IV.--THE GOLD WOLF
|All day long Bulldog Carney had found, where the trail was soft, theodd imprint of that goblined inturned hoof. All day in the saddle,riding a trail that winds in and out among rocks, and trees, and cliffsmonotonously similar, the hush of the everlasting hills holding insubjection man's soul, the towering giants of embattled rocks thrustingup towards God's dome pigmying to nothingness that rat, a man, producesa comatose condition of mind; man becomes a child, incapable of littlebeyond the recognition of trivial things; the erratic swoop of a bird,the sudden roar of a cataract, the dirge-like sigh of wind through theharp of a giant pine.
And so, curiously, Bulldog's fancy had toyed aimlessly with the historyof the cayuse that owned that inturned left forefoot. Always where thehoof's imprint lay was the flat track of a miner's boot, the hob nailsdenting the black earth with stolid persistency. But the owner of theminer's boot seemed of little moment; it was the abnormal hoof that, bya strange perversity, haunted Carney.
The man was probably a placer miner coming down out of the Eagle Hills,leading a pack pony that carried his duffel and, perhaps, a smallfortune in gold. Of course, like Carney, he was heading for steel, forthe town of Bucking Horse.
Toward evening, as Carney rode down a winding trail that led to theford of Singing Water, rounding an abrupt turn the mouth of a huge caveyawned in the side of a cliff away to his left. Something of life hadmelted into its dark shadow that had the semblance of a man; or it mighthave been a bear or a wolf. Lower down in the valley that was called theValley of the Grizzley's Bridge, his buckskin shied, and with a snortof fear left the trail and elliptically came back to it twenty yardsbeyond.
In the centre of the ellipse, on the trail, stood a gaunt form, a hugedog-wolf. He was a sinister figure, his snarling lips curled back fromstrong yellow fangs, his wide powerful head low hung, and the blackbristles on his back erect in challenge.
The whole thing was weird, uncanny; a single wolf to stand his ground indaylight was unusual.
Instinctively Bulldog reined in the buckskin, and half turning in thesaddle, with something of a shudder, searched the ground at the wolf'sfeet dreading to find something. But there was nothing.
The dog-wolf, with a snarling twist of his head, sprang into the bushesjust as Carney dropped a hand to his gun; his quick eye had seen themovement.
Carney had meant to camp just beyond the ford of Singing Water, but theusually placid buckskin was fretful, nervous.
A haunting something was in the air; Carney, himself, felt it. Thesudden apparition of the wolf could not account for this mental unrest,either in man or beast, for they were both inured to the trail, and awolf meant little beyond a skulking beast that a pistol shot would driveaway.
High above the rider towered Old Squaw Mountain. It was like a batteredfeudal castle, on its upper reaches turret and tower and bastioncatching vagrant shafts of gold and green, as, beyond, in the farwest, a flaming sun slid down behind the Selkirks. Where he rode in thetwisted valley a chill had struck the air, suggesting vaults, dungeons;the giant ferns hung heavy like the plumes of knights drooping withthe death dew. A reaching stretch of salmon bushes studded with myriadberries that gleamed like topaz jewels hedged on both sides the purling,frothing stream that still held the green tint of its glacier birth.
Many times in his opium running Carney had swung along this wild trailalmost unconscious of the way, his mind travelling far afield; nowback to the old days of club life; to the years of army routine; to thebright and happy scenes where rich-gowned women and cultured men laughedand bantered with him. At times it was the newer rough life of the West;the ever-present warfare of man against man; the yesterday where he hadwon, or the to-morrow where he might cast a losing hazard--where thedice might turn groggily from a six-spotted side to a deuce, and thethrower take a fall.
But to-night, as he rode, something of depression, of a narrowenvironment, of an evil one, was astride the withers of his horse; themountains seemed to close in and oppress him. The buckskin, too, swunghis heavy lop ears irritably back and forth, back and forth. Sometimesone ear was pricked forward as though its owner searched the beyond,the now glooming valley that, at a little distance, was but a blur,the other ear held backward as though it would drink in the sounds ofpursuit.
Pursuit! that was the very thing; instinctively the rider turned in hissaddle, one hand on the horn, and held his piercing gray eyes on theback trail, searching for the embodiment of this phantasy. The unresthad developed that far into conception, something evil hovered on histrail, man or beast. But he saw nothing but the swaying kaleidoscope oftumbling forest shadows; rocks that, half gloomed, took fantastic forms;bushes that swayed with the rolling gait of a grizzly.
The buckskin had quickened his pace as if, tired though he was, he wouldgo on beyond that valley of fear before they camped.
Where the trail skirted the brink of a cliff that had a drop of fiftyfeet, Carney felt the horse tremble, and saw him hug the inner wall;and, when they had rounded the point, the buckskin, with a snort ofrelief, clamped the snaffle in his teeth and broke into a canter.
"I wonder--by Jove!" and Bulldog, pulling the buckskin to a stand,slipped from his back, and searched the black-loamed trail.
"I believe you're right, Pat," he said, addressing the buckskin;"something happened back there." He walked for a dozen paces ahead ofthe horse, his keen gray eyes on the earth. He stopped and rubbed hischin, thinking--thinking aloud.
"There are tracks, Patsy boy--moccasins; but we've lost ourgunboat-footed friend. What do you make of that, Patsy--gone over thecliff? But that damn wolf's pugs are here; he's travelled up and down.By gad! two of them!"
Then, in silence, Carney moved along the way, searching and pondering;cast into a curious, superstitious mood that he could not shake off.The inturned hoof-print had vanished, so the owner of the big feet thatcarried hob-nailed boots did not ride.
Each time that Carney stopped to bend down in study of the trail thebuckskin pushed at him fretfully with his soft muzzle and rattled thesnaffle against his bridle teeth.
At last Carney stroked the animal's head reassuringly, saying: "You'requite right, pal--it's none of our business. Besides, we're a pair ofold grannies imagining things."
But as he lifted to the saddle, Bulldog, like the horse, felt acompelling inclination to go beyond the Valley of the Grizzley's Bridgeto camp for the night.
Even as they climbed to a higher level of flat land, from back on thetrail that was now lost in the deepening gloom, came the howl of awolf; and then, from somewhere beyond floated the answering call of thedog-wolf's mate--a whimpering, hungry note in her weird wail.
"Bleat, damn you!" Carney cursed softly; "if you bother us I'll sit bywith a gun and watch Patsy boy kick you to death."
As if some genii of the hills had taken up and sent on silent waves hischallenge, there came filtering through the pines and birch a snarlingyelp.
"By gad!" and Carney cocked his ear, pulling the horse to a stand.
Then in the heavy silence of the wooded hills he pushed on againmuttering, "There's something wrong about that wolf howl--it'sdifferent."
