CHAPTER XXI
The girl refused to take food proffered her by Riggs, but she ate anddrank a little that Wilson brought her, then she disappeared in thespruce lean-to.
Whatever loquacity and companionship had previously existed inSnake Anson's gang were not manifest in this camp. Each man seemedpreoccupied, as if pondering the dawn in his mind of an ill omen notclear to him yet and not yet dreamed of by his fellows. They all smoked.Then Moze and Shady played cards awhile by the light of the fire, but itwas a dull game, in which either seldom spoke. Riggs sought his blanketfirst, and the fact was significant that he lay down some distance fromthe spruce shelter which contained Bo Rayner. Presently young Burt wentoff grumbling to his bed. And not long afterward the card-players didlikewise.
Snake Anson and Jim Wilson were left brooding in silence beside thedying camp-fire.
The night was dark, with only a few stars showing. A fitful wind moanedunearthly through the spruce. An occasional thump of hoof sounded fromthe dark woods. No cry of wolf or coyote or cat gave reality to thewildness of forest-land.
By and by those men who had rolled in their blankets were breathing deepand slow in heavy slumber.
"Jim, I take it this hyar Riggs has queered our deal," said Snake Anson,in low voice.
"I reckon," replied Wilson.
"An' I'm feared he's queered this hyar White Mountain country fer us."
"Shore I 'ain't got so far as thet. What d' ye mean, Snake?"
"Damme if I savvy," was the gloomy reply. "I only know what was badlooks growin' wuss. Last fall--an' winter--an' now it's near April.We've got no outfit to make a long stand in the woods.... Jim, jest howstrong is thet Beasley down in the settlements?"
"I've a hunch he ain't half as strong as he bluffs."
"Me, too. I got thet idee yesterday. He was scared of the kid--when shefired up an' sent thet hot-shot about her cowboy sweetheart killin' him.He'll do it, Jim. I seen that Carmichael at Magdalena some years ago.Then he was only a youngster. But, whew! Mebbe he wasn't bad aftertoyin' with a little red liquor."
"Shore. He was from Texas, she said."
"Jim, I savvied your feelin's was hurt--by thet talk about Texas--an'when she up an' asked you."
Wilson had no rejoinder for this remark.
"Wal, Lord knows, I ain't wonderin'. You wasn't a hunted outlaw allyour life. An' neither was I.... Wilson, I never was keen on this girldeal--now, was I?"
"I reckon it's honest to say no to thet," replied Wilson. "But it'sdone. Beasley 'll get plugged sooner or later. Thet won't help us any.Chasin' sheep-herders out of the country an' stealin' sheep--thet ain'tstealin' gurls by a long sight. Beasley 'll blame that on us, an' begreaser enough to send some of his men out to hunt us. For Pine an' ShowDown won't stand thet long. There's them Mormons. They'll be hell whenthey wake up. Suppose Carmichael got thet hunter Dale an' them hawk-eyedBeemans on our trail?"
"Wal, we'd cash in--quick," replied Anson, gruffly.
"Then why didn't you let me take the gurl back home?"
"Wal, come to think of thet, Jim, I'm sore, an' I need money--an' Iknowed you'd never take a dollar from her sister. An' I've made up mymind to git somethin' out of her."
"Snake, you're no fool. How 'll you do thet same an' do it quick?"
"'Ain't reckoned it out yet."
"Wal, you got aboot to-morrer an' thet's all," returned Wilson,gloomily.
"Jim, what's ailin' you?"
"I'll let you figger thet out."
"Wal, somethin' ails the whole gang," declared Anson, savagely."With them it's nothin' to eat--no whisky--no money to bet with--notobacco!... But thet's not what's ailin' you, Jim Wilson, nor me!"
"Wal, what is, then?" queried Wilson.
"With me it's a strange feelin' thet my day's over on these ranges. Ican't explain, but it jest feels so. Somethin' in the air. I don't likethem dark shadows out there under the spruces. Savvy?... An' as fer you,Jim--wal, you allus was half decent, an' my gang's got too lowdown feryou."
"Snake, did I ever fail you?"
"No, you never did. You're the best pard I ever knowed. In the yearswe've rustled together we never had a contrary word till I let Beasleyfill my ears with his promises. Thet's my fault. But, Jim, it's toolate."
"It mightn't have been too late yesterday."
"Mebbe not. But it is now, an' I'll hang on to the girl or git her worthin gold," declared the outlaw, grimly.
