XXVII
The shadows of evening were falling when Saleratus Bill returned frompasturing the wearied horses. Bob had been too exhausted to look abouthim, even to think. From a cache the gun-man produced several bags offood and a side of bacon. Evidently Bright's Cove was one of hisfamiliar haunts. After a meal which Bob would have enjoyed more had henot been so dead weary, his captor motioned him to one of the bunks.Only too glad for an opportunity to rest, Bob tumbled in, clothes andall.
About midnight he half roused, feeling the mountain chill. He gropedinstinctively; his hand encountered a quilt, which he drew around hisshoulders.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. A persistent discomfort which hadfor an hour fought with his drowsiness for the ascendancy, now discloseditself as a ligature tying his elbows at the back. Evidently SaleratusBill had taken this precaution while the young man slept. Bob couldstill use his hands and wrists, after a fashion; he could walk about buthe would be unable to initiate any effective offence. The situation wasadmirably analogous to that of a hobbled horse. Moreover, the bonds wereapparently of some broad, soft substance like sacking or harnesswebbing, so that, after Bob had moved from his constrained position,they did not excessively discommode him.
He had no means of guessing what the hour might be, and no soundsreached him from the other parts of the house. His muscles were sore andbruised. For some time he was quite content to lie on his side, thinkingmatters over.
From his knowledge of the connection between Baker and Oldham, Oldhamand his captor, Bob had no doubt as to the purpose of his abduction; nordid he fail to guess that now, with the chief witness out of the way,the trial would be hurried where before it had been delayed. Personallyhe had little to fear beyond a detention--unless he should attempt toescape, or unless a searching party might blunder on his traces. Bob hadalready made up his mind to use his best efforts to get away. As to theprobabilities of a rescue blundering on this retreat, he had no means ofguessing; but he shrewdly concluded that Saleratus Bill was taking nochances.
That individual now entered; and, seeing his captive awake, grufflyordered him to rise. Bob found an abundant breakfast ready, to which hewas able to do full justice. In the course of the meal he made severalattempts on his jailer's taciturnity, but without success. SaleratusBill met all his inquiries, open and guarded, with a sullen silence orevasive, curt replies.
"It don't noways matter why you're here, or how you're here. You _are_here, and that's all there's to it."
"How long do I stay?"
"Until I get ready to let you go."
"How can you get word from Mr. Oldham when to let me off?" asked Bob.
But Saleratus Bill refused to rise to the bait.
"I'll let you go when I get ready," he repeated.
Bob was silent for some time.
"You know this lets me off from my promise," said he, nodding backwardtoward his elbows. "I'll get away if I can."
Saleratus Bill, for the first time, permitted himself a smile.
"There's two ways out of this place," said he--"where we come in, andover north on the trail. You can see every inch--both ways--from here.Besides, don't make no mistakes. I'll shoot you if you make a break."
Bob nodded.
"I believe you," said he.
As though to convince Bob of the utter helplessness of any attempt,Saleratus Bill, leaving the dishes unwashed, led the way in a tour ofthe valley. Save where the wagon road descended and where the steep sidehill of the north wall arose, the boundaries were utterly precipitous.From a narrow gorge, flanked by water-smoothed rock aprons, the riverboiled between glassy perpendicular cliffs.
"There ain't no swimming-holes in that there river," remarked SaleratusBill grimly.
Bob, leaning forward, could just catch a glimpse of the torrent ragingand buffeting in the narrow box canon, above which the mountains rosetremendous. No stream growths had any chance there. The place was waterand rock--nothing more. In the valley itself willows and alders, wellout of reach of high water, offered a partial screen to soften thesavage vista.
The round valley itself, however, was beautiful. Ripening grasses grewshoulder high. Shady trees swarmed with birds. Bees and other insectshummed through the sun-warmed air.
In vain Bob looked about him for the horses, or for signs of them. Theywere nowhere to be seen. Saleratus Bill, reading his perplexity, grinnedsardonically.
"Yore friends might come in here," said he, evidently not unwilling toexpose to Bob the full hopelessness of the latter's case. "And if so,they can trail us in; _and then trail us out again!_" He pointed to thelacets of the trail up the north wall. He grinned again. "You and I'djust crawl down a mile of mine shaft."
