THE deserter squatted on his haunches and spat reflectively at the fire; his mild blue eyes, large and oxlike, gazed into the dancing flames, with an expression of placid content. Stephen and Bushrod lay on their blankets, weary from the day's travel. Walsh was playing cards with the two teamsters. Rogers leaned against the wheel of one of the wagons, with Benny asleep in the shadow at his side.
The deserter nodded silently to each in turn and they as silently nodded back to him. He glanced from the group he had joined to the group he had just left, and a matter of fifty feet separated the two. The burly half-breeds sat motionless and erect in the circle of light cast by their camp-fire, their blankets drawn about their shoulders. The fur trader was deep in earnest conversation with them and the deserter, noting this, his face took on a curious, puzzled expression; then, with a lingering glance in Basil's direction, he turned to Stephen. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“He seems to find plenty to say when I ain't about. Mr. Landray, white's no name for the way you've treated me. I reckon I'd be mighty lonely if I'd to mess steady with them.” He spoke gratefully in a slow, soft voice; he put up his hands and shielded his face from the campfire's light and heat. “A week or so and I'll be doing my best to get friendly with father; but I reckon fatted calf won't form no part of the first meal I set down to with him,” and a shrewd, sly, smile curled his lips.
Ten days had elapsed since the complete disruption of the party, when Basil had cast his lot wholly with the half-breeds. His intercourse with his cousins was now limited to the fewest possible words. Not so the late member of the Mounted Rifles. Had he been an ordinary ruffian, they would have regretted the evident preference he had displayed from the very first for their society; but clearly he was not an ordinary ruffian. He appeared a frank, simple soul; and even his morality, which was more than doubtful, seemed entirely a matter of accident, and something for which he could not be held responsible. He came and went freely between the two camps; he treated all with the same gentle affection; he overflowed with a graceful considerate charity of deeds; and he was helpful, not alone in deeds, but words of the most winning friendliness accompanied all his acts.
“We can't be far from Green River,” he suggested tentatively.
“Something less than forty miles, I should say,” Stephen answered.
Raymond pondered this in silence but when he spoke again, he had apparently lost all interest concerning their nearness to the river. “I've heard father say when Brigham Young fetched the saints out here, he'd promised 'em a land leaking with milk and honey; the land about Salt Lake looks as if it'll be a right smart while before it does any leaking. The trouble with this blame country is there's too much of it. I reckon it'll take a thousand years to fill her up.” he speculated idly.
“Was your father always a Mormon?” Stephen asked.
“He went into the business about as early as any of 'em, Mr. Landray. He's always had a gift for religion. He's tried 'em all. He was a Methodist to begin with, but I've heard him say he mighty early got discouraged with that as a means of grace; then he took up with the Millerites, had his robes ready and climbed up on the housetop to get his start for the kingdom come. You've heard of the Millerites, I reckon.”
“Oh, yes,” Stephen said; he added, “Religion doesn't seem to have occupied your thoughts to any extent. I should have imagined, with such an example before you—”
“Me? Oh, no; I don't see no reason for worry. I figure it out this way; I always been lucky, and I sort of look for some one to snake me in and say: 'Why, how are you, Raymond? I'm mighty surprised to see you here.'.rdquo;
“They'll hardly say less than that,” observed Stephen drily.
The deserter meditated in silence for a moment, and when he spoke again it was with an air of amiable tolerance.
“Yes, sir, father was so certain sure he'd never have any more use for it, that he gave away as good a farm as ever lay out doors. He wanted to feel that nothing was holding him to earth.”
“Meaning no offence to you, he was a pretty considerable fool to do that,” said Rogers, who had been listening to the conversation, and who now joined in it.
“No, you can't quite say that, for he deeded it to mother; he know'd he'd be pretty bad off if the world didn't bust according to prophecy, and he wanted to keep the property in the family; though I've heard him say he was that sincere he'd made up his mind that just him and a few of his friends was to be saved; he looked for all the rest to get scorched up bad; but he was uncertain about having the date of the bust up just right, and if it went over another season he thought he'd like to skin the farm for one more corn crop. He's always been powerful forehanded in them ways. What was this millennium anyhow, that old Bill Miller had him so stirred up over?”
“I don't know quite the sort of a millennium that your father was expecting,” said Stephen, “but I believe the millennium is supposed to mean a period which is to last a thousand years, when the world will be free of sin and death.”
