The Freebooters of the Wilderness Part 17

CHAPTER XIII

THE MAN ON THE JOB

The two men proceeded along the precipice trail of the Pa.s.s. The shouting river below boisterous from the full flood of noon-day thaw began to hush. By the shadows, the Ranger knew that the afternoon was waning. The echoes from the shot still rocked in sharp crepitating knocks as of stone against stone, fainter and fading. Then a quiver of wind met their faces. The chasm opened to the fore like a gate, or a notch in the serrated ridge of the sky-line; and the precipice trail dropped over the edge of the crag to the scooped hollow of a slope where rock slide or avalanche had plowed a groove in the bevelled masonry of the precipice.

"This is the place," indicated Wayland.

From the shoulder of the higher slope came a little narrow indurated trail scarcely a hand's width, marked by the cleft foot-prints of a mountain goat. Where the path came down to the main trail of the Pa.s.s, jutted a huge rock left high and dry on its slide to the bottom of the gorge.

"Keep behind the other side of that, sir! They can't possibly see you."

"How do you know that trail comes from the Ridge gully? Looks to me like a goat track."

"Because I built it! You can see the N. F. trail sign--one notch and one blaze on that scrub juniper. Up on the Mesas, we were _off_ the Forests. Here, we are back on them. You may not know it, sir; but this canyon is part of the region Moyese wants withdrawn for homesteads. You could homestead a reservoir for Smelter City here--pay a German or a Swede three-hundred to sit on this site--then sell for a couple of million to the Smelter City gang. They would get the suckers in the East to buy the bonds to pay for it. A fellow in the Sierras located a hundred water power sites that way."

The old Britisher was not following the Ranger's reasoning in the least.

"Then, if we are really on the National Forests, that is your territory, and we have the legal right to make an arrest?"

Wayland laughed outright. If you don't see why, then you do not know the stickling of a Briton's sense of law and a Scotchman's conscience.

Matthews took up his station behind the rock that ab.u.t.ted on the trail.

He saw the Ranger hasten back along the face of the precipice, stop where the rock offered foothold and begin slowly climbing almost vertically. At first, it was going up the tiers of a broken stone stair. Then, the weathered ledge gave place to slant shale. He saw Wayland dig his heels for grip, grasp a sharp edge overhead, and hoist himself to the overhanging branch of a rec.u.mbent pine; then, scramble along the fallen trunk to a ledge barely wide enough for footing.

Along this, he cautiously worked, face in, hand over hand from rock block to rock block, sticking fingers among the mossed crevices, fumbling the pebbles from the slate edges, and so round out of sight behind a flying b.u.t.tress of masonry and back in view again a tier higher.

Just once, the watcher felt a tremor for the rash climber. Wayland's head was on a level with the crest of another ledge, his face to the rock, his left hand gripping a shoot of mountain laurel, his right groping the upper rocks. The old man saw the shrub jerk loose, moss, roots and all--he held his breath for the coming crash--it was all over. Wayland's left arm flung out to ward off the spatter of small stones; then, the right arm had clutched the spindly bole of a creeping juniper--his body lurched out, hung, swayed, lifted; and the Ranger disappeared among the shrubbery of the upper trail.

The old man took a deep breath.

"And this is the Man on the Job," he said. He drew behind his shelter and waited. "The same breed o' men after all, in different harness."

He had not noticed before, but there, ahead, where the black chasm of the Pa.s.s opened portals to the sunny blue of another valley, lay a lake, the Lake Behind the Peak, spangled with light, marbled like onyx or malachite, with the sheen of a jewel. Almost at his feet below, the near end of it lay. He could have tossed a pebble into it, seven-thousand feet below, where the white foaming river came ramping through a great pile of moraine that dammed up this end of the Pa.s.s to the width of a bridle trail. The outlaws would have to cross the lake to escape from the Pa.s.s; and almost, he thought, he saw the old punt at the far end, which Wayland had said hunters sometimes used.

