"I have always heard that the gray wolf is a coward," commented Leslie as the two entered the shack. "We have not had a glimpse of one yet."
"Uncle Jake said they are far more afraid of people than sensible people are afraid of them," returned Ross, "but I’d rather not be called sensible than to meet one face to face!"
That night the boys turned in early, tired with their exertions at the wood-pile. About midnight they were both awakened by a mysterious noise. Leslie, in the wall bunk, came up on his elbow before he was fairly awake. Ross, on the floor, sat up instantly, whispering sharply:
"Leslie, is that you?"
"What?" asked Leslie bewildered. "Is it you? What was that?"
Before Ross could reply again, the noise was repeated. It came from above their heads, a soft padding and crunching on the roof logs. Suddenly there was added a whining sound and a scratching at the side and then an increase in the crunching on the roof.
"Wolves!" cried Ross and Leslie simultaneously.
"They smell the meat in the lean-to," added Leslie.
"Tell you what, Less," said Ross, "I’m glad we’re inside a stockade. I’ll put my trust in logs rather than boards with those fellows around."
Ross’s voice was decidedly husky, Leslie was glad to note. His own was almost beyond control while cold chills ran up and down his spine. He grunted assent and tried to yawn aloud but was unsuccessful.
Then, as the soft padding and eager sniffing continued, he found his voice in a frightened quaver, "Ross, can they get into the window, do you think?"
"Or break into the door?" added Ross equally uncertain as to tone. "One thing I know, Less, they’re afraid of fire."
At that both boys came out of their bunks and began to fill the stove with wood. But at these sounds from below, the wolves departed hastily and put in the remainder of the night howling from the side of the mountain a safe distance away.
"Guess Uncle Jake is right. They seem as afraid of us as we are of them!" exclaimedLeslie, lighting a candle and setting it in the window. Then he turned on Ross with a sheepish grin. "Say, Doc, is my hair standing straight up?"
Ross passed his hand over his own. "I don’t see it stand, but if it feels like mine it won’t lie down again in a week. To-morrow, Less, we’ll let studies go by the board and have that window and the door barricaded. Then, if a wolf or two chance to stumble against them we can turn over and laugh in our sleep."
There was no more sleep in the shack that night, however, and before daylight the boys were up planning the proposed barricade. They finally hit on two cross poles for the door, fitted into crudely carved stanchions nailed to either side. These bars were removed by day, but when night came, it was with a feeling of relief that the boys dropped the bars into their stanchions and knew the device could foil any wolf that prowled about the mountains. The window, also, was similarly barricaded.
But, secure behind these protections, the boys soon became accustomed to their midnight visitors, and even began to look eagerly for them during the day, Leslie being a fair shot.
"I would like to get a skin or two, Ross," he said one evening. "Sue would like ’em as rugs, you bet!"
It was after supper, and the boys, having washed the dishes, had blown out the candle and were sitting beside the stove. The draft in front was open, and the blazing chunks within sent a cheerful glow dancing past the window and flickering on the bunk and the side wall beyond. Outside, the wind soughed among the branches of the seven spruces, whipping them savagely. It was densely dark, darker than it would be an hour later when the moon swung over the tops of the mountain opposite the shack. There had been no storm for several days, but severe cold, so that on top of a strong crust a light snow drifted about continually.
"I’m satisfied to leave the skin on the brutes if they’ll agree to leave mine on me!" laughed Ross in answer to Leslie. "Guess you’re a better sport, Less, than I am."
Leslie shook his head. "Aw, I’m no sport," he disclaimed in a pleased tone. "If I ever think I am I shall remember the first night the wolves came."
He was rubbing his head reminiscently when, suddenly, there came an unexpected sound from the neighborhood of the window. There was a thump against the outer logs, followed by the splinter of glass and the inward rush of cold air. This was immediately succeeded by a hasty scrapingnoise in the midst of which Leslie sprang to his feet shouting:
"Wolves! Quick, Ross, the door!"
While Leslie sprang to the gun hung on pegs against the logs near the door, Ross fumbled at the door fastenings and, in a moment, both boys were out in front in the clearing that they had shoveled in front of the door and window. The sound was rapidly retreating down the side of the slope toward the seven spruces. Eagerly the boys ran toward the spruces, which, in the darkness, merely made a darker spot below them. From the midst of the trees came the scratching sound on the crust. Throwing the gun to his shoulder Leslie excitedly fired again and again in the direction of the rapidly receding sounds.
"There!" he exclaimed when the chambers of the gun were emptied. "Of course I haven’t hit anything, but I have the satisfaction of knowing I’ve shot at a wolf, at least!"
Returningto the cabin, the boys excitedly split up a box and, binding the dry splinters together, thrust one end into the stove. A moment later, Ross, brandishing this improvised torch, and followed by Leslie, bearing the gun in hands none too steady, ran down to the seven spruces.
This group of trees, full grown and broad limbed, interlocked their branches at the foot of the mountain in the path of the high winds which roared through the cañon as through a funnel between the high mountains. The trunks formed a windbreak for the storms that left their load of snow heaped to the branches on the upper side at the expense of the lower side where the crust was swept as clear of loose snow as though by a broom.