Where a big pine had showered the earth with cones till the coveringwas soft, and deep, and springy, and odorous like a perfumed mattress ofvelvet, he hesitated; but the buckskin, in the finer animal reasoning,pleaded with little impatient steps and shakes of the head that theypush on.
Carney yielded, saying softly: "Go on, kiddie boy; peace of mind is gooddope for a sleep."
So it was ten o'clock when the two travellers, Carney and Pat, campedin an open, where the moon, like a silver mirror, bathed the earth inreassuring light. Here the buckskin had come to a halt, filled his lungswith the perfumed air in deep draughts, and turning his head half roundhad waited for his partner to dismount.
It was curious this man of steel nerve and flawless courage feeling atall the guidance of unknown threatenings, unexplainable disquietude. Hedid not even build a fire; but choosing
a place where the grass was richhe spread his blanket beside the horse's picket pin.
Bulldog's life had provided him with different sleeping moods; it was acurious subconscious matter of mental adjustment before he slipped awayfrom the land of knowing. Sometimes he could sleep like a tired laborer,heavily, unresponsive to the noise of turmoil; at other times, whendeep sleep might cost him his life, his senses hovered so close toconsciousness that a dried leaf scurrying before the wind would call himto alert action. So now he lay on his blanket, sometimes over the borderof spirit land, and sometimes conscious of the buckskin's pull at thecrisp grass. Once he came wide awake, with no movement but the liftingof his eyelids. He had heard nothing; and now the gray eyes, searchingthe moonlit plain, saw nothing. Yet within was a full consciousness thatthere was something--not close, but hovering there beyond.
The buckskin also knew. He had been lying down, but with a snort ofdiscontent his forequarters went up and he canted to his feet with aspring of wariness. Perhaps it was the wolves.
But after a little Carney knew it was not the wolves; they, cunningdevils, would have circled beyond his vision, and the buckskin, withhis delicate scent, would have swung his head the full circle of thecompass; but he stood facing down the back trail; the thing was there,watching.
After that Carney slept again, lighter if possible, thankful that he hadyielded to the wisdom of the horse and sought the open.
Half a dozen times there was this gentle transition from the sleep thatwas hardly a sleep, to a full acute wakening. And then the paling skytold that night was slipping off to the western ranges, and that beyondthe Rockies, to the east, day was sleepily travelling in from theplains.
The horse was again feeding; and Carney, shaking off the lethargy of hisbroken sleep, gathered some dried stunted bushes, and, building a littlefire, made a pot of tea; confiding to the buckskin as he mounted that heconsidered himself no end of a superstitious ass to have bothered over anothing.
Not far from where Carney had camped the trail he followed turned tothe left to sweep around a mountain, and here it joined, for a time, thetrail running from Fort Steel west toward the Kootenay. The sun, toppingthe Rockies, had lifted from the earth the graying shadows, and nowCarney saw, as he thought, the hoof-prints of the day before.
There was a feeling of relief with this discovery. There had been amorbid disquiet in his mind; a mental conviction that something hadhappened to that intoed cayuse and his huge-footed owner. Now all theweird fancies of the night had been just a vagary of mind. Where thetrail was earthed, holding clear impressions, he dismounted, and walkedahead of the buckskin, reading the lettered clay. Here and there wasimprinted a moccasined foot; once there was the impression of boots; butthey were not the huge imprints of hob-nailed soles. They showed thata man had dismounted, and then mounted again; and the cayuse had notan inturned left forefoot; also the toe wall of one hind foot was badlybroken. His stride was longer, too; he did not walk with the short stepof a pack pony.
The indefinable depression took possession of Bulldog again; he triedto shake it off--it was childish. The huge-footed one perhaps was aprospector, and had wandered up into some one of the gulches looking forgold. That was objecting Reason formulating an hypothesis.
Then presently Carney discovered the confusing element of the samecayuse tracks heading the other way, as if the man on horseback hadtravelled both up and down the trail.
Where the Bucking Horse trail left the Kootenay trail after circling themountain, Carney saw that the hoof prints continued toward Kootenay.And there were a myriad of tracks; many mounted men had swung from theBucking Horse trail to the Kootenay path; they had gone and returned,for the hoof prints that toed toward Bucking Horse lay on top.
This also was strange; men did not ride out from the sleepy old town ina troop like cavalry. There was but one explanation, the explanationof the West--those mounted men had ridden after somebody--had trailedsomebody who was wanted quick.
This crescendo to his associated train of thought obliterated mentallythe goblin-footed cayuse, the huge hob-nailed boot, the something at thecliff, the hovering oppression of the night--everything.
Carney closed his mind to the torturing riddle and rode, sometimeshumming an Irish ballad of Mangin's.
It was late afternoon when he rode into Bucking Horse; and Bucking Horsewas in a ferment.
Seth Long's hotel, the Gold Nugget, was the cauldron in which the watersof unrest seethed.
A lynching was in a state of almost completion, with Jeanette Holt'sbrother, Harry, elected to play the leading part of the lynched. Throughthe deference paid to his well-known activity when hostile events wereafoot, Carney was cordially drawn into the maelstrom of ugly-temperedmen.
Jeanette's brother may be said to have suffered from a preponderance ofopinion against him, for only Jeanette, and with less energy, SethLong, were on his side. All Bucking Horse, angry Bucking Horse, was forstringing him up _tout de suite_. The times were propitious for thisentertainment, for Sergeant Black, of the Mounted Police, was over atFort Steel, or somewhere else on patrol, and the law was in the keepingof the mob.
Ostensibly Carney ranged himself on the side of law and order. That iswhat he meant when, leaning carelessly against the Nugget bar, one handon his hip, chummily close to the butt of his six-gun, he said:
"This town had got a pretty good name, as towns go in the mountains,and my idea of a man that's too handy at the lynch game is that he's apretty poor sport."
"How's that, Bulldog?" Kootenay Jim snapped.
"He's a poor sport," Carney drawled, "because he's got a hundred to onethe best of it--first, last, and always; he isn't in any danger when hestarts, because it's a hundred men to one poor devil, who, generally,isn't armed, and he knows that at the finish his mates will perjurethemselves to save their own necks. I've seen one or two lynch mobs andthey were generally egged on by men who were yellow."
Carney's gray eyes looked out over the room full of angry men with aquiet thoughtful steadiness that forced home the conviction that he waswording a logic he would demonstrate. No other man in that room couldhave stood up against that plank bar and declared himself without beingcalled quick.
"You hear fust what this rat done, Bulldog, then we'll hear what you'vegot to say," Kootenay growled.
"That's well spoken, Kootenay," Bulldog answered. "I'm fresh in off thetrail, and perhaps I'm quieter than the rest of you, but first, beingfresh in off the trail, there's a little custom to be observed."
With a sweep of his hand Carney waved a salute to a line of bottlesbehind the bar.