“No deserting—no horse-stealing,” said Bushrod.
“You got me there!” said Raymond pleasantly. “So that's the millennium; it's a right pretty idea, ain't it? But tedious I should reckon.”
“Is your father satisfied with Mormonism?” asked Stephen.
“Yes, sir, and it's a pretty fair sort of a religion.”
“How about Brigham Young?” said Stephen.
“Oh, they're thick as thieves. Brigham's right smart of a schemer, too,” with gentle approval. “There's no foolishness about him—none whatever.”
“I suppose you are acquainted with Young, too?” said Stephen.
“Me? Oh, yes. I tell you, Mr. Landray, the valley's no healthy place unless you keep on the right side of him. I've heard father say that even after he'd been made elder, he kicked over the traces, and they had to baptise him all over a few times, to give him a fresh start. I reckon they didn't keep him in long enough 'airy time, if I'd been doing the job I'd left him in over night.”
While he talked his glance had been continually straying in the direction of the fur trader. The latter's apparently earnest conversation with his companions had come to an end, and the two halfbreeds had stretched themselves on the ground, but Basil still sat beside the camp-fire, his pipe between his teeth, moody and solitary.
The deserter hitched a little nearer Stephen, and dropped his voice to a low whisper.
“I'd like mighty well to tie up with you gentlemen, and give Basil yonder the slip. It was downright underhand of him to run me and the breeds in on you the way he done; I was real distressed, honest I was. It'd about serve him right if you helped me cut loose; we could wait until we got to the valley, and then if you'd just furnish me with a gun—” He looked wistfully at the row of rifles that leaned against the wagon-bed, each within easy reach of its owner's hand “and if there was any shooting to be done—him, I mean—I'd do it. Of course, his being kin to you, you wouldn't just want to do that yourselves. I'd want to feel though, that you'd take care of the half-breeds until I done for Basil. You never can trust a half-breed anyhow.”
“You're not in earnest, Raymond; you're surely not serious?” cried Stephen, drawing away from him in disgust and horror. The deserter gave him a swift, searching glance, then he laughed easily.
“Well, no, I ain't. I was joking—just joking.”
“It was a poor joke,” said Stephen sternly.
Raymond came slowly to his feet. “Well,” said he, “I'll turn in. You couldn't oblige me with the loan of a rifle, if I made up my mind to strike off for Fort Bridger?”
“No, we have no guns to spare,” said Stephen shortly.
A look of keen disappointment appeared on the deserter's face, but it swiftly passed and left him smiling and ingenuous.
“Good-night,” he said.
The camp-fire died down until nothing remained of it but a mass of glowing embers. The teamsters and Walsh had put away their cards and wrapped themselves in their blankets; Bushrod and Rogers had followed their example; their heavy breathing told that they already slept. The night wind that threshed the wagon canvases blew raw and cold. Stephen took up his rifle and made the circuit of the wagons, looking closely to the mules and horses, for the first watch was his.
His mind reverted more than once to the questionable wit of Raymond's joke, and it occurred to him as a thing to be steadily borne in mind that the Benson and California Mining and Trading Company had chosen illy who should be its friends. It would be a matter for deep thankfulness when they should reach Salt Lake, and could forever dispense with Basil, the half-breeds, and the too-smiling Raymond, whose perverted sense of humour permitted him to jestingly propose a murder.
The camp was astir at the first break of day. The night wind had blown itself out, and the sombre plains were heavy with silence. One by one the gold-seekers shook themselves out of their blankets, and without waste of words began their preparation for the day's journey.
Rogers drove the mules to water at a muddy hole a quarter of a mile from camp and beyond a slight ridge. He had just disappeared beyond this ridge, when the half-breed, Louis, took two of the horses, and started after him on the same errand. A moment later Basil and Baptiste mounted their's and rode out from camp. Raymond lounged across to his friends.
“Basil says you can start on if you like; he's gone to see if he can't knock over a buffalo cow, we're about out of meat,” he explained, and then, as if in verification of his words, they heard the sharp report of a rifle. “I reckon they've found what they're looking for,” said Raymond.
“I thought the shot sounded down by the water-hole,” said Bushrod.