"Snake, I've seen stronger gangs than yours come an' go. Them Big Bendgangs in my country--them rustlers--they were all bad men. You have nolikes of them gangs out heah. If they didn't get wiped out by Rangersor cowboys, why they jest naturally wiped out themselves. Thet's a law Irecognize in relation to gangs like them. An' as for yours--why, Anson,it wouldn't hold water against one real gun-slinger."
"A-huh' Then if we ran up ag'in' Carmichael or some such fellar--wouldyou be suckin' your finger like a baby?"
"Wal, I wasn't takin' count of myself. I was takin' generalities."
"Aw, what 'n hell are them?" asked Anson, disgustedly. "Jim, I know aswell as you thet this hyar gang is hard put. We're goin' to be trailedan' chased. We've got to hide--be on the go all the time--here an'there--all over, in the roughest woods. An' wait our chance to worksouth."
"Shore. But, Snake, you ain't takin' no count of the feelin's of themen--an' of mine an' yours.... I'll bet you my hoss thet in a day or sothis gang will go to pieces."
"I'm feared you spoke what's been crowdin' to git in my mind," repliedAnson. Then he threw up his hands in a strange gesture of resignation.The outlaw was brave, but all men of the wilds recognized a forcestronger than themselves. He sat there resembling a brooding snake withbasilisk eyes upon the fire. At length he arose, and without anotherword to his comrade he walked wearily to where lay the dark, quiet formsof the sleepers.
Jim Wilson remained beside the flickering fire. He was reading somethingin the red embers, perhaps the past. Shadows were on his face, not allfrom the fading flames or the towering spruces. Ever and anon he raisedhis head to listen, not apparently that he expected any unusual sound,but as if involuntarily. Indeed, as Anson had said, there was somethingnameless in the air. The black forest breathed heavily, in fitful moansof wind. It had its secrets. The glances Wilson threw on all sidesbetrayed that any hunted man did not love the dark night, though it hidhim. Wilson seemed fascinated by the life inclosed there by the blackcircle of spruce. He might have been reflecting on the strange reactionhappening to every man in that group, since a girl had been broughtamong them. Nothing was clear, however; the forest kept its secret, asdid the melancholy wind; the outlaws were sleeping like tired beasts,with their dark secrets locked in their hearts.
After a while Wilson put some sticks on the red embers, then pulled theend of a log over them. A blaze sputtered up, changing the dark circleand showing the sleepers with their set, shadowed faces upturned. Wilsongazed on all of them, a sardonic smile on his lips, and then his lookfixed upon the sleeper apart from the others--Riggs. It might have beenthe false light of flame and shadow that created Wilson's expression ofdark and terrible hate. Or it might have been the truth, expressedin that lonely, unguarded hour, from the depths of a man born in theSouth--a man who by his inheritance of race had reverence for allwomanhood--by whose strange, wild, outlawed bloody life of a gun-fighterhe must hate with the deadliest hate this type that aped and mocked hisfame.
It was a long gaze Wilson rested upon Riggs--as strange and secretive asthe forest wind moaning down the great aisles--and when that dark gazewas withdrawn Wilson stalked away to make his bed with the stride of oneill whom spirit had liberated force.
He laid his saddle in front of the spruce shelter where the girl hadentered, and his tarpaulin and blankets likewise and then wearilystretched his long length to rest.
The camp-fire blazed up, showing the exquisite green and brown-fleckedfestooning of the spruce branches, symmetrical and perfect, yet soirregular, and then it burned out and died down, leaving all in th
e dimgray starlight. The horses were not moving around; the moan of nightwind had grown fainter; the low hum of insects was dying away; eventhe tinkle of the brook had diminished. And that growth toward absolutesilence continued, yet absolute silence was never attained. Life abidedin the forest; only it had changed its form for the dark hours.
Anson's gang did not bestir themselves at the usual early sunrise hourcommon to all woodsmen, hunters, or outlaws, to whom the break of daywas welcome. These companions--Anson and Riggs included--might havehated to see the dawn come. It meant only another meager meal, thenthe weary packing and the long, long ride to nowhere in particular,and another meager meal--all toiled for without even the necessities ofsatisfactory living, and assuredly without the thrilling hopes thatmade their life significant, and certainly with a growing sense ofapproaching calamity.
The outlaw leader rose surly and cross-grained. He had to boot Burtto drive him out for the horses. Riggs followed him. Shady Jones didnothing except grumble. Wilson, by common consent, always made thesour-dough bread, and he was slow about it this morning. Anson and Mozedid the rest of the work, without alacrity. The girl did not appear.