Jeanette, standing in the open door that led from the bar to thedining-room, gripping the door till her nails sank into the pine, felthot tears gush into her eyes. How wise, how cool, this brave Bulldogthat she loved so well. She had had no chance to plead with him forhelp. He had just come into that murder-crazed throng, and the words hadbeen hurled at him from a dozen mouths that her brother Harry--Harry thewaster, the no-good, the gambler--had been found to be the man who hadmurdered returning miners on the trail for their gold, and that theywere going to string him up.
And now there he stood, her god of a man, Bulldog Carney, ranged on herside, calm, and brave. It was the first glint of hope since they hadbrought her brother in, bound to the back of a cayuse. She had pushedher way amongst the men, but they were like wolves; she had pleadedand begged for delay, but the evidence was so overwhelming; absolutelyhopeless it had appeared. But now something whispered "Hope".
It was curious the quieting effect that single drink at the bar had; themagnetism of Carney seemed to envelop the men, to make them reasonable.Ordinarily they were reasonable men. Bulldog knew this, and he playedthe card of reason.
For the two or three gun men--Kootenay Jim, John of Slocan, and DenverIke--Carney had his own terrible personality and his six-gun; he coulddeal with those three toughs if necessary.
"Now tell me, boys, what started this hellery," Carney asked when theyhad drunk.
The story was fired at him; if a voice hesitated, another took up thenarrative.
Miners returning from the gold field up in the Eagle Hills hadmysteriously disappeared, never turning up at Bucking Horse. A man wouldhave left the Eagle Hills, and somebody drifting in from the same placelater on, would ask for him at Bucking Horse--nobody had seen him.
Then one after another two skeletons had been found on the trail; thebodies had been devoured by wolves.
"And wolves don't eat gold--not what you'd notice, as a steady chuck,"Kootenay Jim yelped.
"Men wolves do," Carney thrust back, and his gray eyes said plainly,"That's your food, Jim."
"Meanin' what by that, pard?" Kootenay snarled, his face evil in athreat.
"Just what the words convey--you sort them out, Kootenay."
But Miner Graham interposed. "We got kinder leary about this wolf game,Carney, 'cause they ain't bothered nobody else 'cept men packin'in their winnin's from the Eagle Hills; and four days ago CaribouDave--here he is sittin' right here--he arrives packin' Fourteen-footJohnson--that is, all that's left of Fourteen-foot."
"Johnson was my pal," Caribou Dave interrupted, a quaver in his voice,"and he leaves the Eagle Nest two days ahead of me, packin' a bigclean-up of gold on a cayuse. He was goin' to mooch aroun' Buckin' Horsetill I creeps in afoot, then we was goin' out. We been together a goodmany years, ol' Fourteen-foot and me."
Something seemed to break in Caribou's voice and Graham added: "Davefinds his mate at the foot of a cliff."
Carney started; and instinctively Kootenay's hand dropped to his gun,thinking something was going to happen.
"I dunno just what makes me look there for Fourteen-foot, Bulldog,"Caribou Dave explained. "I was comin' along the trail seein' the marksof 'em damn big feet of his, and they looked good to me--I guess I wasgettin' kinder homesick for him; when I'd camp I'd go out and paw 'emtracks; 'twas kinder like shakin' hands. We been together a good manyyears, buckin' the mountains and the plains, and sometimes havin' a bitof fun. I'm comin' along, as I says, and I sees a kinder scrimmagelike, as if his old tan-colored cayuse had got gay, or took the blindstaggers, or somethin'; there was a lot of tracks. But I give upthinkin' it out, 'cause I knowed if the damn cayuse had jack-rabbitedany, Fourteen-foot'd pick him and his load up and carry him. Then I seesome wolf tracks--dang near as big as a steer's they was--and I figgerFourteen-foot's had a set-to with a couple of 'em timber coyotes andlammed hell's delight out of 'em, 'cause he could've done it. Then I'mfollerin' the cayuse's trail agen, pickin' it up here and there, and allat onct it jumps me that the big feet is missin'. Sure I natural figgerJohnson's got mussed up a bit with the wolves and is ridin'; but there'sthe dang wolf tracks agen. And some moccasin feet has been passin'along, too. Then the hoss tracks cuts out just same's if he'd spread hiswings and gone up in the air--they just ain't."
"Then Caribou gets a hunch and goes back and peeks over the cliff,"Miner Graham added, for old David had stopped speaking to bite viciouslyat a black plug of tobacco to hide his feelings.
"I dunno what made me do it," Caribou interrupted; "it was just same'sFourteen-foot's callin' me. There ain't nobody can make me believe thatif two men paddles together twenty years, had their little fights, andshow-downs, and still sticks, that one of 'em is going to cut clean outjust 'cause he goes over the Big Divide--'tain't natural. I tell you,boys, Fourteen-foot's callin' me--that's what he is, when I goes back."
Then Graham had to take up the narrative, for Caribou, heading straightfor the bar, pointed dumbly at a black bottle.
"Yes, Carney," Graham said, "Caribou packs into Buckin' Horse on hisback what was left of Fourteen-foot, and there wasn't no gold and nosign of the cayuse. Then we swarms out, a few of us, and picks up cayusetracks most partic'lar where the Eagle Hills trail hits the trail forKootenay. And when we overhaul the cayuse that's layin' down 'em tracksit's Fourteen-foot's hawse, and a-ridin' him is Harry Holt."
"And he's got the gold you was talkin' 'bout wolves eatin', Bulldog,"Kootenay Jim said with a sneer. "He was hangin' 'round here busted,cleaned to the bone, and there he's a-ridin' Fourteen-foot's cayuse,with lots of gold."
"That's the whole case then, is it, boys?" Carney asked quietly.
"Ain't it enough?" Kootenay Jim snarled.
"No, it isn't. You were tried for murder once yourself, Kootenay, andyou got off, though everybody knew it was the dead man's money inyour pocket. You got off because nobody saw you kill the man, and thecircumstantial evidence gave you the benefit of the doubt."
"I ain't bein' tried for this, Bulldog. Your bringin' up old scoresmight get you in wrong."
"You're not being tried, Kootenay, but another man is, and I say he'sgot to have a fair chance. You bring him here, boys, and let me hearhis story; that's only fair, men amongst men. Because I give you fairwarning, boys, if this lynching goes through, and you're in wrong, I'mgoing to denounce you; not one of you will get away--_not one!_"
"We'll bring him, Bulldog," Graham said; "what you say is only fair, butswing he will."
Jeanette's brother had been locked in the pen in the log policebarracks. He was brought into the Gold Nugget, and his defence was whatmight be called powerfully weak. It was simply a statement that he hadbought the cayuse from an Indian on the trail outside Bucking Horse. Herefused to say where he had got the gold, simply declaring that he hadkilled nobody, had never seen Fourteen-foot Johnson, and knew nothingabout the murder..
