Field Marshal Robert Roberts

“ He reached England with an unrivalled reputation, and the public, which the events of the War had at last made aware of the defects of the British military system and training, expected great things from him. In his own special sphere of training troops for war Roberts certainly effected important reforms, and under him a new spirit of keenness and earnestness pervaded the army. A service dress was introduced, and shooting and field-training became of greater importance than pipe-clay and ceremonial, but his endeavours to reform the military system were ineffective. ”

“ F. H. S. Roberts, the only son of Lord Roberts, then Commander-in-Chief. Colonel Long, with the 14th and 66th Batteries of the Royal Field Artillery, had pressed forward to drive the Boers from their trenches along the bank of the Tugela, expecting to be supported by reinforcements. But under the deadly fire directed upon him he was obliged to retire, leaving many dead and wounded behind him, and leaving, too, twelve guns standing ready for use, with their breech-blocks still in them. ”

“ In 1856 Roberts was appointed to the quartermaster-general’s department of the staff, in which he remained for twenty-two years, passing from one grade to another until he became quartermaster-general in India. On the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857, Roberts, at first, was staff officer to the movable column operating against the mutineers in the Punjab, successively commanded by Colonels Neville Chamberlain and John Nicholson, but, towards the end of June, he joined the Delhi Field Force, and was deputy assistant quartermaster general with the artillery during the operations against Delhi. ”

“ A month later the regiment was severely engaged on the Bidassoa in the combat of Vera, and Roberts received a bullet in the back, which could not be extracted, and which incapacitated him for further service in the field. He retired from the army on 22 June 1815, and died at Havre in April 1819. ”

“ If she could not be strong now, what right had she to call herself a woman, or to love a man. She felt at his heart and found that he was alive. She saw that he was sorely wounded. She told herself that he had swooned from loss of blood, weariness, hunger,—but that he had lived, would live, must live. Then she dragged him further back into the grass, where he was hidden.
Calling Keep from the canoe, she sat down for a moment with Robert's head in her lap, and planned what should be done. He must not be found in Second Westings, that she knew. ”

“ The sheriff was pacing the floor of the office as his footfalls attested. “I’ve ordered that Lamy in to-morrow. I’ve a lot more questions to ask him. Well, you might as well get a few winks, constable; Brown and the rest of ’em have hit the hay. Even the prisoner is tired out, and that’s sayin’ something for as tough a bird as he is. But I wish I had his horse. I’ve got to have his horse!”
Rathburn was smiling at the wall. He heard Neal walk to the door and look in. Receding footsteps 81 told him that the constable was leaving. For a time there was silence in the outer office. ”

“ Webb pointed at it presently with his finger.
"What's that calaboose for, Charlie? It's for hoboes, pore harmless hoboes, and a drunk Mexican, but the élite" (he called it eelight) "of crime don't go thataway. As I get old I'm more for law."
He sighed and rose.
"D'ye think I'd hev rode over to Red River if I'd bin young with a right hand, Charlie? Not by an entire barrel-full. I'd ha' bin Sheriff and City Marshal and desperado myself, and I'd ha' seen peace and law and order flourishing like timothy in an irrigated cultivation patch, flourishing right here in Painted Rock." ”

“ The sheriff was not at home.
“We'll wait,” said the policeman to the sheriff's cook.
Jim McAllister looked at his watch.
“I guess not,” he said. “We'll call again, some other day.”
“Guess again,” returned the young man in blue.
“My second guess is the same,” retorted Jim.
“I've heard about you, Mr. McAllister. Yer smart, but you ain't the only one. I know yer a game warden an' a big man upriver, but all that don't cut no ice to-day. There's a warrant out for you.”
“You don't say! Sworn out by Mel Lunt and old Tim Hood, hey? Where is it, chief?” ”

“ When Roberts returned with his elated soldiers he found the pueblo occupied by a detachment sent from Bago. A stretcher was starting on a tour of the field, but Roberts ran ahead of it to the centre of the plaza.
His attention had been caught by a vague movement there. Through the high grass he could see something struggling and bounding in sudden, sharp movement.
It was the inevitable Maestro. He was on top of Hafner, who also had come back to life, and was "kneeing" him with characteristic enthusiasm. ”

