CHAPTER XLIV
CRAWLING STONE WASH
Where the Little Crawling Stone River tears out of the MissionMountains it has left a grayish-white gap that may be seen for manymiles. This is the head of the North Crawling Stone Valley. Twentymiles to the right the big river itself bursts through the Missionhills in the canyon known as the Box. Between the confluence of Bigand Little Crawling Stone, and on the east side of Little CrawlingStone, lies a vast waste. Standing in the midst of this frightfuleruption from the heart of the mountains, one sees, as far as the eyecan reach, a landscape utterly forbidding. North for sixty miles liethe high chains of the Mission range, and a cuplike configuration ofthe mountains close to the valley affords a resting-place for thedeepest snows of winter and a precipitous escape for the torrents ofJune. Here, when the sun reaches its summer height or a sweet-grasswind blows soft or a cloudburst above the peaks strikes the southerlyface of the range, winter unfrocks in a single night. A glacier ofsnow melts within twenty-four hours into a torrent of lava and burstswith incredible fury from a thousand gorges.
When this happens nothing withstands. Whatever lies in the path of theflood is swept from the face of the earth. The mountains, assailed ina moment with the ferocity of a hundred storms, are ripped and tornlike hills of clay. The frosted scale of the granite, the desperateroot of the cedar, the poised nest of the eagle, the clutch of thecrannied vine, the split and start of the mountainside, are all as onebefore the June thaw. At its height Little Crawling Stone, with a headof forty feet, is a choking flood of rock. Mountains, torn andbleeding, vomit bowlders of thirty, sixty, a hundred tons like pebblesupon the valley. Even there they find no permanent resting-place. Eachsucceeding year sees them torn groaning from their beds in the wash.New masses of rock are hurled upon them, new waters lift them in freshcaprice, and the crash and the grinding echo in the hills like a roarof mountain thunder.
Where the wash covers the valley nothing lives; the fertile earth haslong been buried under the mountain _debris_. It supports no plantlife beyond the scantiest deposit of weed-plant seed, and the rockyscurf, spreading like a leprosy over many miles, scars the face of thegreen earth. This is the Crawling Stone wash. Exhausted by the furyof its few yearly weeks of activity, Little Crawling Stone runs forthe greater part of the year a winding, shallow stream through a bedof whitened bowlders where lizards sun themselves and trout lurk inshaded pools.
When Whispering Smith and his companions were fairly started on thelast day of their ride, it was toward this rift in the Mission rangethat the trail led them. Sinclair, with consummate cleverness, hadrejoined his companions; but the attempt to get into the Cache, andhis reckless ride into Medicine Bend, had reduced their chances ofescape to a single outlet, and that they must find up Crawling StoneValley. The necessity of it was spelled in every move the pursued menhad made for twenty-four hours. They were riding the pick of mountainhorseflesh and covering their tracks by every device known to the highcountry. Behind them, made prudent by unusual danger, rode the bestmen the mountain division could muster for the final effort to bringthem to account. The fast riding of the early week had given way tothe pace of caution. No trail sign was overlooked, no point ofconcealment directly approached, no hiding-place left unsearched.
The tension of a long day of this work was drawing to a close when thesun set and left the big wash in the shadow of the mountains. On thehigher ground to the right, Kennedy and Scott were riding where theycould command the gullies of the precipitous left bank of the river.High on the left bank itself, worming his way like a snake from pointto point of concealment through the scanty brush of the mountainside,crawled Wickwire, commanding the pockets in the right bank. Closer tothe river on the right and following the trail itself over shale androck and between scattered bowlders, Whispering Smith, low on hishorse's neck, rode slowly.
It was almost too dark to catch the slight discolorations wherepebbles had been disturbed on a flat surface or the calk of ahorseshoe had slipped on the uneven face of a ledge, and he had haltedunder an uplift to wait for Wickwire on the distant left to advance,when, half a mile below him, a horseman crossing the river rode slowlypast a gap in the rocks and disappeared below the next bend. He wasfollowed in a moment by a second rider and a third. Whispering Smithknew he had not been seen. He had flushed the game, and, wheeling hishorse, rode straight up the river-bank to high ground, where he couldcircle around widely below them. They had slipped between his line andWickwire's, and were doubling back, following the dry bed of thestream. It was impossible to recall Kennedy and Scott without givingan alarm, but by a quick _detour_ he could at least hold the quarryback for twenty minutes with his rifle, and in that time Kennedy andScott could come up.
Less than half an hour of daylight remained. If the outlaws could slipdown the wash and out into the Crawling Stone Valley they had everychance of getting away in the night; and if the third man should beBarney Rebstock, Whispering Smith knew that Sinclair thought only ofescape. Smith alone, of their pursuers, could now intercept them, buta second hope remained: on the left, Wickwire was high enough tocommand every turn in the bed of the river. He might see them andcould force them to cover with his rifle even at long range. Castingup the chances, Whispering Smith, riding faster over the uneven groundthan anything but sheer recklessness would have prompted, hastenedacross the waste. His rifle lay in his hand, and he had pushed hishorse to a run. A single fearful instinct crowded now upon the longstrain of the week. A savage fascination burned like a fever in hisveins, and he meant that they should not get away. Taking chances thatwould have shamed him in cooler moments, he forced his horse at theend of the long ride to within a hundred paces of the river, threw hislines, slipped like a lizard from the saddle, and, darting withincredible swiftness from rock to rock, gained the water's edge.