Something in the earnestness of the man convinced Carney that he wasinnocent. However, that was, so far as Carney's action was concerned,a minor matter; it was Jeanette's brother, and he was going to save himfrom being lynched if he had to fight the roomful of men--there was nodoubt whatever about that in his mind.
"I can't say, boys," Carney began, "that you can be blamed for thinkingyou've got the right man."
"That's what we figgered," Graham declared.
"But you've not gone far enough in sifting the evidence if you suredon't want to lynch an innocent man. The only evidence you have is thatyou caught Flarry on Johnson's cayuse. How do you know it's Johnson'scayuse?"
"Caribou says it is," Graham answered.
"And Harry says it was an Indian's cayuse," Carney affirmed.
"He most natural just ordinar'ly lies about it," Kootenay venturedviciously.
"Where's the cayuse?" Carney asked.
"Out in the stable," two or three voices answered.
"I want to see him. Mind, boys, I'm working for you as much as for thatpoor devil you want to string up, because if you get the wrong man I'mgoing to denounce you, that's as sure as God made little apples."
His quiet earnestness was compelling. All the fierce heat of passionhad gone from the men; there still remained the grim determination that,convinced they were right, nothing but the death of some of them wouldcheck. But somehow they felt that the logic of conviction would swingeven Carney to their side.
So, without even a word from a leader, they all thronged out to thestable yard; the cayuse was brought forth, and, at Bulldog's request,led up and down the yard, his hoofs leaving an imprint in the bare clayat every step. It was the footprints alone that interested Carney. Hestudied them intently, a horrible dread in his heart as he searched forthat goblined hoof that inturned. But the two forefeet left saucer-likeimprints, that, though they were both slightly intoed, as is the wayof a cayuse, neither was like the curious goblined track that had sofastened on his fancy out in the Valley of the Grizzley's Bridge.
And also there was the broken toe wall of the hind foot that he had seenon the newer trail.
He turned to Caribou Dave, asking, "What makes you think this isJohnson's pack horse?"
"There ain't no thinkin' 'bout it," Caribou answered with asperity."When I see my boots I don't _think_ they're mine, I just most natur'lyfigger they are and pull 'em on. I'd know that dun-colored rat if I seehim in a wild herd."
"And yet," Carney objected in an even tone, "this isn't the cayuse thatJohnson toted out his
duffel from the Eagle Hills on."
A cackle issued from Kootenay Jim's long, scraggy neck:
"That settles it, boys; Bulldog passes the buck and the game's over.Caribou is just an ord'nary liar, 'cordin' to Judge Carney."
"Caribou is perfectly honest in his belief," Carney declared. "Thereisn't more than half a dozen colors for horses, and there are a goodmany thousand horses in this territory, so a great many of them are thesame color. And the general structure of different cayuses is as similaras so many wheelbarrows. That brand on his shoulder may be a C, or a newmoon, or a flapjack."
He turned to Caribou: "What brand had Fourteen-foot's cayuse?"
"I don't know," the old chap answered surlily, "but it was there sameplace it's restin' now--it ain't shifted none since you fingered it."
"That won't do, boys," Carney said; "if Caribou can't swear to a horse'sbrand, how can he swear to the beast?"
"And if Fourteen-foot'd come back and stand up here and swear it washis hawse, that wouldn't do either, would it, Bulldog?" And Kootenaycackled.
"Johnson wouldn't say so--he'd know better. His cayuse had a club foot,an inturned left forefoot. I picked it up, here and there, for milesback on the trail, sometimes fair on top of Johnson's big boot track,and sometimes Johnson's were on top when he travelled behind."
The men stared; and Graham asked: "What do you say to that, Caribou? Didyou ever map out Fourteen-foot's cayuse--what his travellers was like?"
"I never looked at his feet--there wasn't no reason to; I was minin'."
"There's another little test we can make," Carney suggested. "Have yougot any of Johnson's belongings--a coat?"
"We got his coat," Graham answered; "it was pretty bad wrecked with thewolves, and we kinder fixed the remains up decent in a suit of storeclothes." At Carney's request the coat was brought, a rough Mackinaw,and from one of the men present he got a miner's magnifying glass,saying, as he examined the coat:
"This ought, naturally, to be pretty well filled with hairs from thatcayuse of Johnson's; and while two horses may look alike, there'sgenerally a difference in the hair."
Carney's surmise proved correct; dozens of short hairs were imbedded inthe coat, principally in the sleeves. Then hair was plucked from manydifferent parts of the cayuse's body, and the two lots were viewedthrough the glass. They were different. The hair on the cayuse standingin the yard was coarser, redder, longer, for its Indian owner had letit run like a wild goat; and Fourteen-foot had given his cayuseconsiderable attention. There were also some white hairs in the coatwarp, and on this cayuse there was not a single white hair to be seen.
When questioned Caribou would not emphatically declare that there hadnot been a star or a white stripe in the forehead of Johnson's horse.
These things caused one or two of the men to waver, for if it were notJohnson's cayuse, if Caribou were mistaken, there was no direct evidenceto connect Harry Holt with the murder.
Kootenay Jim objected that the examination of the hair was nothing; thatCarney, like a clever lawyer, was trying to get the murderer off on atechnicality. As to the club foot they had only Carney's guess, whereasCaribou had never seen any club foot on Johnson's horse.
"We can prove that part of it," Graham said; "we can go back on thetrail and see what Bulldog seen."
Half a dozen men approved this, saying: "We'll put off the hangin' andgo back."
But Carney objected.
When he did so Kootenay Jim and John from Slocan raised a howl ofderision, Kootenay saying: "When we calls his bluff he throws his handin the discard. There ain't no club foot anywheres; it's just a game togain time to give this coyote, Holt, a chance to make a get-away. We'rebein' buffaloed--we're wastin' time. We gets a murderer on a murderedman's hawse, with the gold in his pockets, and Bulldog Carney puts somehawse hairs under a glass, hands out a pipe dream bout some ghost tracksback on the trail, and reaches out to grab the pot. Hell! you'd think wewas a damn lot of tender-feet."
This harangue had an effect on the angry men, but seemingly nonewhatever upon Bulldog, for he said quietly:
"I don't want a troop of men to go back on the trail just now, becauseI'm going out myself to bring the murderer in. I can get him alone, forif he does see me he won't think that I'm after him, simply that I'mtrailing. But if a party goes they'll never see him. He's a cleverdevil, and will make his get-away. All I want on this evidence is thatyou hold Holt till I get back. I'll bring the foreleg of that cayusewith a club foot, for there's no doubt the murderer made sure that thewolves got him too."
They had worked back into the hotel by now, and, inside, Kootenay Jimand his two cronies had each taken a big drink of whisky, whisperingtogether as they drank.