Here, in the shadow of these trees, Leslie, despite his earnest protest to the contrary, half expected to see a wolf dead or wounded, but no wolf appeared. Lowering the torch, the boys made their way warily around the trees and the drifts heaped to leeward. The pile of snow had not been disturbed, nor did they discover any tracks.
"Less, I’m not satisfied," exclaimed Ross finally. "Something broke that window and something ran down here. There’s enough loose snow over this crust to show traces if––"
Here the speaker hastily interposed his body between a gust of wind and the flaring torch.
"That’s true," asserted Leslie, "but the snow is so light that this wind has probably moved every particle of it since that window was broken, and this crust is too hard to show a track."
Ross uttered a sudden exclamation and plunged forward, the torch’s head flaming against the crust.
"Quick, Less, see here!"
Leslie sprang forward and bent over the torch. "Blood!" he shouted. "I did hit him for sure! There is a–no, see here, Ross, here are some more drops, a neat little collection! I must have hit hard. Oh, we can track him now easily!"
The telltale drops were scattered on the glistening face of the crust just below the trees. There was one splash of red and a few inches further along scattering drops. Sweeping the crust with the torch the boys cautiously crossed the cañon taking care to test the crust with the heels of their shoes as they advanced. But, to their disappointment, no more blood appeared, and no further signs of life. Slowly they zigzagged back and forth, searching and listening, but to no purpose.
"He got away all right," said Leslie in a voice of deep chagrin. "Guess, after all, I must only have scratched him."
"Yes, but it’s queer that a scratch would have produced that much blood and not another drop," returned Ross puzzled. "Such a wound would keep on bleeding for a few moments at least. We ought to find more traces right around here."
Convinced of the soundness of this reasoning, Leslie urged another search. Stopping long enough to make a fresh torch they returned to the blood spots and with them as a center carefully enlarged the circle of their search until they had again covered the surface, inch by inch, for yards around.
"He must have stopped and licked the wound clean right here and then streaked it for the mountains," said Leslie at last.
Ross shook his head obstinately. "I don’t believe it. With your shots pattering around him he’d likely streak it for the mountains and attend to his wounds later–only in that case there would be more blood."
Discouraged and cold, the searchers returned to the cabin. Nailing a box cover over the window, and barring the door again, they went to bed.
The following morning dawned bright and still in the Cañon of the Seven Spruces as the boys hadnamed their home. Tired out with the excitement and exertion of the previous night they overslept, and not until the sun had appeared above the eastern peaks were they ready for a further examination of the neighborhood of the blood spots. They searched as they had the previous evening and with no better results, until noon. Then the unexpected happened!
They had given up the hunt disgustedly and were returning to the shack for dinner, when passing to windward of the seven spruces, Leslie chanced to pause beside the trunk of the outermost sentinel in the group. Ross, in advance, turned and, simultaneously, the gaze of both boys fell on another evidence that Leslie’s gun had drawn blood the night before. Half of each tree trunk was covered with snow and on the white envelope of the spruce beside which they stood appeared four red streaks lying parallel and a couple of inches away around the curve of the trunk a faint red blotch. The second of the four streaks contained the deepest stain.
"I say, Ross!" cried Leslie.
"Less, here you are again!" ejaculated Ross.
For an instant they both stared at the tree trunk motionless. Then Ross, with a sudden narrowing of his eyes and upward tilt of his square chin, strode forward, drew off his mitten and extendedhis arm. The marks were shoulder high. Leslie gave an exclamation as Ross grasped the trunk, his four fingers covering the four streaks of blood, his thumb pressed on the fainter blotch. Then his hand fell to his side.
"A man!" gasped Leslie. His face turned white. "Ross, did I shoot a man?"
"That would account for things," said Ross slowly. He looked back. Only a few feet intervened between the tree and the blood on the crust. "If you hurt his hand–and he steadied himself here at this tree, and then ran on–perhaps before he realized that he was hurt–and then staunched the flow in his mittens or on his clothes–anywhere––"
"It was Sandy!" exclaimed Leslie. His voice was weak, also his knees.
"Or Weston," added Ross and scowled.
"He–they were looking in the window––" began Leslie.
"And slipped and fell against the glass," added Ross.
Only one more proof was needed to convince them that Leslie had drawn human blood, and that proof they found where they had not thought to look previously–beneath the window. There, in the loose snow blown against the side of the shack, was the blurred impression of a snow-shoe.
"I believe," said Ross with conviction that night as they sat beside the fire with their door barred and the window securely shuttered, "I believe, Less, that it was Sandy and perhaps Waymart, coming to see if Weston had done his duty by us."
"But where did they come from?" questioned Leslie. "Where are we? Can they get over to Meadow Creek and from there here? Or is there another way of getting here?"
It was months before that persistent question was answered, months of a dull routine wherein the boys turned with more and more zeal to their studies. Nights now, behind their barred door and shuttered window, they listened, not for wolves, but for the return of their human caller, but he did not come again. Day after day they looked sharply for prints of snow-shoes, but looked in vain. Gradually as the spring advanced, the wolves and coyotes retreated until the boys no longer carried the gun on their wood-cutting excursions.