Having thus, to his satisfaction, impressed Bob with the utter futilityof an attempt to escape, Saleratus Bill led the way back to the desertedvillage. There he turned deliberately on his captive.
"Now, young feller, you listen to me," said he. "Don't you try no monkeybusiness. There won't be no questions asked, none whatever. As long asyou set and look at the scenery, you won't come to no harm; but theminute you make even a bluff at gettin' funny--even if yore sorry thenext minute--I'll shoot. And don't you never forget and try to getnearer to me than three paces. Don't forget that! I don't rightly wantto hurt you; but I'd just as leave shoot you as anybody else."
To this view of the situation Bob gave the expected assent.
The next three days were ones of routine. Saleratus Bill spent his timerolling brown-paper cigarettes at a spot that commanded both trails. Bobwas instructed to keep in sight. He early discovered the cheering factthat trout were to be had in the glass-green pools; and so spent hoursawkwardly manipulating an improvised willow pole equipped with the shortline and the Brown Hackle without which no mountaineer ever travels theSierras. His bound elbows and the crudity of his tackle lost him manyfish. Still, he caught enough for food; and his mind was busy.
Canvassing the possibilities, Bob could not but admit that SaleratusBill knew his job. The river was certain death, and led nowhere exceptinto mysterious and awful granite gorges; the outlets by roads were wellin sight. For one afternoon Bob seriously contemplated hazarding apersonal encounter. He conceived that in some manner he could get rid ofhis bonds at night; that Saleratus Bill must necessarily sleep; and thatthere might be a chance to surprise the gun-man then. But when nightcame, Saleratus Bill disappeared into the outer darkness; nor did hereturn until morning. He might have spent the hours camped under thetrees of the more remote meadow, whence in the brilliant moonlight hecould keep tabs on the trails, or he might be lying near at hand; Bobhad no means of telling. Certainly, again the young man reluctantlyacknowledged to himself, Saleratus Bill knew his job!
Nevertheless, as the days slipped by; and Bob's physical strengthreturned in its full measure, his active and bold spirit again took theinitiative. A slow anger seized possession of him. The native combativestubbornness of the race asserted itself, the necessity of doingsomething, the inability tamely to submit to imposed circumstances.Bob's careful analysis of the situation as a whole failed to discoverany feasible plan. Therefore he abandoned trying to plan ahead, and fellback on those always-ready and comfortable aphorisims of theadventurous--"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and "onething at a time." Obviously, the first thing to do was to free his arms;after that he would see what he would see.
Every evening Saleratus Bill took the candle and departed, leaving Bobto find his own way to his bunk. This was the time to cut his bonds; ifat all. Unfortunately Bob could find nothing against which to cut them.Saleratus Bill had carefully removed every abrasive possibility in thetwo rooms. Bob very wisely relinquished the idea of passing thethreshold in search of a suitable rock or piece of tin. He had no notionof risking a bullet until something was likely to be gained by it.
Finally his cogitations brought him an idea. Saleratus Bill wasattentive enough to such of the simple creature comforts as were withinhis means. Bob's pipe had been well supplied wit
h tobacco. On the fourthevening Bob filled it just as his jailor was about to take away thecandle for the night.
"Just a minute," said Bob. "Let me have a light."
Bill set the candle on the table again, and retired the three paceswhich he never forgot rigidly to maintain between himself and hiscaptive. Bob thereupon lit his pipe and nodded his thanks. As soon asSaleratus Bill had well departed, however, he retired to his bunk room,shutting the door carefully after him. There, with great care, hedeliberately set to work to coax into flame a small fire on the oldhearth, using as fuel the rounds of a broken chair, and as ignition theglowing coal in the bowl of his pipe. Before the hearth he had managedto hang the heavy quilt from his bunk, so that the flicker of the flamesshould not be visible from the outside.
The little fire caught, blazed for a few moments, and fell to a steadyglow. Bob fished out one of the chair rungs, jammed the cool end firmlyin one of the open cracks between the timbers of the room, turned hisback, and deliberately pressed the band around his elbows against thelive coal.
A smell of burning cloth immediately filled the air. After a moment thecoal went out. Bob replaced the charred rung in the fire, extractedanother, and repeated the operation.
It was exceedingly difficult to gauge the matter accurately, as Bob soonfound out to his cost. He managed to burn more holes in his garment--andhimself--than in the bonds. However, he kept at it, and after a halfhour's steady and patient effort he was able to snap asunder the laststrands. He stretched his arms over his head in an ecstasy of physicalfreedom.