"Is she dead?" growled Anson.
"No, she ain't," replied Wilson, looking up. "She's sleepin'. Let hersleep. She'd shore be a sight better off if she was daid."
"A-huh! So would all of this hyar outfit," was Anson's response.
"Wal, Sna-ake, I shore reckon we'll all be thet there soon," drawledWilson, in his familiar cool and irritating tone that said so much morethan the content of the words.
Anson did not address the Texas member of his party again.
Burt rode bareback into camp, driving half the number of the horses;Riggs followed shortly with several more. But three were missed, oneof them being Anson's favorite. He would not have budged without thathorse. During breakfast he growled about his lazy men, and after themeal tried to urge them off. Riggs went unwillingly. Burt refused to goat all.
"Nix. I footed them hills all I'm a-goin' to," he said. "An' from now onI rustle my own hoss."
The leader glared his reception of this opposition. Perhaps his sense offairness actuated him once more, for he ordered Shady and Moze out to dotheir share.
"Jim, you're the best tracker in this outfit. Suppose you go," suggestedAnson. "You allus used to be the first one off."
"Times has changed, Snake," was the imperturbable reply.
"Wal, won't you go?" demanded the leader, impatiently.
"I shore won't."
Wilson did not look or intimate in any way that he would not leave thegirl in camp with one or any or all of Anson's gang, but the truth wasas significant as if he had shouted it. The slow-thinking Moze gaveWilson a sinister look.
"Boss, ain't it funny how a pretty wench--?" began Shady Jones,sarcastically.
"Shut up, you fool!" broke in Anson. "Come on, I'll help rustle themhosses."
After they had gone Burt took his rifle and strolled off into theforest. Then the girl appeared. Her hair was down, her face pale, withdark shadows. She asked for water to wash her face. Wilson pointed tothe brook, and as she walked slowly toward it he took a comb and a cleanscarf from his pack and carried them to her.
Upon her return to the camp-fire she looked very different with her hairarranged and the red stains in her cheeks.
"Miss, air you hungry?" asked Wilson.
"Yes, I am," she replied.
He helped her to portions of bread, venison and gravy, and a cup ofcoffee. Evidently she relished the meat, but she had to force down therest.
"Where are they all?" she asked.
"Rustlin' the hosses."
Probably she divined that he did not want to talk, for the fleetingglance she gave him attested to a thought that his voice or demeanor hadchanged. Presently she sought a seat under the aspen-tree, out ofthe sun, and the smoke continually blowing in her face; and there shestayed, a forlorn little figure, for all the resolute lips and defianteyes.
The Texan paced to and fro beside the camp-fire with bent head,and hands locked behind him. But for the swinging gun he would haveresembled a lanky farmer, coatless and hatless, with his brown vestopen, his trousers stuck in the top of the high boots.
And neither he nor the girl changed their positions relatively fora long time. At length, however, after peering into the woods, andlistening, he remarked to the girl that he would be back in a moment,and then walked off around the spruces.
No sooner had he disappeared--in fact, so quickly after-ward that itpresupposed design instead of accident--than Riggs came running from theopposite side of the glade. He ran straight to the girl, who sprang toher feet.
"I hid--two of the--horses," he panted, husky with excitement. "I'lltake--two saddles. You grab some grub. We'll run for it."
"No," she cried, stepping back.
"But it's not safe--for us--here," he said, hurriedly, glancing allaround. "I'll take you--home. I swear.... Not safe--I tell you--thisgang's after me. Hurry!"
He laid hold of two saddles, one with each hand. The moment had reddenedhis face, brightened his eyes, made his action strong.
"I'm safer--here with this outlaw gang," she replied.
"You won't come!" His color began to lighten then, and his face todistort. He dropped his hold on the saddles.
"Harve Riggs, I'd rather become a toy and a rag for these ruffians thanspend an hour alone with you," she flashed at him, in unquenchable hate.
"I'll drag you!"
He seized her, but could not hold her. Breaking away, she screamed.
"Help!"
That whitened his face, drove him to frenzy. Leaping forward, he struckher a hard blow across the mouth. It staggered her, and, tripping on asaddle, she fell. His hands flew to her throat, ready to choke her. Butshe lay still and held her tongue. Then he dragged her to her feet.
"Hurry now--grab that pack--an' follow me." Again Riggs laid hold of thetwo saddles. A desperate gleam, baleful and vainglorious, flashed overhis face. He was living his one great adventure.
The girl's eyes dilated. They looked beyond him. Her lips opened.