"I guess Sue will not see a wolf skin this year," Leslie complained in March. "Even in that I have failed."
Ross, standing over the stove frying bacon, glanced over his shoulder. "Brace up, Less," he gibed. "There’s one thing you haven’t failed in,nor I either. We’ve got outside of more anatomy and physiology and––"
"That’s so," Leslie interrupted brightening. "I’ve found out what I want to do–after I’ve made my peace with father," soberly. "I guess he’ll not make any objections to a doctor in the family. It strikes me," lugubriously, "that he’ll be pleased to find out that I want to be anything!"
March gave place to April, finally; but in the mountains April showers do not have the effect they are popularly supposed to have elsewhere, the showers being great downfalls of snow alternating with thaws which threatened to turn the entire cañon into a river and brought to their ears daily the thunder of the snowslides. By the first of May the tops of the tallest willows began to appear, but the boys knew that the roots would not be visible for six weeks yet, so long does winter linger among the Shoshones. On the mountainside above timber-line bowlders began to push aside their dense white covering.
But with the softening of the great body of snow, the inhabitants of the cañon became more closely confined than ever. It was well that the hot sun did away with the necessity for a fire during the day, because the boys were able to cut and shovel their way only to the nearest trees.
"Things are getting worse instead of better,"said Leslie gloomily one day when May was two weeks old.
The boys sat in the doorway in the red glow of a warm sunset. At their feet, only a few yards away, the narrow cañon was transformed into a river choked with ice and snow and mud flowing sluggishly among the willows. For weeks the boys had looked in vain for the subsidence of the water. On the steep slope of the mountain opposite lay a mass of wet heavy snow waiting for its turn to come to plunge into the cañon.
Ross, his eyes on this slope, gave a rueful laugh. "Less, if only we had such a charge of dynamite now as we set off under Soapweed Ledge we might have a little fun across there."
"Fun!" echoed Leslie miserably. "Never connect that piece of foolishness with the word ’fun.’ If it hadn’t been for that shot we probably would have been in Meadow Creek Valley now hard at work."
Ross gazed gloomily up the river-like cañon. He wondered whether the trail from Miners’ Camp to Meadow Creek was clear yet, and whether the McKenzies had returned to the valley; for in three weeks Weimer’s fifth year of work on the claims would close. He chafed with impatience at the delay necessitated by that slowly moving stream. With the cañon clear, the boys had determinedto start out and follow its windings until they came to–Somewhere.
Late one afternoon of that same week Ross sat studying beneath the window while Leslie was out trying to force a path to a fine spruce tree that promised good fire-wood. The sun had long since hidden his face behind the mountain against which the cabin rested, but his rays turned the snow on the peaks opposite to gold. The day had been warm. The door stood open, and the fire was almost out. Near the doorway, and only a few feet from a solid bank of ice, blossomed a profusion of forget-me-nots and yellow wild asters. The breeze which rocked their petals was the breeze of summer that, nevertheless, carried the tang of the ice and snow over which it passed.
Suddenly Ross, deep in his book, heard a sound, the crunching of the pine cones and boughs with which the ground was strewn. A moment later a shadow moved across his book. He sprang to his feet, the book falling to the floor, and confronted a man in the doorway.
The man was middle-aged, large, and stoop-shouldered. His face was burned and bearded and furrowed, but astonishment was stamped on every feature and furrow.
"Hello!" he greeted Ross, as one familiar with his surroundings greets a stranger.
He stepped inside with that air of assurance which proclaims ownership. His eyes left Ross, and swept the shack.
"What––" he began, and suddenly stopped, his gaze traveling back curiously to the boy. "What––" he began again, but got no further.
Ross was the first one to complete a question, and it was an eager one.
"Where did you come from?"
"Cody," returned the stranger, reciprocating with "And you?"
"Meadow Creek."
"Meadow Creek!" in surprise. "Is the trail open now?"
Ross shook his head. "I don’t know. I came last January."
"January!" The stranger stared, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Do ye mean t’ tell me ye’ve been here sence January?"
"Ever since then."
Briefly but excitedly Ross told the story of his coming.
The stranger, listening, leaned back against the door-post. Successively he removed his cap, scratched his head, and contracted his bushy eyebrows. When Ross finished he was grinning in grim humor.
"Young man," he began slowly, "this here isWood River cañon. Ye’re only seven miles from Miners’ Camp. Ye could ’a’ hoofed it down t’ Gale’s Ridge in two hours on top of any crust that would ’a’ held ye up."
Stepping to the door Ross raised a chagrined voice, "Leslie, ho, Less! Come here!"
The boy’s unexpected and welcome visitor was Terry Brown, the owner of several adjacent coal claims. He had gone out of the mountains the first of December, his preparations for departure consisting merely in closing the door of his shack. He had expected to open it in June on the same furnishings and provisions which he had left.
"I see how it was," Brown began as the three talked things over that evening. "That ’ere Weston waits fer a storm a-purpose. Then he takes ye a pretty chase around and up and among them little peaks over at the head waters of Meadow Creek until he gits ye so mixed up that ye don’t know east from west. Then he slides ye over the cliff, and lands ye in here; and you, thinkin’ ye’re miles away from ye don’t know where, with a heap o’ danger spots between ye and anywheres, jest naturally sets down here and behaves yerself. It was the only sensible thing to do," added Brown approvingly.
