CHAPTER XIn the Enemy's Camp[image]n a little fold of the hills we made our camp, somewhere about two in the morning, I should think.Donoghue rolled off his horse at a word from Apache Kid, and stood yawning and grunting, but Apache Kid had his partner's blankets undone in a twinkling and bade him lie down and go to sleep. Then he hobbled the horses and, sitting down on his own blanket-roll, which he had not undone:"Could you eat anything?" said he."Eat!" I ejaculated."Well, sleep, then?" he said."Aye, I could sleep," said I. "I should like to sleep never to awaken.""As bad as that?" said he."Look here," said I. "I 've just been thinking that I——" and I stopped.Something was creeping stealthily along the ridge of the cup in which we sat, and the horses were all snorting, drowning the sound of Donoghue's deep breathing."It's only a coyote," said Apache Kid, looking up in the direction of my gaze. "You look tired, my boy," he added in a kindlier voice. "Well, if these fellows are going to sit round us, I suppose I 'd better make a fire; but I did n't want to. We 'll make a small one. You know what the Indians say: 'Indian make small fire and lie close; white man make big fire and lie heap way off. White man dam fool!' And there is some sense in it. We don't want to light a beacon to-night, anyway."So saying, he rose and cried "Shoo!" to the skulking brutes that went round and round our hollow, showing lean and long against the sky.I watched him going dim and shadowy along the hill-front, where contorted bushes waved their arms now and then in the night wind. He took a small axe with him, from the pouch of his saddle, and I heard the clear "ping" of it now and then after he himself was one with the bushes. And there I sat with my weary thoughts beside the snoring man and the horses huddling close behind me, as though for my company, and the prowl, prowl of the coyotes round and round me. Then suddenly these latter scattered again and Apache Kid returned, like a walking tree beside the pale sky, and made up a fire and besought me to lie down, which I had no sooner done than I fell asleep, for I was very weary.Now and then I woke and heard far-off cries,—of wildcats, I suppose,—and saw the stars twinkling in the heavens and the little parcel of fire flickering at my feet; but the glow of Apache Kid's cigarette reassured me each time, and though once I thought of asking him if he himself did not want to sleep, so heavy with sleep was I that I sank again into oblivion ere the thought was fairly formed.So it was morning at last, when I came again broad awake, and Apache Kid was sitting over the fire with the frying-pan in hand. Indeed, the first thing I saw on waking was the flip he gave to the pan that sent the pancake—or flapjack, as it is called—twirling in the air. And as he caught it neatly on the undone side and put the pan again on the blaze (that the morning sunlight made a feeble yellow) I gathered that he was catechising Donoghue, who sat opposite him staring at him very hard across the fire."No," Larry was saying, "I got a horse all right, and gave out at the stable that I was going to the Placer Camp, and struck south right enough and went into the bit where we were to meet and sat there waiting you, and not a soul came nigh hand all the derned time.""How do you know, when you acknowledge you were as drunk as drunk?""How do I know?" said Donoghue. "Why, drunk or sober, I never lose anything more than my speech.""True," said Apache. "But you 're a disgusting sight when you are trying to talk and——""Well, well; let that drop," said Donoghue. "I was sober enough to let the wind out of that fellow that held up you two.""Thanks to you," said Apache Kid. "Which reminds me that there may be others on the track of us; though how these fellows followed so quick I——""O, pshaw!" said Donoghue. "You must have come away careless from Baker City. I saw the stage comin' in from where I was layin', and I saw them two fellows comin' up half an hour after.""O!" said Apache Kid, paying no heed to the charge of a careless departure. "And anybody else suspicious-looking?"Donoghue shook his head. But the meal was now ready, and I do not know when I enjoyed a meal as I did that flapjack and the bacon and the big canful of tea made with water from a creek half a mile along the hill, as Apache Kid told me, so that I knew he had been busy before I awoke. I felt a little easier at the heart now than on the night before, and less inclined to renounce my agreement and return. But suddenly, as we were saddling up again, the thought of those dead men came into my head; and though of a certainty they had been evil men, yet the thought that these two with me had taken human lives gave me a "grew," as the Scots say.I turned about and looked at my companions."Would you be annoyed if I suggested turning back?" I asked, coming right to the point.It was Donoghue who answered."Guess we would n't be annoyed; but you would n't get leave, you dirty turncoat."But Apache turned wrathfully on him."Turncoat?" he cried. "Do you think he wants to go down and give us away? If you do, you 're off the scent entirely. It 's the thought of those dead men that has sickened him of coming.""O, pshaw!" cried Donoghue, grinning. "Sorry I spoke, Francis. There 's my fist; shake. Never mind the dead men."We "shook," but I have to say that I did not relish the feel of that hand, somehow. He was a man, this, who lived in a different world from mine."Why, sure you can go back, if you like," said he. And then suddenly he caught himself up and said: "No, no, for the love of God don't do that! Apache Kid and me don't do with being alone in the mountains."On one point at least this man felt deeply, it would appear."Well," said Apache Kid to me. "That's a better tone of Donoghue's. To beseech a favour is always better than to threaten or to attempt coercion and I must add my voice to his and ask you to come on with us. Though personally," he added, "had I once made a compact with anyone, I would carry it through to the bitter end.""I should never have suggested this," said I, feeling reproved. "I will not mention it again."This was the end of my uncertainty, and we rode on through the June day till we came to the north part of the Kettle River, gurgling and bubbling and moving in itself with sucking, oily whirlpools, and travelled beside it a little way and then left it at the bend where it seethed black and turbid with a sound like a herd bellowing.The creek we came to at noon was kindlier, with a song in place of a cry; swift flowing it was, so that it nearly took our horses from their feet as we crossed it, or the nigher half of it, rather (for we camped on an islet in the midst of it and the second crossing was shallower and easy), but, though swift as the Kettle, it made one lightsome instead of despondent to see. The sun shone down into its tessellated bed, all the pebbles gleaming. The rippling surface sparkled and near the islet was dappled over with the thin shadows of the birches that stood there balancing and swaying. And scarcely had we begun our meal when we heard a clatter midst the pebbles and a splashing in the water, and there came an old Indian woman on a tall horse, with a white star on its forehead, and pots and kettles hanging on either side of it. It came up with dripping belly out of the creek and went slapping past us in the sand and the old dame's slit of a mouth widened and her eyes brightened on us under the glorious kerchief she wore about her head."How do," said my companion, and she nodded to us, passed on, and the babe slung on her back stared at us with wide eyes.For an hour after that they came in twos and threes, men and women, the young folk laughing and chatting among themselves, giving the lie again to all tales of an Indian never smiling. It was a great sight to me and I can never forget that islet in the Kettle River. Not one of the people stopped to talk. The men and the old women gave us "How do" and drew themselves up erect in their saddles. The younger women smiled, showing white teeth to us in a quick flash and then looking away.Apache Kid was radiant. "They're a fine people, these," said he."Yes," said Donoghue, "when you 've got a gun and keep them at a distance.""Nonsense," cried Apache Kid. "I 've lived among them and I know.""Yes, lived among 'em to buy 'em whisky, I guess, so as they could get round about the law.""No," said Apache Kid, "never bought them a single bottle all the time I was with them."I could see that Donoghue believed his partner, but I could see too that he could not comprehend this story of living with the Indians for no obvious reason. He looked at Apache Kid as men look on one they cannot understand, but spoke no further word.After we left that camp, as we struck away across the valley toward the far-off range, we saw these folk still on the other mountainside and caught the occasional flash of the sunlight on a disk, maybe, or on a mirror, or the polished heel of a rifle swinging by the saddle; and then we lost sight of them among the farther woods.That picturesque sight did a deal to lighten my heart. Apache Kid, too, was mightily refreshed the rest of the afternoon, and spun many an Indian yarn which Donoghue heard without any suggestion of disbelief. But it was no picnic excursion we were out upon. We had come into the hollow of the hills. We were indeed at the end of the foothills, and across the valley before us the mountains rose sheer, as though shutting us into this vale. To right, the east, was a wooded hill, parallel with which we now rode; and to left cliffs climbed upwards with shelving places here and there on their front, very rugged and savage.Donoghue nodded in the direction of a knoll ahead of us, and said: "Shall we camp at the old spot? It's gettin' nigh sundown; anyway, I guess we've done our forty to fifty mile already.""Yes," said Apache Kid. "It's a good spot.""You've been here before?" I inquired.My two companions looked in each other's eyes with a meaning glance."Yes, we 've been here before," said Donoghue, and I had the idea that there was something behind this. So there was; but I was not to hear it—then.Suddenly we all three turned about at the one instant for a far-off "Yah-ah-ah-ah!" came to us.There, behind us, we saw two riders, and they were posting along in our track at great speed.We reined up and watched them, Apache Kid drawing his Winchester across his saddle pommel, and Donoghue following suit, I, for my part, slackening my revolver in the holster.Nearer they came, bending forward their heads to the wind of their passage and the dust drifting behind them in two spiral clouds. Then