CHAPTER IV“What’re you going to do with me?” Otis inquired, the trace of a smile playing about his lips.The Sheriff, puzzled, turned to his deputy.“You better stay here with Otis, Seth,” he directed. Then he glanced at the spot across the stream where the moving figure had disappeared in the trees. For an instant he pondered, uncertain.“No,” he announced in a moment, “that wont do. It would take two of us to get him, now that he’s in that timber. Guess we’ll have to let him go.”“Wait a minute,” objected the deputy. “I’ll fix it so we can both go.”He swung from the saddle, reached in his saddlebags and drew forth a pair of nickel-plated handcuffs.“Hate to do this, Otis,” he began hurriedly, “but we wont be gone long. Just step over by this tree.”Otis dismounted, not at all pleased that his pledge not to attempt to escape had not been accepted. He resolved, however, to make no protest, knowing that were he in the place of his captors, he would take every precaution to prevent the escape of a prisoner, if he deemed that prisoner guilty of murder. So without a word he stepped to the tree.The deputy snapped one of the steel circlets about his left wrist. Then he brought Otis’ right hand about the trunk of the tree, a fairly large lodgepole pine, and snapped the other end of the handcuffs about his right wrist. Otis was left standing, facing the tree, his arms about its trunk, and his wrists pinioned on the other side of the pine.“Sorry,” the deputy told him shortly as he flung himself into the saddle again. “We’ll be back pretty soon.”The Sheriff had said nothing while Markey had been fastening Otis’ arms about the tree. Otis watched them ford the creek and plunge into the timber on the farther bank. He was glad that the tree was far enough removed from the road that none of his friends, who might be passing, could discover him in his humiliating predicament. Pie-face stood on the creek bank, a few yards distant, cropping the grass by the water’s edge. Otis knew that so long as his bridle was dragging there would be no danger of his straying away into the timber.For perhaps five minutes Otis struggled vainly to work himself into a position where he might draw his tobacco and cigarette papers from his vest pocket. Finally, with an exclamation of impatience, he desisted in his attempt to prepare a smoke, and devoted his efforts to devising a means whereby he might sit down.This, too, he found to be impossible. The base of the tree-trunk was too large, and the roots sloped off over the creek bank at such an angle as to make a sitting posture out of the question.Otis was curious to know the result of the expedition of Sheriff Ogden and Seth Markey in pursuit of the figure which had melted into the timber. He too had caught a fleeting glimpse of the man, and believed it to be “Soggy” Radley of the Jackson’s Hole country. Soggy had gained his sobriquet through his ability to enjoy his own flapjacks, which no one else, even his brother Ginger, could stomach.The presence of one of the Radley boys so far from his own range was full of meaning to Otis. Coupled with the recent brandblotting from which various stockmen in the vicinity had suffered, it meant that Soggy would have much to explain—particularly in that he was not keeping to the open trail, but was skulking through the timber afoot.A chipmunk approached Otis over the rocks in a series of quick advances and shorter retreats. The little animal finally reached a point within a yard of his feet, and for a moment sat erect on its haunches, eying him curiously from beadlike eyes. Presently it discovered a seed fallen from a pine-cone, and retired to a near-by rock, where it sat nibbling away and flirting its tail, but keeping a wary eye upon him.Otis wondered what Sheriff Ogden would do if he should discover Soggy Radley in the act of using a running-iron on a Footstool calf. He believed that the Sheriff would relish making such an arrest far more than he had relished making the arrest of Otis himself on the charge of murdering Ranger Fyffe.The capture of one of the Radley boys, with sufficient evidence for a conviction, would meet with popular approval, and would make many votes at the next election. Otis knew Sheriff Ogden to be an easy-going official of the type which makes a good politician, eager to please everyone, if possible, and loath to make enemies.Although the Sheriff was likable enough, and when the occasion demanded it, a fearless officer, Otis knew that most of his official acts were accomplished with an eye to their effect at the next election.He believed, also, that Ogden would have been reluctant to cause his arrest, had he not been convinced of Otis’ guilt. And in view of the circumstances of the damning bit of writing on the cabin floor, and the empty shells in his revolver, he could not hold it against the Sheriff that that official was so confident he had committed the crime.