“Yes, they were going around that way on account of their horses. Here, Mr. Landray, let me give you a hand with them blankets.” For Bushrod was making a roll of the bedding, preparatory to stowing it away in one of the wagons; the others were busy wedging up a shrunken wheel.
An instant later Rogers appeared on the ridge, but without the mules; he came running toward them, with his long rifle held in the crook of his arm.
“I've done it!” he cried hoarsely. “I've done it!” he repeated, when he reached them.
There was silence for a moment. No man spoke, for each feared to ask him what it was that he had done.
“I tell you I've done it, are you dumb?” he cried in wild and agonized appeal, and he looked from one to the other of his friends.
“What have you done?” Stephen asked.
“I've killed him.”
“You've killed whom?”
“Yonder half-breed. Damn his soul, he'll never get in a white man's way again—he'll keep his place!”
“You've murdered him, you mean?” Stephen spoke in a shocked whisper.
“It wa'n'. murder, Landray, I swear to God it wa'n'.! Who says murder to me, I've always been a fair man—who says murder to me?” and his wild, bloodshot eyes searched the circle of white faces.
“He'd a done for me if I hadn't shot him. He came down to the hole with his two horses; I was ahead of him, but he yelled to me to get out of his way; and when I told him he'd have to wait until I'd watered my stock, he tried to ride me down. I didn't lift a hand until then.”
Raymond was the first to speak.
“I wonder if that don't save me a hundred and a quarter; they certainly ain't entitled to his share, now are they?” But if they heard him, no one replied to the deserter, who continued to regard Rogers with an envious admiration. “The eternally condemned bag of bones, where'd he get the heart for it?” he muttered.
And then a savage cry came from the direction of the water-hole, telling that the body had been found by Basil and Baptiste. Stephen turned to Rogers.
“Get in one of the wagons, and lie still—take Benny with you—and, no matter what happens, stay there!” to the others he added: “Mind, right or wrong, we are not going to surrender him to them. That would but make a bad matter worse.”
“What's your notion, Steve?” asked Bushrod briskly. “Hadn't we better look sharp for the half-breed?”
“Yes, but don't be hasty. I'll attend to Basil.”
“Say, Mr. Landray, if you'll give me a gun I'll make the shot for you.” said the deserter officiously. He was not regarded, but he continued to loudly lament that he was unarmed.
Rogers had scarcely disappeared in one of the wagons when Basil and Baptiste galloped into camp; they flung themselves from their horses and confronted the little group about Stephen.
“Where is he?” Basil shouted, seizing the latter by the arm. “Where's Rogers? You're no kin to me unless you give him up to us.”
“Basil,” said Stephen quietly, falling back a step and freeing himself from the other's clutch, “it was the result of a quarrel, the fight was a fair one.”
“It's a lie—it was murder!” the fur trader cried hoarsely. “Where is he?” and he glared about him.
“Where you shan't touch him.”
“Shan't?” he raged, his black beard bristling.
“No.”
“Where've you hidden him?”
“Never mind. Where you can't find him?”
“Do you make this you're affair?”
“I won't say that, but it was self-defence. If he hadn't shot the Indian, the Indian would probably have shot him.”
“Who says so? Did you see the fight? Fight?” he laughed aloud. “Fight? It was murder, cowardly murder!”
“No, we didn't see the fight,” Stephen answered calmly.
“Oh, you take his word, do you? Well, I don't,” and he started toward the wagons. “He's in there, and by God, I'll have him out, and Baptiste here shall settle with him!”
“Dunlevy! Walsh!” called Stephen sharply.
The two men stepped in front of the fur trader.
“Basil,” said Stephen, “we'll inquire into this when we're all cooler.”
“We'll settle it now!” swore Basil, with a great oath.
“If he's done wrong he shall be punished; but not by you, not by us; the law—”
“Damn the law! There's only one law for the plains.”
“We'll hand him over to the commandant of the first military post.”
Rogers, who heard every word that was said where he lay in the bed of one of the wagons, with a barricade of boxes about him, smiled grimly at this.
“No they won't, son,” he whispered to the boy. “You and me will see California for all of them.”
He reached up over his barricade, and with his hunting-knife cut a slit in the wagon's canvas cover. The slit was just large enough to accommodate the muzzle of his rifle.
But now Basil withdrew to his own camp, taking with him the halfbreed and the deserter. The latter went with him reluctantly enough, for he knew the fur trader was in no mood to tamper with.
