XXXII. SUPERSTITION TRAIL
We did not make thirty-five miles that day, nor yet twenty-five, forhe had let me sleep. We made an early camp and tried some unsuccessfulfishing, over which he was cheerful, promising trout to-morrow when weshould be higher among the mountains. He never again touched or camenear the subject that was on his mind, but while I sat writing my diary,he went off to his horse Monte, and I could hear that he occasionallytalked to that friend.
Next day we swung southward from what is known to many as the Conanttrail, and headed for that short cut through the Tetons which is knownto but a few. Bitch Creek was the name of the stream we now followed,and here there was such good fishing that we idled; and the horses andI at least enjoyed ourselves. For they found fresh pastures and shade inthe now plentiful woods; and the mountain odors and the mountain heightswere enough for me when the fish refused to rise. This road of ours nowbecame the road which the pursuit had taken before the capture. Goingalong, I noticed the footprints of many hoofs, rain-blurred but recent,and these were the tracks of the people I had met in the stable.
"You can notice Monte's," said the Virginian. "He is the only one thathas his hind feet shod. There's several trails from this point down towhere we have come from."
We mounted now over a long slant of rock, smooth and of wide extent.Above us it went up easily into a little side canyon, but ahead, whereour way was, it grew so steep that we got off and led our horses.This brought us to the next higher level of the mountain, a space ofsagebrush more open, where the rain-washed tracks appeared again in thesofter ground.
"Some one has been here since the rain," I called to the Virginian, whowas still on the rock, walking up behind the packhorses.
"Since the rain!" he exclaimed. "That's not two days yet." He came andexamined the footprints. "A man and a hawss," he said, frowning. "Goingthe same way we are. How did he come to pass us, and us not see him?"
"One of the other trails," I reminded him.
"Yes, but there's not many that knows them. They are pretty roughtrails."
"Worse than this one we're taking?"
"Not much; only how does he come to know any of them? And why don't hetake the Conant trail that's open and easy and not much longer? One manand a hawss. I don't see who he is or what he wants here."
"Probably a prospector," I suggested.
"Only one outfit of prospectors has ever been here, and they claimedthere was no mineral-bearing rock in these parts."
We got back into our saddles with the mystery unsolved. To the Virginianit was a greater one, apparently, than to me; why should one have toaccount for every stray traveller in the mountains?
"That's queer, too," said the Virginian. He was now riding in front ofme, and he stopped, looking down at the trail. "Don't you notice?"
It did not strike me.
"Why, he keeps walking beside his hawss; he don't get on him."
Now we, of course, had mounted at the beginning of the better trailafter the steep rock, and that was quite half a mile back. Still, I hada natural explanation. "He's leading a packhorse. He's a poor trapper,and walks."
"Packhorses ain't usually shod before and behind," said the Virginian;and sliding to the ground he touched the footprints. "They are not fourhours old," said he. "This bank's in shadow by one o'clock, and the sunhas not cooked them dusty."
We continued on our way; and although it seemed no very particularthing to me that a man should choose to walk and lead his horse for awhile,--I often did so to limber my muscles,--nevertheless I began tocatch the Virginian's uncertain feeling about this traveller whose stepshad appeared on our path in mid-journey, as if he had alighted from themid-air, and to remind myself that he had come over the great face ofrock from another trail and thus joined us, and that indigent trappersare to be found owning but a single horse and leading him with theirbelongings through the deepest solitudes of the mountains--none of thisquite brought back to me the comfort which had been mine since we leftthe cottonwoods out of sight down in the plain. Hence I called outsharply, "What's the matter now?" when the Virginian suddenly stoppedhis horse again.
He looked down at the trail, and then he very slowly turned round in hissaddle and stared back steadily at me. "There's two of them," he said.
"Two what?"
"I don't know."
"You must know whether it's two horses or two men," I said, almostangrily.
But to this he made no answer, sitting quite still on his horse andcontemplating the ground. The silence was fastening on me like a spell,and I spurred my horse impatiently forward to see for myself. Thefootprints of two men were there in the trail.
"What do you say to that?" said the Virginian. "Kind of ridiculous,ain't it?"