"But in the face of the facts it doesn’t look sensible now!" Ross burst out.
"No," meditatively, "but without knowin’ any of the facts, and with no way t’ know ’em, you acted with sense, plain hoss sense. But that ’ere Weston, he sure done you dirt, all right."
Ross’s fists doubled involuntarily. Seeing this, Brown’s voice changed.
"Better fergit it, son. Chuck the hull matter. Ye’ve lost and they’ve won; and, if what I hear of the McKenzies is true, it won’t do ye no good t’ keep thinkin’ of this. And when ye git down t’ Camp I wouldn’t tell the first man I seen about this, nuther––"
"Because," Leslie broke in hotly, "they’d laugh at us for staying here so near Camp all winter."
Brown made no reply, but a slow grin expressed his opinion.
"I say, Less," Ross broke out, "we don’t look any bigger to ourselves than we did when we found out what that blast under the Ledge had done for us, do we?"
But Leslie did not hear. He sat with his elbows on his knees scowling down at the floor. "If we’re that near Camp," he reasoned, "it was surely one of the McKenzies that came up to see if we were here yet that night that I fired. He chose a night, you remember, when the snow was light and the crust icy. No tracks left for us to follow."
Their visitor asked for no explanation to this. He was studying Ross’s face intently as the boy sat leaning forward, his hands clasped around his knees.
"I say!" the older man broke out suddenly. "Ye look almighty like a feller that rode up in the stage from Meeteetse yisterday–almighty like ’im. They was two of ’em. They got out at Amos Steele’s."
"Where did they come from?" asked Ross absently.
"I dunno. Sheepy Luther said they was Easterners."
"Sheepy Luther!" exclaimed Ross. "I know Sheepy. His wagon set on the hill just back of the stage camp when I was there with Weston."
"Is that so? Wall, Sheepy is down on his luck. He’s too old t’ chase sheep, and last winter he lost five hundred or thereabouts; so he got his walkin’ papers. He come up yisterday. Stopped at Steele’s t’ try t’ git a job with the Gale’s Ridge Company. Steele may take ’im on to wrangle the hosses, but he can’t do more’n a boy’s work. He’s done fer; only he don’t know it."
In the pause which followed Brown again studied Ross. "This feller," he began again suddenly, "was a bigger man than ye be; butI vum, ye’re alike even t’ the way ye squint up yer eyes and mouth, ’n’––"
Ross came to his feet alertly, his interest at last aroused.
"His name?" he demanded eagerly.
Brown shook his head. "Didn’t hear no names except the front ones. They called each other ’Ross’ ’n’ ’Fred.’"
"Uncle Fred and father!" shouted Ross excitedly. "They came up yesterday, you say, and stopped at Gale’s Ridge!"
Theboy’s first feeling of joy was immediately succeeded by a deep chagrin. Probably his father had come on to complete the legal process for securing a clear title to the claims, and had brought Dr. Grant with him, and Ross must confront them with news of failure rather than victory. He winced when he thought of the expression of disappointment which he felt sure would sweep over his father’s face, especially when his father learned that the way to failure had lain in part through the boy’s exercise of his medical knowledge.
"There’s my snow-shoes," he heard Brown saying, and the words brought him out of his reverie back to the present at once. "To-morrer ye better hoof it down t’ Camp and meet up with yer relation."
"That’s right, Ross," urged Leslie. "I’ll stay here until you can bring more shoes back. In that case," cheerfully, "you see I’ll get the betterbargain because you’ll have to take the brunt––" he paused abruptly.
"Yes, the brunt of the ridicule," added Ross grimly. "We may as well look the thing squarely in the face. I’m pretty hot inside, and I shall probably boil over at sight of the McKenzies, but–they’ve made us ridiculous instead of laying themselves open to prosecution."
"Except Weston," Leslie burst out significantly. "Wait till I get hold of father!"
According to the plans laid, Ross set out the following morning on the snow-shoes. Following Brown’s directions, to keep to the side of the mountain, he threaded the windings of the cañon on reluctant feet, past the cliff whose dark face mocked him, over the treacherous rotting ice and packed snow, and finally emerged into the broader portion of the cañon which contained Miners’ Camp.
The cabins, deserted the previous December, were inhabited again. The sound of the woodchopper was in the air; and, as Ross came into Camp, a dull reverberating boom from the heart of Dundee told that the Mountain Company’s mining operations were resumed.
But so intent was he on the thought of meeting his father and uncle that these sights and sounds did not fill him with the joy he had imagined they would give. He even failed to notice a man standingin the doorway of a shack, scanning Crosby, on whose steep face the snow still hung in loosening masses.
Toward the shack came Bill Travers, the stage-driver between Meeteetse and Miners’ Camp.
"Wall, beat me," cried the man in the doorway, "if here ain’t Doc!"
Ross flashed around and faced Sandy McKenzie.