I saw that one was a white man with a great, fluttering beard; the other an Indian, or half-breed. And just at the moment that I recognised the bearded man Apache Kid cried out: "Why! It's the proprietor of the Half-Way-to-Kettle House.""What in hell do he want up here?" said Donoghue. "Lead?"They came down on us in the approved western fashion, with a swirl and a rush, stopping short with a jerk and the horses' sides going like bellows."Good day, gentlemen," said the man of the beard. "Are you gentlemen aware that there's no less than seven gentlemen followin' you up, thirstin' for your money or your life-blood or something?""Well, sir," said Apache Kid, "it does not surprise me to hear of it.""So," said the shaggy-bearded, whose name, by the way, was J. D. Pinkerton, for all who passed by to read above his hostel—"Half-Way-Rest Hotel—Prop.: J. D. Pinkerton," so ran the legend there."So," he repeated again, and again and took the tangle from his beard. "Well, I reckon from what I saw of two of you gentlemen already that you don't jest need to be spoon-fed and put in your little cot at by-by time, but—well, you see my daughter—she has a way o' scarin' me when she puts it on. And she says: 'Dad,' she says, 'if you don't go and warn them, their blood will be on your head should anything happen to them.' Now, I don't want no blood on my head, gentlemen. And then she says: 'Well, if you don't go, I 'll jest have to go myself with Charlie—this is Charlie—Charlie, gentlemen—a smart boy, a good boy, great hand at tracking stolen stock and the like employ. An old prospector had seen you, and by good luck he stopped us, and by better luck I was polite for once and listened to his chin-chin, and so we heard where you had got off the waggon road. After that it was all child's play to Charlie here.""We owe you our thanks, sir," said Apache, and then the moodiness went from his face, and he said in a cheerful tone: "But they may never find out what way we 've gone. You see it was a mere chance, your meeting that prospector and being told of the point at which we left the road.""That's so," said Mr. Pinkerton: "but still there's chances, you know.""Oh, yes," said Apache Kid, and again: "We owe you our thanks," said he."Not you, not you!" said Mr. Pinkerton."But what sort of outfit is this that you have come to post us up about?""Why, just as dirty a set of greazers as ever stole stock, and they must sit there talkin' away about you in the dining-room after they had told my daughter they was through with their dinner; and my cook heard 'em from his pantry—told my lass—she told me—I'm tellin' you—there you have the whole thing,—how they 're to dog you up and wait till you get to your Lost Cabin. And now we 're here. But I want to let you know—for I 'm a proud man and would n't like any suspicions, though they might be nat'ral enough for you to harbour—want just to let you know that as for what you 're after—this yere Lost Cabin,—I don't give that for it," and he snapped his fingers. "I 've got all a rational man wants. But we 'll chip in with you, if you think of waiting on a bit to see if you 're followed.""Sir," said Apache Kid, "I have to thank you again. I have to thank you, and your daughter through you, and your cook; but I must beg of you to get back.""Pshaw!" cried Pinkerton. "What's that for?""Well—this may be a bloody business, sir, if we are followed, and it would be the saddest thing imaginable——" he broke off and asked abruptly:"Pardon the question, sir, but is Mrs. Pinkerton alive?""My good wife is in her resting grave in Old Kentucky," said Pinkerton in a new voice."That settles it, sir," said Apache Kid. "It would be a sad thing to think of that fine girl down at the Half-Way House as an orphan."Pinkerton frowned."When you put it that way," said he, "you take all the fight out of J.D.""Then I must even beg you to be gone, sir, before there is any chance of pursuit by these men," said Apache Kid. "If we come back alive, we may all call and thank you again, and Miss Pinkerton too. I beg of you to go and take care of meeting them on the way.""Well, boys, luck to you all, then," and round he wheeled and away with a swirl of leather while the half-breed laid the quirt, that swung at his wrist, to his lean pony's flanks and, with a nod to us, shot after Mr. Pinkerton.We watched them till they had almost crested the rise and there suddenly they stopped, wheeled, and next moment had dismounted."What's wrong?" said Donoghue. "Something wrong there.""It looks as if the chance Pinkerton spoke of was against us after all," said Apache Kid, quietly.We were not left long in doubt, for a puff of smoke rose near the backbone of the rise and a flash of a rifle and then seven mounted men swept down on these two.We saw the half-breed tug at his horse's head; saw the brute sink down to its knees, saw the half-breed fling himself on his belly behind it, and then his rifle flashed.The seven riders spread out as they charged down on the two and at the flash of the rifle we saw one of them fall from the saddle and his horse rear and wheel, then spin round and dash madly across the valley, dragging the fallen rider by a stirrup for quite a way, with a hideous bumping and rebounding.But it was on the two dismounted men on the hill-front that my attention was concentrated, and round them the remaining six of their assailants were now circling."Come on!" cried Apache Kid.He dropped the reins of our pack-horse to the ground and remarked: "She 'll not go far with the rein like that and the pack on her."Next moment we three were tituping along the valley in the direction of the two held-up men.Apache Kid was a little ahead of me, Donoghue a length behind, but Donoghue's mount would not suffer us to go in that order long. With a snort it bore Donoghue abreast of me and I clapped my heels to the flanks of my beast. Next moment we were all in line, with the wind whistling in our ears. The six men who seemed to be parleying with Pinkerton and the half-breed, suddenly catching sight of us in our charge, I suppose, wheeled about and went at a wild gallop, with dirt flying from their horses' hoofs, slanting across the hill.And then I had an exhibition of Donoghue's madness.He cried out an oath, the most terrible I ever heard, and, "Come on, boys," he shouted to us."Yes, let's settle it to-day," came Apache's voice."Right now!" cried Donoghue, and away we went after the fugitives.I saw the reason for this action at once; for to put an end to these men now would be the only sure way to make certain of an undisputed tenancy of the Lost Cabin. Indeed, their very flight in itself was enough to suggest not so much that they were afraid of us (for Pinkerton had given them the name of fearless scoundrels) as that they did not want an encounter yet—that their time had not yet come. But for Pinkerton, they might have followed up quietly the whole way to our goal. Thanks to him, we knew of them following. This, though not their time to fight, was our time.Suddenly I saw Donoghue, who was ahead, rear his horse clean back on to its haunches and next moment he was down on a knee beside it, and, just as I came level with him, his rifle spoke and in a voice scarcely human he cried, "Got 'im! Got 'im! The son of a dog!"And sure enough, there was a riderless horse among the six and a man all asprawl in the sunshine before us.But at that the flying men wheeled together and all five of them were on their feet before Apache Kid and I could draw rein. I heard a rifle snap again behind me, whether Apache Kid's or Donoghue's I did not know, and then, thought I, "If I stop here, I 'm done for; I 've got to keep going."The same thought must have been in Apache Kid's mind for I heard the quick patter of his pony as it came level with me. He passed me and he and I—I now a length behind him—came level with the five men clustered there behind their horses and the horse of the fallen man, Apache crying to me:"Try a flying shot at them."He fired at that, and a yell rose in the group and I saw one man fall and then I up with my revolver and let fly at one of the fellows who was looking at me along his gun-barrel.And just at that moment it struck me, in the midst of all the fluttering excitement, that they let Apache Kid go by without a shot. But right on my shot my horse went down—his foot in a badger hole—and though afterwards I found that I had slain the horse that the fellow who was aiming at me was using as a bastion, I knew nothing of that then—for I smashed forward on my head.The last thing I heard was the snort of pain that my horse gave, and the first thing, when I awakened, that I was aware of was that I was lying on my back looking up at the glaring sky, a great throbbing going on in my head.My hands were tied together behind my back and my ankles also trussed up in a similar manner.I was in the wrong camp. I had fallen somehow into the hands of our enemies.CHAPTER XIHow It Was Dark in the Sunlight[image]ou will hear persons speak of one who has been in a trance or swoon as "returning to consciousness." I remember once of hearing someone objecting to the phrase, saying that a person was either conscious or unconscious, and to speak of one returning to consciousness as though there was a middle state, he argued, was erroneous; but I discovered for myself, that day, the full meaning of the phrase; for first it was a sound that I heard, a sound as of rustling wings, and this presently changed and became the sound of whispering as of a whole chamber full of furtive, stealthy persons talking under the breath. Then I was aware of the sunlight in my face and at the same moment the number of voices dwindled and the power of them increased. I opened my eyes and found myself lying in a mighty uncomfortable and strained position upon a slab of rock, so hot with the sun that my hands, which were behind my back and under me as I lay, were absolutely scorched. I made to withdraw them and then found they were fast tied together.As for the voices I heard, they were only two in number, I think."He's all right; I see his eyes flickerin'," said one, and there, bending over me, was a face as full of evil as ever I desired to see.I have seen a cast of an eye that almost seemed to give a certain quaint charm to a face; but the cast in these eyes that scrutinised me now was of the most diabolic.My head was beating and thumping like a shipyard with all its riveters, and the pain between my eyes was well-nigh unbearable.With puckering eyebrows I scrutinised my captor, and as I did so he cried out: "Here you are now, Farrell.""Right!" came a voice from behind, and the man called Farrell shuffled down on us, a