The five men about the wagons waited, never relaxing their vigilance. They expected something would be done or attempted, they scarcely knew what. They could hear nothing of what passed between Basil and his two companions, but they saw that he was talking earnestly with Raymond. Twice the deserter turned and looked toward them, finally he appeared to give a satisfactory answer to what Basil had been saying, and the conference came to an end; they heard the echo of his light laugh. He turned from Basil and the half-breed and approached Stephen, whom he seemed to regard with a quickened interest, but the friendly smile never left his selfish, good-natured face.
“Well, good-bye,” he said, and extended his hand. “I reckon I'll have to go with him yonder.”
“Are you willing to go with him?” Stephen asked.
“Oh, yes,” smiling evasively. “Yes, I'm plenty willing to go with him,” he said.
“Because if you have any fears for your safety—”
“No, I'm worth a heap more to him alive than I would be dead,” responded the deserter with an air of complacent conviction. He added pleasantly. “I reckon, though, it's right handsome of you to want to look out for me, and me a stranger.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “He'll calm down some; give him time. I allow he feels Baptiste is looking to him to take on like hell, but once he cuts loose from you gentlemen you needn't bother about him; he'll be mainly interested in getting on to California. Now if you keep on about due west you'll strike Green River sometime to-morrow; after you ford it, your trail leads a little south of west to the Bear.” He looked hard at Stephen.
“Thank you,” said the latter.
“Beyond the Bear you shouldn't have any trouble. You'll strike the Weber next, and you can just follow it into the valley, crossing Kamas Prairie. I know all that country—and don't worry none about him, he ain't hunting trouble. Well, good-bye, and good luck.”
He rejoined Basil and Baptiste.
“Why did he tell us that?” asked Bushrod suspiciously.
“Just his good-nature,” said Stephen indifferently, and thought no more of the deserter's advice until it became necessary to follow it.
The three men mounted their horses, and the fur trader again approached his cousins.
“Once more, will you give him up?” he asked.
But no one answered him.
“You won't give him up, eh? Well, look out,” and he shook his fist at them. “Look out, for I'll even this before I'm done with you.”
They heard his threat in silence, then seeing he was not to be answered, he wheeled about, and, followed by the half-breed and Raymond, crossed the ridge at a gallop. They stopped at the water-hole just long enough to lash the dead man to his saddle.
But Raymond, the deserter, rode away rejoicing in the possession of Louis's rifle which Basil had given him. When they had disappeared from sight, Stephen said to Bingham and Dunlevy: “Go down and look up the stock; if you find it's strayed from the water-hole, come back and we'll all turn out after it.”
Then, followed by Bushrod, he went to the wagons and called to Rogers. “They've gone. You've nothing to fear,” he said. The Californian crawled stiffly from his place of concealment. His friends were silent as he emerged from the wagon, against which he leaned for support.
“God knows it was a fair fight, Landray,” he said tremulously, for now, that the sustaining excitement was past, he was like one shaken with the ague. His face was drawn and ghastly, and his dark eyes burnt with an unearthly light. “He'd a done for me if I hadn't shot him. It was him or me; but it was mighty fair of you to stand by me.”
“We've stood by you, but I'm not satisfied, Rogers,” said Stephen moodily. “It's true he was an Indian, and it may be true, as you say, that you did the shooting in self-defence; I hope it was; but you've had bad blood for them from the start.”
“Bad blood! Yes, curse them—and curse me! for I've lived and camped with them for days and nights,” cried Rogers fiercely, glaring at Stephen. “If I'd been the man I was once I'd a fetched it to an issue long ago. See—” he held out a shaking hand, “You might think from that, he was the first. The heart's gone out of me with this cough that's tearing me asunder. It was the Indians killed my wife; I reckon if you stood in my place now you'd wonder why the hell we was arguing whether I shot yonder varment in fair fight or not: She'd gone to the corral—I'm telling you how my wife died—when I heard her cry out, and I ran to the ranch door. It wa'n'. two hundred yards to the coral, but it might as well been miles and she'd been no worse off; for it was surrounded; and when she ran shrieking through the bars, trying with all the strength God Almighty had given her, to make the house, they closed in about her and I saw one of them drive his axe into her brain.” The sweat stood in great beads on his brow. “I saw I was too late to help her, and I went back into the house and fastened the door, I still had him to think of—” pointing to the child. There was a long pause. Rogers gulped down something that rose in his throat, and went on: “Well, when the settlers who'd been hot on their trail ever since they broke loose on the settlement, come in and drove them off, and pulled Benny here and me out of the burning ranch house, they laid out ten of the red brutes. I'd let the daylight through.” He threw up his head defiantly. “What the hell do you suppose I care for one greasy half-breed!” and he clutched the stock of his gun with trembling fingers. “For God's sake,” he moaned, “Let's be moving. It was only a half-breed, what the hell's use quarrelling about him. I've sent him where he'll do no more harm.”