Sandy’s hands were rammed into his pockets; but his sun-burned face was smiling an unruffled welcome, and his voice rang pleasantly.
"How," Sandy inquired, "did ye get over here from Medder Creek?"
Ross instantly "boiled over" as he had feared he should, and said the very thing he had not intended to say. "You know how I got here! You know where I came from!"
The stage-driver, joined by a second man, came nearer and paused. Sandy pushed his hands yet deeper into his pockets, and looked amazingly innocent.
"Me!" he drawled. "What d’ye mean?"
At the insolent tone Ross’s blood boiled. It hummed through his ears, deafening him to the sound of his own voice. What he said he never could recall beyond the general knowledge that he accused Sandy of the theft of the dynamite and of his own and Leslie’s abduction across the mountains.
And, when he paused to catch his breath and steady his voice, Sandy was looking him over with an amused grin which maddened him.
"Now, ain’t that a likely story?" he inquired. "Kept ye a prisoner fer six months not five miles from Camp on a trail that can be follered at any time in the year! Ha, ha!"
Bill Travers grinned faintly. The other man turned away with the corners of his mouth twitching, while Sandy went on:
"And as fer Weston, he went to Missoury the day after we left Medder Creek, and there he is now fer all I’ve heard." Again Sandy’s laugh rang out as he added: "That story won’t hold water. Why didn’t ye make up a––"
Here Waymart appeared in the doorway of the shack. He scowled at Ross, but his peremptory words were aimed at Sandy:
"See here! If we’re goin’ t’ send that bundle down by Grasshopper we’ve got t’ make lively tracks in here, and ye ought t’ know it!"
"Keep yer hair on tight, Mart," laughed Sandy.
He turned, nevertheless, toward the door. As he did so, he mechanically withdrew his hands from his pockets and Ross saw something which at once arrested his attention. The middle finger of Sandy’s right hand was gone! In a flash, memory showed Ross the four blood streaks on the trunk of the spruce with the second streak the deepest in color.
YOU’VE PAID FOR IT.
YOU’VE PAID FOR IT.
With his anger still burning he snatched off his glove and held up his right hand triumphantly, the middle finger projecting. "Well, anyway," he cried, "Leslie ain’t a bad shot. We may never prove that you put us in that hole, but you’ve paid for it, nevertheless!"
Sandy involuntarily doubled his right hand into a fist. He caught his under lip between his teeth and sent Ross a black look as, wordlessly, he entered the shack and slammed the door behind him, leaving Ross to tell the story of Leslie’s shot to two interested and excited men.
"That accounts fer it," confirmed Bill Travers. "Sandy and Waymart they come up from Cody along in February and when they clumb int’ th’ stage goin’ back, Sandy’s hand was tied up. Next thing I knowed when they come up with me t’ other day, that finger was off clean to the hand, but Sandy hain’t never spoken of it."
Ross, leaving Bill to talk the matter over with his companions, went on rapidly now down the cañon, his eyes narrowed and his chin protruding doggedly. One disagreeable scene was ended, and he was, perhaps, facing another.
"I ought to be sorry that Sandy lost a finger but–hanged if I am!" he burst out loud. Hewas anxious to have Leslie know the result of his random shot.
Rounding a shoulder of Gale’s Ridge, he came in sight of Steele’s shack. Steele sat in the doorway. Beside him, leaning against the logs of the shack’s side, was a man in shirt-sleeves and cap, beneath which a rim of woolly gray hair projected.
Facing Steele were two well dressed men, one in a tall silk hat, which appeared incongruous against its background of log shack and pine tree. Ross, with narrowed eyes and compressed lips, plodded on.
"I’ve done my best," he muttered defensively. "It’s all a fellow can do; but, when that best is failure, why, it’s not much consolation."
Then he raised his head, squared his shoulders, and doggedly faced the four in front of Steele’s cabin.
Ross Grant, Senior, had not come West to look after his claims, but after his son, with whom he felt he had but just begun an acquaintance. He had no difficulty in getting Dr. Grant to accompany him, reënforced as he was by an anxious Aunt Anne. It was true that both Ross and Steele had written that all communications with the former would be shut off for months. But, when the hot days of June came and brought no letterfrom the boy, as Aunt Anne said, "something must be done."
That something was represented in the persons of the Grant brothers in Miners’ Camp.
After the first greetings, tinged with amazement on the part of the four, Ross backed up against a spruce, and, facing the others, proceeded to answer the questions with which they bombarded him.
In half an hour they were in possession of the main facts in his life during the last six months.
"The McKenzies all through," commented Steele finally; "but–prove it!"
"I’ve got to prove it!" declared Ross violently; "I shall!"
"Ross,"–Dr. Grant’s comment carried with it the pride and honor of his profession,–"if you’re called upon to attend the sick, you must go. That’s the duty of a physician, even before he receives his diploma. You did right."
"I felt that way myself, uncle," returned Ross quietly. "As soon as Weimer opened the way, I never thought of not going, so long as there was no regular doctor within reach."
Ross Grant, Senior, looked his son over. There was no expression of disapproval on his face as he took the measure of this full-blooded, broad-shouldered, erect young man whose muscles had been hardened by wind and sun and work in the open.