“Wait until he talks to Gus Bernat,” Otis said aloud, frightening the chipmunk, “then I’ll have the laugh on him.”It would be odd indeed, he thought, if the Sheriff should return with Soggy Radley as his prisoner, charged with the theft of cattle from Otis, whom he held on a charge of murder.A cold wind, sweeping down from the snow-covered Tetons, set the leaves of the quaking aspen atremble, and sung through the branches of the pines. Otis glanced at the sky, and uttered an exclamation of exasperation.“Looks like I’m in for a good drenching,” he remarked to the chipmunk, which scuttled away among the rocks again. “It’s a wonder they didn’t take a look at the weather before they left me chained up like this. But then, I suppose prisoners can’t be too particular.”The wind ceased. A big drop of rain splashed on the rock where the chipmunk had sat. Then, with a rush, the storm broke. The wind lashed the aspen grove, until Otis, peering through the sheets of rain, could see nothing but the silvery under side of the leaves.He shrank against the tree, circling to the east so the trunk might afford him some measure of protection from the driving rain. He was thankful for the little shelter that the spreading branches of the pine gave him.There was a flash of lightning—the lessening roll of thunder echoing from the rocky walls of the gulch. He could barely make out the trees on the far side of the creek. Pie-face, his back humped to the storm, stood head down, now and then casting a curious glance at his master, who made no move to lead him to shelter.Suddenly there was a terrific report. Otis believed he could feel the earth tremble beneath him. He knew that the lightning had struck a tree somewhere in the gulch near by.Then, for the first time, he was assailed by a questioning fear for his own safety. He remembered coming upon the bodies of a score of sheep that had sought shelter beneath a huge tree in the highlands near Two-Gwo-Tee pass two years before, only to be electrocuted in a mass when a bolt of lightning struck the tree. He cursed the deputy for his thoughtlessness in chaining him to the pine, when it was plain that the electrical storm was approaching.Tied to his saddle was his slicker, which might have saved him from the chilling rain. He called to Pie-face, but the animal, true to the tradition of the range horse, would not stir so long as his bridle was dragging.Presently he raised his head and sniffed suspiciously. He thought he detected the odor of burning pine. He wondered if the lightning had set fire to the tree which it had struck. He edged about his tree and swept every portion of the narrow gulch with a searching glance.What if the lightning had started a forest fire? He had known of fires started by lightning which had swept through the timber for miles before they had been checked or had burned themselves out. Was he chained and helpless in the path of such a fire, to be burned to death without a chance for his life?Presently, however, the storm subsided. A few minutes more, and it had gone as suddenly as it had come. The sun broke through over the jagged crest of the Tetons. Otis watched the black rain-clouds as they swept on rapidly eastward.Still there was no sign of the return of Sheriff Ogden and his deputy.Otis edged about the tree into the sun light. He became conscious, presently of a low hum which seemed to pervade the air. Pie-face pricked up his ears nervously and stood gazing up the gulch. The chipmunk emerged from the rocks and scuttled away up the mountainside.The hum grew into a roar. The roar became like the crash of artillery.Otis shot one glance up the narrow gulch. He saw a brown wall of twisting, turning and crashing timber sweeping down upon him. He could see no water. Yet he knew that the twelve-foot wall of smashing treetrunks and rubbish was the forefront of a brown and swirling flood.He threw himself backward with all his weight in an attempt to break his bonds. The handcuffs bit deep into his wrists, but held. He was insensible to the agony as he threw himself backward again and yet again.Twice he had seen sudden floods caused by mountain cloudbursts sweep down a narrow gulch, carrying everything before them, eating away at the mountainside and tearing out great boulders in their path. He had seen a stanchly built log cabin blotted out in an instant, and had aided in the search for the body of its occupant, which was never found.Terror conquered training in Pie-face. The horse broke and ran, striking diagonally up the rocky slope, struggling upward with the agility of a pine marten.Even as he struggled, Otis, white-faced and gasping, could picture himself crushed beneath the crashing wall of logs. With a tremendous heave, he threw himself backward for the last time. The handcuffs held.He swung himself about the tree. It flashed through his mind that its sturdy trunk might protect him to some extent against the shock of the impact. But even if he were not crushed like a bear in a deadfall, he felt that, chained to the tree, he would be drowned beneath the chocolate waters. In a last frantic effort to escape he began awkwardly to climb the tree.The cold breath of the flood engulfed him. The smashing of the timbers drowned out all other sound. He closed his eyes and clung to the trunk.Then the flood struck.