big-boned, heavy-browed man with a three days' stubble on his face which was of a blue colour around the upper lip and on the jaws—and over his right cheek-bone there was an ugly scar of a dirty white showing there amidst the sun-tan.I thought at first it was a whip he carried in his hand, but suddenly what I took for the thong of the whip wriggled as of its own accord, and addressing himself to it, he said: "None o' your wrigglin', Mr. Rattler, or I 'll give you one flick that 'll crack your backbone."Then I saw that what he carried was a stick, with a short string at the end of it and in the end of that string was a noose, taut around a rattlesnake's tail, just above the knob of the rattle."See what I've bin fishin' for you?" he said, and laughed in an ugly way.He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the shoulders and drew me to a sitting posture, so that I saw where we were—on a rock-strewn ledge of some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had seen on our left from the valley. But owing to the rise of the ledge toward the front I could not see the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs, blue and white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top. And lying on their bellies at the verge of the shelf on which we were, I then saw two other men, with their rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing down intently on the valley.I had no thought then as to how we came there, where my friends were, nor for any other matter save my own present peril. For before I was well aware, and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too dazed to make any protest, I was flung down upon my face in the sand, and then, "Give me a hand here, you two," said Farrell, and the scouts turned and rose, and, one of them clutching me by the back of the neck and thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt a weight gradually crushing upon my back and legs."That's him!" said one, and then my neck was freed.The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing else than a great, flat slab of rock. I thought, though it had been lowered gently enough on me, that the heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush my bones. Certainly to move below the waist was quite out of the question.All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away fashion, my head hammering and my tongue parched in my mouth like a piece of dry wood. But when these four laughed brutally among themselves and began a series of remarks such as: "See and don't give it an inch too short," or, "See that the string's taut or we 'll not get what we want," I came more to my senses and wondered what was to befall me. Then, for the first time, I was addressed directly by Farrell."Well, kid," he said, "you 're in a tight corner—you hear me?"I hear you," said I, speaking with difficulty, so dry was my throat."Well," said he, "you can get out of this fix right off by telling us where the Lost Cabin Mine lies. And that's business right off, with no delay.""I can never do that," said I, "for I don't know myself."There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and then: "All right," snapped the voice. "Fact is, we have n't much inclination to loiter here. You 've taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it is—shove it in," he broke off.But the last words were not for me.One of the others stepped before me, his foot grazing my head, and I heard him say, "There?""No," said another. "That's over close—yes, there. That's the spot."And then they all stepped back from me, and I, lying with my chin in the dust, saw what the man had been about; for directly before me was the point of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake noosed by the tail to it.No sooner had the man who fixed it in leaped back (and he did so very smartly, while the others laughed at him and caused him to rip out a hideous oath) than the reptile coiled fiercely up the stick; but the hand was gone from the end of it, and down it slithered again.Then it saw me with its beady eyes, rattled fiercely, again coiled, and—I closed my eyes and drew in my head to the shoulders and wriggled as far to the side as I could.But something smote me on the chin. I felt my heart in my throat, and thought I to myself, "I am a dead man now"; but before I opened my eyes again I heard another rattle, opened my eyes in quick horror, saw the second leap of the snake toward me, and shrivelled backward again."Close shave!" cried one of my tormentors; but this time, after the tap on my chin I felt something moist trickle down upon the point of it, and I thought me that I was close enough to get the poison that it spat, but not close enough to allow of its fangs reaching me."But if this stuff should reach my eye it might be fatal," thought I, heedless now of headache or weariness, or anything but the terrible present. My mouth, too, I kept tight closed, as you may guess."Will you tell us now, kid?" cried Farrell. "Will you spit it out now?"Thought I to myself: "I must die now for certain. I trust that even if I knew, I would not reveal this that they ask. But assuredly, to reveal it or to keep it secret is not mine to choose. I must even die."It came into my head that soon the thin string would, at one of these leaps, cut clean through the snake's tail, and then— Then it leapt again."I do not know!" cried I. "I cannot tell you!""Then you can just lie there!" snapped one of the four, and went back to his place of outlook on the ledge. And the other, who had been watching the valley, came and stood by my shoulder, irritating the snake, by his presence, to fresh efforts."You 're a fool," he said. "Your partners have deserted you. They 're off. There ain't hide nor hair to be seen of them. If they 'd leave you in a lurch like this, you 're a fool not to let us know the location. We 'll follow 'em up again and take vengeance on 'em for you—see?"And just then, as though to refute his remarks as to the heedlessness of my partners, I heard a faint snap of a rifle, and the man with the squint, who had taken his turn on guard at the place this fellow had vacated, turned round and said he: "Boys, O boys, I 'm hit!"Something in the tone of his voice made me glance at him sharply, but with half an eye for the snake, as you may be sure, and my ears alert for its warning rattle. I was never more alert in my life than then, and, strange though it may seem, the predominating thought in my mind was, "How sad, how very sad to leave this world, never to see the rich, rich blue of that sky again!"But, as I say, the tone of the man's voice breaking in on my thoughts and terrors was peculiar, and, with my head still as low in my shoulders as I could manage to hold it, I laid my cheek to the hot sand and looked at him. He had turned to the man who had been standing by me, but at sound of the shot had dropped to his knees."Does it look bad?" said he, drawing his finger across his forehead, where was a tiny mark, and then holding out his hand and looking on it for traces of blood, raising up his face for inspection by the man beside me at the same time, and a question in his eyes, very much as you have seen a child, "Is my face clean, mother?" Yes, and with a very childish voice, too."It don't look bad," was the reply—and neither it did.But when he turned away again to the other sentry who lay further off, repeating his question to him in that simple voice, I saw the back of his head. And his brains were dribbling out behind upon his neck. A terrible weakness filled my heart. I heard him say, with no oath, as one might have expected, but in a soft voice: "Dear me!" and again, "Dear me! How very dark it is getting!"Which was an awful word to hear with the sun blazing right in his eyes out of the burnished, palpitating sky. And then he put it as a question and still with the note of astonishment: "Dear me, isn't that strange? Is n't it getting very——" and he sank forward on his face; but what followed I do not know. In the terror of my own position I kept all my faculties alert; but at the sight of that man's back and the bloody wound, and at the childish voice of him, the world seemed to wheel. A sickness came on me and I fainted away.CHAPTER XIII Am Held as a Hostage[image]t must have been more of a momentary squeamishness, that, rather than a fainting fit, I think; for I heard myself moan twice, was conscious of the moaning. There seemed something pressing on my heart and forcing me to gasp for breath and relieve the tension on it. A sweat broke on me then, and after that I felt myself, as it were, swinging through space, and with another gasp and a great gulp of air the world spun back again and there I lay, the cold sweat standing on my brow, and the rattlesnake coiling afresh."Why! What's this move now?" I heard one of my captors cry. "What's he doin' with his rifle carried and waggling his hand in the air that ways?""Don't you know what that is? That's the peace sign—flat of the hand held up, palm open and pushed forward wi' that there kind o' to-and-fro movement.""Peace sign be durned! If I was sure we could get the information out of this here kid laying behind us, I'd put a bullet through his skull and let out his brains—front of his face or back of his neck like Cockeye there—all the same to me.""Reckon you 'd be safer not to do that.""Think the kid here won't speak, then?""No; I don't think he'll speak. I've just been figurin' that neither Apache Kid nor Larry might tell him. He's liable to be givin' you straight goods and no lie when he says he don't know the location.""Pity we did n't drop Apache Kid's hoss that time they charged down. We could ha' got him, instead, that way. Reckon we need n't have been so scared o' killin' Apache Kid himself without gettin' the news. But say! This won't do. I don't like the looks of this thing. They all are getting a move on 'em and edgin' up this way, the whole three of 'em.""Three of them," thought I, with my eye on the rattler. "That's one short. I wonder who has been killed or disabled.""Say! Shout to him to stop. Tell him if he wants to pow-wow with us to come up alone.""Yes, and leave his rifle down. You do the talkin' now, Farrell.""Right," said Farrell, and then he shouted, "Well, what do you want?""I want to come up and talk this out with you," hailed a voice that I recognised for Apache Kid's."He can't come up here," said Farrell. "We don't want 'em to know that we 're only a threesome now, same as 'em.""I 'll tell you what to do," said one of them, with the voice of a man who has been visited by a sudden inspiration."Stop there a minute!" cried Farrell, and then turning to the speaker he