Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Still Hunt; Or, The Robber of the Range - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 7

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Pioneer Post was a gem as a frontier post, for it was charmingly located upon a bluff overhanging a river, with sloping hills stretching down from the plateau on the summit to the plains below, and a vast expanse of scenery upon every side.

Strongly built, it was well armed and an ideal fort. Many officers had their families there, and Colonel Dunwoody, the bachelor commandant, had a most hospitable staff, while he was ever ready to add to the enjoyment and comfort of those under his command.

He was a handsome man, who had been promoted from lieutenant to the rank of colonel for services rendered in action. He was a perfect soldier, a thorough disciplinarian, and though having the means to live in luxury in the fort, he yet was ready to put up with the greatest hardships in the field.

There was an officers’ club in the fort, a ladies’ club, and with polo, lawn-tennis, rowing on the river, hunting, riding, and fishing-parties, life passed most pleasantly to all, notwithstanding the fact that danger was constantly near, and the shadow of death often came into their midst.

The garrison was a large one, and there were numerous belles and beaux in the military family of the colonel. There was one bachelor captain of cavalry, Dick Caruth, who was a general favorite with all, and considered a fine parti by mothers with daughters in the matrimonial mart, for he was a very handsome, daring fellow, with a fortune and the hope of speedy promotion.

Lieutenant Vassar Turpin, the colonel’s aide, was another catch, and there were half a dozen more.

Among the ladies were two who were known as the Rivals. One was Nina de Sutro, a Mexican maiden reared mostly in the United States, and who dwelt with her guardian and kinsman, Colonel Ravel de Sutro and his beautiful wife, who was also a native of the sunny land of Mexico.

It was no wonder that Nina de Sutro at twenty was a belle, for she was very beautiful, and she was brilliant and accomplished, though perhaps a little too satirical and bitter at times.

Her rival was Clarice Carr, a young lady who was as popular with her own sex as with the men. Those who made comparisons between Nina de Sutro and Clarice Carr were wont to decide almost invariably that the latter was the loveliest woman of the two.

She was highly accomplished, having passed much of her life abroad, was an artist, songstress, and musician, as well; while few men dared follow her lead when mounted. With a very large fortune under her control, she preferred to live with her old schoolmate and relative, Mrs. Lester, the wife of Major Lionel Lester, next officer in rank to Lieutenant-Colonel De Sutro at the fort.

“I love the free life of these Western wilds far more than all the gaieties of metropolitan life,” she was wont to say, and there was little doubt but she spoke the truth.

Thus far neither Clarice Carr nor Nina de Sutro had been won by any of their numerous lovers, and men began to fear that they had both taken secret vows to become old maids.

If a rivalry existed between the two, it was Nina, not Clarice, that revealed it, for the latter appeared to know no rival and to live for others rather more than herself.

She admired Nina de Sutro greatly, yet felt pained at times to hear her cut deeply when the opportunity offered, and often wound the one she gave the stinging rejoinder to, while, with a look or smile she would call him again to her side.

“She is a sad coquette, or heartless one, perhaps, and cannot help it. At times I fear she has had some great sorrow to embitter her life, and, if so, I pity her and could never reproach.”

So said Clarice Carr of Nina de Sutro to her confidante and devoted friend, Louise Lester.

“So I have thought, Clarice, and Lionel also suggested it, for she is all softness at times, and again almost cruel toward her admirers,” was Mrs. Lester’s comment.

When Silk Lasso Sam, in his disguise as the wounded passenger hero, Austin Marvin, had come to the fort, he had devoted himself at first to Nina de Sutro, and she claimed to have met him in Mexico, where he had saved her life.

But the secret of that meeting, the secret that was between them, she did not reveal, and he dared not do so.

But soon after he turned his attention to Clarice Carr, and it ended as the miner related to Bonnie Belle, in the leading of the maiden into a treacherous trap from which she would not have escaped without large ransom, but for Deadshot Dean’s tracking the outlaws to their lair, with Buffalo Bill.

When the maiden was rescued, and the outlaws brought prisoners into camp, the excitement was intense, and disciplined soldiers though they were, there were mutterings of such intense hatred heard against Silk Lasso Sam that a double guard was placed about him.

That they had all been most cleverly taken in, every officer had to admit, though they could not but admire the magnificent nerve and daring of the outlaw chief, who they realized was no ordinary man, and hoped that an end would soon come to his many red deeds when he died on the gallows.