The white b.u.t.terflies flitted past his hiding place out to the light of the sun. The eagle was soaring strong-winged, swerving and lifting and falling in an insolence of languid power. The silent Pa.s.s quivered to the throb of waters. But what was doing with the Ranger? Not a sound came from the upper trail but the tinkle of hidden springs down the rocks. He knew if he uttered a shout, the echo would take up his call.

An hour pa.s.sed: two hours. Ghost shadows came creeping into the canyon. The b.u.t.terflies had fluttered out to the blue portal where the rocks opened doors to the sun. The rampant roar of the river was quieting to the hollow hush. The old man rose, walked along the precipice, came back to his shelter, sat, stood up, examined the rifle, looked ahead where the horses had wandered on, fidgeted, and bemoaned the years that prevented pursuit up the rock face. He knew by the light and the hush that it must be almost five o 'clock.

And at five o'clock in the ranch house back in the Valley, Eleanor was lying in her room with her face buried in Wayland's note, praying as only the young pray, with the worst and the best of their nature in the prayer; for where such love comes, all goes into the incense of the fire that goes up from the altar--the best and the worst of the inmost heart: an apotheosis of "give-me" and an utter abandonment of "let-me-give." By and by, when we grow older, we leave both the "give me" and the "let-me-give" to G.o.d.

The old man knew it must be almost six o'clock; for the light came aslant the gap and the chill of the upper snow crept down from the mountain. A pretty business this, it seemed to him: twenty miles back of beyond; horses sent on at random ahead; a gang of murderers in hiding above--Matthews walked boldly along the precipice trail, saw the eagle below circling, still circling; heard a hawk skirr and scold from a dead branch--Then, he deliberately pointed his voice to the rock wall of the echo across the gorge and let out a yell that split the welkin--A thousand--ten thousand--mult.i.tudinous eldritch laughing echoes came jibbering and mumbling and giggling and shrilling back from the rock, filling the Pa.s.s with chattering, knocking sounds that skipped from stone to stone.

Instantly, a shot, a shout, a bang, the rocking crash of echoes--mixed with ear-splitting, rocketting shots--a crunch of feet--the old man dashed to the hiding of his crag. A spurt of gravel mid showers of dust and snorting of horses--Not on the trail at all but almost over his back, slithered and slid and bunched horses and men, pell mell, the white horse leading the way braced back on its haunches, the fellow in the yellow slicker rumbling a volcano of lurid curses--The outlaws had not followed the goat track at all but jumped sheer from the higher slope to the Pa.s.s trail.

Shouting "Stop!--Stop!--I command you in the name of the State to stop--!" the old man sprang to the middle of the trail flouris.h.i.+ng the rifle above his head.

"State be d.a.m.ned," yelled the fellow in the oil-skin slicker. Never pausing, turning only to shoot at wild random, the outlaws had tumbled--stumbled--slid down the slatey slope for the lake.

There was the pound--pound--the huffing of saddle leather--and a horse came spurring along the Pa.s.s trail at reckless gallop. The old man flung himself athwart--a rider in sheep-skin leggings, hat far back, came round the rock at break neck pace looking over his shoulder as if pursued--One jump--the old frontiersman had the horse's bridle! The shock threw the beast's hind legs clear over the edge jarring the rider almost to the animal's neck. Next--the old man was looking down the barrel of the outlaw's big repeater--With a mighty swing, Matthews clubbed his rifle on the other's wrist. He might have scruples as to law and conscience; but he knew how and when and where to hit, did the Briton with the Scotch-Canadian blood. Also he knew when to let go--There was a flash--the rock splintering crash of echo, the whinnying scream and leap of the horse shot by the falling weapon--Rider and beast hurtled backwards, the man's foot caught to one stirrup--There was the crackling of slate and shale--the gash and rasp and wrench of loosening rock ma.s.ses sliding--down--down--down and yet down, with knocking echoes; with laughter of terrified scream from the echo rock across the gorge--pound and plunge from ledge to ledge--the horse's body turning twice as it struck and bounced out--a cloud of dust--the shout, the blasphemy, the cry of rage, then the shrill scream of death terror that echoed and echoed--The old man looked down! There was a pounding of the stones--a faint far rebound and the darkness below swallowed over a fading swirl at the bottom of the canyon. He heard, he thought, he heard the engulfing gurgle of the waters, while the shrill scream still jibbered and faded along the echo ledge.

