CHAPTER X.
As the reader knows, John Pierson and Dopey had hidden from the hotel, among the rocks, and sneaked around until they reached the point from which anyone could enter or leave the hotel by the window which was built for that express purpose. It served as a convenient fire-escape, as when one of the wooden buildings takes fire in that dry season, no one could save himself by the stairway. And, perhaps on account of possible fights between rival cowboys, it was a handy means of exit.
Pierson had dashed into Muriel’s room and said:
“Quick! gather your traps and come! We are tracked!”
Giving her no time to think, he seized the food that was spread on the table and thrust it into his pockets. Then he lifted Dora in his powerful arms and sprang out to the open window, and from there stepped easily to the rock, turning only to see if Dopey was following.
Muriel had taken her hat and wrap and that of Dora in her arms, and followed Pierson quickly, as she did not believe him, and thought this but a subterfuge to get Dora out into the wild gorges of the forbidding black mountains.
Dopey had the gripsack, and they easily made their escape.
All day they traveled up and down slopes, hills and rugged mountains until even John was tired and willing to sit down. He divided the food evenly between them, and they were glad of even that scanty fare.
Dopey was manifestly dissatisfied. He muttered to himself that it wasn’t right to take a fellow away from his dope, which was meat and drink both, and bring him here where the mountain air made him hungry all the time, and then choke off his regular meals.
Just as it was growing dark, they came upon an abandoned shack and went in boldly. John, who had lived several years in these places, knew that even if the owner should come he would bid them welcome to all there was there, and soon he had built a fire on the open hearth, and looked about to see what there was to eat.
There was a bunk in one end of the shack, with plenty of clean leaves, and in a box hung to a rafter in the middle of the cabin he founda can of coffee, another of sugar, a bag of prepared flour and a side of bacon. Their immediate necessity was thus provided for.
Dora scarcely knew that they had changed their location and continued singing as before, but at last the song jarred upon the nerves of her captor, and he said:
“Stop that! Stop that singing! I won’t have it. You’ll have the whole outfit down upon us like a hungry pack. Stop, I say, or I’ll gag you!”
“Let her alone! Let her alone, I say!” said Muriel, springing forward between them. “Poor thing! she does not know what she is doing. She’ll go to sleep soon.”
“Was it wrong to sing to Bennie? He loves that song. I used to sing it to him before he died. Did you know Bennie is dead? He is, because he would come when I call if he was not dead. Let me show you: ‘Bennie! Bennie!’ You see, he does not answer, and I’ve called and called papa too, but he doesn’t come, either. Do you think he is dead, too? It would be too bad!”
“And you—you human vulture! You would harm this poor, helpless girl!” said Muriel to John.
Dora heard this conversation clearly, but her benumbed faculties could not seem to understandthe import of it, for she turned and, laying her dark head on Muriel’s bosom, said:
“Let me tell you a secret, lady. I saw two men, and they came down the steps to my father’s shop, and they killed a man! They shot him, and I saw him die!”
“Now are you satisfied, you interfering cat?” hissed John, with angry vehemence. “I told you she had flashes of returning reason. I have watched her closely and know that we have everything to fear, and I hope you are convinced now that it is unsafe to keep her longer. Every minute she is liable to remember me as the man. Here you stand protecting her as though she were your own, and we all in danger of our lives! There is but one thing to be said and that is, her life or ours! We are in danger every minute we keep her! She must be silenced forever! And now!”
“She shall die in God’s own good time, John Pierson, for so long as I live you shall never lay a finger on her to do her harm! Is it not enough that you have dragged her away from those she held dear, and have thereby destroyed her reason? Listen well to my words, for I will see that she is protected against any further danger. The poor girl!”
“What is your objection? Are you jealous?If that is the case, I can tell you that you have no cause now for all I seek now is to get rid of her. I don’t care how, only so she never crosses my path again. So what is your object in protecting her, if I may be so bold?”
