Oh yes,’ Eileen replied, rolling up her sleeves in a determined manner. ‘We’ve decided you’re going to be a bridesmaid. Do you put on the dress, or do we do it the hard way?’

Seeing the grim determination on each face, Calamity had the good sense to yell ‘calf rope.’ So it came about that, looking all sweet, innocent and virginal in a white gown, Calamity joined Eileen as bridesmaid and matron-of-honour at the wedding of Miss Molly Amelia Johnson and Captain Wade H. Bigelow, recently, very recently, transferred to the 6th U.S. Cavalry. If anybody noticed that a pair of Indian moccasins hid under Calamity’s gown, they did not mention the fact. There were some sacrifices Calamity refused to make.

Being its first ever wedding, Fort Sherrard set out to celebrate it in style and make sure it be an event never forgotten. There was entertainment, dancing, all the liquor anybody, even the mighty Muldoon, could handle and a good time was had by all. However, the bride and groom disappeared before midnight—and who can blame them. Roughly at the same time Captain and Mrs. Tradle left to start a three-day deer-hunting trip based on the cabin which would be their home while at Sherrard. Two other noticeable absentees being a lady freighter called Martha Jane Canary and a bone-tough plains Scout by name Beauregard Chesley Ryan Resin.

At nine o’clock the following morning Mrs. Tradle, Mrs. Bigelow and Miss Canary gathered in Eileen’s new home’s dining-room for breakfast.

‘It was wonderful,’ Molly breathed, sinking into a chair with a blissful sigh.

‘It sure was,’ agreed Eileen, dreamy-eyed at the thought of two more days of—deer-hunting.

‘Yep,’ Calamity finished. ‘If the good Lord made men for anything better, he kept it to himself. Not that I’d know about it, of course.’

‘Of course,’ chorused the other two. Then Eileen went on, ‘How about you and Beau?’

‘His train goes on to California, they can’t spare him, and Dobe’s outfit’s headed east, which same he needs me to handle my wagon.’

Calamity’s friends thought they detected a wistful note in her voice and felt a married woman’s superior pity for an unmarried friend. Before they could start to express their thoughts, a knock came at the door and Eileen opened it to admit Dobe Killem. The big freighter held a sheet of paper and his face bore a wide grin.

‘Rider just come in from Connel, Calam, gal,’ he said, after greeting the assembled ladies. ‘The Army’s done give us a contract to go back to St. Jo and down river to New Orleans to collect ‘em a bunch of hosses.’

‘New Orleans!’ whooped Calamity. ‘When do we start?’

‘So much for our concern over the poor girl losing her man,’ sighed Molly.

From outside came the rumbling of a wagon, then others as the train started once more on its way west. Calamity did not offer to rise and walk to the window to see them go. Sure they had been her friends, maybe Beau had been a mite more than a friend. Likely she and the big scout might never meet again. Neither of them went much for saying goodbye and had parted that morning knowing their paths could cross again or not, depending on fate.

Already Calamity was thinking of the old French city of New Orleans, she had never been to such a fancy place and wondered what it held in store for her. That was ever Calamity’s way. Never live in the past. Yesterday was gone forever, only tomorrow lay ahead and who knew what tomorrow would bring?

At the head of the train Beau Resin thought of Calamity and grinned. Now there was a gal to remember. He sure hoped old Ka-Dih would fix it so their paths crossed again some time while both were young and lusty enough to enjoy it. Slouching easily in his saddle, he listened to the voices of the train’s children lifted in a mighty appropriate song.

‘Calamity, Calamity,

The best danged gal you ever did see,

There’ll never be, there’ll never be,

Another gal like Calamity,’

COMANCHE by J. T. EDSON

His grandfather was Long Walker, famed war chief in the Pehnanne band of the Comanche nation. Although the Pehnanne medicine man named him Louncey Dalton Ysabel to his people he was Cuchilo The Knife. When the Mexicans along the Rio Grande came to know him, they called him el Cabrito, The Kid. Among the Texans he gained yet another name . . . they called him the Ysabel Kid.

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Table of Contents

TROUBLE TRAIL

1. MISS CANARY HOPES TO TAKE A BATH

2. MISS CANARY MEETS AN OFFICER’S LADY

3. MISS CANARY MEETS A SCHOOLMARM

4. MISS CANARY ATTENDS A BALL

5. MISS CANARY INCREASES AN OFFICER’S LADY’S ENMITY

6. MISS CANARY TAKES A CHANCE

7. MISS CANARY MEETS A LADY PUGILIST

8. MISS CANARY HANDS OUT ADVICE

9. MISS CANARY GOES TO WAR

10. MISS CANARY RECEIVES A COMPLIMENT

11. MISS CANARY HUNTS BUFFALO

12. MISS CANARY HEARS AN ULTIMATUM

13. MISS CANARY TAKES A WAGON RIDE

14. MISS CANARY IS A WITNESS