"By violence ye lived--by violence ye die--over the precipice ye go as ye sent the mangled boy to the b.l.o.o.d.y death!"

Then the Ranger was tumbling down the goat track in a slither of shale.

"Come on--that was well done, sir! Wish we'd sent them all over to the very bottom of h.e.l.l--! I'd stalked that fellow apart from the others when you signaled--come on--we'll catch the rest at the lake--there's a fellow wounded--you must have nipped one when you shot this morning--join me at the lake," and leaving Matthews to follow by the foot trail, the delirious Ranger went tearing exultant down the stone slide. Water-m.u.f.fled shots sounded from the lake. Wayland paused in his head-long descent. The five outlaws were shoving the punt from the sh.o.r.e with the bronchos swimming in tow. The stolen wagon horses, lay shot on the sh.o.r.e. One of the outlaws was being supported by the others. It was the man in the yellow slicker.

A great wave went over Wayland of something he had never before known.

It pounded at his temples. It set his heart going in a force pump. It blew his lungs out, and set the whip cord muscles itching to go--to go--he wanted to shout with joy of power--power that pursued and caught and crushed--and trembled with overplus of intoxicated strength--He knew if he could lay his hand on Crime at that moment he could crush the life out of the thing's throat; and there was a parchedness that was not thirst, a tingling to clinch that Criminal Thing menacing the Nation, to clinch and strangle it to a death not honored in the code of white-corpuscled anaemic study-chair reformers.

"Well," he said, as the other came limping down to the sh.o.r.e, "I didn't think there could be enough of the savage in me to enjoy a manhunt."

The old Briton looked queerly at the young fellow.

"A'm beginnin'--," he said slowly, "A'm beginnin' to understand y'r lynch law in this country--an' the _why_."

"What do you make of it?" asked Wayland, too excited to notice the other's abstraction.

"A'm beginnin' to understand if y' monkey with the law much longer in this land, the whole Nation will go locoed like you, Wayland--with a blood thirst for righteousness--a white pa.s.sion for the square deal--an' G.o.d pity--that day!"

The fugitives had reached the far sh.o.r.e of the lake, landed and were riding off when a second thought seemed to bring one man back to the water's edge. He stooped, heaved up a rock, threw it through the bottom of the old punt.

"You'll have to do better than that to keep me from crossing," said Wayland.

The fellow was aiming his rifle. Wayland and Matthews jumped behind the big hemlocks.

"He's fulling a skin bag wi' water."

"Then, they intend to cross the Desert," inferred Wayland; "but they'll have to go farther to slip me."

One of the riders was scanning back with a field gla.s.s.

"Looking for number six--Of all the colossal effrontery--they are actually going to speak."

The fellow nearest sh.o.r.e lowered his rifle and trumpeted both hands.

"Speak louder--can't hear ye." Matthews had gone to the edge of the lake. The answer came faint and m.u.f.fled.

"Where's--our--pardner--?"

"Hold up y'r hands--all five," roared back Matthews.

The arms of all but the hurt man went above heads, hands facing.

"Y'll find y'r man's carca.s.s in the b.l.o.o.d.y mess where ye sent the sheep--! d' y'--see yon eagle?--'Tis pickin' his bones--" roared Matthews through funnelled palms; and both jumped back to the shelter of the hemlocks. The outlaws drew together to confer.

"They don't believe us," said Wayland. "They'll camp in the timber over there for the night and wait. All right, my friends! You'll not have to wait long; no longer than it takes you, sir, to find our pack mule and the stray bronchs, while I build a raft. We can't cross the lower end for the moraine; and we can't cross the upper end for the ice; and it's too cold to risk swimming."