"Very quaint," I answered, groping for the explanation. There was norock here to walk over and step from into the softer trail. These secondsteps came more out of the air than the first. And my brain played methe evil trick of showing me a dead man in a gray flannel shirt.
"It's two, you see, travelling with one hawss, and they take turnsriding him."
"Why, of course!" I exclaimed; and we went along for a few paces.
"There you are," said the Virginian, as the trail proved him right."Number one has got on. My God, what's that?"
At a crashing in the woods very close to us we both flung round andcaught sight of a vanishing elk.
It left us confronted, smiling a little, and sounding each other withour eyes. "Well, we didn't need him for meat," said the Virginian.
"A spike-horn, wasn't it?" said I.
"Yes, just a spike-horn."
For a while now as we rode we kept up a cheerful conversation about elk.We wondered if we should meet many more close to the trail like this;but it was not long before our words died away. We had come into averitable gulf of mountain peaks, sharp at their bare summits liketeeth, holding fields of snow lower down, and glittering still in fullday up there, while down among our pines and parks the afternoon wasgrowing sombre. All the while the fresh hoofprints of the horse and thefresh footprints of the man preceded us. In the trees, and in the opens,across the levels, and up the steeps, they were there. And so they werenot four hours old! Were they so much? Might we not, round some turn,come upon the makers of them? I began to watch for this. And again mybrain played me an evil trick, against which I found myself actuallyreasoning thus: if they took turns riding, then walking must tire themas it did me or any man. And besides, there was a horse. With suchthoughts I combated the fancy that those footprints were being madeimmediately in front of us all the while, and that they were the onlysign of any presence which our eyes could see. But my fancy overcame mythoughts. It was shame only which held me from asking this question ofthe Virginian: Had one horse served in both cases of Justice down atthe cottonwoods? I wondered about this. One horse--or had the stranglingnooses dragged two saddles empty at the same signal? Most likely; andtherefore these people up here--Was I going back to the nursery? Ibrought myself up short. And I told myself to be steady; there lurked inthis brain-process which was going on beneath my reason a threat worsethan the childish apprehensions it created. I reminded myself that I wasa man grown, twenty-five years old, and that I must not merely seem likeone, but feel like one. "You're not afraid of the dark, I suppose?" ThisI uttered aloud, unwittingly.
"What's that?"
I started; but it was only the Virginian behind me. "Oh, nothing. Theair is getting colder up here."
I had presently a great relief. We came to a place where again thistrail mounted so abruptly that we once more got off to lead ourhorses. So likewise had our predecessors done; and as I watched the twodifferent sets of footprints, I observed something and hastened to speakof it.
"One man is much heavier than the other."
"I was hoping I'd not have to tell you that," said the Virginian.
"You're always ahead of me! Well, still my education is progressing."
"Why, yes. You'll equal an Injun if you keep on."
It was good to be facetious; and I smiled to myself as I trudged upward.We came off the steep place, leaving the canyon beneath us, and took tohorseback. And as we proceeded over the final gentle slant up to therim of the great basin that was set among the peaks, the Virginian wasjocular once more.
"Pounds has got on," said he, "and Ounces is walking."
I glanced over my shoulder at him, and he nodded as he fixed theweather-beaten crimson handkerchief round his neck. Then he threwa stone at a pack animal that was delaying on the trail. "Damn yourbuckskin hide," he drawled. "You can view the scenery from the top."
He was so natural, sitting loose in the saddle, and cursing in hisgentle voice, that I laughed to think what visions I had been harboring.The two dead men riding one horse through the mountains vanished, and Icame back to every day.
"Do you think we'll catch up with those people?" I asked.
"Not likely. They're travelling about the same gait we are."
"Ounces ought to be the best walker."
"Up hill, yes. But Pounds will go down a-foggin'."
We gained the rim of the basin. It lay below us, a great cup ofcountry,--rocks, woods, opens, and streams. The tall peaks rose likespires around it, magnificent and bare in the last of the sun; and wesurveyed this upper world, letting our animals get breath. Our bleak,crumbled rim ran like a rampart between the towering tops, a half circleof five miles or six, very wide in some parts, and in some shrinking toa scanty foothold, as here. Here our trail crossed over it between twoeroded and fantastic shapes of stone, like mushrooms, or misshapen headson pikes. Banks of snow spread up here against the black rocks, buthalf an hour would see us descended to the green and the woods. I lookeddown, both of us looked down, but our forerunners were not there.