said sharply: "Spit it out then, Pete; what's your notion?""Loosen the kid there," said Pete, "and set him on the front here and hold your gat to his head while we hear what they 've got to palaver.""Hum!" mused Farrell. "Kind o' hostage notion? Heh? Well, there's something in that," and he stood upright fearlessly and held his hand aloft, the palm facing away to those in the valley."You can come up the length o' that there white rock," he cried, and then to his companions: "See! Lend a hand here."The snake had coiled again. I cannot guess how often it had sprung at me; I do not know. All that I know is that at every fresh rattle I crouched my head into my shoulders and gasped to myself the one word "God"; for we all, I believe, no matter what manner of lives we have led, at the last moment give a cry to the Unknown, in our hearts, if not with our lips. And every leap of the snake I was prepared to find the one that was to make an end of my acquaintance with the sunlight and with the sweet airs that blow about the world.But that torment was over now, for with one swift drop of his rifle-butt Farrell cut the head clean from the hideous long body, and then lent the other two men a hand to roll the great stone from off my aching limbs."Stand up, you son of a whelp," he said, and spurned me with his boot.After the terror of the snake there seemed little now that I need heed."It's easier said than done!" I cried, angry at his words. "I 'm like a block of stone from my waist down.""I guess that's right. He must be feeling that way," said one of the others, with a touch of commiseration in his voice.That was the first sign of any heart that I had discovered in the ruffians."Oh, you guess it's right, do you, Dan?" sneered Farrell. "Well, lend a hand and haul him here to the front of this ledge."Next moment it was as if a thousand red-hot needles were being run into my stiff, trailing legs, for they caught me up by my arms and drew me like a sack to the front of the cliff.And then I saw the whole plateau below us. Apache Kid was half-way up the rise, among the long wire-grass at the verge of the cliffs; further down, leaning upon a rock, his shoulders and head visible, was Larry Donoghue. The third man that had been spoken of I could not see and searched the hillside in vain for; but when Farrell stood upright beside me and waved his hand I saw the half-breed, Charlie, who had come after us with Mr. Pinkerton, rise behind a flat rock and lounge across it, looking up on us with his broad sombrero pushed back on his head.Mr. Pinkerton, I supposed, had been prevailed upon to return out of our dispute, lest his life might be the forfeit for his interest in our behalf. But just as that explanation for his non-appearance had satisfied me I saw, half across the plain, something moving slowly—a pack of horses it seemed, and so clear was the air of that late afternoon that I recognised the form of the mounted man who guarded them, could almost, with a lengthy and concentrated survey, descry his great beard like a bib upon his breast."Well," said Farrell, "what do you want to pow-wow about? You see who we got here?""I see," said Apache Kid, putting a foot upon the white stone. "How are you, Francis?""He 's all right," said Farrell. "But he 's a kind o' prisoner o' war just now.""Oh!" said Apache Kid. "Well, I suppose if we want to get him back we 'll have to buy him back?""That's what!" said Farrell, emphatically."Well," said Apache Kid, "we are going on,—my friends and I,—and, as we have your horses now as well as our own, we thought we might perhaps be able to trade you them back for the lad."And here, as you will be wondering how the horses had changed hands, I must tell you what I had afterwards explained to me.It seems that no sooner did I fall from my horse, at the time it put its foot in the badger hole (Apache Kid having gone past wildly, bringing down one man and one horse with his two running shots), than the four men, seeing my predicament, swung to their horses' backs, opened out, and two of them passing, one on either side of me, swung from their saddles and yanked me up by my arms.Then full tilt they charged down the centre of the plain, intending evidently to make the rising knoll, of which I spoke, in the valley's centre. And with me lying across Farrell's saddle, they doubtless thought they had the key to the Lost Cabin. But Apache Kid wheeled his horse below, and Donoghue mounted again above, and from the hill-crest the half-breed spurred down, and so these three set after us, converging on each other as they came.But Farrell's mount was falling behind with the burden of my extra weight, and they wheeled sharp to left and put their horses directly to the cliff-front. These ponies can do marvels in climbing, but they were over-jaded, having been very hard ridden, and right on the slope it was evident that not only the half-breed, but Larry next, and Apache Kid following, were coming within effect range. It was Farrell who proposed their move then, considering that with me in their hands half the battle was won if only they had something in the way of a fort from which to stave off attack. So they flung off there, and, letting their horses go, up they came, dragging me along. But at the foot of the hill the others stopped, seeing how they had all the odds against them then and were so fully exposed. For it had not yet occurred to them, as indeed was very natural it should not, that the last thing these men wanted to do was to fire upon them.The intention of this little company of cut-throats had been to follow up softly in the rear, as near as possible without being seen by us, until we came to our journey's end. What they had planned for us then it is, perhaps, needless to so much as hint. Little did they think that between them and us was Mr. Pinkerton, carrying the news of their possible pursuit. But when they saw him riding out of that plain, with the half-breed, the whole reason for his presence there was guessed by them, especially when they saw us halted within sight, the whole three of us turned round as though already watching for their approach. It was, undoubtedly, this upsetting of their plans that made them so short-tempered and snappish with one another.But by now I think even Farrell was convinced that I was useless to them in so far as the giving of information went. And so I was now to be used as a hostage,—a sort of living breastwork before them,—as though they were to say: "See! if you fire, you kill your partner!"Farrell laughed loud at Apache Kid's suggestion."Why," said he, "you talk as if you held the trumps; but you don't. And for why? Why, because we do." And he spat in the sand and put a hand on either hip. "We don't need our horses, my mates and me. We ain't in any hurry, and can set here as long as you like,—aye, or go away when we like, for that matter. What we want is that Lost Cabin Mine, and if you don't tell us where it is, why, then we'll let the wind out of your partner here.""And where do we come in?" yelled Donoghue, rearing up beside his bush."Oh!" said Farrell, insolently, "are you talking, too? Well, you don't come in at all. There you are! That's something for you to consider!"Donoghue broke out in a roar of laughter."Oh," he said, "the lad is nothing to us. You can do what you like with him."Apache Kid turned upon him with a glance as of astonishment, and then again to Farrell he said:"I 'll give you the offer we came up with, and you and your two mates can consider it.""Three mates, you mean," snapped Farrell."Na! Na!" cried Donoghue. "When I look along a rifle I never err.""Oh, it was you did it?" cried Farrell. "Well, what's your offer?""This is our offer," said Apache Kid. "You can come along with us. We are three, and so are you, and we can split the Lost Cabin between us."Farrell turned to his two companions and looked a question at them."I guess you 'd better take that," said the man Dan, "for I reckon even if we did suggest killing this kid, it would n't bring the facts out of 'em.""And anyhow," said the other, him they called Pete, speaking low, but yet I caught the drift of his words, "we can easy enough fix them all when we get there.""Come on!" said Apache Kid. "How does our offer strike you? Are you aware that every hour we delay there may be others getting closer to the Lost Cabin Mine?""Take the offer, man. Take the offer," said Pete and Dan."All right," cried Farrell. "But mind, we're bad men, and this will have to be run on the square."Donoghue laughed, and for a moment, as I looked at him, I saw an evil glitter in his eye. "Oh, yes!" he ejaculated, "we 're all bad men here."My three captors made no delay; but as for their fallen friend, they paid no heed to him. Only Farrell took the cartridges from his belt and ran his hands through the pockets, which contained a knife, a specimen of ore, two five-dollar bills, and a fifty-cent piece.For my part, I had the utmost difficulty in getting to my legs, and still more in descending the face of the precipice. I noticed, too, that Farrell kept close by my side, as though he thought still that it was as well to have me between Apache Kid and himself.Just as we came down the rise, there was Mr. Pinkerton leading the horses along toward us."Say!" cried Farrell. "What about him?" And he pointed to Pinkerton."O!" said Apache Kid. "He wants nothing to do with this expedition whatever."Then suddenly Farrell's face lighted with a new thought. "And he goes down to the camps and blabs the whole thing, eh?""I believe he won't say a word about it,—neither he nor the half-breed here."Farrell seemed scarcely convinced, and we went down in silence a little way. Then suddenly he said: "I think you 've got some game on. Say! do you swear you are on the square with us?"Apache Kid frowned on him and, "I give you my word of honour," said he; and so we came ploughing through the loose soil and sand into the sun-dried grass, and thence on to the level below, where Mr. Pinkerton, now aided by his half-breed follower who had gone on down-hill and mounted his horse, was bunching the horses together. And over all was the sky with the daylight fading in it.
CHAPTER X
In the Enemy's Camp
[image]n a little fold of the hills we made our camp, somewhere about two in the morning, I should think.
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Donoghue rolled off his horse at a word from Apache Kid, and stood yawning and grunting, but Apache Kid had his partner's blankets undone in a twinkling and bade him lie down and go to sleep. Then he hobbled the horses and, sitting down on his own blanket-roll, which he had not undone:
"Could you eat anything?" said he.