As Carney and Graham entered, Kootenay's shrill voice was saying:
"We're bein' flim-flammed--played for a lot of kids. There ain't beena damn thing 'cept lookin' at some hawse hairs through a glass. Men hasbeen murdered on the trail, and who done it--somebody. Caribou's matewas murdered, and we find his gold on a man that was stony broke here,was bummin' on the town, spongin' on Seth Long; he hadn't two bits.And 'cause his sister stands well with Bulldog he palms this three-cardtrick with hawse hairs, and we got to let the murderer go."
"You lie, Kootenay!" The words had come from Jeanette. "My brotherwouldn't tell you where he got the gold--he'd let you hang him first;but I will tell. I took it out of Seth's safe and gave it to him to getout of the country, because I knew that you and those two other hounds,Slocan and Denver, would murder him some night because he knocked youdown for insulting me."
"That's a lie!" Kootenay screamed; "you and Bulldog 're runnin' matesand you've put this up." There was a cry of warning from Slocan, andKootenay whirled, drawing his gun. As he did so him arm dropped and hisgun clattered to the floor, for Carney's bullet had splintered its butt,incidentally clipping away a finger. And the same weapon in Carney'shand was covering Slocan and Denver as they stood side by side, theirbacks to the bar.
No one spoke; almost absolute stillness hung in the air for fiveseconds. Half the men in the room had drawn, but no one pulled atrigger--no one spoke.
It was Carney who broke the silence:
"Jeanette, bind that hound's hand up; and you, Seth, send for thedoctor--I guess he's too much of a man to be in this gang."
A wave of relief swept over the room; men coughed or spat as the tensionslipped, dropping their guns back into holsters.
Kootenay Jim, cowed by the damaged hand, holding it in his left,followed Jeanette out of the room.
As the girl disappeared Harry Holt, who had stood between the two men,his wrists bound behind his back, said:
"My sister told a lie to shield me. I stole the gold myself from Seth'ssafe. I wanted to get out of this hell hole 'cause I knew I'd got tokill Kootenay or he'd get me. That's why I didn't tell before where thegold come from."
"Here, Seth," Carney called as Long came back into the room, "you missedany gold--what do you know about Holt's story that he got the gold fromyour safe?"
"I ain't looked--I don't keep no close track of what's in that ironbox; I jus' keep the key, and a couple of bags might get lifted and Iwouldn't know. If Jeanette took a bag or two to stake her brother, Iguess she's got a right to, 'cause we're pardners in all I got."
"I took the key when Seth was sleeping," Harry declared. "Jeanettedidn't know I was going to take it."
"But your sister claims she took it, so how'd she say that if it isn't aframe-up?" Graham asked.
"I told her just as I was pullin' out, so she wouldn't let Seth get inwrong by blamin' her or somebody else."
"Don't you see, boys," Carney interposed, "if you'd swung off this man,and all this was proved afterwards, you'd be in wrong? You didn't findon Harry a tenth of the gold Fourteen-foot likely had."
"That skunk hid it," Caribou declared; "he just kept enough to get outwith."
Poor old Caribou was thirsting for revenge; in his narrowed hate hewould have been satisfied if the party had pulled a perfect
stranger offa passing train and lynched him; it would have been a _quid pro quo._He felt that he was being cheated by the superior cleverness of BulldogCarney. He had seen miners beaten out of their just gold claims byprofessional sharks; the fine reasoning, the microscopic evidence of thehairs, the intoed hoof, all these things were beyond him. He was honestin his conviction that the cayuse was Johnson's, and feared that the manwho had killed his friend would slip through their fingers.
"It's just like this, boys," he said, "me and Fourteen-foot was togetherso long that if he was away somewhere I'd know he was comin' back a dayafore he hit camp--I'd feel it, same's I turned back on the trail thereand found him all chawed up by the wolves. There wasn't no reason tolook over that cliff only ol' Fourteen-foot a-callin' me. And now he'sa-tellin' me inside that that skunk there murdered him when he wasn'tlookin'. And if you chaps ain't got the sand to push this to a finishI'll get the man that killed Fourteen-foot; he won't never get away.If you boys is just a pack of coyotes that howls good and plenty tillsomebody calls 'em, and is goin' to slink away with your tails betweenyour legs for fear you'll be rounded up for the lynchin', you can turnthis murderer loose right now--you don't need to worry what'll happen tohim. I'll be too danged lonesome without Fourteen-foot to figger what'scomin' to me. Turn him loose--take the hobbles off him. You fellersgo home and pull your blankets over your heads so's you won't see noghosts."
Carney's sharp gray eyes watched the old fanatic's every move; he lethim talk till he had exhausted himself with his passionate words; thenhe said:
"Caribou, you're some man. You'd go through a whole tribe of Indians fora chum. You believe you're right, and that's just what I'm trying to doin this, find out who is right--we don't want to wrong anybody. Youcan come back on the trail with me, and I'll show you the club-footedtracks; I'll let you help me get the right man."
The old chap turned his humpy shoulders, and looked at Carney out ofbleary, weasel eyes set beneath shaggy brows; then he shrilled:
"I'll see you in hell fust; I've heerd o' you, Bulldog; I've heerd youhad a wolverine skinned seven ways of the jack for tricks, and by therings on a Big Horn I believe it. You know that while I'm here that jackrabbit ain't goin' to get away--and he ain't; you can bet your soulon that, Bulldog. We'd go out on the trail and we'd find thatWie-sah-ke-chack, the Indian's devil, had stole 'em pipe-dream,club-footed tracks, and when we come back the man that killed my chum,old Fourteen-foot, would be down somewhere where a smart-Aleck lawyer'dget him off."
It took an hour of cool reasoning on the part of Carney to extract fromthat roomful of men a promise that they would give Holt three daysof respite, Carney giving his word that he would not send out anyinformation to the police but would devote the time to bringing in themurderer.
Kootenay Jim had had his wound dressed. He was in an ugly mood over theshooting, but the saner members of the lynching party felt that hehad brought the quarrel on himself; that he had turned so viciously onJeanette, whom they all liked, caused the men to feel that he had gotpretty much his just deserts. He had drawn his gun first, and when aman does that he's got to take the consequences. He was a gambler, anda gambler generally had to abide by the gambling chance in gun play aswell as by the fall of a card.
But Carney had work to do, and he was just brave enough to not befoolhardy. He knew that the three toughs would waylay him in the darkwithout compunction. They were now thirsting not only for young Holt'slife, but his. So, saying openly that he would start in the morning,when it was dark he slipped through the back entrance of the hotel tothe stable, and led his buckskin out through a corral and by a back wayto the tunnel entrance of the abandoned Little Widow mine. Here he leftthe horse and returned to the hotel, set up the drinks, and loafed aboutfor a time, generally giving the three desperadoes the impression thathe was camped for the night in the Gold Nugget, though Graham, in whomhe had confided, knew different.