“What’re you going to do with me?” Otis inquired, the trace of a smile playing about his lips.
The Sheriff, puzzled, turned to his deputy.
“You better stay here with Otis, Seth,” he directed. Then he glanced at the spot across the stream where the moving figure had disappeared in the trees. For an instant he pondered, uncertain.
“No,” he announced in a moment, “that wont do. It would take two of us to get him, now that he’s in that timber. Guess we’ll have to let him go.”
“Wait a minute,” objected the deputy. “I’ll fix it so we can both go.”
He swung from the saddle, reached in his saddlebags and drew forth a pair of nickel-plated handcuffs.
“Hate to do this, Otis,” he began hurriedly, “but we wont be gone long. Just step over by this tree.”
Otis dismounted, not at all pleased that his pledge not to attempt to escape had not been accepted. He resolved, however, to make no protest, knowing that were he in the place of his captors, he would take every precaution to prevent the escape of a prisoner, if he deemed that prisoner guilty of murder. So without a word he stepped to the tree.
The deputy snapped one of the steel circlets about his left wrist. Then he brought Otis’ right hand about the trunk of the tree, a fairly large lodgepole pine, and snapped the other end of the handcuffs about his right wrist. Otis was left standing, facing the tree, his arms about its trunk, and his wrists pinioned on the other side of the pine.
“Sorry,” the deputy told him shortly as he flung himself into the saddle again. “We’ll be back pretty soon.”
The Sheriff had said nothing while Markey had been fastening Otis’ arms about the tree. Otis watched them ford the creek and plunge into the timber on the farther bank. He was glad that the tree was far enough removed from the road that none of his friends, who might be passing, could discover him in his humiliating predicament. Pie-face stood on the creek bank, a few yards distant, cropping the grass by the water’s edge. Otis knew that so long as his bridle was dragging there would be no danger of his straying away into the timber.
For perhaps five minutes Otis struggled vainly to work himself into a position where he might draw his tobacco and cigarette papers from his vest pocket. Finally, with an exclamation of impatience, he desisted in his attempt to prepare a smoke, and devoted his efforts to devising a means whereby he might sit down.
This, too, he found to be impossible. The base of the tree-trunk was too large, and the roots sloped off over the creek bank at such an angle as to make a sitting posture out of the question.
Otis was curious to know the result of the expedition of Sheriff Ogden and Seth Markey in pursuit of the figure which had melted into the timber. He too had caught a fleeting glimpse of the man, and believed it to be “Soggy” Radley of the Jackson’s Hole country. Soggy had gained his sobriquet through his ability to enjoy his own flapjacks, which no one else, even his brother Ginger, could stomach.
The presence of one of the Radley boys so far from his own range was full of meaning to Otis. Coupled with the recent brandblotting from which various stockmen in the vicinity had suffered, it meant that Soggy would have much to explain—particularly in that he was not keeping to the open trail, but was skulking through the timber afoot.
A chipmunk approached Otis over the rocks in a series of quick advances and shorter retreats. The little animal finally reached a point within a yard of his feet, and for a moment sat erect on its haunches, eying him curiously from beadlike eyes. Presently it discovered a seed fallen from a pine-cone, and retired to a near-by rock, where it sat nibbling away and flirting its tail, but keeping a wary eye upon him.
Otis wondered what Sheriff Ogden would do if he should discover Soggy Radley in the act of using a running-iron on a Footstool calf. He believed that the Sheriff would relish making such an arrest far more than he had relished making the arrest of Otis himself on the charge of murdering Ranger Fyffe.
The capture of one of the Radley boys, with sufficient evidence for a conviction, would meet with popular approval, and would make many votes at the next election. Otis knew Sheriff Ogden to be an easy-going official of the type which makes a good politician, eager to please everyone, if possible, and loath to make enemies.
Although the Sheriff was likable enough, and when the occasion demanded it, a fearless officer, Otis knew that most of his official acts were accomplished with an eye to their effect at the next election.
He believed, also, that Ogden would have been reluctant to cause his arrest, had he not been convinced of Otis’ guilt. And in view of the circumstances of the damning bit of writing on the cabin floor, and the empty shells in his revolver, he could not hold it against the Sheriff that that official was so confident he had committed the crime.
“Wait until he talks to Gus Bernat,” Otis said aloud, frightening the chipmunk, “then I’ll have the laugh on him.”