THEY saw no more of Basil Landray, Baptiste, and the too-smiling Raymond, which caused them some surprise at first; for the fur trader's sinister threat at parting had not sounded like an empty menace; yet when a week elapsed they decided that he had spoken rather for the half-breed than to them.
“What can they do?” said Bushrod contemptuously. “I've been looking for them to take pot shots at some of us; but after all that would be a risky business.”
“I wish,” said Stephen, “that we might find another way into Salt Lake; I don't like this thing of keeping on after them.”
“No,” said Rogers slowly, as though he were himself reluctantly abandoning some such idea. “No, our best chance is to keep on as we are going until we strike the head waters of the Weber. But look here, Mr. Landray, I didn't count on seeing the last of them so soon. Do you reckon they've hatched some plan to hold us up there in the valley?”
“How could they?” Stephen demanded. “You mean you think they may try to hold us for the murder,” he added.
“Mr. Landry, it wa'n'. no murder,” said Rogers, deeply offended at his unfortunate choice of words. “I wouldn't ask to die no fairer than he done.”
“I didn't mean to say that, Rogers,” said Stephen hastily.
“No, but you think of it as that,” retorted Rogers bitterly. “There's no use of our quarrelling about it, Rogers,” said Stephen. “You settled with him in your own fashion.”
“I never knowed of a case,” said Rogers moodily, “but I've heard of a white man being tried for killing a redskin; and the one I shot was a half-breed, and so some sort white just as he was some sort red.”
“I hadn't thought of that,” said Stephen.
“Well,” observed Rogers, “three or four days now will bring us into the valley. Mr. Landray, that's one redskin I'm mighty sorry I put out of business; if I'd been at the same pains to stave off the trouble I was to fetch it to a head, or if I'd sort of nursed it along until we got to the other side of this two-wife country, it might have saved us a heap of bother.”
Early the following morning Rogers was roused by Stephen, and as he came to consciousness he felt Stephen's hand on his shoulder.
“Turn out, Rogers,” said Landray. “One of the mules has broken its rope and strayed.”
The Californian crawled sleepily from among his blankets.
“What do you say—the mules—”
“The piebald's slipped her picket rope.”
“Dam her pepper and salt hide anyhow!” said Rogers, now wide awake. “I bet I rope her to-night so she don't get loose.”
“She can't have gone far for she was here when Bingham relieved me three hours after midnight.”
It was then just dawn.
“Where are the others?” asked Rogers, glancing about.
“They have gone down into the valley; suppose you take the back track up the pass while I get breakfast. Will you ride?”
“No, it ain't likely she's strayed far.”
He went back down the pass narrowly scanning the ground for the trail of the straying animal. A walk of a mile brought him to a point where a small canyon led off from the pass; a high separating wedge-shaped ridge lay between the two defiles, and it occurred to him that if he climbed to the summit of this ridge he would command a view of the pass proper as well as of the smaller canyon. He made the ascent with some difficulty and gaining the top of the ridge carefully scanned the pass, down which he could look for a mile or more; then he turned and found that he was overlooking a small valley, which but for the canyon would have been completely enclosed by a low range of hills, beyond which but at some distance rose the grey flanks of the mountains.
He did not see the lost mule, but he did see something that caused him an exclamation of surprise. Across the valley, and just rising above the low hill, what looked to be a small blue cloud was ascending lazily in the clear air. It was smoke; smoke from some camp-fire; and the camp-fire probably that of some roving band of Indians.