Presently he slipped away, and Jeanette, who had got the key from Seth,unlocked the door that led down to the long communicating drift, at theother end of which was the opening to the Little Widow mine.
Jeanette closed the door and followed Carney down the stairway. At thefoot of the stairs he turned, saying: "You shouldn't do this."
"Why, Bulldog?"
"Well, you saw why this afternoon. Kootenay Jim has got an arm in asling because he can't understand. Men as a rule don't understand muchabout women, so a woman has always got to wear armor."
"But we understand, Bulldog; and Seth does."
"Yes, girl, we understand; but Seth can only understand the evident. Youclamber up the stairs quick."
"My God! Bulldog, see what you're doing for me now. You never wouldstand for Harry yourself."
"If he'd been my brother I should, just as you have, girl."
"That's it, Bulldog, you're doing all this, standing there holding up amob of angry men, because he's _my_ brother."
"You called the turn, Jeanette."
"And all I can do, all I can say is, _thank you_. Is that all?"
"That's all, girl. It's more than enough."
He put a strong hand on her arm, almost shook her, saying with anearnestness that the playful tone hardly masked:
"When you've got a true friend let him do all the friending--then you'llhold him; the minute you try to rearrange his life you start backingthe losing card. Now, good-bye, girl; I've got work to do. I'll bringin that wolf of the trail; I've got him marked down in a cave--I'llget him. You tell that pin-headed brother of yours to stand pat. And ifKootenay starts any deviltry go straight to Graham. Good-bye."
Cool fingers touched the girl on the forehead; then she stood alonewatching the figure slipping down the gloomed passage of the drift,lighted candle in hand.
Carney led his buckskin from the mine tunnel, climbed the hillside to aback trail, and mounting, rode silently at a walk till the yellow blobsof light that was Bucking Horse lay behind him. Then at a little hunchof his heels the horse broke into a shuffling trot.
It was near midnight when he camped; both he and the buckskin had eatenrobustly back at the Gold Nugget Hotel, and Carney, making the horse liedown by tapping him gently on the shins with his quirt, rolled himselfin his blanket and slept close beside the buckskin--they were like twomen in a huge bed.
All next day he rode, stopping twice to let the buckskin feed, andeating a dry meal himself, building no fire. He had a conviction thatthe murderer of the gold hunters made the Valley of the Grizzley'sBridge his stalking ground. And if the devil who stalked these returningminers was still there he felt certain that he would get him.
There had been nothing to rouse the murderer's suspicion that these menwere known to have been murdered.
A sort of fatality hangs over a man who once starts in on a crimeof that sort; he becomes like a man who handles dynamite--careless,possessed of a sense of security, of fatalism. Carney had found alldesperadoes that way, each murder had made them more sure of themselves,it generally had been so easy.
Caribou Dave had probably passed without being seen by the murderer;indeed he had passed that point early in the morning, probably while theghoul of the trail slept; the murderer would reason that if there wasany suspicion in Bucking Horse that miners had been made away with, aposse would have come riding over the back trail, and the murderer wouldhave ample knowledge of their approach.
To a depraved mind, such as his, there was a terrible fascination inthis killing of men, and capturing their gold; he would keep at it likea gambler who has struck a big winning streak; he would pile up gold,probably in the cave Carney had seen the mouth of, even if it were morethan he could take away. It was the curse of the lust of gold, and, oncestarted, the devilish murder lust.
Carney had an advantage. He was looking for a man in a certain locality,and the man, not knowing of his approach, not dreading it, would bewatching the trail in the other direction for victims. Even if he hadmet him full on the trail Carney would have passed the time of dayand ridden on, as if going up in
to the Eagle Hills. And no doubt themurderer would let him pass without action. It was only returning minershe was interested in. Yes, Carney had an advantage, and if the man werestill there he would get him.
His plan was to ride the buckskin to within a short distance of wherethe murders had been committed, which was evidently in the neighborhoodof the cliff at the bottom of which Fourteen-foot Johnson had beenfound, and go forward on foot until he had thoroughly reconnoiteredthe ground. He felt that he would catch sight of the murderer somewherebetween that point and the cave, for he was convinced that the cave wasthe home of this trail devil.
The uncanny event of the wolves was not so simple. The curious tone ofthe wolf's howl had suggested a wild dog--that is, a creature that washalf dog, half wolf; either whelped that way in the forests, or a traindog that had escaped. Even a fanciful weird thought entered Carney'smind that the murderer might be on terms of dominion over this half-wildpair; they might know him well enough to leave him alone, and yet devourhis victims. This was conjecture, rather far-fetched, but still notimpossible. An Indian's train dogs would obey their master, but pulldown a white man quick enough if he were helpless.
However, the man was the thing.
The sun was dipping behind the jagged fringe of mountain tops to thewest when Carney slipped down into the Valley of the Grizzley's Bridge,and, fording the stream, rode on to within a hundred and fifty yards ofthe spot where his buckskin had shied from the trail two days before.
Dismounting, he took off his coat and draping it over the horse's necksaid: "Now you're anchored, Patsy--stand steady."
Then he unbuckled the snaffle bit and rein from the bridle and woundthe rein about his waist. Carney knew that the horse, not hampered by adangling rein to catch in his legs or be seized by a man, would protecthimself. No man but Carney could saddle the buckskin or mount him unlesshe was roped or thrown; and his hind feet were as deft as the fists of aboxer.
Then he moved steadily along the trail, finding here and there theimprint of moccasined feet that had passed over the trail since he had.There were the fresh pugs of two wolves, the dog-wolf's paws enormous.
Carney's idea was to examine closely the trail that ran by the cliff towhere his horse had shied from the path in the hope of finding perhapsthe evidences of struggle, patches of blood soaked into the brown earth,and then pass on to where he could command a view of the cave mouth. Ifthe murderer had his habitat there he would be almost certain to showhimself at that hour, either returning from up the trail where he mighthave been on the lookout for approaching victims, or to issue from thecave for water or firewood for his evening meal. Just what he should doCarney had not quite determined. First he would stalk the man in hopesof finding out something that was conclusive.
If the murderer were hiding in the cave the gold would almost certainlybe there.
That was the order of events, so to speak, when Carney, hand on gun, andeyes fixed ahead on the trail, came to the spot where the wolf had stoodat bay. The trail took a twist, a projecting rock bellied it into alittle turn, and a fallen birch lay across it, half smothered in a lakeof leaves and brush.
As Carney stepped over the birch there was a crashing clamp of iron,and the powerful jaws of a bear trap closed on his leg with such numbingforce that he almost went out. His brain swirled; there were roaringnoises in his head, an excruciating grind on his leg.
His senses steadying, his first cogent thought was that the bone wassmashed; but a limb of the birch, caught in the jaws, squelched tosplinters, had saved the bone; this and his breeches and heavy socks inthe legs of his strong riding boots.
