CHAPTER XII.
WE LOSE AGAIN.
Three days later MacRae and I scaled the steep bank at the west end ofthe cliff and threw ourselves, panting, on the level that ran up to thesheer drop-off. When we had regained the breath we'd lost on thatMansard-roof climb we drew near to the edge, where we could stare intothe valley three hundred feet below while we made us a cigarette apiece.We were just a mite discouraged. Beginning that first morning at theeast end of the Writing-Stone we had worked west, conning theweather-worn face of it for a mark that would give a clue to the_cache_. Also we had scanned carefully the sandy soil patches along theboulder-strewn base, seeking the tell-tale footprints of horse or man.And we had found nothing. Each day the conviction grew stronger upon usthat finding that gold would be purely chance, a miracle of luck;systematic search had so far resulted in nothing but blistered heelsfrom much walking. And unless we did find it, thereby giving thegentlemen of the mask some incentive to match themselves against us oncemore, we were not likely to have the opportunity of breaking up a nervybunch of murdering thieves.
We reasoned that the men whose guns we had looked into over Rutter'sbody and those who robbed the paymaster on the MacLeod trail were tarredwith the same stick; likewise, that even now two of them ate out of thesame pot with us three times daily. The thing was to prove it.Personally, the paymaster's trouble was none of my concern; what Iwanted was to get back that ten thousand dollars, or deal those houndsten thousand dollars' worth of misery. Not that I wasn't willing to takea long chance to help Lyn to her own, but I was human enough to rememberthat I had a good deal at stake myself. It was a rather depressedstock-hand, name of Flood, who blew cigarette smoke out over the brow ofWriting-Stone that evening.
Mac finished smoking and ground the stub into the earth with his heel.For another minute or two he sat there without speaking, absentlyflipping pebbles over the bank.
"I reckon we might as well poke along the top to camp," he said at last,getting to his feet. "I sent that breed back, down there, so we couldtalk without having to keep cases on him. This is beginning to look likea hopeless case, isn't it?"
"Somewhat," I admitted. "I did think that Rutter's description would putus on the right track when we got there; but I can't see much meaning init now. I suppose we'll just have to keep on going it blind."
"We'll have to stay with it while there's any chance," he saidthoughtfully. "But I've been thinking that it might be a good plan totake a fall out of those two." He jerked his thumb in the direction ofcamp. "If we have sized things up right, they'll make some sort of move,and if we're mistaken there will be no harm done. I'll tell you an ideathat popped into my head a minute ago. We can pretend to locate thestuff. Fix up a couple of dummy sacks, you know, and get them to campand packed on the horse without letting them see what's inside. If Lyngave Lessard the right figures, there should be between a hundred andforty or fifty pounds of dust. It's small in bulk, but weighty as a badconscience. If we had a couple of little sacks we could get around thatproblem, easy enough--this black sand along the river would pass forgold-dust in weight. We could make the proper sort of play, and givethem the chance they're looking for. If they make a break it'll be up tous to get the best of the trouble."
"It might work," I replied. "If you think it would make them tip theirhand, I'm with you. This watch-the-other-fellow business is making menervous as an old woman. Once we had those two dead to rights they mightlet out something that would enable us to land the whole bunch, and theplunder besides; once we had them rounded up we could come back here andhunt for Hank Rowan's gold-dust in peace."
"You've got the idea exactly, and we'll see what we can do in themorning," Mac returned. "But don't get married to the notion thatthey'll cough up all they know, right off the reel. Hicks might, if youwent at him hard enough. But not the other fellow. Gregory's game clearthrough--he's demonstrated that in different ways since I've been in theForce. You could carve him to pieces without hearing a cheep, if hedecided to keep his mouth shut. And he's about as dangerous a man in ascrimmage as I know. If there's a row, don't overlook Mr. Gregory."
We hoofed it toward camp as briskly as our galled feet would permit, forthe sun was getting close to the sky line, and talked over Mac's schemeas we went. There was no danger of being overheard on that bench. As amatter of fact, Hicks and Gregory didn't know we were up there; atleast, they were not supposed to know. MacRae had made a practice ofleaving one or the other in camp, in case some prowling Indians shouldspy our horses and attempt to run them off. That afternoon Hicks hadbeen on guard. When Mac started Gregory back he told him that we wouldbe along presently, then sat himself down on a rock and watched thebreed. When he was far enough up the flat to lose track of our movementswe dropped into a convenient washout and sneaked along it to the foot ofthe bank, where a jutting point of rock hid sight of us climbing thehill.
We had no thought of spying on them, at first--it was simply to be ridof their onerous presence for a while, and getting on the bench was anafterthought. But as we came opposite camp, MacRae took a notion to lookdown and see what they were about. At a point which overlooked thebottom some two hundred yards from the east end of the Stone, we gotdown on our stomachs and wriggled carefully to the naked rim of thecliff. For some time we laid there, peering down at the men below. Hickswas puttering around the fire, evidently cooking supper, and Gregory wasmoving the picket rope of his horse to fresh grass. There was nothingout of the ordinary to be seen, and I drew back. But MacRae still kepthis place. When he did back away from the edge, he had the look of a manwho has made some important discovery.