"Scream again an' I'll kill you!" he cried, hoarsely and swiftly. Thevery opening of her lips had terrified Riggs.
"Reckon one scream was enough," spoke a voice, slow, but without thedrawl, easy and cool, yet incalculable in some terrible sense.
Riggs wheeled with inarticulate cry. Wilson stood a few paces off, withhis gun half leveled, low down. His face seemed as usual, only his eyesheld a quivering, light intensity, like boiling molten silver.
"Girl, what made thet blood on your mouth?"
"Riggs hit me!" she whispered. Then at something she feared or saw ordivined she shrank back, dropped on her knees, and crawled into thespruce shelter.
"Wal, Riggs, I'd invite you to draw if thet 'd be any use," said Wilson.This speech was reflective, yet it hurried a little.
Riggs could not draw nor move nor speak. He seemed turned to stone,except his jaw, which slowly fell.
"Harve Riggs, gunman from down Missouri way," continued the voice ofincalculable intent, "reckon you've looked into a heap of gun-barrels inyour day. Shore! Wal, look in this heah one!"
Wilson deliberately leveled the gun on a line with Riggs's startingeyes.
"Wasn't you heard to brag in Turner's saloon--thet you could see leadcomin'--an' dodge it? Shore you must be swift!... DODGE THIS HEAHBULLET!"
The gun spouted flame and boomed. One of Riggs's starting, poppingeyes--the right one--went out, like a lamp. The other rolled horribly,then set in blank dead fixedness. Riggs swayed in slow motion until alost balance felled him heavily, an inert mass.
Wilson bent over the prostrate form. Strange, violent contrast to thecool scorn of the preceding moment! Hissing, spitting, as if poisoned bypassion, he burst with the hate that his character had forbidden him toexpress on a living counterfeit. Wilson was shaken, as if by a palsy. Hechoked over passionate, incoherent invective. It was class hate first,then the hate of rea
l manhood for a craven, then the hate of disgracefor a murder. No man so fair as a gun-fighter in the Western creed of an"even break"!
Wilson's terrible cataclysm of passion passed. Straightening up, hesheathed his weapon and began a slow pace before the fire. Not manymoments afterward he jerked his head high and listened. Horses weresoftly thudding through the forest. Soon Anson rode into sight withhis men and one of the strayed horses. It chanced, too, that young Burtappeared on the other side of the glade. He walked quickly, as one whoanticipated news.
Snake Anson as he dismounted espied the dead man.
"Jim--I thought I heard a shot."
The others exclaimed and leaped off their horses to view the prostrateform with that curiosity and strange fear common to all men confrontedby sight of sudden death.
That emotion was only momentary.
"Shot his lamp out!" ejaculated Moze.
"Wonder how Gunman Riggs liked thet plumb center peg!" exclaimed ShadyJones, with a hard laugh.
"Back of his head all gone!" gasped young Burt. Not improbably he hadnot seen a great many bullet-marked men.
"Jim!--the long-haired fool didn't try to draw on you!" exclaimed SnakeAnson, astounded.
Wilson neither spoke nor ceased his pacing.
"What was it over?" added Anson, curiously.
"He hit the gurl," replied Wilson.
Then there were long-drawn exclamations all around, and glance metglance.
"Jim, you saved me the job," continued the outlaw leader. "An' I'm muchobliged.... Fellars, search Riggs an' we'll divvy.... Thet all right,Jim?"
"Shore, an' you can have my share."
They found bank-notes in the man's pocket and considerable gold worn ina money-belt around his waist. Shady Jones appropriated his boots, andMoze his gun. Then they left him as he had fallen.
"Jim, you'll have to track them lost hosses. Two still missin' an' oneof them's mine," called Anson as Wilson paced to the end of his beat.
The girl heard Anson, for she put her head out of the spruce shelter andcalled: "Riggs said he'd hid two of the horses. They must be close. Hecame that way."
"Howdy, kid! Thet's good news," replied Anson. His spirits were rising."He must hev wanted you to slope with him?"
"Yes. I wouldn't go."
"An' then he hit you?"
"Yes."
"Wal, recallin' your talk of yestiddy, I can't see as Mister Riggslasted much longer hyar than he'd hev lasted in Texas. We've some ofthet great country right in our outfit."
The girl withdrew her white face.
"It's break camp, boys," was the leader's order. "A couple of you lookup them hosses. They'll be hid in some thick spruces. The rest of us 'llpack."
Soon the gang was on the move, heading toward the height of land, andswerving from it only to find soft and grassy ground that would notleave any tracks.