"They'll be camping somewhere in this basin, though," said theVirginian, staring at the dark pines. "They have not come this trail byaccident."
A cold little wind blew down between our stone shapes, and upward again,eddying. And round a corner upward with it came fluttering a leaf ofnewspaper, and caught against an edge close to me.
"What's the latest?" inquired the Virginian from his horse. For I haddismounted, and had picked up the leaf.
"Seems to be interesting," I next heard him say. "Can't you tell a manwhat's making your eyes bug out so?"
"Yes," my voice replied to him, and it sounded like some strangerspeaking lightly near by; "oh, yes! Decidedly interesting." My voicemimicked his pronunciation. "It's quite the latest, I imagine. You hadbetter read it yourself." And I handed it to him with a smile, watchinghis countenance, while my brain felt as if clouds were rushing throughit.
I saw his eyes quietly run the headings over. "Well?" he inquired,after scanning it on both sides. "I don't seem to catch the excitement.Fremont County is going to hold elections. I see they claim Jake--"
"It's mine," I cut him off. "My own paper. Those are my pencil marks."
I do not think that a microscope could have discerned a change inhis face. "Oh," he commented, holding the paper, and fixing it with acritical eye. "You mean this is the one you lent Steve, and he wantedto give me to give back to you. And so them are your own marks." For amoment more he held it judicially, as I have seen men hold a contractupon whose terms they were finally passing. "Well, you have got it backnow, anyway." And he handed it to me.
"Only a piece of it!" I exclaimed, always lightly. And as I took it fromhim his hand chanced to touch mine. It was cold as ice.
"They ain't through readin' the rest," he explained easily. "Don't youthrow it away! After they've taken such trouble."
"That's true," I answered. "I wonder if it's Pounds or Ounces I'mindebted to."
Thus we made further merriment as we rode down into the great basin.Before us, the horse and boot tracks showed plain in the soft sloughwhere melted snow ran half the day.
"If it's a paper chase," said the Virginian, "they'll drop no more alonghere."
"Unless it gets dark," said I.
"We'll camp before that. Maybe we'll see their fire."
We did not see their fire. We descended in the chill silence, while themushroom rocks grew far and the sombre woods approached. By a stream wegot off where two banks sheltered us; for a bleak wind cut down over thecrags now and then, making the pines send out a great note through thebasin, like breakers in a heavy sea. But we made cosey in the tent.We pitched the tent this night, and I was glad to have it shut out themountain peaks. They showed above the banks where we camped; and in thestarlight their black shapes rose stark against the sky. They, with thepines and the wind, were a bedroom too unearthly this night. And as soonas our supper dishes were washed we went inside to our lantern and ourgame of cribbage.
"This is snug," said the Virginian, as we played. "That wind don't getdown here."
"Smoking is snug, too," said I. And we marked our points for an hour,with no words save about the cards.
"I'll be pretty near glad when we get out of these mountains," said theVirginian. "They're most too big."
The pines had altogether ceased; but their silence was as tremendous astheir roar had been.
"I don't know, though," he resumed. "There's times when the plains canbe awful big, too."
Presently we finished a hand, and he said, "Let me see that paper."
He sat reading it apparently through, while I arranged my blankets tomake a warm bed. Then, since the paper continued to absorb him, I gotmyself ready, and slid between my blankets for the night. "You'll needanother candle soon in that lantern," said I.
He put the paper down. "I would do it all over again," he began. "Thewhole thing just the same. He knowed the customs of the country, and heplayed the game. No call to blame me for the customs of the country. Youleave other folks' cattle alone, or you take the consequences, and itwas all known to Steve from the start. Would he have me take the Judge'swages and give him the wink? He must have changed a heap from the SteveI knew if he expected that. I don't believe he expected that. He knewwell enough the only thing that would have let him off would have beena regular jury. For the thieves have got hold of the juries in JohnsonCounty. I would do it all over, just the same."