"Eat!" I ejaculated.
"Well, sleep, then?" he said.
"Aye, I could sleep," said I. "I should like to sleep never to awaken."
"As bad as that?" said he.
"Look here," said I. "I 've just been thinking that I——" and I stopped.
Something was creeping stealthily along the ridge of the cup in which we sat, and the horses were all snorting, drowning the sound of Donoghue's deep breathing.
"It's only a coyote," said Apache Kid, looking up in the direction of my gaze. "You look tired, my boy," he added in a kindlier voice. "Well, if these fellows are going to sit round us, I suppose I 'd better make a fire; but I did n't want to. We 'll make a small one. You know what the Indians say: 'Indian make small fire and lie close; white man make big fire and lie heap way off. White man dam fool!' And there is some sense in it. We don't want to light a beacon to-night, anyway."
So saying, he rose and cried "Shoo!" to the skulking brutes that went round and round our hollow, showing lean and long against the sky.
I watched him going dim and shadowy along the hill-front, where contorted bushes waved their arms now and then in the night wind. He took a small axe with him, from the pouch of his saddle, and I heard the clear "ping" of it now and then after he himself was one with the bushes. And there I sat with my weary thoughts beside the snoring man and the horses huddling close behind me, as though for my company, and the prowl, prowl of the coyotes round and round me. Then suddenly these latter scattered again and Apache Kid returned, like a walking tree beside the pale sky, and made up a fire and besought me to lie down, which I had no sooner done than I fell asleep, for I was very weary.
Now and then I woke and heard far-off cries,—of wildcats, I suppose,—and saw the stars twinkling in the heavens and the little parcel of fire flickering at my feet; but the glow of Apache Kid's cigarette reassured me each time, and though once I thought of asking him if he himself did not want to sleep, so heavy with sleep was I that I sank again into oblivion ere the thought was fairly formed.
So it was morning at last, when I came again broad awake, and Apache Kid was sitting over the fire with the frying-pan in hand. Indeed, the first thing I saw on waking was the flip he gave to the pan that sent the pancake—or flapjack, as it is called—twirling in the air. And as he caught it neatly on the undone side and put the pan again on the blaze (that the morning sunlight made a feeble yellow) I gathered that he was catechising Donoghue, who sat opposite him staring at him very hard across the fire.
"No," Larry was saying, "I got a horse all right, and gave out at the stable that I was going to the Placer Camp, and struck south right enough and went into the bit where we were to meet and sat there waiting you, and not a soul came nigh hand all the derned time."
"How do you know, when you acknowledge you were as drunk as drunk?"
"How do I know?" said Donoghue. "Why, drunk or sober, I never lose anything more than my speech."
"True," said Apache. "But you 're a disgusting sight when you are trying to talk and——"
"Well, well; let that drop," said Donoghue. "I was sober enough to let the wind out of that fellow that held up you two."
"Thanks to you," said Apache Kid. "Which reminds me that there may be others on the track of us; though how these fellows followed so quick I——"
"O, pshaw!" said Donoghue. "You must have come away careless from Baker City. I saw the stage comin' in from where I was layin', and I saw them two fellows comin' up half an hour after."
"O!" said Apache Kid, paying no heed to the charge of a careless departure. "And anybody else suspicious-looking?"
Donoghue shook his head. But the meal was now ready, and I do not know when I enjoyed a meal as I did that flapjack and the bacon and the big canful of tea made with water from a creek half a mile along the hill, as Apache Kid told me, so that I knew he had been busy before I awoke. I felt a little easier at the heart now than on the night before, and less inclined to renounce my agreement and return. But suddenly, as we were saddling up again, the thought of those dead men came into my head; and though of a certainty they had been evil men, yet the thought that these two with me had taken human lives gave me a "grew," as the Scots say.
I turned about and looked at my companions.
"Would you be annoyed if I suggested turning back?" I asked, coming right to the point.
It was Donoghue who answered.
"Guess we would n't be annoyed; but you would n't get leave, you dirty turncoat."
But Apache turned wrathfully on him.
"Turncoat?" he cried. "Do you think he wants to go down and give us away? If you do, you 're off the scent entirely. It 's the thought of those dead men that has sickened him of coming."
"O, pshaw!" cried Donoghue, grinning. "Sorry I spoke, Francis. There 's my fist; shake. Never mind the dead men."
We "shook," but I have to say that I did not relish the feel of that hand, somehow. He was a man, this, who lived in a different world from mine.
"Why, sure you can go back, if you like," said he. And then suddenly he caught himself up and said: "No, no, for the love of God don't do that! Apache Kid and me don't do with being alone in the mountains."
On one point at least this man felt deeply, it would appear.
"Well," said Apache Kid to me. "That's a better tone of Donoghue's. To beseech a favour is always better than to threaten or to attempt coercion and I must add my voice to his and ask you to come on with us. Though personally," he added, "had I once made a compact with anyone, I would carry it through to the bitter end."
"I should never have suggested this," said I, feeling reproved. "I will not mention it again."
This was the end of my uncertainty, and we rode on through the June day till we came to the north part of the Kettle River, gurgling and bubbling and moving in itself with sucking, oily whirlpools, and travelled beside it a little way and then left it at the bend where it seethed black and turbid with a sound like a herd bellowing.
The creek we came to at noon was kindlier, with a song in place of a cry; swift flowing it was, so that it nearly took our horses from their feet as we crossed it, or the nigher half of it, rather (for we camped on an islet in the midst of it and the second crossing was shallower and easy), but, though swift as the Kettle, it made one lightsome instead of despondent to see. The sun shone down into its tessellated bed, all the pebbles gleaming. The rippling surface sparkled and near the islet was dappled over with the thin shadows of the birches that stood there balancing and swaying. And scarcely had we begun our meal when we heard a clatter midst the pebbles and a splashing in the water, and there came an old Indian woman on a tall horse, with a white star on its forehead, and pots and kettles hanging on either side of it. It came up with dripping belly out of the creek and went slapping past us in the sand and the old dame's slit of a mouth widened and her eyes brightened on us under the glorious kerchief she wore about her head.
"How do," said my companion, and she nodded to us, passed on, and the babe slung on her back stared at us with wide eyes.
For an hour after that they came in twos and threes, men and women, the young folk laughing and chatting among themselves, giving the lie again to all tales of an Indian never smiling. It was a great sight to me and I can never forget that islet in the Kettle River. Not one of the people stopped to talk. The men and the old women gave us "How do" and drew themselves up erect in their saddles. The younger women smiled, showing white teeth to us in a quick flash and then looking away.
Apache Kid was radiant. "They're a fine people, these," said he.
"Yes," said Donoghue, "when you 've got a gun and keep them at a distance."
"Nonsense," cried Apache Kid. "I 've lived among them and I know."
"Yes, lived among 'em to buy 'em whisky, I guess, so as they could get round about the law."
"No," said Apache Kid, "never bought them a single bottle all the time I was with them."
I could see that Donoghue believed his partner, but I could see too that he could not comprehend this story of living with the Indians for no obvious reason. He looked at Apache Kid as men look on one they cannot understand, but spoke no further word.
After we left that camp, as we struck away across the valley toward the far-off range, we saw these folk still on the other mountainside and caught the occasional flash of the sunlight on a disk, maybe, or on a mirror, or the polished heel of a rifle swinging by the saddle; and then we lost sight of them among the farther woods.
That picturesque sight did a deal to lighten my heart. Apache Kid, too, was mightily refreshed the rest of the afternoon, and spun many an Indian yarn which Donoghue heard without any suggestion of disbelief. But it was no picnic excursion we were out upon. We had come into the hollow of the hills. We were indeed at the end of the foothills, and across the valley before us the mountains rose sheer, as though shutting us into this vale. To right, the east, was a wooded hill, parallel with which we now rode; and to left cliffs climbed upwards with shelving places here and there on their front, very rugged and savage.
Donoghue nodded in the direction of a knoll ahead of us, and said: "Shall we camp at the old spot? It's gettin' nigh sundown; anyway, I guess we've done our forty to fifty mile already."
"Yes," said Apache Kid. "It's a good spot."
"You've been here before?" I inquired.
My two companions looked in each other's eyes with a meaning glance.
"Yes, we 've been here before," said Donoghue, and I had the idea that there was something behind this. So there was; but I was not to hear it—then.
Suddenly we all three turned about at the one instant for a far-off "Yah-ah-ah-ah!" came to us.
There, behind us, we saw two riders, and they were posting along in our track at great speed.
We reined up and watched them, Apache Kid drawing his Winchester across his saddle pommel, and Donoghue following suit, I, for my part, slackening my revolver in the holster.