It would be odd indeed, he thought, if the Sheriff should return with Soggy Radley as his prisoner, charged with the theft of cattle from Otis, whom he held on a charge of murder.
A cold wind, sweeping down from the snow-covered Tetons, set the leaves of the quaking aspen atremble, and sung through the branches of the pines. Otis glanced at the sky, and uttered an exclamation of exasperation.
“Looks like I’m in for a good drenching,” he remarked to the chipmunk, which scuttled away among the rocks again. “It’s a wonder they didn’t take a look at the weather before they left me chained up like this. But then, I suppose prisoners can’t be too particular.”
The wind ceased. A big drop of rain splashed on the rock where the chipmunk had sat. Then, with a rush, the storm broke. The wind lashed the aspen grove, until Otis, peering through the sheets of rain, could see nothing but the silvery under side of the leaves.
He shrank against the tree, circling to the east so the trunk might afford him some measure of protection from the driving rain. He was thankful for the little shelter that the spreading branches of the pine gave him.
There was a flash of lightning—the lessening roll of thunder echoing from the rocky walls of the gulch. He could barely make out the trees on the far side of the creek. Pie-face, his back humped to the storm, stood head down, now and then casting a curious glance at his master, who made no move to lead him to shelter.
Suddenly there was a terrific report. Otis believed he could feel the earth tremble beneath him. He knew that the lightning had struck a tree somewhere in the gulch near by.
Then, for the first time, he was assailed by a questioning fear for his own safety. He remembered coming upon the bodies of a score of sheep that had sought shelter beneath a huge tree in the highlands near Two-Gwo-Tee pass two years before, only to be electrocuted in a mass when a bolt of lightning struck the tree. He cursed the deputy for his thoughtlessness in chaining him to the pine, when it was plain that the electrical storm was approaching.
Tied to his saddle was his slicker, which might have saved him from the chilling rain. He called to Pie-face, but the animal, true to the tradition of the range horse, would not stir so long as his bridle was dragging.
Presently he raised his head and sniffed suspiciously. He thought he detected the odor of burning pine. He wondered if the lightning had set fire to the tree which it had struck. He edged about his tree and swept every portion of the narrow gulch with a searching glance.
What if the lightning had started a forest fire? He had known of fires started by lightning which had swept through the timber for miles before they had been checked or had burned themselves out. Was he chained and helpless in the path of such a fire, to be burned to death without a chance for his life?
Presently, however, the storm subsided. A few minutes more, and it had gone as suddenly as it had come. The sun broke through over the jagged crest of the Tetons. Otis watched the black rain-clouds as they swept on rapidly eastward.
Still there was no sign of the return of Sheriff Ogden and his deputy.
Otis edged about the tree into the sun light. He became conscious, presently of a low hum which seemed to pervade the air. Pie-face pricked up his ears nervously and stood gazing up the gulch. The chipmunk emerged from the rocks and scuttled away up the mountainside.
The hum grew into a roar. The roar became like the crash of artillery.
Otis shot one glance up the narrow gulch. He saw a brown wall of twisting, turning and crashing timber sweeping down upon him. He could see no water. Yet he knew that the twelve-foot wall of smashing treetrunks and rubbish was the forefront of a brown and swirling flood.
He threw himself backward with all his weight in an attempt to break his bonds. The handcuffs bit deep into his wrists, but held. He was insensible to the agony as he threw himself backward again and yet again.
Twice he had seen sudden floods caused by mountain cloudbursts sweep down a narrow gulch, carrying everything before them, eating away at the mountainside and tearing out great boulders in their path. He had seen a stanchly built log cabin blotted out in an instant, and had aided in the search for the body of its occupant, which was never found.
Terror conquered training in Pie-face. The horse broke and ran, striking diagonally up the rocky slope, struggling upward with the agility of a pine marten.
Even as he struggled, Otis, white-faced and gasping, could picture himself crushed beneath the crashing wall of logs. With a tremendous heave, he threw himself backward for the last time. The handcuffs held.
He swung himself about the tree. It flashed through his mind that its sturdy trunk might protect him to some extent against the shock of the impact. But even if he were not crushed like a bear in a deadfall, he felt that, chained to the tree, he would be drowned beneath the chocolate waters. In a last frantic effort to escape he began awkwardly to climb the tree.
The cold breath of the flood engulfed him. The smashing of the timbers drowned out all other sound. He closed his eyes and clung to the trunk.
Then the flood struck.