"On my soul, I believe I've found it," he calmly announced.
"What!"
"I believe I have," he repeated, a trace of exultation in his tone. "Atleast, it amounts to the same thing. Crawl up there again, Sarge, andlook straight down at the first ledge from the bottom. Hurry; you won'tsee anything if the sun has left it. And be careful how you show yourhead. We don't want to get them stirred up till we have to."
Cautiously I peeped over the brink, straight down as Mac had directed.The shadow that follows on the heels of a setting sun was just creepingover the ledge, but the slanting rays lingered long enough to give mesight of a glittering patch on the gray stone shelf below. While Istared the sun withdrew its fading beams from the whole face of thecliff, but even in the duller light a glint of yellow showed dimly, apin point of gold in the deepening shadow.
Gold! I drew back from the rim of Writing-On-the-Stone, that set ofwhispered phrases echoing in my ears. Mac caught my eye and grinned."_Gold--raw gold--on the rock--above._" I mouthed the words parrotlike,and he nodded comprehendingly.
"Oh, thunder!" I exclaimed. "Do you reckon _that's_ what he meant?"
"What else?" Mac reasoned. "They'd mark the place somehow--and aren'tthose his exact words? What dummies we were not to look on those ledgesbefore. You can't see the surface of them from the flat; and we mighthave known they would hardly put a mark where it could be seen by anypilgrim who happened to ride through that bottom."
"Hope you're right," I grunted optimistically.
"We'll know beyond a doubt, in the morning," Mac declared. "To-night wewon't do anything but eat, drink, and sleep as sound as possible, forto-morrow we may have one hell of a time. I prefer to have a few hoursof daylight ahead of us when we raise that _cache_. Things are apt totighten, and I don't like a rumpus in the dark. Just now I'm hungry. Ifthat stuff is there, it will keep. Come on to camp; our troubles areeither nearly over or just about to begin in earnest."
We followed the upland past the end of the Stone till we found a slopethat didn't require wings for descent. If Hicks or Gregory wondered atour arrival from the opposite direction in which we should haveappeared, they didn't betray any unseemly curiosity. Supper and acigarette or two consumed the twilight hour, and when dark shut down wetook to our blankets and dozed through the night.
At daybreak we breakfasted. Without a word to any one MacRae picked uphis ca
rbine and walked out of camp. I followed, equally silent. It wasbarely a hundred yards to the ledge, and I caught myself wishing it werea good deal farther--out of range of those watchful eyes. I couldn'thelp wondering how it would feel to be potted at the moment ofdiscovery.
"I thought I'd leave them both behind, and let them take it out inguessing," Mac explained, when we stood under the rock shelf upon whichwe had looked down the evening before. "We're right under their noses,so they won't do anything till the stuff's actually in sight."
He studied the face of the cliff for a minute. The ledge jutted out fromthe towering wall approximately twenty feet above our heads, but itcould be reached by a series of jagged points and knobs; a sort ofnatural stairway--though some of the steps were a long way apart.Boulders of all shapes and sizes lay bedded in the soft earth where westood.
"You shin up there, Sarge," Mac commanded, "and locate that mark. Itought to be an easy climb."
I "shinned," and reached the ledge with a good deal of skin peeled fromvarious parts of my person. The first object my eye fell upon as Ihoisted myself above the four-foot shelf was a dull, yellow spot on thegray rock, near enough so that I could lean forward and touch it with myfingers. A two-inch circle of the real thing--I'd seen enough gold inthe raw to know it without any acid test--hammered into the coarsesandstone. I pried it up with the blade of my knife and looked it over.Originally it had been a fair-sized nugget. Hans or Rowan had pounded itinto place with the back of a hatchet (the corner-marks told me that),flattening it to several times its natural diameter. I threw it down toMacRae, and looked carefully along the ledge. There was no other markthat I could see; I began to wonder if we were as hot on the scent as wehad thought.
"Is there a loose piece of rock up there?" Mac called presently. "Ifthere is, set it on the edge, in line with where this was."
I found a fragment about the size of my fist and set it on the rim ofthe ledge. He squinted up at it a moment, then nodded, smiling.
"Come on down now, Sarge," he grinned; and, seating himself on a rockwith the carbine across his knees, he began to roll a cigarette, as ifthe finding of Hank Rowan's gold-_cache_ were a thing of no importancewhatever.
"Well," I began, when I had negotiated that precarious succession ofknobs and notches and accumulated a fresh set of bruises, "why don't youget busy? How much wiser are you now? Where's your gold-dust?"
He took a deliberate puff and squinted up at the ledge again. "I'msitting on it, as near as I can figure," he coolly asserted.
"Yes, you are," I fleered. "I'm from Missouri!"