Nearer they came, bending forward their heads to the wind of their passage and the dust drifting behind them in two spiral clouds. Then I saw that one was a white man with a great, fluttering beard; the other an Indian, or half-breed. And just at the moment that I recognised the bearded man Apache Kid cried out: "Why! It's the proprietor of the Half-Way-to-Kettle House."
"What in hell do he want up here?" said Donoghue. "Lead?"
They came down on us in the approved western fashion, with a swirl and a rush, stopping short with a jerk and the horses' sides going like bellows.
"Good day, gentlemen," said the man of the beard. "Are you gentlemen aware that there's no less than seven gentlemen followin' you up, thirstin' for your money or your life-blood or something?"
"Well, sir," said Apache Kid, "it does not surprise me to hear of it."
"So," said the shaggy-bearded, whose name, by the way, was J. D. Pinkerton, for all who passed by to read above his hostel—"Half-Way-Rest Hotel—Prop.: J. D. Pinkerton," so ran the legend there.
"So," he repeated again, and again and took the tangle from his beard. "Well, I reckon from what I saw of two of you gentlemen already that you don't jest need to be spoon-fed and put in your little cot at by-by time, but—well, you see my daughter—she has a way o' scarin' me when she puts it on. And she says: 'Dad,' she says, 'if you don't go and warn them, their blood will be on your head should anything happen to them.' Now, I don't want no blood on my head, gentlemen. And then she says: 'Well, if you don't go, I 'll jest have to go myself with Charlie—this is Charlie—Charlie, gentlemen—a smart boy, a good boy, great hand at tracking stolen stock and the like employ. An old prospector had seen you, and by good luck he stopped us, and by better luck I was polite for once and listened to his chin-chin, and so we heard where you had got off the waggon road. After that it was all child's play to Charlie here."
"We owe you our thanks, sir," said Apache, and then the moodiness went from his face, and he said in a cheerful tone: "But they may never find out what way we 've gone. You see it was a mere chance, your meeting that prospector and being told of the point at which we left the road."
"That's so," said Mr. Pinkerton: "but still there's chances, you know."
"Oh, yes," said Apache Kid, and again: "We owe you our thanks," said he.
"Not you, not you!" said Mr. Pinkerton.
"But what sort of outfit is this that you have come to post us up about?"
"Why, just as dirty a set of greazers as ever stole stock, and they must sit there talkin' away about you in the dining-room after they had told my daughter they was through with their dinner; and my cook heard 'em from his pantry—told my lass—she told me—I'm tellin' you—there you have the whole thing,—how they 're to dog you up and wait till you get to your Lost Cabin. And now we 're here. But I want to let you know—for I 'm a proud man and would n't like any suspicions, though they might be nat'ral enough for you to harbour—want just to let you know that as for what you 're after—this yere Lost Cabin,—I don't give that for it," and he snapped his fingers. "I 've got all a rational man wants. But we 'll chip in with you, if you think of waiting on a bit to see if you 're followed."
"Sir," said Apache Kid, "I have to thank you again. I have to thank you, and your daughter through you, and your cook; but I must beg of you to get back."
"Pshaw!" cried Pinkerton. "What's that for?"
"Well—this may be a bloody business, sir, if we are followed, and it would be the saddest thing imaginable——" he broke off and asked abruptly:
"Pardon the question, sir, but is Mrs. Pinkerton alive?"
"My good wife is in her resting grave in Old Kentucky," said Pinkerton in a new voice.
"That settles it, sir," said Apache Kid. "It would be a sad thing to think of that fine girl down at the Half-Way House as an orphan."
Pinkerton frowned.
"When you put it that way," said he, "you take all the fight out of J.D."
"Then I must even beg you to be gone, sir, before there is any chance of pursuit by these men," said Apache Kid. "If we come back alive, we may all call and thank you again, and Miss Pinkerton too. I beg of you to go and take care of meeting them on the way."
"Well, boys, luck to you all, then," and round he wheeled and away with a swirl of leather while the half-breed laid the quirt, that swung at his wrist, to his lean pony's flanks and, with a nod to us, shot after Mr. Pinkerton.
We watched them till they had almost crested the rise and there suddenly they stopped, wheeled, and next moment had dismounted.
"What's wrong?" said Donoghue. "Something wrong there."
"It looks as if the chance Pinkerton spoke of was against us after all," said Apache Kid, quietly.
We were not left long in doubt, for a puff of smoke rose near the backbone of the rise and a flash of a rifle and then seven mounted men swept down on these two.
We saw the half-breed tug at his horse's head; saw the brute sink down to its knees, saw the half-breed fling himself on his belly behind it, and then his rifle flashed.
The seven riders spread out as they charged down on the two and at the flash of the rifle we saw one of them fall from the saddle and his horse rear and wheel, then spin round and dash madly across the valley, dragging the fallen rider by a stirrup for quite a way, with a hideous bumping and rebounding.
But it was on the two dismounted men on the hill-front that my attention was concentrated, and round them the remaining six of their assailants were now circling.
"Come on!" cried Apache Kid.
He dropped the reins of our pack-horse to the ground and remarked: "She 'll not go far with the rein like that and the pack on her."
Next moment we three were tituping along the valley in the direction of the two held-up men.
Apache Kid was a little ahead of me, Donoghue a length behind, but Donoghue's mount would not suffer us to go in that order long. With a snort it bore Donoghue abreast of me and I clapped my heels to the flanks of my beast. Next moment we were all in line, with the wind whistling in our ears. The six men who seemed to be parleying with Pinkerton and the half-breed, suddenly catching sight of us in our charge, I suppose, wheeled about and went at a wild gallop, with dirt flying from their horses' hoofs, slanting across the hill.
And then I had an exhibition of Donoghue's madness.
He cried out an oath, the most terrible I ever heard, and, "Come on, boys," he shouted to us.
"Yes, let's settle it to-day," came Apache's voice.
"Right now!" cried Donoghue, and away we went after the fugitives.
I saw the reason for this action at once; for to put an end to these men now would be the only sure way to make certain of an undisputed tenancy of the Lost Cabin. Indeed, their very flight in itself was enough to suggest not so much that they were afraid of us (for Pinkerton had given them the name of fearless scoundrels) as that they did not want an encounter yet—that their time had not yet come. But for Pinkerton, they might have followed up quietly the whole way to our goal. Thanks to him, we knew of them following. This, though not their time to fight, was our time.
Suddenly I saw Donoghue, who was ahead, rear his horse clean back on to its haunches and next moment he was down on a knee beside it, and, just as I came level with him, his rifle spoke and in a voice scarcely human he cried, "Got 'im! Got 'im! The son of a dog!"
And sure enough, there was a riderless horse among the six and a man all asprawl in the sunshine before us.
But at that the flying men wheeled together and all five of them were on their feet before Apache Kid and I could draw rein. I heard a rifle snap again behind me, whether Apache Kid's or Donoghue's I did not know, and then, thought I, "If I stop here, I 'm done for; I 've got to keep going."
The same thought must have been in Apache Kid's mind for I heard the quick patter of his pony as it came level with me. He passed me and he and I—I now a length behind him—came level with the five men clustered there behind their horses and the horse of the fallen man, Apache crying to me:
"Try a flying shot at them."
He fired at that, and a yell rose in the group and I saw one man fall and then I up with my revolver and let fly at one of the fellows who was looking at me along his gun-barrel.
And just at that moment it struck me, in the midst of all the fluttering excitement, that they let Apache Kid go by without a shot. But right on my shot my horse went down—his foot in a badger hole—and though afterwards I found that I had slain the horse that the fellow who was aiming at me was using as a bastion, I knew nothing of that then—for I smashed forward on my head.
The last thing I heard was the snort of pain that my horse gave, and the first thing, when I awakened, that I was aware of was that I was lying on my back looking up at the glaring sky, a great throbbing going on in my head.
My hands were tied together behind my back and my ankles also trussed up in a similar manner.
I was in the wrong camp. I had fallen somehow into the hands of our enemies.
CHAPTER XI
How It Was Dark in the Sunlight
[image]ou will hear persons speak of one who has been in a trance or swoon as "returning to consciousness." I remember once of hearing someone objecting to the phrase, saying that a person was either conscious or unconscious, and to speak of one returning to consciousness as though there was a middle state, he argued, was erroneous; but I discovered for myself, that day, the full meaning of the phrase; for first it was a sound that I heard, a sound as of rustling wings, and this presently changed and became the sound of whispering as of a whole chamber full of furtive, stealthy persons talking under the breath. Then I was aware of the sunlight in my face and at the same moment the number of voices dwindled and the power of them increased. I opened my eyes and found myself lying in a mighty uncomfortable and strained position upon a slab of rock, so hot with the sun that my hands, which were behind my back and under me as I lay, were absolutely scorched. I made to withdraw them and then found they were fast tied together.
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As for the voices I heard, they were only two in number, I think.
"He's all right; I see his eyes flickerin'," said one, and there, bending over me, was a face as full of evil as ever I desired to see.