“ I’ve got just twenty-five hundred left which I earned in a better way.”
“Daddy, get the burros!” cried the girl. “We’re going!”
Sheriff Bob Long looked down from a ledge above a narrow, deep, boulder-strewn, awe-inspiring cañon and drew in his breath sharply. Below he saw two human beings and three animals.
“I knew he’d try it,” Long said wonderingly to himself. “I thought he’d try it afoot. But the girl! And they’re going to try to cross Death Flat!”
His look of wonder increased, and he made no move toward the weapons in his holsters.
“I wonder now,” he mused. “Can they make it? ”

“ Hand over your gun belt an’ be careful how you unbuckle it.”
“Sheriff, it would be against my code of ethics to hand over my gun. It can’t be done, sheriff; you’ll have to come and get it.”
Neal hesitated, notwithstanding the fact that he had Rathburn covered and that several other guns were covering him. Then he stepped forward, never taking his eyes from Rathburn’s, and secured the other’s weapon.
“That’s better, sheriff,” said Rathburn with a queer smile. “You can see how I have my pride an’ little superstitions. No man has ever took a gun from me but what I’ve got it back! ”

“ She got up and hobbled actively down to the shore; but Robert's haste had carried him already beyond earshot.
Following the path up from the lake-shore, Robert crossed the cow-pasture and climbed the bars back of the barn. Here he was met and challenged by Keep, the mastiff, who, with the discernment of a well-bred dog, appreciated Robert's good clothes, nosed his hand cordially, and let him pass without protest. Keep knew a gentleman at a glance, and was convinced that good manners meant good morals. He had no fear of Robert setting fire to the barn. ”

“ Bill Smiler mounted guard on the spring at two o'clock of a warm and windless afternoon. His bayonet was fixed and a cartridge lay in the breech of his rifle. He stood and regarded the spring, his mind busy with the wording of his duty, as passed over to him by the old guard.
"Challenge anyone approaching the spring, and shoot anyone who approaches to within a yard of the spring in disregard of your second challenge and your threat to fire, and shoot to kill!"
Bill mumbled the words over several times, memorised them, and considered them. "Shoot to kill!" ”

“ So if you attempt to question that—that little girl—my mother's guest—about her father—whom you're hunting for a murderer—I'll consider it my—unpleasant duty to knock the stuffing out of you!”
The deputy sheriff stared in amazement.
“Say, that would take some knocking!” he retorted. “How old are you, young feller?”
“I'm going on eighteen,” replied Ben quietly.
“And you think you can best me in a fight?”
“Yes, I think I can. I'm bigger than you and longer in the reach—and I'm pretty good.”
“But yer sappy. And yer all joints. I'm no giant but I'm weathered. The milk's out of my bones.” ”

“ Everybody’s out after the reward money.”
Rathburn lifted his brows.
“Say,” exclaimed the porter eagerly, “you didn’t see any men ridin’ looselike, when you was coming in, did you?”
Rathburn shook his head. “What’s all this you’re tryin’ to chirp into my ear?” he asked.
“Well, Bob Long, the sheriff, has got all his deputies out except just the jailer––there ain’t anybody much in jail now, anyway––an’ all the other men he could pin a star on, lookin’ for a gang that held up the stage from Sunshine yesterday mornin’, shot the stage driver dead, an’ made off with an express package full of money. ”

“ Red Lily had joined him and Red Chief at the moment of their arrival on the scene.
“Guard 'em, pups,” he said.
The big red dogs stood across the rifles. McAllister walked close up to the intruders, unarmed, his hands hanging by his sides.
“Hood, ye're an old man and a spiteful one, and because of yer age I'm only telling you to get off O'Dell land as quick as you know how,” he said. “I'll keep yer rifle till you pay yer fine for carrying it in close season. Beat it! But ye're not too old to kick, Mel Lunt. Ye're my own age and heft and it ain't my fault ye're not as good a man. ”

“ This slender, undersized officer, in spite of his physique, seemed indefatigable. He had several narrow escapes from death, in hand-to-hand encounters with sepoys. Once, a mutineer fired point-blank at him at twelve yards away, but for some providential reason Roberts' horse reared just at the moment of firing and received the bullet in his own head.
At another time, a fanatic danced out in front of his horse waving a turban to frighten it, and at the same time whirling a wicked looking scimitar around his head. Roberts drew his pistol but the weapon missed fire. ”