Having completed his survey, Ross, Senior, smiled. "Well, my boy," he remarked characteristically, "it took three good sized men to down you two boys, didn’t it? And it must have cost them a heap of thinking into the bargain. Shake, Ross; I’m proud of you!"
And Ross, bewildered, shook hands with his father, his cheeks reddening with pleasure.
"I–I never thought of it in that way before," he stammered. "But–that doesn’t save the claims, and the fifth year is up next week, and Uncle Jake––"
"Don’t you worry about Uncle Jake," interrupted his father meaningly. "We may lose the claims, but Uncle Jake will be provided for."
"The first thing to do," interpolated Steele, "is to root him out of Meadow Creek Valley. I’ve never known the snow to hang so late to the side of Crosby."
That very night it ceased to "hang." At midnight every one in the shack was awakened. There was a cracking of trees, a long steady rush, and then a mighty and prolonged roar as the snow, under the influence of a swift warm wind, swept down the side of old Crosby, and took the thousand-feet plunge into the ravine at the foot of the falls. The roar echoed against the sides of Dundee and Spar and Sniffle, starting otherthough lesser slides until the cañon was filled with the confusion of sound.
The following morning, Steele, after investigation, found the trail around the shoulder of Crosby swept clean, and at once proposed that they follow it to Meadow Creek. Ross objected to starting until Leslie reached them. Steele had sent Society Bill up the cañon the previous evening with snow-shoes for the boy. But neither Society Bill nor Leslie had appeared. Ross’s objections were, therefore, overruled by the older men.
"Leave word in the upper camp for him to follow us when he comes," Steele suggested, "and we’ll start right away. We shall have to foot it, too, for no horse can make it yet."
The sheep-herder, who had shared Steele’s hospitality over night, shouldered his blankets, observing that he was going over with them to see his friend Weimer, and find out what was "doin’ on the Creek."
There were others of the same mind also, as the party from Steele’s shack found when they reached the foot of Crosby. Just ahead of them, so engrossed in their climbing that they did not look back, were Sandy and Waymart.
Slowly, to accommodate the older Grants, the party moved up the trail, slippery with mudand snow, their way obstructed by rocks and tree trunks.
Sandy and Waymart, ahead, were obliged to move slowly also; for to their lot fell the removal of any obstacles too large to surmount, and the snow and landslide of the previous night had left many such. Around the shoulder, however, the trail was intact, the mountain being so steep at this point that the slide had leaped clear of the trail and projected itself headlong into the gorge below.
An hour later Ross called back to his father and uncle, who were puffing along, breathless and tired and dizzy: "We’ll be in sight of the dump in ten minutes. It’s just around the spur of the mountain there."
Then, unable to restrain his impatience and anxiety longer, he ran on ahead of Steele, keeping a short distance between himself and the McKenzies. The McKenzies, however, seemed no more anxious to enjoy his society than he did to enjoy theirs. Sandy, for once, omitted his usual pleasantries, an omission easy to account for whenever Ross thought of the missing middle finger of his right hand.
Hearing footsteps behind him, Ross glanced around. Steele had left the others, and was following on a run. The McKenzies pushedon without looking back, and neither Steele nor Ross spoke.
In silence, then, the four approached the spur. But before they reached the dump that silence was most unexpectedly broken. Out of the open mouth of the tunnel rolled a volume of sound, then another and another.
Ross in his surprise, his head thrown back as he scanned the dump, nearly fell over a mass of newly mined ore which blocked the main trail.
Then he caught a glimpse of Weimer shielding his eyes from the sun with both hands, waiting for the effects of the explosions in the tunnel to subside. And, leaning against the tool house, his hands in his pockets, his head bent forward, was another man, the sight of whom caused a great illumination in Ross’s mind.
"Weston!" he shouted. "Weston!"
The two men on the dump came to the edge, and looked over. The McKenzies on the trail ahead halted. The Grants with the sheep-herder drew nearer.
Weimer, squinting, recognized Ross. He took off his cap, and waved it as wildly as a boy.
"The vork," he yelled, "ist done! It ist done dese two veeks. Me und Miller here, ve ist vorkin’ now joost for de fun!"
Weston gave one glance at Sandy andWaymart, and without speaking went back to the tunnel.
Ross was after him with a bound, scrambling up over the dump, followed by the others, who were infected by his excitement. He ran to Weston with both hands outstretched.
"Weston," he shouted, "you did this!"
"Veston!" exclaimed Uncle Jake. "Dot ist Miller. He has been mit me all der spring."
"I told him," muttered Weston, extending his hand to Ross, but turning away shamefacedly, "that you two boys had taken my place with my sick pard, while I was to stay by him."
Ross pumped the big hand up and down.
"Father," he cried excitedly, "he has saved our claims."
Weston tried to liberate his hand. He stole a glance at Sandy and Waymart, who had stopped just beyond the dump.
"Doc here"–he spoke to the group who surrounded him–"saved me first. I had that little business to pay for, but"–his tone sank to a mutter–"I thought I could pay it and git away to Missoury before Sandy found out what I was up to here––"
He was interrupted by Sandy’s voice from the trail, and the voice was harsh and vengeful. "Better come over to our shack, Lon. I want alittle talk with ye about old man Quinn. He’s wantin’ t’ see ye powerful bad."