I have seen a cast of an eye that almost seemed to give a certain quaint charm to a face; but the cast in these eyes that scrutinised me now was of the most diabolic.
My head was beating and thumping like a shipyard with all its riveters, and the pain between my eyes was well-nigh unbearable.
With puckering eyebrows I scrutinised my captor, and as I did so he cried out: "Here you are now, Farrell."
"Right!" came a voice from behind, and the man called Farrell shuffled down on us, a big-boned, heavy-browed man with a three days' stubble on his face which was of a blue colour around the upper lip and on the jaws—and over his right cheek-bone there was an ugly scar of a dirty white showing there amidst the sun-tan.
I thought at first it was a whip he carried in his hand, but suddenly what I took for the thong of the whip wriggled as of its own accord, and addressing himself to it, he said: "None o' your wrigglin', Mr. Rattler, or I 'll give you one flick that 'll crack your backbone."
Then I saw that what he carried was a stick, with a short string at the end of it and in the end of that string was a noose, taut around a rattlesnake's tail, just above the knob of the rattle.
"See what I've bin fishin' for you?" he said, and laughed in an ugly way.
He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the shoulders and drew me to a sitting posture, so that I saw where we were—on a rock-strewn ledge of some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had seen on our left from the valley. But owing to the rise of the ledge toward the front I could not see the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs, blue and white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top. And lying on their bellies at the verge of the shelf on which we were, I then saw two other men, with their rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing down intently on the valley.
I had no thought then as to how we came there, where my friends were, nor for any other matter save my own present peril. For before I was well aware, and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too dazed to make any protest, I was flung down upon my face in the sand, and then, "Give me a hand here, you two," said Farrell, and the scouts turned and rose, and, one of them clutching me by the back of the neck and thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt a weight gradually crushing upon my back and legs.
"That's him!" said one, and then my neck was freed.
The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing else than a great, flat slab of rock. I thought, though it had been lowered gently enough on me, that the heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush my bones. Certainly to move below the waist was quite out of the question.
All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away fashion, my head hammering and my tongue parched in my mouth like a piece of dry wood. But when these four laughed brutally among themselves and began a series of remarks such as: "See and don't give it an inch too short," or, "See that the string's taut or we 'll not get what we want," I came more to my senses and wondered what was to befall me. Then, for the first time, I was addressed directly by Farrell.
"Well, kid," he said, "you 're in a tight corner—you hear me?
"I hear you," said I, speaking with difficulty, so dry was my throat.
"Well," said he, "you can get out of this fix right off by telling us where the Lost Cabin Mine lies. And that's business right off, with no delay."
"I can never do that," said I, "for I don't know myself."
There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and then: "All right," snapped the voice. "Fact is, we have n't much inclination to loiter here. You 've taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it is—shove it in," he broke off.
But the last words were not for me.
One of the others stepped before me, his foot grazing my head, and I heard him say, "There?"
"No," said another. "That's over close—yes, there. That's the spot."
And then they all stepped back from me, and I, lying with my chin in the dust, saw what the man had been about; for directly before me was the point of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake noosed by the tail to it.
No sooner had the man who fixed it in leaped back (and he did so very smartly, while the others laughed at him and caused him to rip out a hideous oath) than the reptile coiled fiercely up the stick; but the hand was gone from the end of it, and down it slithered again.
Then it saw me with its beady eyes, rattled fiercely, again coiled, and—I closed my eyes and drew in my head to the shoulders and wriggled as far to the side as I could.
But something smote me on the chin. I felt my heart in my throat, and thought I to myself, "I am a dead man now"; but before I opened my eyes again I heard another rattle, opened my eyes in quick horror, saw the second leap of the snake toward me, and shrivelled backward again.
"Close shave!" cried one of my tormentors; but this time, after the tap on my chin I felt something moist trickle down upon the point of it, and I thought me that I was close enough to get the poison that it spat, but not close enough to allow of its fangs reaching me.
"But if this stuff should reach my eye it might be fatal," thought I, heedless now of headache or weariness, or anything but the terrible present. My mouth, too, I kept tight closed, as you may guess.
"Will you tell us now, kid?" cried Farrell. "Will you spit it out now?"
Thought I to myself: "I must die now for certain. I trust that even if I knew, I would not reveal this that they ask. But assuredly, to reveal it or to keep it secret is not mine to choose. I must even die."
It came into my head that soon the thin string would, at one of these leaps, cut clean through the snake's tail, and then— Then it leapt again.
"I do not know!" cried I. "I cannot tell you!"
"Then you can just lie there!" snapped one of the four, and went back to his place of outlook on the ledge. And the other, who had been watching the valley, came and stood by my shoulder, irritating the snake, by his presence, to fresh efforts.
"You 're a fool," he said. "Your partners have deserted you. They 're off. There ain't hide nor hair to be seen of them. If they 'd leave you in a lurch like this, you 're a fool not to let us know the location. We 'll follow 'em up again and take vengeance on 'em for you—see?"
And just then, as though to refute his remarks as to the heedlessness of my partners, I heard a faint snap of a rifle, and the man with the squint, who had taken his turn on guard at the place this fellow had vacated, turned round and said he: "Boys, O boys, I 'm hit!"
Something in the tone of his voice made me glance at him sharply, but with half an eye for the snake, as you may be sure, and my ears alert for its warning rattle. I was never more alert in my life than then, and, strange though it may seem, the predominating thought in my mind was, "How sad, how very sad to leave this world, never to see the rich, rich blue of that sky again!"
But, as I say, the tone of the man's voice breaking in on my thoughts and terrors was peculiar, and, with my head still as low in my shoulders as I could manage to hold it, I laid my cheek to the hot sand and looked at him. He had turned to the man who had been standing by me, but at sound of the shot had dropped to his knees.
"Does it look bad?" said he, drawing his finger across his forehead, where was a tiny mark, and then holding out his hand and looking on it for traces of blood, raising up his face for inspection by the man beside me at the same time, and a question in his eyes, very much as you have seen a child, "Is my face clean, mother?" Yes, and with a very childish voice, too.
"It don't look bad," was the reply—and neither it did.
But when he turned away again to the other sentry who lay further off, repeating his question to him in that simple voice, I saw the back of his head. And his brains were dribbling out behind upon his neck. A terrible weakness filled my heart. I heard him say, with no oath, as one might have expected, but in a soft voice: "Dear me!" and again, "Dear me! How very dark it is getting!"
Which was an awful word to hear with the sun blazing right in his eyes out of the burnished, palpitating sky. And then he put it as a question and still with the note of astonishment: "Dear me, isn't that strange? Is n't it getting very——" and he sank forward on his face; but what followed I do not know. In the terror of my own position I kept all my faculties alert; but at the sight of that man's back and the bloody wound, and at the childish voice of him, the world seemed to wheel. A sickness came on me and I fainted away.
CHAPTER XII
I Am Held as a Hostage
[image]t must have been more of a momentary squeamishness, that, rather than a fainting fit, I think; for I heard myself moan twice, was conscious of the moaning. There seemed something pressing on my heart and forcing me to gasp for breath and relieve the tension on it. A sweat broke on me then, and after that I felt myself, as it were, swinging through space, and with another gasp and a great gulp of air the world spun back again and there I lay, the cold sweat standing on my brow, and the rattlesnake coiling afresh.
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"Why! What's this move now?" I heard one of my captors cry. "What's he doin' with his rifle carried and waggling his hand in the air that ways?"
"Don't you know what that is? That's the peace sign—flat of the hand held up, palm open and pushed forward wi' that there kind o' to-and-fro movement."
"Peace sign be durned! If I was sure we could get the information out of this here kid laying behind us, I'd put a bullet through his skull and let out his brains—front of his face or back of his neck like Cockeye there—all the same to me."
"Reckon you 'd be safer not to do that."
"Think the kid here won't speak, then?"
"No; I don't think he'll speak. I've just been figurin' that neither Apache Kid nor Larry might tell him. He's liable to be givin' you straight goods and no lie when he says he don't know the location."
"Pity we did n't drop Apache Kid's hoss that time they charged down. We could ha' got him, instead, that way. Reckon we need n't have been so scared o' killin' Apache Kid himself without gettin' the news. But say! This won't do. I don't like the looks of this thing. They all are getting a move on 'em and edgin' up this way, the whole three of 'em."
"Three of them," thought I, with my eye on the rattler. "That's one short. I wonder who has been killed or disabled."
"Say! Shout to him to stop. Tell him if he wants to pow-wow with us to come up alone."
"Yes, and leave his rifle down. You do the talkin' now, Farrell."
"Right," said Farrell, and then he shouted, "Well, what do you want?"
"I want to come up and talk this out with you," hailed a voice that I recognised for Apache Kid's.
"He can't come up here," said Farrell. "We don't want 'em to know that we 're only a threesome now, same as 'em."