The expiring flame leaped in the lantern, and fell blue. He broke offin his words as if to arrange the light, but did not, sitting silentinstead, just visible, and seeming to watch the death struggle of theflame. I could find nothing to say to him, and I believed he was nowwinning his way back to serenity by himself. He kept his outward manso nearly natural that I forgot about that cold touch of his hand, andnever guessed how far out from reason the tide of emotion was even nowwhirling him. "I remember at Cheyenne onced," he resumed. And he toldme of a Thanksgiving visit to town that he had made with Steve. "Wewas just colts then," he said. He dwelt on their coltish doings, theiradventures sought and wrought in the perfect fellowship of youth. "ForSteve and me most always hunted in couples back in them gamesome years,"he explained. And he fell into the elemental talk of sex, such talkas would be an elk's or tiger's; and spoken so by him, simply andnaturally, as we speak of the seasons, or of death, or of any actuality,it was without offense. It would be offense should I repeat it. Then,abruptly ending these memories of himself and Steve, he went out of thetent, and I heard him dragging a log to the fire. When it had blazed up,there on the tent wall was his shadow and that of the log where he satwith his half-broken heart. And all the while I supposed he was masterof himself, and self-justified against Steve's omission to bid himgood-by.
I must have fallen asleep before he returned, for I remember nothingexcept waking and finding him in his blankets beside me. The fireshadow was gone, and gray, cold light was dimly on the tent. He sleptrestlessly, and his forehead was ploughed by lines of pain. While Ilooked at him he began to mutter, and suddenly started up with violence."No!" he cried out; "no! Just the same!" and thus wakened himself,staring. "What's the matter?" he demanded. He was slow in getting backto where we were; and full consciousness found him sitting up with hiseyes fixed on mine. They wer
e more haunted than they had been at all,and his next speech came straight from his dream. "Maybe you'd betterquit me. This ain't your trouble."
I laughed. "Why, what is the trouble?"
His eyes still intently fixed on mine. "Do you think if we changed ourtrail we could lose them from us?"
I was framing a jocose reply about Ounces being a good walker, when thesound of hoofs rushing in the distance stopped me, and he ran out of thetent with his rifle. When I followed with mine he was up the bank, andall his powers alert. But nothing came out of the dimness save our threestampeded horses. They crashed over fallen timber and across the open towhere their picketed comrade grazed at the end of his rope. By him theycame to a stand, and told him, I suppose, what they had seen; for allfour now faced in the same direction, looking away into the mysteriousdawn. We likewise stood peering, and my rifle barrel felt cold in myhand. The dawn was all we saw, the inscrutable dawn, coming and comingthrough the black pines and the gray open of the basin. There abovelifted the peaks, no sun yet on them, and behind us our stream made alittle tinkling.
"A bear, I suppose," said I, at length.
His strange look fixed me again, and then his eyes went to the horses."They smell things we can't smell," said he, very slowly. "Will youprove to me they don't see things we can't see?"
A chill shot through me, and I could not help a frightened glance wherewe had been watching. But one of the horses began to graze and I hada wholesome thought. "He's tired of whatever he sees, then," said I,pointing.
A smile came for a moment in the Virginian's face. "Must be a poorshow," he observed. All the horses were grazing now, and he added, "Itain't hurt their appetites any."
We made our own breakfast then. And what uncanny dread I may have beentouched with up to this time henceforth left me in the face of a realalarm. The shock of Steve was working upon the Virginian. He was awareof it himself; he was fighting it with all his might; and he was beingovercome. He was indeed like a gallant swimmer against whom both windand tide have conspired. And in this now foreboding solitude there wasonly myself to throw him ropes. His strokes for safety were as bold aswas the undertow that ceaselessly annulled them.
"I reckon I made a fuss in the tent?" said he, feeling his way with me.
I threw him a rope. "Yes. Nightmare--indigestion--too much newspaperbefore retiring."
He caught the rope. "That's correct! I had a hell of a foolish dream fora growed-up man. You'd not think it of me."
"Oh, yes, I should. I've had them after prolonged lobster andchampagne."
"Ah," he murmured, "prolonged! Prolonged is what does it." He glancedbehind him. "Steve came back--"
"In your lobster dream," I put in.
But he missed this rope. "Yes," he answered, with his eyes searching me."And he handed me the paper--"
"By the way, where is that?" I asked.
