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Lanty Foster’s Mistake
by
“Oh! yer there, are ye? Well–it’s the best place fer a girl–with all these man’s doin’s goin’ on! They’ve got that Mexican horse- thief and have tied him up in your filly’s stall in the barn–till the ‘Frisco deputy gets back from rounding up the others. So ye jest stay where ye are till they’ve come and gone, and we’re shut o’ all that cattle. Are ye mindin’?”
“All right, maw; ‘taint no call o’ mine, anyhow,” returned Lanty, through the half-open door.
At another time her mother might have been startled at her passive obedience. Still more would she have been startled had she seen her daughter’s face now, behind the closed door–with her little mouth set over her clenched teeth. And yet it was her own child, and Lanty was her mother’s real daughter; the same pioneer blood filled their veins, the blood that had never nourished cravens or degenerates, but had given itself to sprinkle and fertilize desert solitudes where man might follow. Small wonder, then, that this frontier-born Lanty, whose first infant cry had been answered by the yelp of wolf and scream of panther; whose father’s rifle had been leveled across her cradle to cover the stealthy Indian who prowled outside, small wonder that she should feel herself equal to these “man’s doin’s,” and prompt to take a part. For even in the first shock of the news of the capture she recalled the fact that the barn was old and rotten, that only that day the filly had kicked a board loose from behind her stall, which she, Lanty, had lightly returned to avoid “making a fuss.” If his captors had not noticed it, or trusted only to their guards, she might make the opening wide enough to free him!
Two hours later the guard nearest the now sleeping house, a farm hand of the Fosters’, saw his employer’s daughter slip out and cautiously approach him. A devoted slave of Lanty’s, and familiar with her impulses, he guessed her curiosity, and was not averse to satisfy it and the sense of his own importance. To her whispers of affected, half-terrified interest, he responded in whispers that the captive was really in the filly’s stall, securely bound by his wrists behind his back, and his feet “hobbled” to a post. That Lanty couldn’t see him, for it was dark inside, and he was sitting with his back to the wall, as he couldn’t sleep comf’ble lyin’ down. Lanty’s eyes glowed, but her face was turned aside.
“And ye ain’t reckonin’ his friends will come and rescue him?” said Lanty, gazing with affected fearfulness in the darkness.
“Not much! There’s two other guards down in the corral, and I’d fire my gun and bring ’em up.”
But Lanty was gazing open-mouthed towards the ridge. “What’s that wavin’ on the ridge?” she said in awe-stricken tones.
She was pointing to the petticoat,–a vague, distant, moving object against the horizon.
“Why, that’s some o’ the wash on the line, ain’t it?”
“Wash–TWO DAYS IN THE WEEK!” said Lanty sharply. “Wot’s gone of you?”
“Thet’s so,” muttered the man, “and it wan’t there at sundown, I’ll swear! P’r’aps I’d better call the guard,” and he raised his rifle.
“Don’t,” said Lanty, catching his arm. “Suppose it’s nothin’, they’ll laugh at ye. Creep up softly and see; ye ain’t afraid, are ye? If ye are, give me yer gun, and I’LL go.”
This settled the question, as Lanty expected. The man cocked his piece, and bending low began cautiously to mount the acclivity. Lanty waited until his figure began to fade, and then ran like fire to the barn.
She had arranged every detail of her plan beforehand. Crouching beside the wall of the stall she hissed through a crack in thrilling whispers, “Don’t move. Don’t speak for your life’s sake. Wait till I hand you back your knife, then do the best you can.” Then slipping aside the loosened board she saw dimly the black outline of curling hair, back, shoulders, and tied wrists of the captive. Drawing the knife from her pocket, with two strokes of its keen cutting edge she severed the cords, threw the knife into the opening, and darted away. Yet in that moment she knew that the man was instinctively turning towards her. But it was one thing to free a horse-thief, and another to stop and “philander” with him.