"I 'll tell you what to do," said one of them, with the voice of a man who has been visited by a sudden inspiration.
"Stop there a minute!" cried Farrell, and then turning to the speaker he said sharply: "Spit it out then, Pete; what's your notion?"
"Loosen the kid there," said Pete, "and set him on the front here and hold your gat to his head while we hear what they 've got to palaver."
"Hum!" mused Farrell. "Kind o' hostage notion? Heh? Well, there's something in that," and he stood upright fearlessly and held his hand aloft, the palm facing away to those in the valley.
"You can come up the length o' that there white rock," he cried, and then to his companions: "See! Lend a hand here."
The snake had coiled again. I cannot guess how often it had sprung at me; I do not know. All that I know is that at every fresh rattle I crouched my head into my shoulders and gasped to myself the one word "God"; for we all, I believe, no matter what manner of lives we have led, at the last moment give a cry to the Unknown, in our hearts, if not with our lips. And every leap of the snake I was prepared to find the one that was to make an end of my acquaintance with the sunlight and with the sweet airs that blow about the world.
But that torment was over now, for with one swift drop of his rifle-butt Farrell cut the head clean from the hideous long body, and then lent the other two men a hand to roll the great stone from off my aching limbs.
"Stand up, you son of a whelp," he said, and spurned me with his boot.
After the terror of the snake there seemed little now that I need heed.
"It's easier said than done!" I cried, angry at his words. "I 'm like a block of stone from my waist down."
"I guess that's right. He must be feeling that way," said one of the others, with a touch of commiseration in his voice.
That was the first sign of any heart that I had discovered in the ruffians.
"Oh, you guess it's right, do you, Dan?" sneered Farrell. "Well, lend a hand and haul him here to the front of this ledge."
Next moment it was as if a thousand red-hot needles were being run into my stiff, trailing legs, for they caught me up by my arms and drew me like a sack to the front of the cliff.
And then I saw the whole plateau below us. Apache Kid was half-way up the rise, among the long wire-grass at the verge of the cliffs; further down, leaning upon a rock, his shoulders and head visible, was Larry Donoghue. The third man that had been spoken of I could not see and searched the hillside in vain for; but when Farrell stood upright beside me and waved his hand I saw the half-breed, Charlie, who had come after us with Mr. Pinkerton, rise behind a flat rock and lounge across it, looking up on us with his broad sombrero pushed back on his head.
Mr. Pinkerton, I supposed, had been prevailed upon to return out of our dispute, lest his life might be the forfeit for his interest in our behalf. But just as that explanation for his non-appearance had satisfied me I saw, half across the plain, something moving slowly—a pack of horses it seemed, and so clear was the air of that late afternoon that I recognised the form of the mounted man who guarded them, could almost, with a lengthy and concentrated survey, descry his great beard like a bib upon his breast.
"Well," said Farrell, "what do you want to pow-wow about? You see who we got here?"
"I see," said Apache Kid, putting a foot upon the white stone. "How are you, Francis?"
"He 's all right," said Farrell. "But he 's a kind o' prisoner o' war just now."
"Oh!" said Apache Kid. "Well, I suppose if we want to get him back we 'll have to buy him back?"
"That's what!" said Farrell, emphatically.
"Well," said Apache Kid, "we are going on,—my friends and I,—and, as we have your horses now as well as our own, we thought we might perhaps be able to trade you them back for the lad."
And here, as you will be wondering how the horses had changed hands, I must tell you what I had afterwards explained to me.
It seems that no sooner did I fall from my horse, at the time it put its foot in the badger hole (Apache Kid having gone past wildly, bringing down one man and one horse with his two running shots), than the four men, seeing my predicament, swung to their horses' backs, opened out, and two of them passing, one on either side of me, swung from their saddles and yanked me up by my arms.
Then full tilt they charged down the centre of the plain, intending evidently to make the rising knoll, of which I spoke, in the valley's centre. And with me lying across Farrell's saddle, they doubtless thought they had the key to the Lost Cabin. But Apache Kid wheeled his horse below, and Donoghue mounted again above, and from the hill-crest the half-breed spurred down, and so these three set after us, converging on each other as they came.
But Farrell's mount was falling behind with the burden of my extra weight, and they wheeled sharp to left and put their horses directly to the cliff-front. These ponies can do marvels in climbing, but they were over-jaded, having been very hard ridden, and right on the slope it was evident that not only the half-breed, but Larry next, and Apache Kid following, were coming within effect range. It was Farrell who proposed their move then, considering that with me in their hands half the battle was won if only they had something in the way of a fort from which to stave off attack. So they flung off there, and, letting their horses go, up they came, dragging me along. But at the foot of the hill the others stopped, seeing how they had all the odds against them then and were so fully exposed. For it had not yet occurred to them, as indeed was very natural it should not, that the last thing these men wanted to do was to fire upon them.
The intention of this little company of cut-throats had been to follow up softly in the rear, as near as possible without being seen by us, until we came to our journey's end. What they had planned for us then it is, perhaps, needless to so much as hint. Little did they think that between them and us was Mr. Pinkerton, carrying the news of their possible pursuit. But when they saw him riding out of that plain, with the half-breed, the whole reason for his presence there was guessed by them, especially when they saw us halted within sight, the whole three of us turned round as though already watching for their approach. It was, undoubtedly, this upsetting of their plans that made them so short-tempered and snappish with one another.
But by now I think even Farrell was convinced that I was useless to them in so far as the giving of information went. And so I was now to be used as a hostage,—a sort of living breastwork before them,—as though they were to say: "See! if you fire, you kill your partner!"
Farrell laughed loud at Apache Kid's suggestion.
"Why," said he, "you talk as if you held the trumps; but you don't. And for why? Why, because we do." And he spat in the sand and put a hand on either hip. "We don't need our horses, my mates and me. We ain't in any hurry, and can set here as long as you like,—aye, or go away when we like, for that matter. What we want is that Lost Cabin Mine, and if you don't tell us where it is, why, then we'll let the wind out of your partner here."
"And where do we come in?" yelled Donoghue, rearing up beside his bush.
"Oh!" said Farrell, insolently, "are you talking, too? Well, you don't come in at all. There you are! That's something for you to consider!"
Donoghue broke out in a roar of laughter.
"Oh," he said, "the lad is nothing to us. You can do what you like with him."
Apache Kid turned upon him with a glance as of astonishment, and then again to Farrell he said:
"I 'll give you the offer we came up with, and you and your two mates can consider it."
"Three mates, you mean," snapped Farrell.
"Na! Na!" cried Donoghue. "When I look along a rifle I never err."
"Oh, it was you did it?" cried Farrell. "Well, what's your offer?"
"This is our offer," said Apache Kid. "You can come along with us. We are three, and so are you, and we can split the Lost Cabin between us."
Farrell turned to his two companions and looked a question at them.
"I guess you 'd better take that," said the man Dan, "for I reckon even if we did suggest killing this kid, it would n't bring the facts out of 'em."
"And anyhow," said the other, him they called Pete, speaking low, but yet I caught the drift of his words, "we can easy enough fix them all when we get there."
"Come on!" said Apache Kid. "How does our offer strike you? Are you aware that every hour we delay there may be others getting closer to the Lost Cabin Mine?"
"Take the offer, man. Take the offer," said Pete and Dan.
"All right," cried Farrell. "But mind, we're bad men, and this will have to be run on the square."
Donoghue laughed, and for a moment, as I looked at him, I saw an evil glitter in his eye. "Oh, yes!" he ejaculated, "we 're all bad men here."
My three captors made no delay; but as for their fallen friend, they paid no heed to him. Only Farrell took the cartridges from his belt and ran his hands through the pockets, which contained a knife, a specimen of ore, two five-dollar bills, and a fifty-cent piece.
For my part, I had the utmost difficulty in getting to my legs, and still more in descending the face of the precipice. I noticed, too, that Farrell kept close by my side, as though he thought still that it was as well to have me between Apache Kid and himself.
Just as we came down the rise, there was Mr. Pinkerton leading the horses along toward us.
"Say!" cried Farrell. "What about him?" And he pointed to Pinkerton.
"O!" said Apache Kid. "He wants nothing to do with this expedition whatever."
Then suddenly Farrell's face lighted with a new thought. "And he goes down to the camps and blabs the whole thing, eh?"
"I believe he won't say a word about it,—neither he nor the half-breed here."
Farrell seemed scarcely convinced, and we went down in silence a little way. Then suddenly he said: "I think you 've got some game on. Say! do you swear you are on the square with us?"
Apache Kid frowned on him and, "I give you my word of honour," said he; and so we came ploughing through the loose soil and sand into the sun-dried grass, and thence on to the level below, where Mr. Pinkerton, now aided by his half-breed follower who had gone on down-hill and mounted his horse, was bunching the horses together. And over all was the sky with the daylight fading in it.