"I built the fire with it. But when I took it from him it was asix-shooter I had hold of, and pointing at my breast. And then Stevespoke. 'Do you think you're fit to live?' Steve said; and I got hot athim, and I reckon I must have told him what I thought of him. You heardme, I expect?"
"Glad I didn't. Your language sometimes is--"
He laughed out. "Oh, I account for all this that's happening just likeyou do. If we gave our explanations, they'd be pretty near twins."
"The horses saw a bear, then?"
"Maybe a bear. Maybe "--but here the tide caught him again--"What's youridea about dreams?"
My ropes were all out. "Liver--nerves," was the best I could do.
But now he swam strongly by himself.
"You may think I'm discreditable," he said, "but I know I am. It oughtto take more than--well, men have lost their friendships before. Feudsand wars have cloven a right smart of bonds in twain. And if my haidis going to get shook by a little old piece of newspaper--I'm ashamed Iburned that. I'm ashamed to have been that weak."
"Any man gets unstrung," I told him. My ropes had become straws; and Istrove to frame some policy for the next hours.
We now finished breakfast and set forth to catch the horses. As we drovethem in I found that the Virginian was telling me a ghost story. "Athalf-past three in the morning she saw her runaway daughter standingwith a babe in her arms; but when she moved it was all gone. Later theyfound it was the very same hour the young mother died in Nogales. Andshe sent for the child and raised it herself. I knowed them both backhome. Do you believe that?"
I said nothing.
"No more do I believe it," he asserted. "And see here! Nogales timeis three hours different from Richmond. I didn't know about that pointthen."
Once out of these mountains, I knew he could right himself; but evenI, who had no Steve to dream about, felt this silence of the peaks waspreying on me.
"Her daughter and her might have been thinkin' mighty hard about eachother just then," he pursued. "But Steve is dead. Finished. You cert'nlydon't believe there's anything more?"
"I wish I could," I told him.
"No, I'm satisfied. Heaven didn't never interest me much. But if therewas a world of dreams after you went--" He stopped himself and turnedhis searching eyes away from mine. "There's a heap o' darkness whereveryou try to step," he said, "and I thought I'd left off wasting thoughtson the subject. You see"--he dexterously roped a horse, and once morehis splendid sanity was turned to gold by his imagination--"I expectin many growed-up men you'd call sensible there's a little boysleepin'--the little kid they onced was--that still keeps his fearof the dark. You mentioned the dark yourself yesterday. Well, thisexperience has woke up that kid in me, and blamed if I can coax thelittle cuss to go to sleep again! I keep a-telling him daylight willsure come, but he keeps a-crying and holding on to me."
Somewhere far in the basin there was a faint sound, and we stood still.
"Hush!" he said.
But it was like our watching the dawn; nothing more followed.
"They have shot that bear," I remarked.
He did not answer, and we put the saddles on without talk. We made nohaste, but we were not over half an hour, I suppose, in getting off withthe packs. It was not a new thing to hear a shot where wild game was inplenty; yet as we rode that shot sounded already in my mind differentfrom others. Perhaps I should not believe this to-day but for what Ilook back to. To make camp last night we had turned off the trail, andnow followed the stream down for a while, taking next a cut through thewood. In this way we came upon the tracks of our horses where they hadbeen galloping back to the camp after their fright. They had kicked upthe damp and matted pine needles very plainly all along.
"Nothing has been here but themselves, though," said I.
"And they ain't showing signs of remembering any scare," said theVirginian.
In a little while we emerged upon an open.
"Here's where they was grazing," said the Virginian; and the signs wereclear enough. "Here's where they must have got their scare," he pursued."You stay with them while I circle a little." So I stayed; and certainlyour animals were very calm at visiting this scene. When you bring ahorse back to where he has recently encountered a wild animal his earsand his nostrils are apt to be wide awake.
The Virginian had stopped and was beckoning to me.
"Here's your bear," said he, as I arrived. "Two-legged, you see. And hehad a hawss of his own." There was a stake driven down where an animalhad been picketed for the night.
"Looks like Ounces," I said, considering the footprints.
"It's Ounces. And Ounces wanted another hawss very bad, so him andPounds could travel like gentlemen should."
"But Pounds doesn't seem to have been with him."