"Oh, you're a doubting Thomas of the first water," he said. "Standbehind me, you confounded unbeliever. Kink your back a little and lookover that stone you set for a mark. Do you see anything that catchesyour attention?"
Getting in the position he suggested, I looked up. Away back in the daysbefore the white man was a power to be reckoned with in the Indian'sscheme of things, some warrior had stood upon that self-same ledge andhacked out with a flint chisel what he and his fellows doubtlessconsidered a work of art. Uncanny-looking animals, and uncannier figuresthat might have passed for anything from an articulated skeleton to aMissing Link, cavorted in a long line across that tribalpicture-gallery. Between each group of figures the face of the rock wasscored with mysterious signs and rudely limned weapons of war and chase.Right over the stone marker, a long-shafted war-lance was carved--theblade pointing down. MacRae's seat, stone-marker, and aboriginalspearhead; the three lined up like the sights of a modern rifle. Theconclusion, in the light of what we knew from Rutter, was obvious, evento a lunkhead like myself.
"It looks like you might have struck it," I was constrained to admit.
Mac threw away his cigarette. "Here and now is where we find out," hedeclared.
Worming our fingers under the edge of the boulder, we lifted with allthe strength that was in us. For a second it seemed that we could neverbudge it. Then it began to rise slowly, so slowly that I thought themuscles of my back would snap, and MacRae's face close by mine grew redand then purple with the strain. But it moved, and presently a greatheave turned it over. Bedded in the soft earth underneath lay the slimbuckskin sacks. Our fingers, I remember, trembled a bit as we stood oneon end and loosened its mouth to make sure if we had found the treasurefor which two men had already lost their lives.
BEDDED IN THE SOFT EARTH UNDERNEATH LAY THE SLIM BUCKSKINSACKS.
_Page 159._]
"Here"--Mac handed me his carbine--"you stay with the yellow temptation.From now on we'll have to keep a close eye on this stuff, and likewisehave our guns handy. I'll make those fellows pack up and bring thehorses here. Then we'll load this and pull for Walsh."
His first move was to saddle his black horse and my dun. These he led tothe fire, and thereafter stood a little to one side, placidly consuminga cigarette while the other two packed the camp-outfit and saddled theirown mounts. Then they trailed across the flat toward me, MacRae blandlybringing up the rear. He wasn't taking any chances.
Half an hour later, with the sacks of gold securely lashed on the_aparejos_ of the pack-horse, we climbed out of Writing-Stone bottom andswung away over the silent tablelands.
With Writing-on-the-Stone scarcely three miles behind, thelong-abandoned burrow of a badger betrayed us into the hands of theenemy. (What a power for thwarting the plans of men little thingssometimes exercise!) We had contrived that Gregory should lead thepack-horse, which gave MacRae and me both hands to use in case of ahostile demonstration; that there would be such, neither of us doubtedfrom the moment those two laid eyes on the buckskin sacks. The sidelong,covetous glance that passed between them bespoke what was in theirminds. And from that time on the four of us were like so manyopen-headed casks of powder sitting by a fire; sooner or later a sparkwould bring the explosion. We had them at a disadvantage trotting acrossthe level upland, Gregory in the lead and Hicks sandwiched between Macand myself--until MacRae's horse planted his foreleg to the knee in anold badger-hole hidden under a rank accumulation of grass. The blackpitched forward so suddenly that Mac had no time to swing clear, and ashe went down under the horse Gregory's agile brain grasped theopportunity of the situation, and his gun flashed out of its scabbard.
My hand flew to mine as I jerked the dun up short, but I wasn't fastenough--and Hicks was too close. It was a trilogy of gun-drawing.Gregory drew his and fired at MacRae with the devilish quickness of astriking rattler; I drew with intent to get Mr. Gregory; and Hicks drewhis and slapped me over the head with it, even as my finger curled onthe trigger. My gun went off, I know--afterward I had a dim recollectionof a faint report--but whether the bullet went whistling into the blueabove or buried itself in the broad bosom of the Territory, I can't say.Things ceased to happen, right then and there, so far as I wasconcerned. And I haven't satisfied myself yet why Hicks struck insteadof shooting; unless he had learned the frontier lesson that a bullet ina vital spot doesn't _always_ incapacitate a man for deadly gun-play,while a hard rap on the head invariably does. It wasn't any scruple ofmercy, for Hicks was as cold-blooded a brute as ever glanced down agun-barrel.
When my powers of sight and speech and hearing returned, MacRae stoodover me, nowise harmed. The black horse lay where he had fallen. I satup and glanced about, thankful that I was still in the flesh, but in asavage mood for all that. This, thought I, is a dismal-lookingoutcome--two men and a dead horse left high and dry on the sun-floodedprairie. And a rampant ache in my head, seconded by a medium-sized gashin the scalp, didn't make for an access of optimism at that moment.
"Well," I burst out profanely, "we lose again, eh?"
"Looks like it," Mac answered laconically. Then he whirled about andwalked to a little point some distance away, where he stood with hisback to me, looking toward Lost River.