He went down the ridge a matter of half a mile, and entered a thick growth of service berry, aspin, and willows; this was so dense that he no longer saw the hill opposite and toward which he was bending his steps. He worked his way well into the thicket and had gained the centre of the narrow bottom, when he suddenly became aware that a man or some animal was crashing through the bush ahead of him which not only covered the bottom but clothed the base of the hill as well. Man or beast, the disturber of that solitude was coming forward rapidly and apparently with no attempt at concealment, for there was a continual snapping of branches.
Rogers paused; he could see nothing though the sounds drew nearer each moment. He cautiously forced his way yet deeper into the thicket, his gun cocked and swung forward ready for immediate use. Then suddenly he came out upon an open piece of ground, and found himself looking squarely into the face of the smiling Raymond. But the deserter was not smiling now. With a startled cry he had swung up his rifle and presented its muzzle at Rogers's breast; yet quick as he was, the Californian had been equally prompt, his long rifle was levelled, too, and his forefinger rested lightly on the trigger. There was this difference, however, the hammer of the deserter's gun still covered the cap. It forever settled a most important question.
“Drop it!” said Rogers quietly between his teeth; and Raymond, whose face was grey and drawn, and whose eyes never left the Californian's eyes, instantly opened his hands and the gun dropped at his feet. By a quick movement Rogers kicked it to one side. There was a long moment while the two men, breathing hard, glared at each other. It was the deserter who spoke first.
“Why, Mr. Rogers,” he said in a shaken whisper, “I wa'n'. counting on seeing you.”
“I bet you wa'n'.,” said Rogers briefly, but with grim sarcasm; and moving forward a step he kicked Raymond's rifle yet further into the brush.
There ensued an ominous silence. A tortured sickly smile seemed to snatch at the corners of the deserter's mouth, but it was past his power to fix it there; it left him loose-lipped, gaping helplessly down the muzzle of Rogers's long rifle. He was struggling with a terrible fear that the Californian might make some sudden and deadly use of his weapon. He remembered how they had found the half-breed with the single round hole in his hunting-shirt attesting to the excellence of his slayer's markmanship.
“Why don't you shoot?” he cried at last in agony.
“Hold your jaw!” said Rogers in a savage whisper.
“If you're going to shoot, why don't you?” the deserter demanded with hoarse, dry-throated rage.
“I reckon that's something I'll take my time to,” said Rogers calmly. “Maybe I'll shoot and maybe I won't. I'm thinking about it—hard. Fall back a step, I got no hankering for your company. There, that'll do, and if you so much as raise your voice again—” he did not finish the sentence, but tapped the stock of his rifle with sinister significance. There was another pause and then Rogers said more mildly, “I reckon you can tell me how you happen to be here.”
Raymond took grace of his altered tone; with a final desperate twitching of the lips the smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth. “You pretty nearly took my breath away,” he faltered.
“You're right there, I did,” said Rogers with sudden ferocity.
Raymond smiled vaguely. To the very marrow of his bones he feared this gaunt captor of his.
“Quick now,” said Rogers sternly, “what are you doing here?”
“Well, you see I've give Basil the slip—”
“That's a lie,” retorted Rogers. “Whose smoke is that off yonder back of you?”
“I reckon you mean my camp-fire.”
“That's another lie. Some one's been throwing on wood, green wood, since we been standing here,” said Rogers with an ugly grin. “Look and see—the smoke'll tell you that as plain as it tells me.”
“You're plumb suspicious, Mr. Rogers, it's my camp; ain't I always been a friend?”
“You ain't friend to no man, unless it be to yourself, that's my idea of you,” said Rogers.
“It's my camp-fire I tell you—”
“Yes, and Basil's there, and the half-breed's there,” he took his eyes off Raymond's face, and for the first time noticed that he had exchanged his ragged uniform for an excellent suit of grey homespun. “You've crossed the range and been down into the valley. Now what are you doing here on the back track when you were all so keen for trying your luck in California?”
“Well,” said the deserter with a quick shift of ground, “maybe Basil is there, and maybe the half-breed is there; what does it signify?”
“Why are you following us?”
But at this Raymond shook his head vehemently. “Following you—and why'd we be following you? I'll tell you the truth, fact is, sometimes it gravels me to tell the truth; but with a friend—we're taking a party of Saints back to the Missouri. There was money in the job, and darn California anyhow; it's a long way off, and they say in the valley the bottom's dropped clean out of this here gold business. It's all rank foolishness, they are beginning to come back, and the Saints are feeding them and helping them on toward the States; we mighty soon got shut of that notion when we'd seen and talked with a few of them that'd crossed to the Coast; and when Young offered to hire us to take a score of his missionaries to the Missouri we jumped at the chance.”