"Oh, Pounds, he was making coffee, somewheres in yonder, when thishappened. Neither of them guessed there'd be other hawsses wanderinghere in the night, or they both would have come." He turned back to ourpack animals.
"Then you'll not hunt for this camp to make sure?"
"I prefer making sure first. We might be expected at that camp."
&
nbsp; He took out his rifle from beneath his leg and set it across his saddleat half-cock. I did the same; and thus cautiously we resumed our journeyin a slightly different direction. "This ain't all we're going to findout," said the Virginian. "Ounces had a good idea; but I reckon he madea bad mistake later."
We had found out a good deal without any more, I thought. Ounces hadgone to bring in their single horse, and coming upon three more in thepasture had undertaken to catch one and failed, merely driving themwhere he feared to follow.
"Shorty never could rope a horse alone," I remarked.
The Virginian grinned. "Shorty? Well, Shorty sounds as well as Ounces.But that ain't the mistake I'm thinking he made."
I knew that he would not tell me, but that was just like him. For thelast twenty minutes, having something to do, he had become himselfagain, had come to earth from that unsafe country of the brain wherebeckoned a spectral Steve. Nothing was left but in his eyes thatquestion which pain had set there; and I wondered if his friend of old,who seemed so brave and amiable, would have dealt him that hurt at thesolemn end had he known what a poisoned wound it would be.
We came out on a ridge from which we could look down. "You always wantto ride on high places when there's folks around whose intentions ain'tbeen declared," said the Virginian. And we went along our ridge for somedistance. Then, suddenly he turned down and guided us almost at once tothe trail. "That's it," he said. "See."
The track of a horse was very fresh on the trail. But it was a gallopinghorse now, and no bootprints were keeping up with it any more. No bootscould have kept up with it. The rider was making time to-day. Yesterdaythat horse had been ridden up into the mountains at leisure. Who was onhim? There was never to be any certain answer to that. But who was noton him? We turned back in our journey, back into the heart of that basinwith the tall peaks all rising like teeth in the cloudless sun, and thesnow-fields shining white.
"He was afraid of us," said the Virginian. "He did not know how many ofus had come up here. Three hawsses might mean a dozen more around."
We followed the backward trail in among the pines, and came after a timeupon their camp. And then I understood the mistake that Shorty had made.He had returned after his failure, and had told that other man of thepresence of new horses. He should have kept this a secret; for haste hadto be made at once, and two cannot get away quickly upon one horse. Butit was poor Shorty's last blunder. He lay there by their extinct fire,with his wistful, lost-dog face upward, and his thick yellow hairunparted as it had always been. The murder had been done from behind. Weclosed the eyes.
"There was no natural harm in him," said the Virginian. "But you must doa thing well in this country."
There was not a trace, not a clew, of the other man; and we found aplace where we could soon cover Shorty with earth. As we lifted him wesaw the newspaper that he had been reading. He had brought it from theclump of cottonwoods where he and the other man had made a later visitthan ours to be sure of the fate of their friends--or possibly in hopesof another horse. Evidently, when the party were surprised, they hadbeen able to escape with only one. All of the newspaper was there savethe leaf I had picked up--all and more, for this had pencil writing onit that was not mine, nor did I at first take it in. I thought it mightbe a clew, and I read it aloud. "Good-by, Jeff," it said. "I could nothave spoke to you without playing the baby."
"Who's Jeff?" I asked. But it came over me when I looked at theVirginian. He was standing beside me quite motionless; and then he putout his hand and took the paper, and stood still, looking at the words."Steve used to call me Jeff," he said, "because I was Southern. I reckonnobody else ever did."
He slowly folded the message from the dead, brought by the dead, androlled it in the coat behind his saddle. For a half-minute he stoodleaning his forehead down against the saddle. After this he came backand contemplated Shorty's face awhile. "I wish I could thank him," hesaid. "I wish I could."
We carried Shorty over and covered him with earth, and on that laid afew pine branches; then we took up our journey, and by the end of theforenoon we had gone some distance upon our trail through the TetonMountains. But in front of us the hoofprints ever held their strideof haste, drawing farther from us through the hours, until by the nextafternoon somewhere we noticed they were no longer to be seen; and afterthat they never came upon the trail again.