Plans for Escape

Yet he knew that somehow it was different now--the personal element had entered unwelcomed, into the equation. Sitting there in the dark, Gonzales' body crumpled on the floor at his feet, and Moylan lying stiff and cold along the back seat, with this girl grasping his sleeve in trust, she remained no longer merely the Major's daughter--she had become herself. And she did not seem to care and did not seem to realize that there were barriers of rank, which under other circumstances must so utterly separate them. She liked him, and frankly told him so, not as she would dismiss an inferior with kindness, but as though he was an equal, as though he was a gentleman. Somehow the very tone of her voice, the clinging touch of her hand, sent the blood pumping through his veins. Something besides duty inspired him; he was no longer merely a soldier, but had suddenly become transformed into a man. Years of repression, of iron discipline, were blotted out, and he became even as his birthright made him. "Molly McDonald," "Molly McDonald," he whispered the name unconsciously to himself. Then his eyes caught the distant flicker of Indian fire, and his teeth locked savagely.

There was something else to do besides dream. Because the girl had spoken pleasantly was no reason why he should act the fool. Angry at himself, he gripped his faculties, and faced the situation, aroused, intent. He must save himself--and her! But how? What plan promised any possibility of success? He had their surroundings in a map before his eyes. His training had taught him to note and remember what others would as naturally neglect. He was a soldier of experience, a plainsman by long training, and even in the fierceness of the Indians' attack on the stage his quick glance had completely visualized their surroundings. He had not appreciated this at the time, but now the topography of the immediate region was unrolled before him in detail; yard by yard it reappeared as though photographed. He saw the widely rutted trail, rounding the bluff at the right a hundred yards away, curving sharply down the slope and then disappearing over the low hill to the left, a slight stream trickling along its base. Below, the short buffalo-grass, sunburned and brittle, ran to the sandy edge of the river, which flowed silently in a broad, shallow, yellow flood beneath the star gleam. Under the protection of that bank, but somewhat to the left, where a handful of stunted cottonwood trees had found precarious foothold in the sand, gleamed the solitary Indian fire. About its embers, no doubt, squatted the chiefs and older warriors, feasting and taking council, while the younger bucks lay, rifles in hand, along the night-enshrouded slope, their cruel, vengeful eyes seeking to distinguish the outlines of the coach against the black curtain of the bluff.