“You daren't go near Fort Laramie,” said Rogers, but his theories as to what had brought Raymond there had been rather shaken by the excellent account he was now giving of himself.
“I wa'n'. aware I said I was going near the fort. No, sir, we're going out the way we come in. We allow to hit the trail a hundred miles the other side of old Laramie.”
Rogers looked at him doubtfully, yet he was almost inclined to believe that it was as he said, that the first rush of emigration might have encountered a few discouraged ones who had gone into California the preceding fall, and who having been unfortunate were making the best of their way back to the States—this might even have resulted in a stampede among the emigrants. He recalled how the fear of the cholera had turned back thousands before a quarter of their journey had been completed.
With his shifty eyes narrowed to a slit, the deserter watched the Californian. He could see something of what was passing in his mind and he could guess the rest; yet when he spoke again he said, “I reckon you don't take any great stock in what I'm telling you; come up to the top of yonder ridge and you can see our camp, and that it's exactly as I say.”
This was the very thing Rogers had resolved on doing.
“I'm going with you all right, but look here, if you so much as make a sign or a sound, to let 'em know we're close at hand, I'm going to blow the top of your head off. Here, walk before me, and heed every word I say. If I find you're telling me the truth about its being a party of Mormon missionaries, I'll bring you back here and turn you loose. We'll leave your gun here.”
“That's fair enough,” said Raymond genially. “Well I certainly am proud to see you, though I took you for a redskin first off; lucky you spoke—”
“I allow it was a sight luckier for me I got you covered first,” said Rogers sourly. “Go ahead now, and mind you, no noise.”
It was evident, however, that the deserter felt he had quite as much at stake as Rogers himself, for he advanced cautiously through the thicket that clothed the base of the hill. Rogers followed him with his rifle held ready for instant use, but no thought was further from Raymond's mind than betrayal. At first he had felt the desperate need of some explanation, that would account for his presence there; and the story he had finally told had seemed to him to cover the case and to leave no reasonable room for doubt in Rogers's mind.
As they neared the top of the ridge he threw himself flat on his stomach and wormed his way up toward its broken crest, and Rogers keeping close at his heels followed his example. He gained the crest, and peering about the base of a stunted pine, found that he was looking down into a snug pocket of the hills, and so close to the camp that he might have tossed his cap into it, though it lay far below him. He counted eighteen or twenty picketed horses; a number of men were moving about, and a glance told him they were white men. He looked long and earnestly, and then turned to Raymond with a frankly puzzled expression. The deserter was smiling and triumphant.
“Want I should take you into camp?” he asked in an eager whisper, but Rogers shook his head; he was not convinced, yet why and what he doubted was more than he could have told.
“We'll go back,” he said at last. “Go first;” and they descended the ridge in silence. Rogers was vainly seeking to fit some explanations to the mystery, beyond Raymond's words. When they reached the scene of their original encounter, he paused for an instant.
“I reckon you'll have to go on with me for a little spell before I turn you loose,” he said. “No, you can come back here and get your gun when I'm through with you,” and he laughed shortly.
“Oh, all right,” said Raymond cheerfully. “It's just as you say.”
“You bet it's as I say,” and he motioned the deserter to precede him again.
They crossed the ridge that lay between them and the pass.
“I reckon this'll do,” said Rogers. “I sha'n'. want you to go any further. Look here, the Landrays treated you all right.”
“They did indeed,” said Raymond gratefully.
“Well, what are those men yonder in camp for?”
“I just got through telling you that, Mr. Rogers,” responded Raymond with an injured air. “The outfit's bound for the States. Old Brigham reckons you godless cusses back East need some converting; that's what he's up to, and I'm helping rush 'em to the river.”
“I'm pretty certain you're lying whatever you say,” observed Rogers.
“Well, sir, I've fooled people telling them the truth,” retorted Raymond. “But that was their own fault.”
“I reckon maybe that's so,” said Rogers.
“This is a mighty one-sided conversation anyway you look at it,” said the deserter pleasantly, and smiling without offence. “No, sir, I'm telling you God Almighty's truth, they are Mormon missionaries going back to the States.”