As if the snapping steel had carried down the valley, the eveningstillness was rent by the yelping howl of a wolf beyond where the cavehung on the hillside. There was something demoniac in this, suggestingto the half-dazed man that the wolf stood as sentry.
The utter helplessness of his position came to him with full force; hecould no more open the jaws of that double-springed trap than he couldcrash the door of a safe. And a glance showed him that the trap wasfastened by a chain at either end to stout-growing trees. It was aman-trap; if it had been for a bear it would be fastened to a piece ofloose log.
The fiendish deviltry of the man who had set it was evident. The wholevile scheme flashed upon Carney; it was set where the trail narrowedbefore it wound down to the gorge, and the man caught in it could bekilled by a club, or left to be devoured by the wolves. A pistol mightprotect him for a little short time against the wolves, but that evencould be easily wheedled out of a man caught by the murderer coming witha pretense of helping him.
Suddenly a voice fell on Carney's ear:
"Throw your gun out on the trail in front of you! I've got you covered,Bulldog, and you haven't got a chance on earth."
Now Carney could make out a pistol, a man's head, and a crooked armprojecting from beside a tree twenty yards along the trail.
"Throw out the gun, and I'll parley with you!" the voice added.
Carney recognized the voice as that of Jack the Wolf, and he knew thatthe offered parley was only a blind, a trick to get his gun away so thathe would be a quick victim for the wolves; that would save a shooting.Sometimes an imbedded bullet told the absolute tale of murder.
"There's nothing doing in that line, Jack the Wolf," Carney answered;"you can shoot and be damned to you! I'd rather die that way than betorn to pieces by the wolves."
Jack the Wolf seemed to debate this matter behind the tree; then hesaid: "It's your own fault if you get into my bear trap, Bulldog; Iain't invited you in. I've been watchin' you for the last hour, and I'vebeen a-wonderin' just what your little game was. Me and you ain't good'nough friends for me to step up there to help you out, and you got agun on you. You throw it out and I'll parley. If you'll agree to certainthings, I'll spring that trap, and you can ride away, 'cause I guessyou'll keep your word. I don't want to kill nobody, I don't."
The argument was specious. If Carney had not known Jack the Wolf asabsolutely bloodthirsty, he might have taken a chance and thrown thegun.
"You know perfectly well, Jack the Wolf, that if you came to help meout, and I shot you, I'd be committing suicide, so you're lying."
"You mean you won't give up the gun?"
"No."
"Well, keep it, damn you! Them wolves knows a thing or two. One of 'emknows pretty near as much about guns as you do. They'll just sit offthere in the dark and laugh at you till you drop; then you'll never wakeup. You think it over, Bulldog, I'm----"
The speaker's voice was drowned by the howl of the wolf a short distancedown the valley.
"D'you hear him, Bulldog?" Jack queried when the howls had died down."They get your number on the wind and they're sayin' you're theirmeat. You think over my proposition while I go down and gather in yourbuckskin; he looks good to me for a get-away. You let me know whenI come back what you'll do, 'cause 'em wolves is in a hurry--they'rehungry; and I guess your leg ain't none too comf'table."
Then there was silence, and Carney knew that Jack the Wolf was circlingthrough the bush to where his horse stood, keeping out of range as hetravelled.
Carney knew that the buckskin would put up a fight; his instinct wouldtell him that Jack the Wolf was evil. The howling wolf would also haveraised the horse's mettle; but he himself was in the awkward position ofbeing a loser, whether man or horse won.
From where he was trapped the buckskin was in view. Carney saw his headgo up, the lop ears throw forward in rigid listening, and he could see,beyond, off to the right, the skulking form of Jack slipping from treeto tree so as to keep the buckskin between him and Carney.
Now the horse turned his arched neck and snorted. Carney whipped out hisgun, a double purpose in his mind. If Jack the Wolf offered a fair markhe would try a shot, though at a hundred and fifty yards it would bea chance; and he must harbor his cartridges for the wolves; the secondpurpose was that the shot would rouse the buckskin with a knowledge thatthere was a battle on.
Jack the Wolf came to
the trail beyond the horse and was now slowlyapproaching, speaking in coaxing terms. The horse, warily alert, wasshaking his head; then he pawed at the earth like an angry bull.
Ten yards from the horse Jack stood still, his eye noticing that thebridle rein and bit were missing. Carney saw him uncoil from his waistan ordinary packing rope; it was not a lariat, being short. With this ina hand held behind his back, Jack, with short steps, moved slowly towardthe buckskin, trying to soothe the wary animal with soft speech.
Ten feet from the horse he stood again, and Carney knew what thatmeant--a little quick dash in to twist the rope about the horse's head,or seize him by the nostrils. Also the buckskin knew. He turned his rumpto the man, threw back his ears, and lashed out with his hind feet asa warning to the horse thief. The coat had slipped from his neck to theground.
Jack the Wolf tried circling tactics, trying to gentle the horse into asense of security with soothing words. Once, thinking he had a chance,he sprang for the horse's head, only to escape those lightning heelsby the narrowest margin; at that instant Carney fired, but his bulletmissed, and Jack, startled, stood back, planning sulkily.
Carney saw him thread out his rope with the noose end in his righthand, and circle again. Then the hand with a half-circle sent theloop swishing through the air, and at the first cast it went over thebuckskin's head.
Carney had been waiting for this. He whistled shrilly the signal thatalways brought the buckskin to his side.
Jack had started to work his way up the rope, hand over hand, but atthe well-known signal the horse whirled, the rope slipped throughJack's sweaty hands, a loop of it caught his leg, and he was thrown. Thebuckskin, strung to a high nervous tension, answered his master's signalat a gallop, and the rope, fastened to Jack's waist, dragged him asthough he hung from a runaway horse with a foot in the stirrup. His bodystruck rocks, trees, roots; it jiggered about on the rough earth like acork, for the noose had slipped back to the buckskin's shoulders.
Just as the horse reached Carney, Jack the Wolf's two legs straddled aslim tree and the body wedged there. Carney snapped his fingers, but asthe horse stepped forward the rope tightened, the body was fast.
"Damned if I want to tear the cuss to pieces, Patsy," he said, drawingforth his pocket knife. He just managed by reaching out with his longarm, to cut the rope, and the horse thrust his velvet muzzle againsthis master's cheek, as if he would say, "Now, old pal, we're allright--don't worry."
Bulldog understood the reassurance and, patting the broad wise forehead,answered: "We can play the wolves together, Pat--i'm glad you're here.It's a hundred to one on us yet." Then a halfsmothered oath startled thehorse, for, at a twist, a shoot of agony raced along the vibrant nervesto Carney's brain.
In the subsidence of strife Carney was cognizant of the night shadowsthat had crept along the valley; it would soon be dark. Perhaps hecould build a little fire; it would keep the wolves at bay, for in thedarkness they would come; it would give him a circle of light, and atarget when the light fell on their snarling faces.