At the name the sheep-herder, who had been standing stupidly staring at Weston, woke up.
"Old man Quinn," he began. "A feller in Cody told me––" but no one was paying any attention to him.
Sandy and Waymart moved on slowly toward their cabin, talking and gesticulating excitedly, evidently in disagreement.
For the present no one undeceived Weimer in regard to Miller.
"He come pack in all dot storm," Weimer exulted, "und mit me vas."
Weston looked away, but Steele cried, "Good work, man," clapping him warmly on the shoulder. Then he added boyishly: "I’m hungry as a bear! Got any grub left?"
"Yes," answered Weston quietly, "plenty. Come on down all of you, and I’ll rustle some flapjacks and coffee."
They started down the trail, Weston and Ross in advance. At the mention of "old man Quinn" Ross’s elation had subsided. He looked at Weston out of the corner of his eye. The other’s eyes were downcast and his face pale beneath its sunburn. His hair was of a peculiar color, light at the roots and dark at the ends. He hadevidently forgotten to bring his hair dye to Meadow Creek.
The older man spoke first. His voice was low and his words halting. "I had to take you across the mountain and leave you there," he explained briefly. "Sandy was behind the cabin when we got there. I couldn’t fool ’im about you, but I did about myself; and, if you all had put off comin’ over a day longer, I could have got away out of Sandy’s reach."
As he spoke, Weston’s hand involuntarily crept up to his breast pocket. It fell again, however, as he added in a mutter as though to himself: "And Less–I had to take ’im over too–for my own good. But it’s all up now and I’ve got to face it out."
Just behind them came the sheep-herder, his thoughts reverting to a subject on which he had tried once to speak. Now he saw an opportunity.
"Ye must ’a’ known of old man Quinn then," he called to Weston. "Didn’t ye?"
Weston stumbled. He caught himself, but the movement saved him from the necessity of an answer.
"Wall," the sheep-herder went on, almost running in order to keep up with the pace Weston had set, "I met Happy in Cody t’ other day, and Happy said old man Quinn had pinched the fourth puncher that druv his sheep––"
"What?" shouted Weston. He swung around so suddenly that the sheep-herder ran full tilt against him.
"What?" Weston shouted again. He seized the amazed and terrified Sheepy, and held him by the arms in a vise that made the man wince. "Say that again."
"S-say what?" faltered Sheepy.
"What about the fourth? Tell me!"
With every word Weston, his eyes ablaze, his lips drawn back over strong white teeth, gave the old sheep-herder a convulsive shake.
"W-why," the old man quavered, "Happy, he said that a feller down in Oklahomy, name of Burns, went and give himself up to old man Quinn. He said he was the feller the old man was after–that he was the fourth who done the business with the sheep. But because he owned up the jedge give ’im only six months––"
Weston suddenly pushed the sheep-herder from him, his face working convulsively. "Then I wasn’t in it!" he cried. "Sandy said I was, but I wasn’t!"
Offering no further explanation to his astonished hearers, he turned toward the McKenzie shack on a run; and for a couple of hours they saw no more of him.
It was a busy time for Ross, who promptly tookWeston’s place "rustling grub." But, as he worked, his thoughts wonderingly circled around Weston’s strange actions. The fourth man was found and it was not Weston–yet Weston, it would appear, had believed himself to be the guilty party! It was too deep a puzzle for Ross. As the boy worked he kept a watchful eye on the trail for Leslie. Surely the latter would come down to Camp that morning and receive the word Ross had left him at the post-office.
Steele, who had stayed behind long enough to examine the tunnel, confirmed Weimer’s statement that more than enough work had been done to cover the requirements of the law. Weimer, jubilant, sat and talked to his old-time "pard," whose voice answered him, but whose satisfied gaze followed Ross.
But it was to the man who had stood in the place of a father to him that Ross’s eyes turned most frequently. Dr. Grant sat, appropriately, on the emergency chest, looking affectionately at his energetic nephew.
Suddenly Ross picked up a tin cup full of water from the table, and held it out at arm’s length toward his uncle.
Dr. Grant smiled. "All right, Ross," he said quietly.
Ross, Senior, looked from one to the otherinquiringly. Ross, Junior, answered; but he turned his back on his father, and spoke hesitatingly. "I was showing uncle, father, that my hand is still steady enough to be the hand of a first class–surgeon."
Promptly and heartily came the unexpected response from the elder Grant. "I’m glad of that, Ross, for I shall look to see you as successful in your profession as you have been in my business," and he turned at once to Weimer, and went on speaking.
"Suppose," he was saying, "as long as you want to stay here, you get your friend"–he indicated the sheep-herder–"to come and live with you. I’m going to buy out Ross’s interest in the shares, and I’ll look to you to keep ’em in good shape–you and your friend–until we get a chance to sell well. Of course," he added carelessly, "I’ll grub-stake you and more, both of you."
Sheepy’s eyes lighted, and Weimer grinned and slapped his knee. They were the only signs necessary to complete the bargain.
