CHAPTER VIII
AN ESCAPE AND A CAPTURE
Far up in the mountains, in that section where head the Roaring Fork, OneHorse Creek, and the Del Oro, is a vast tract of wild, untraveled countryknown vaguely as the Bad Lands. Somewhere among the thousand and onecanyons which cleft the huddled hills lay hidden Dead Man's Cache. HereBlack MacQueen retreated on those rare occasions when the pursuit grew hoton his tracks. So the current report ran.
Whether the abductors of Simon West were to be found in the Cache or atsome other nest in the almost inaccessible ridges Jack Flatray had nomeans of knowing. His plan was to follow the Roaring Fork almost to itsheadquarters, and there establish a base for his hunt. It might take him aweek to flush his game. It might take a month. He clamped his bulldog jawto see the thing out to a finish.
Jack did not make the mistake of underestimating his job. He had followedthe trail of bad men often enough to know that, in a frontier country, nohunt is so desperate as the man-hunt. Such men are never easily taken,even if they do not have all the advantage in the deadly game of hide andseek that is played in the timber and the pockets of the hills.
And here the odds all lay with the hunted. They knew every ravine andgulch. Day by day their scout looked down from mountain ledges to watchthe progress of the posse.
Moreover, Flatray could never tell at what moment his covey might bestartled from its run. The greatest vigilance was necessary to make surehis own party would not be ambushed. Yet slowly he combed the arroyos andthe ridges, drawing always closer to that net of gulches in which he knewDead Man's Cache must be located.
During the day the sheriff split his party into couples. Bellamy and AlanMcKinstra, Farnum and Charlie Hymer, young Yarnell and the sheriff. SoJack had divided his posse, thus leaving at the head of each detail oneold and wise head. Each night the parties met at the rendezvous appointedfor the wranglers with the pack horses. From sunrise to sunset often noface was seen other than those of their own outfit. Sometimes a solitarysheep herder was discovered at his post. Always the work was hard,discouraging, and apparently futile. But the young sheriff never thoughtof quitting.
The provisions gave out. Jack sent back Hal Yarnell and Hegler, thewrangler, to bring in a fresh supply. Meanwhile the young sheriff took abig chance and scouted alone. He parted from the young Arkansan at thehead of a gulch which twisted snakelike into the mountains; Yarnell andthe pack outfit to ride to Mammoth, Flatray to dive still deeper into themesh of hills. He had the instinct of the scout to stick to the highplaces as much as he could. Whenever it was possible he followed ridges,so that no spy could look down upon him as he traveled. Sometimes thecontour of the country drove him into the open or down into hollows. Butin such places he advanced with the swift stealth of an Indian.
It was on one of these occasions, when he had been driven into a dark andnarrow canyon, that he came to a sudden halt. He was looking at an emptytomato can. Swinging down from his saddle, he picked it up withoutdismounting. A little juice dripped from the can to the ground.
Flatray needed no explanation. In Arizona men on the range often carry acan of tomatoes instead of a water canteen. Nothing alleviates thirst likethe juice of this acid fruit. Some one had opened this can within twohours. Otherwise the sun would have dried the moisture.
Jack took his rifle from its place beneath his legs and set it across thesaddle in front of him. Very carefully he continued on his way, watchingevery rock and bush ahead of him. Here and there in the sand were printedthe signs of a horse going in the same direction as his.
Up and down, in and out of a maze of crooked paths, working by ever sodevious a way higher into the chain of mountains, Jack followed hisleader. Now he would lose the hoofmarks; now he would pick them up again.And, at the last, they brought him to the rim of a basin, a bowl of woodedravines, of twisted ridges, of bleak spurs jutting into late pasturesalmost green. It was now past sunset. Dusk was filtering down from theblue peaks. As he looked a star peeped out low on the horizon.
But was it a star? He glimpsed it between trees. The conviction grew onhim that what he saw was the light of a lamp. A tangle of rough countrylay between him and that beacon, but there before him lay his destination.At last he had found his way into Dead Man's Cache.
The sheriff lost no time, for he knew that if he should get lost in thedarkness on one of these forest slopes he might wander all night. A roughtrail led him down into the basin. Now he would lose sight of the light.Half an hour later, pushing to the summit of a hill, he might find it.After a time there twinkled a second beside the first. He was gettingclose to a settlement of some kind.
Below him in the darkness lay a stretch of open meadow rising to thewooded foothills. Behind these a wall of rugged mountains encircled thevalley like a gigantic crooked arm. Already he could make out faintly theoutlines of the huddled buildings.
Slipping from his horse, Jack went forward cautiously on foot. He wasstill a hundred yards from the nearest hut when dogs bayed warning of hisapproach. He waited, rifle in hand. No sign of human life showed exceptthe two lights shining from as many windows. Flatray counted four othercabins as dark as Egypt.
Very slowly he crept forward, always with one eye to his retreat. Why didnobody answer the barking of the dogs? Was he being watched all the time?But how could he be, since he was completely cloaked in darkness?
So at last he came to the nearest cabin, crept to the window, and lookedin. A man lay on a bed. His hands and feet were securely tied and a secondrope wound round so as to bind him to the bunk.