“Well, whatever they are, I sha'n'. want you any more; you can travel back to 'em as fast as you like; but look here, you see that none of them don't stray in the direction I'm going.” And the Californian moved off up the pass.
“Good luck, Mr. Rogers!” the deserter called after him, and then he began leisurely to climb the ridge.
When Rogers reached the camp he saw that the mule had been found and that the teams were made up and ready to start.
“What's kept you so long?” asked Stephen.
“I was following what I took to be old piebald's trail,” answered Rogers.
At first he had been undecided as to whether or not he should tell the others of his encounter with Raymond; but he had finally determined to say nothing of this meeting. Silent and preoccupied he took his place in one of the wagons, seeking some excuse for Raymond's presence so close at hand, beyond that which the deserter had himself given.
Their trail first led across a narrow valley, and then they entered the pass again, which with each slow mile mounted to a higher altitude; but by the middle of the morning it seemed to have reached its greatest elevation, for on beyond them it wound down and down, opening at last into a wide level valley lying in a vast amphitheatre of hills and mountains.
“Mr. Landray, I don't know but I'd like to ride your horse for a spell,” said Rogers.
“You'll find it much cooler in the wagon,” said Stephen.
“It is hot,” agreed the Californian, wiping the sweat from his face.
Nevertheless he swung himself into the saddle, and fell in at the rear of the wagons; and then he increased the distance that separated him from the train, from a few yards to almost half a mile, keeping his horse at the slowest walk. Once or twice in the last hour before their brief noon halt, he thought he heard the distant clatter of hoofs in the pass back of him, but he dismissed this as a mere nervous fancy. A little after midday they entered the valley. For a matter of two miles they toiled forward over a perfectly level plain, barren and bare of all useful vegetation.
Stephen who was in the first wagon reined in his mules to say, “We'll let our teams have a few minutes rest.”
“I'd push ahead, Mr. Landray; I wouldn't waste no time here,” said Rogers anxiously, as he rode up.
“In just a moment, Rogers—hullo! what's that?”
He was looking toward the point where they had entered the valley. Rogers turned quickly and saw that a number of small black objects were emerging from the pass; distant as they were, all knew they were mounted men.
“What do you make them out to be?” Stephen asked.
“I reckon I don't know and I reckon I don't care. Do you see that bit of a hill ahead of us? There's water and grass somewhere near there; push on for that.”
He fell in at the rear of the last wagon, and the look of indifference his face had worn a moment before vanished the instant he was alone. He rode in silence for perhaps five minutes with his face turned toward the black dots. He never once took his eyes from them.
“Faster!” he called. “Push the mules!”
Now the black objects had become individual, separate; they were men who rode in open order, and as they rode they spread out in a half-circle that swept momentarily nearer the train. Presently he caught the hoof beats of the swiftly galloping horses, now loud, now scarcely audible in the sultry stillness; and then it became a steady beat like the rattle of hail on frozen ground; the beat and throb of his own pulse took up and magnified the rhythm until his temples ached with the sound.
“Faster!” he called again. “Faster yet! Give them the rawhide!”
But his companions knew now why he urged greater speed; and the long lashes of their whips fell again and again on the backs of the straining mules.
“We must make that hill—don't let them cut us off from it!” cried Rogers, as he reined in his horse and faced about; he dropped the butt of his rifle to his shoulder and sent a bullet in the direction of their pursuers.
As the first shot vibrated sharply across the plains the horsemen were seen to draw rein, but this was only for a brief instant, and then the race for the hill was begun afresh, and with renewed energy. The huge wagons lurched to and fro, tossed like ships in a seaway, the mules at a gallop; while Rogers, a spectral figure, his long hair flying in the wind, hung in the rear of the train, or rode back and forth menacing their pursuers.
“Keep off!” he called, and sent a second messenger in the direction of the horsemen; this at closer range than the first seemed to find a mark, for one was seen to sway in his saddle, and there was a momentary pause in their onward rush as his companions gathered about the wounded man.
“I can shoot yet!” said Rogers with grim joy, He loaded his rifle again with a deliberation and care no peril could shake, then he felt his horse's forefeet strike rising ground, and glanced about; he had reached the base of the hill, he turned again in the saddle, fired, and without waiting to see the effect of his shot, drove his spurs into his horse's flank and fled forward after the wagons.