After dinner, as Ross arose from the table, he saw Leslie hurrying down the trail. Ross went to meet him.
"Hello, Ross!" Leslie called in a voice which he tried to make matter-of-fact, but which bubbled over with jubilation. "I stopped in at thepost-office and got your word and a letter from dad. It’s only a month old! He thinks we’re mewed up over here, you know, working your claims. And he says he and Sue want me to come home as soon as I get this letter. He says if I’m willing to work he’ll give me better wages than I can get anywhere else! He doesn’t know yet," here Leslie grinned broadly, "that I want to do now the very thing he has fought all my life to make me do–go to school. That doctor business has sort of sunk in. But say, Ross, here’s a thing that bothers me." Leslie pulled the letter from his pocket and read:
"’A few days ago I got hold of the fourth man that ran my sheep off into the river two years ago. The fellow came and gave himself up to me.’"
The reader looked up tentatively. "Ross, if it was Weston dad would have said––"
Ross’s hand descended on the other’s shoulder in a mighty whack as he shouted: "It isn’t Weston. Now you listen and give me an inning on the talk!"
For half an hour they stood outside the shack while Ross got his inning–Sandy’s hand, the work, Weston’s strange actions were all reviewed hurriedly and listened to excitedly. Then, seeing Weston approaching, the boys went inside.
Weston crossed the valley slowly, looking downat something which he held in the palm of his hand, something in a small gilt frame that he slipped into his breast pocket when he entered the shack.
Completely absorbed in his own thoughts–cheerful thoughts too, apparently–he went directly to his bunk, and began gathering his few possessions together not noticing that the group had been augmented by Leslie.
"I guess," he explained abstractedly, "that I’ll go on at once–I’m going to Oklahoma and not Missouri." Then he looked over his shoulder at the sheep-herder, adding abstractedly: "Waymart says I ain’t the fourth, and never was. He’s been makin’ up his mind to tell me this good while."
The blank expression on the sheep-herder’s face brought Weston back to a sense of his surroundings.
"I forgot," he muttered turning to Ross, who stood beside the bunk, "that you may not know about this Quinn business."
Leslie stepped forward quickly, but paused as he saw Weston was oblivious of his presence.
"I know a good deal about it," exclaimed Ross impulsively, "and I wish I knew the rest–your part of it."
Weston leaned against the bunk, his back towardthe silent room, his eyes downcast. He made the explanation with visible reluctance.
"You see, Doc, I used to drink; and when I had two or three glasses down, I’d go out of my head; and when I had come to myself again I wouldn’t know a blooming thing that had happened while I was drunk. But all the time I could ride straight and talk straight and shoot straight."
He paused to moisten his lips. Leslie came a step nearer.
"Well," Weston continued, "to make a long story short, I was foreman on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma two years ago. Sandy and Mart came around wanting a job, and I gave ’em one on the same ranch. Then came the big round-up at North Fork–and there was trouble between the sheep and cattle men."
Weston hesitated and looked down. He raised his hand to his breast pocket and let it fall at his side.
"The night the round-up ended most of us–got drunk."
He paused, shook himself impatiently, and hurried on: "I didn’t go with the rest intending to drink–but I did, what with treating and all that. And when I come to myself, Sandy told me I was one of the men who had done the job on the Quinn sheep. And, knowing what I am when drunk, Ibelieved him and cleared out with him and Mart over the Texas line, and––" his hand traveled to his hair completing the sentence.
"I see!" exclaimed Ross excitedly; "and since then Sandy has held that over you."
Weston nodded. "I was sick of drink, but I got sick of it too late, you see. I’d put a lasso round my own neck just when I most wanted to be free."
His hand again wandered toward his breast pocket.
"But now," he added, "I am free."
He lifted his head proudly and turning, was aware for the first time of Leslie’s presence. As the hands of the two met Ross strode across the room and began speaking loudly and at random to the others, leaving Sue’s lover and Sue’s brother to talk alone.
Presently, however, unable to restrain the question longer, Ross turned again on Weston.
"Sandy stole our sticks, didn’t he?" he demanded, "and planned the whole thing to get rid of me?"
Weston turned slowly back to his bunk. For a moment he fumbled among the blankets in silence. Then he faced about again resolutely.
"Say, Doc, you have your claims here secure, haven’t you, and Sandy has lost ’em?"
"Yes, thanks to you."
"And you’ve got outside of enough of those books so you can go to college next year, eh?"
"Yes, again thanks to you!"
"And," here Weston glanced at Leslie, "Sandy has dropped a finger somewhere in the game."
Leslie could not restrain a look of exultation. "Yes."
"Well, then, let this thing drop, will you? Sandy hain’t all to the bad. He’s pulled me out of as many holes as he’s chucked me into; and I–well, I–say, Doc, call it square, will you?"
Ross glanced from his father to his uncle and then at Steele. A glance satisfied him. Stepping forward, he extended his hand.
"It’s square, Weston, and I’ll let everything go except–I can’t forget that you’ve pulled me out of a pretty big hole–the worst one I ever dropped into."
The Books of this Series are:ROSS GRANT, TENDERFOOTROSS GRANT, GOLD HUNTER