They did not travel more than a dozen miles during the afternoon, butthey climbed bench after bench until they reached the timbered plateauthat stretched in sheer black slope up to the peaks. Here rose the greatand gloomy forest of firs and pines, with the spruce overshadowed andthinned out. The last hour of travel was tedious and toilsome, a zigzag,winding, breaking, climbing hunt for the kind of camp-site suitedto Anson's fancy. He seemed to be growing strangely irrational aboutselecting places to camp. At last, for no reason that could have beenmanifest to a good woodsman, he chose a gloomy bowl in the center of thedensest forest that had been traversed. The opening, if such it couldhave been called, was not a park or even a glade. A dark cliff, withstrange holes, rose to one side, but not so high as the lofty pines thatbrushed it. Along its base babbled a brook, running over such formationof rock that from different points near at hand it gave forth differentsounds, some singing, others melodious, and one at least of a hollow,weird, deep sound, not loud, but strangely penetrating.
"Sure spooky I say," observed Shady, sentiently.
The little uplift of mood, coincident with the rifling of Riggs'sperson, had not worn over to this evening camp. What talk the outlawsindulged in was necessary and conducted in low tones. The place enjoinedsilence.
Wilson performed for the girl very much the same service as he had thenight before. Only he advised her not to starve herself; she must eatto keep up her strength. She complied at the expense of considerableeffort.
As it had been a back-breaking day, in which all of them, except thegirl, had climbed miles on foot, they did not linger awake long enoughafter supper to learn what a wild, weird, and pitch-black spot theoutlaw leader had chosen. The little spaces of open ground between thehuge-trunked pine-trees had no counterpart up in the lofty spreadingfoliage. Not a star could blink a wan ray of light into that Stygianpit. The wind, cutting down over abrupt heights farther up, sang in thepine-needles as if they were strings vibrant with chords. Dismal creakswere audible. They were the forest sounds of branch or tree rubbing oneanother, but which needed the corrective medium of daylight to convinceany human that they were other than ghostly. Then, despite the wind anddespite the changing murmur of the brook, there seemed to be a silenceinsulating them, as deep and impenetrable as the darkness.
But the outlaws, who were fugitives now, slept the sleep of the weary,and heard nothing. They awoke with the sun, when the forest seemed smokyin a golden gloom, when light and bird and squirrel proclaimed the day.
The horses had not strayed out of this basin during the night, acircumstance that Anson was not slow to appreciate.
"It ain't no cheerful camp, but I never seen a safer place to hole upin," he remarked to Wilson.
"Wal, yes--if any place is safe," replied that ally, dubiously.
"We can watch our back tracks. There ain't any other way to git in hyarthet I see."
"Snake, we was tolerable fair sheep-rustlers, but we're no goodwoodsmen."
Anson grumbled his disdain of this comrade who had once been hismainstay. Then he sent Burt out to hunt fresh meat and engaged his othermen at cards. As they now had the means to gamble, they at once becameabsorbed. Wilson smoked and divided his thoughtful gaze between thegamblers and the drooping figure of the girl. The morning air waskeen, and she, evidently not caring to be near her captors beside thecamp-fire, had sought the only sunny spot in this gloomy dell. A coupleof hours passed; the sun climbed high; the air grew warmer. Once theoutlaw leader raised his head to scan the heavy-timbered slopes thatinclosed the camp.
"Jim, them hosses are strayin' off," he observed.
Wilson leisurely rose and stalked off across the small, open patches,in the direction of the horses. They had grazed around from the righttoward the outlet of the brook. Here headed a ravine, dense and green.Two of the horses had gone down. Wilson evidently heard them, thoughthey were not in sight, and he circled somewhat so as to get ahead ofthem and drive them back. The invisible brook ran down over the rockswith murmur and babble. He halted with instinctive action. He listened.Forest sounds, soft, lulling, came on the warm, pine-scented breeze. Itwould have taken no keen ear to hear soft and rapid padded footfalls.He moved on cautiously and turned into a little open, mossy spot,brown-matted and odorous, full of ferns and bluebells. In the middleof this, deep in the moss, he espied a huge round track of a cougar.He bent over it. Suddenly he stiffened, then straightened guardedly. Atthat instant he received a hard prod in the back. Throwing up his hands,he stood still, then slowly turned. A tall hunter in gray buckskin,gray-eyed and square-jawed, had him covered with a cocked rifle. Andbeside this hunter stood a monster cougar, snarling and blinking.