That was all very well, but what next? Bob was suddenly called to adecision which had up to that moment seemed inconceivably remote.Heretofore, an apparent impossibility had separated him from it. Nowthat impossibility was achieved.
A moment's thought convinced him of the senseless hazard of attemptingto slip out through any of the doors or windows. The moon was bright,and Saleratus Bill would have taken his precautions. Bob attacked thefloor. Several boards proved to be loose. He pried them up cautiously,and so was enabled to drop through into the open space beneath thehouse. Thence it was easy to crawl away. Saleratus Bill's precautionswere most likely taken, Bob argued to himself, with a view toward a manbound at the elbows, not to a man with two hands. In this he wasevidently correct, for after a painful effort, he found himself amongthe high grasses of the meadow.
There were now, as he recognized, two courses open to him: he couldeither try to discover Saleratus Bill's sleeping place and by surpriseoverpower that worthy as he slept; or he could make the best of theinterim before his absence was discovered to get as far away aspossible. Both courses had obvious disadvantages. The most immediate tothe first alternative was the difficulty, failing some clue, of findingSaleratus Bill's sleeping place without too positive a risk ofdiscovery; the most immediate to the second was the difficulty ofgetting to the other side of the river. As Saleratus Bill might be atany one of a thousand places, in or out of doors; whereas the rivercould be crossed only by the bridge. Bob, without hesitation, chose thelatter.
Therefore he made his way cautiously to that structure. It proved to belying in broad moonlight. As it constituted the only link with theoutside world to the south, Bob could not doubt that his captor hadarranged to keep it in sight.
The bridge was, as has been said, suspended across a strait between tworocks by means of heavy wire cables. Slipping beneath these rocks andinto the shadow, Bob was rejoiced to find that between the stringers andthe shore, smaller cables had been bent to act as guy lines. If he couldwalk "hand over hand," the distance comprised by the width of the streamhe could pass the river below the level of the bridge floor. He measuredthe distance with his eye. It did not look farther than the length ofthe gymnasium at college. He seized the cable and swung himself out overthe waters.
Immediately the swift and boiling current, though twenty feet below,seemed to suck at his feet. The swirling and flashing of the waterdizzied his brain with the impression of falling upstream. He had to fixhis eyes on the black flooring above his head. The steel cable, too, wasold and rusted and harsh. Bob's hands had not for many years grasped arope strongly, and in that respect he found them soft. His muscles,cramped more than he had realized by the bonds of his captivity, soonbegan to drag and stretch. When halfway across, suspended above aravening torrent; confronted, tired, by an effort he had needed all hisfresh energies to put forth, Bob would have given a good deal to havebeen able to clamber aboard the bridge, risk or no risk. It was,however, a clear case of needs must. He finished the span on sheer nerveand will power; and fell thankfully on the rocks below the fartherabutment. For a half minute he lay there, stretching slowly his musclesand straightening his hands, which had become cramped like claws. Thenhe crept, always in the shadow, to the level of the meadow.
Bob was learning to be a mountaineer. Therefore, on the way down, he hadsubconsciously noted that from the head of the meadow a steep dry washclimbed straight up to intersect the road. The recollection came to thesurface of his mind now. If he could make his way up this wash, he wouldgain three advantages: he would materially shorten his journey bycutting off a mile or so of the road-grade's twists and doublings; hewould avoid the necessity of showing himself so near the Cove in thebright moonlight; and he would leave no tracks where the road touchedthe valley. Accordingly he turned sharp to the left and began to pickhis way upstream, keeping in close to the river and treading as much aspossible on the water-worn rocks. The willows and elders protected himsomewhat. In this manner he proceeded until he had come to the smoothrock aprons near the gorge from which the river flowed. Here, inaccordance with his intention of keeping close in the shadow of themountain, he was to turn to the right until he should have arrived atthe steep "chimney" of the wash. He was about to leave the shelter ofthe last willows when he looked back. As his eyes turned, a flash ofmoonlight struck them full, like the heliographing of a mirror. He fixedhis gaze on the bushes from which the flicker had come. In a moment itwas repeated. Then, stooping low, a human figure hurried across a tinyopening, and once again the moonlight reflected from the worn andshining revolver in its hand.