Flatray tapped softly on a pane. Instantly the head of the bound manslewed round.
"Friend?"
The prisoner asked it ever so gently, but the sheriff heard.
"Yes."
"The top part of the window is open. You can crawl over, I reckon."
Jack climbed on the sill and from it through the window. Almost before hereached the floor his knife was out and he was slashing at the ropes.
"Better put the light out, pardner," suggested the man he was freeing,and the officer noticed that there was no tremor in the cool, steadyvoice.
"That's right. We'd make a fine mark through the window."
And the light went out.
"I'm Bucky O'Connor. Who are you?"
"Jack Flatray."
They spoke together in whispers. Though both were keyed to the highestpitch of excitement they were as steady as eight-day clocks. O'Connorstretched his limbs, flexing them this way and that, so that he might haveperfect control of them. He worked especially over the forearm and fingersof his right arm.
Flatray handed him a revolver.
"Whenever you're ready, Lieutenant."
"All right. It's the cabin next to this."
They climbed out of the window noiselessly and crept to the next hut. Thedoor was locked, the window closed.
"We've got to smash the window. Nothing else for it," Flatray whispered.
"Looks like it. That means we'll have to shoot our way out."
With the butt of his rifle the sheriff shattered the woodwork of thewindow, driving the whole frame into the room.
"What is it?" a frightened voice demanded.
"Friends, Mr. West. Just a minute."
It took them scarce longer than that to free him and to get him into theopen. A Mexican woman came screaming out of an adjoining cabin.
The young men caught each an arm of the capitalist and hurried himforward.
"Hell'll be popping in a minute," Flatray explained.
But they reached the shelter of the underbrush without a shot having beenfired. Nor had a single man appeared to dispute their escape.
"Looks like most of the family is away from home to-night," Buckyhazarded.
"Maybe so, but they're liable to drop in any minute. We'll keep coveringground."
They circled round toward the sheriff's horse. As soon as they reached itWest, still stiff from want of circulation in his cramped limbs, wasboosted into the saddle.
r /> "It's going to be a good deal of a guess to find our way out of theCache," Jack explained. "Even in the daytime it would take a 'Pache, butat night--well, here's hoping the luck's good."
They found it not so good as they had hoped. For hours they wandered inmesquit, dragged themselves through cactus, crossed washes, and climbedhills.
"This will never do. We'd better give it up till daylight. We're notgetting anywhere," the sheriff suggested.
They did as he advised. As soon as a faint gray sifted into the sky theywere on the move again. But whichever way they climbed it was always tocome up against steep cliffs too precipitous to be scaled.
The ranger officer pointed to a notch beyond a cowbacked hill. "I wouldn'tbe sure, but it looks like that was the way they brought me into theCache. I could tell if I were up there. What's the matter with my goingahead and settling the thing? If I'm right I'll come back and let youknow."
Jack looked at West. The railroad man was tired and drawn. He was not usedto galloping over the hills all night.
"All right. We'll be here when you come back," Flatray said, and flunghimself on the ground.
West followed his example.
It must have been half an hour later that Flatray heard a twig snap underan approaching foot. He had been scanning the valley with his glasses,having given West instructions to keep a lookout in the rear. He swung hishead round sharply, and with it his rifle.
"You're covered, you fool," cried the man who was strutting toward them.
"Stop there. Not another step," Flatray called sharply.
The man stopped, his rifle half raised. "We've got you on every side,man." He lifted his voice. "Jeff--Hank--Steve! Let him know you'realive."
Three guns cracked and kicked up the dust close to the sheriff.
"What do you want with us?" Flatray asked, sparring for time.
"Drop your gun. If you don't we'll riddle you both."
West spoke to Jack promptly. "Do as he says. It's MacQueen."
Flatray hesitated. He could kill MacQueen probably, but almost certainlyhe and West would pay the penalty. He reluctantly put his rifle down. "Allright. It's your call."
"Where's O'Connor?"
The sheriff looked straight at him. "Haven't you enough of us for onegather?"
The outlaws were closing in on them cautiously.
"Not without that smart man hunter. Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"The devil you don't."
"We separated early this morning--thought it would give us a better chancefor a getaway." Jack gave a sudden exclamation of surprise. "So it wasBlack MacQueen himself who posed as O'Connor down at Mesa."
"Guessed it right, my friend. And I'll tell you one thing: you've made themistake of your life butting into Dead Man's Cache. Your missing friendO'Connor was due to hand in his checks to-day. Since you've taken hisplace it will be you that crosses the divide, Mr. Sheriff. You'd bettertell where he is, for if we don't get Mr. Bucky it will be God help J.Flatray."
The dapper little villain exuded a smug, complacent cruelty. It was no usefor the sheriff to remind himself that such things weren't done nowadays,that the times of Geronimo and the Apache Kid were past forever. BlackMacQueen would go the limit in deviltry if he set his mind to it.
Yet Flatray answered easily, without any perceptible hesitation: "I reckonI'll play my hand and let Bucky play his."
"Suits me if it does you. Jeff, collect that hardware. Now, while you boysbeat up the hills for O'Connor, I'll trail back to camp with these twoall-night picnickers."