From up the long shadows of the wash there came the wail of an owl.From it he knew that Wickwire had seen them and was warning him, buthe had anticipated the warning and stood below where the hunted menmust ride. He strained his eyes over the waste of rock above. For onehalf-hour of daylight he would have sold, in that moment, ten years ofhis life. What could he do if they should be able to secretethemselves until dark between him and Wickwire? Gliding under cover ofhuge rocks up the dry watercourse, he reached a spot where the floodshad scooped a long, hollow curve out of a soft ledge in the bank,leaving a stretch of smooth sand on the bed of the stream. At theupper point great bowlders pushed out in the river. He could notinspect the curve from the spot he had gained without recklessexposure, but he must force the little daylight left to him. Climbingcompletely over the lower point, he advanced cautiously, and frombehind a sheltering spur stepped out upon an overhanging table of rockand looked across the river-bottom. Three men had halted on the sandwithin the curve. Two lay on their rifles under the upper point, ahundred and twenty paces from Whispering Smith. The third man,Seagrue, less than fifty yards away, had got off his horse and waslaying down his rifle, when the hoot-owl screeched again and he lookeduneasily back. They had chosen for their halt a spot easily defended,and needed only darkness to make them safe, when Smith, stepping outinto plain sight, threw forward his hand.
They heard his sharp call to pitch up, and the men under the pointjumped. Seagrue had not yet taken his hand from his rifle. He threw itto his shoulder. As closely together as two fingers of the right handcan be struck twice in the palm of the left, two rifle-shots crackedacross the wash. Two bullets passed so close in flight they might havestruck. One cut the dusty hair from Smith's temple and slit the brimof his hat above his ear; the other struck Seagrue under the left eye,ploughed through the roof of his mouth, and, coming out below his ear,splintered the rock at his back.
The shock alone would have staggered a bullock, but Seagrue, laughing,came forward pumping his gun. Sinclair, at a hundred and twenty yards,cut instantly into the fight, and the ball from his rifle creased thealkali that crusted Whispering Smith's unshaven cheek. As he fired hesprang to cover.
For Seagrue and Smith there was no cover: for one or both it was deathin the open and Seagrue, with his rifle at his cheek, walked straightinto it. Taking for a moment the fire of the three guns, WhisperingSmith stood, a perfect target, outlined against the sky. They whippedthe dust from his coat, tore the sleeve from his wrist, and ripped theblouse collar from his neck; but he felt no bullet shock. He sawbefore him only the buckle of Seagrue's belt forty paces away, andsent bullet after bullet at the gleam of brass between the sights.Both men were using high-pressure guns, and the deadly shock of theslugs made Seagrue twitch and stagger. The man was dying as he walked.Smith's hand was racing with the lever, and had a cartridge jammed,the steel would have snapped like a match.
It was beyond human endurance to support the leaden death. The littlesquare of brass between the sights wavered. Seagrue stumbled, doubledon his knees, and staggering plunged loosely forward on the sand.Whispering Smith threw his fire toward the bowlder behind whichSinclair and Barney Rebstock had disappeared.
Suddenly he realized that the bullets from the point were not cominghis way. He was aware of a second rifle-duel above the bend. Wickwire,worming his way down the stream, had uncovered Sinclair and youngRebstock from behind. A yell between the shots rang across the wash,and the cringing figure of a man ran out toward Whispering Smith withhis hands high in the air, and pitched headlong on the ground. It wasthe skulker, Barney Rebstock, driven out by Wickwire's fire.
The, shooting ceased. Silence fell upon the gloom of the dusk. Thencame a calling between Smith and Wickwire, and a signalling ofpistol-shots for their companions. Kennedy and Bob Scott dashed downtoward the river-bed on their horses. Seagrue lay on his face. YoungRebstock sat with his hands around his knees on the sand. Above him atsome distance, Wickwire and Smith stood before a man who leanedagainst the sharp cheek of the bowlder at the point. In his hands hisrifle was held across his lap just as he had dropped on his knee tofire. He had never moved after he was struck. His head, drooping alittle, rested against the rock, and his hat lay on the sand; hisheavy beard had sunk into his chest and he kneeled in the shadow,asleep. Scott and Kennedy knew him. In the mountains there was nodouble for Murray Sinclair.
When he jumped behind the point to pick Whispering Smith off the ledgehe had laid himself directly under Wickwire's fire across the wash.The first shot of the cowboy at two hundred yards had passed, as heknelt, through both temples.
They laid him at Seagrue's side. The camp was made beside the dead menin the wash. "You had better not take him to Medicine Bend," saidWhispering Smith, sitting late with Kennedy before the dying fire. "Itwould only mean that much more unpleasant talk and notoriety for her.The inquest can be held on the Frenchman. Take him to his own ranchand telegraph the folks in Wisconsin--God knows whether they will wantto hear. But his mother is there yet. But if half what Barney has toldto-night is true it would be better if no one ever heard."