Bending gingerly down he found in the big bed of leaves a network ofdead branches that Jack the Wolf had cunningly placed there to holdthe leaves. There was within reach on the dead birch some of its silverparchment-like bark. With his cowboy hat he brushed the leaves away fromabout his limbs, then taking off his belt he lowered himself gingerlyto his free knee and built a little mound of sticks and bark against thebirch log. Then he put his hand in a pocket for matches--every pocket;he had not one match; they were in his coat lying down somewhere on thetrail. He looked longingly at the body lying wedged against the tree;Jack would have matches, for no man travelled the wilds without themeans to a fire. But matches in New York were about as accessible as anythat might be in the dead man's pockets.
Philosophic thought with one leg in a bear trap is practicallyimpossible, and Carney's arraignment of tantalizing Fate was inelegant.As if Fate resented this, Fate, or something, cast into the trappedman's mind a magical inspiration--a vital grievance. His mind, acutebecause of his dilemna and pain, must have wandered far ahead of hiscognizance, for a sane plan of escape lay evident. If he had a fire hecould heat the steel springs of that trap. The leaves of the springwere thin, depending upon that elusive quality, the steel's temper, forstrength. If he could heat the steel, even to a dull red, the temperwould leave it as a spirit forsakes a body, and the spring would bendlike cardboard.
"And I haven't got a damn match," Carney wailed. Then he looked at thebody. "But you've got them----"
He grasped the buckskin's headpiece and drew him forward a pace; then heunslung his picket line and made a throw for Jack the Wolf's head. If hecould yank the body around, the wedged legs would clear.
Throwing a lariat at a man lying groggily flat, with one of thethrower's legs in a bear trap, was a new one on Carney--it was sometest.
Once he muttered grimly, from between set teeth: "If my leg holds outI'll get him yet, Patsy."
Then he threw the lariat again, only to drag the noose hopelessly offthe head that seemed glued to the ground, the dim light blurring formand earth into a shadow from which thrust, indistinctly, the pale facethat carried a crimson mark from forehead to chin.
He had made a dozen casts, all futile, the noose sometimes catchingslightly at the shaggy head, even causing it to roll weirdly, as if theman were not dead but dodging the rope. As Carney slid the noose fromhis hand to float gracefully out toward the body his eye caught the dimform of the dog-wolf, just beyond, his slobbering jaws parted, givinghim the grinning aspect of a laughing hyena. Carney snatched the ropeand dropped his hand to his gun, but the wolf was quicker than theman--he was gone. A curious thing had happened, though, for that erratictwist of the rope had spiraled the noose beneath Jack the Wolf's chin,and gently, vibratingly tightening the slip, Carney found it hold.Then, hand over hand, he hauled the body to the birch log, and, withoutceremony, searched it for matches. He found them, wrapped in an oilskinin a pocket of Jack's shirt. He noticed, casually, that Jack's gun hadbeen torn from its belt during the owner's rough voyage.
The finding of the matches was like an anesthetic to the agony of theclamp on his leg. He chuckled, saying, "Patsy, it's a million to one onus; they can't beat us, old pard."
He transferred his faggots and birch bark to the loops of the springs,one pile at either end of the trap, and touched a match to them.
The acrid smoke almost stifled him; sparks burnt his hands, and hiswrists, and his face; the jaws of the trap commenced to catch the heatas it travelled along the conducting steel, and he was threatened withthe fact that he might burn his leg off. With his knife he dug up theblack moist earth beneath the leaves, and dribbled it on to the heatingjaws.
Carney was so intent on his manifold duties that he had practicallyforgotten Jack the Wolf; but as he turned his face from an inspectionof a spring that was reddening, he saw a pair of black vicious eyeswatching him, and a hand reaching for his gun belt that lay across thebirch log.
The hands of both men grasped the belt at the same moment, and aterrible struggle ensued. Carney was handicapped by the trap, whichseemed to bite into his leg as if it were one of the wolves fightingJack's battle; and Jack the Wolf showed, by his vain efforts to rise,that his legs had been made almost useless in that drag by the horse.
Carney had in one hand a stout stick with which he had been adjustinghis fire, and he brought this down on the other's wrist, almostshattering the bone. With a cry of pain Jack the Wolf released his graspof the belt, and Carney, pulling the gun, covered him, saying:
"Hoped you were dead, Jack the Murderer! Now turn face down on this log,with your hands behind your back, till I hobble you."
"I can spring that trap with a lever and let you out," Jack offered.
"Don't need you--I'm going to see you hanged and don't want to beunder any obligation to you, murderer; turn over quick or I'll kill younow--my leg is on fire."
Jack the Wolf knew that a man with a bear trap on his leg and a gun inhis han
d was not a man to trifle with, so he obeyed.
When Jack's wrists were tied with the picket line, Carney took a loopabout the prisoner's legs; then he turned to his fires.
The struggle had turned the steel springs from the fires; but in thetwisting one of them had been bent so that its ring had slipped downfrom the jaws. Now Carney heaped both fires under the other spring andsoon it was so hot that, when balancing his weight on the leg in thetrap, he placed his other foot on it and shifted his weight, the stripof steel went down like paper. He was free.
At first Carney could not bear his weight on the mangled leg; it felt asif it had been asleep for ages; the blood rushing through the releasedveins pricked like a tatooing needle. He took off his boot and massagedthe limb, Jack eyeing this proceeding sardonically. The two wolveshovered beyond the firelight, snuffling and yapping.
When he could hobble on the injured limb Carney put the bit and bridlerein back on the buckskin, and turning to Jack, unwound the picket linefrom his legs, saying, "Get up and lead the way to that cave!"
"I can't walk, Bulldog," Jack protested; "my leg's half broke."
"Take your choice--get on your legs, or I'll tie you up and leave youfor the wolves," Carney snapped.
Jack the Wolf knew his Bulldog Carney well. As he rose groggily to hisfeet, Carney lifted to the saddle, holding the loose end of the picketline that was fastened to Jack's wrists, and said:
"Go on in front; if you try any tricks I'll put a bullet throughyou--this sore leg's got me peeved."
At the cave Carney found, as he expected, several little canvas bagsof gold, and other odds and ends such as a murderer too often, and alsofoolishly, will garner from his victims. But he also found something hehad not expected to find--the cayuse that had belonged to Fourteen-footJohnson, for Jack the Wolf had preserved the cayuse to pack out hiswealth.
Next morning, no chance of action having come to Jack the Wolf throughthe night, for he had lain tied up like a turkey that is to be roasted,he started on the pilgrimage to Bucking Horse, astride Fourteen-footJohnson's cayuse, with both feet tied beneath that sombre animal'sbelly. Carney landed him and the gold in that astonished berg.
And in the fullness of time something very serious happened theenterprising man of the bear trap.