“ There's a sick man out at the O'Dell house and I've got to get out to him with Doctor Scott. He's the man poor Mel Lunt's got the warrant out for. Mel's crazy. I've got Mel cold—and old Hood too—for toting rifles and ball ca'tridges through the woods in close season. There's nothing against Sherwood and Dave Brown is up in Quebec now, looking for the man who did the thing they're chasing poor Sherwood for. Mel Lunt is making a fool of Sheriff Corker. You come along with me, Bill, and save the sheriff's face—and maybe an innocent man's life, too. ”

“ The shrill, silly sound was yet in the air when the ominous form of long Philibert Trou loomed high behind the sitting guards and fell upon one of them like fate; while at the same moment, like a springing cat, the lithe figure of La Mouche shot up at the other’s throat.
For such skilled hands it was but a moment’s work, and no noise about it. Like the rising of an army of spectres, every man came silently to his feet. Seizing the musket of the nearest guard, where he lay motionless, I glided to the hatch, 271just far enough ahead of Marc to get my foot first on the ladder. ”

“ Ye’re lookin’ fer money from the Gover’ment, an ye’re lookin’ fer vengeance agin a young man whose got more vartue in his little toe nor ye’ll ever have in yer hull carcass. Ye fit him fair once, an’ he trimmed ye; then ye tried yer durndest to send him astray in the woods, without a rifle an’ without grub; an’ then ye fit him dirty an’ got trimmed agin; an’ now yer huntin’ him with the help o’ the police. An’ ye know as how he be a better man nor yerself—a man who sarved his country whilst ye hid under the bed ”

“ Jim McAllister stepped into the stable at that moment.
“Sure he's trying to hide something, Dave Brown,” said McAllister. “He's trying to hide what he thinks of you for a deputy sheriff—that you're as ignorant as you are fresh. He's remembering his manners and trying to hide your want of them. He's half O'Dell an' half McAllister; so if you two want to talk in this stable about Richard Sherwood or anything else, I guess you'd better go out first and douse those cigars in a puddle or something.” ”

“ But the next day Ginger was made Marshal, and he's a good one, as you know yourself from what you saw of him just now in that little difficulty with young Gedge."
"Did he pay back that hundred dollars, Mr. Pillsbury?" I asked incautiously.
Pillsbury looked at me.
"He'll pay it back when I ask for it," said the gambler. He added, with apparent inconsequence—
"The City Marshal in a city like Painted Rock is the man that keeps the balance between them as holds to the past and them as considers trade is everything. With them I do not agree." ”

“ If you don’t, there’ll be murder done. Go tell the McPhees, and the Joneses and the Browns and the Wickets and the Haywards and the McKims and old man Pike—the whole bunch. Get your guns and pistols and light out for the Crick with a couple of teams quick’s the Lord’ll let you! But send Charlie McPhee, or some other lad with a fast horse, to Jim Bell’s to fetch him along too—and tell him to tell Jim to telephone over to Lover’s Glen for the deputy-sheriff. I’ll have coffee ready when you get back, Pete, you go too and help Jard stir ’em up. ”

“ The deputy sheriff turned to Mel Lunt.
“How does it strike you, Mel?” he asked.
“It's a highfalutin' notion, all right for O'Dells an' sich, but no good for ordinary folks like us,” replied the constable.
“Is that so!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “You guess again, blast yer cheek! If you can't see why a little girl hadn't ought to be set to catch her own father an' maybe send him to jail or worse, I can. Yes, I can see it, by thunder! Any gentleman could, once it was explained to him. So you don't have to worry about that, Ben.” ”

“ Ye're a spy!"
The stranger straightened his back and turned his face across his shoulder, and at that moment the sights of the rifle stood clear and black to Bill's view, and his fingers pressed the trigger. The report of the exploded cartridge was sharp and loud, but Bill's ears were not conscious of it. He saw the stranger slump forward over the spring and lie motionless. He knelt, dropped his rifle with a thump on the sward of thin grass and wild berries, and covered his bloodless face with his hand. He had shot a man!
Men came running in answer to the ringing alarm of the shot. ”