“I will tell you. My life has been all that is bad and wicked, and when it comes to an end I want this one good deed to be marked to my credit there where she will go. Can you understand that?”
“Say, cull, she ort to jine the Salvation Army,” said Dopey, in a husky whisper.
“I wish to Heaven I had before I ever met you two, for since that time it has been nothing but drink and rob and steal, and now it is murder! And, God help me! I am accessory after the fact, a branded criminal with an awful charge staring me in the face! Oh, if I could only live my life over again, to be pure and good—like this poor child.”
“Say, Muriel, I have just one piece of advice to give you, and that is to let up on this racket or it’ll be a sort of deathbed repentance, and you’d better be warned! And as to the Salvation Army business, we can have that right here.” And here the wretch clasped his hands as in prayer and said, in a sing-song voice;“Brother Dopey, will you lead us in prayer? Halleluia!”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin, Brudder Pierson,” said Dopey, grinning with delight as he saw Muriel wince at the coarse vulgarity.
“Scoff and rail, you two, but the day is not far distant when you both will look death in the face! Then your ribald lips will stiffen in fear, your eyes start out in horror, and you will cry aloud in vain for pardon to the God you despised in life! I seem to see you now, both strung up by the neck to the dead branch of a tree that has borne such carrion before and both go swinging around in the wind! That will be your end, and it will come soon, I feel it and know it. John Pierson, if there is one single spark of manhood left in you, spare this poor girl, and let me take her back to the hotel and leave her there. I will go alone with her, and you and Dopey can go where you like. No one shall pursue or harm you.”
“A very pretty fairy-story. It does you credit. But, in the language of the Philistines about here, not much! She has cost me too much to give her up so easily. So save your breath to cool your coffee.”
“Say, cull, what will de gal do when she has to eat bacon?”
“Oh, she’ll eat it all right—if she must—and she doesn’t know what she is eating, anyhow. Don’t bother me with trifles.”
“Please, lady, please,” began Dora, and Muriel asked her what she wanted.
“Can’t I go to bed? I am so tired. So very tired. I never used to be tired at home—I cooked and kept it all so nice and clean.”
“There! You see what I told you,” said John to Muriel, “she is beginning to remember!”
“No wonder, poor child! that you are tired after this last week of travel and hardships. Yes, dear, we will rest awhile. Here is a nice, soft bed. Lie down and I will cover you. John, you and Dopey can sleep outside, as you have been doing all last week. There is not room enough in here. Come, dear, lie down.”
With a bad grace, John and Dopey left the shack and laid themselves down beneath the stars to sleep, but both against the door, so neither of the prisoners could escape.
John had sent the Parthian shot after Muriel as he called through the door to advise her to “go to the devil, for all he cared.”
“When I leave you, John Pierson, I shall be going away from him as fast as I can. Understand that.”
“Say, boss, there’ll be something doing anddat pretty quick. Dat woman’s on her ear, and when wimmen gets on deir ears dey’s allus something doing. You’d better be on de lookout for her. She looks like dem she-tigers I seen in de circus once. De he-ones took t’ings easy-like, but de she-ones was allus on de lookout for a chance. An’ she is looking for her chance.”
“I know her like a book, Dopey, and she will get no mercy from me if she tries any monkey business. Yes, you are right. I don’t know why I have been such a tender-hearted idiot. I’ve had a couple of chances to kill them both, and wasted them. Self-defence is the first law of nature and our only safe way is to finish them both now, and be done with it!”
“Den youse is smokin’ the proper kind of dope, and de only kind dat will win out for us and keep us out of the fireworks settee. It is de only t’ing to do, and de sooner de quicker.”
John smoked in silence for awhile, stretched out full length on the ground, while Dopey lay wishing for his almost forgotten luxury. Finally John whispered to Dopey:
“I have it. I will let them think we have gone on up the mountain to reconnoitre and then Muriel may try to escape. If they come out of the door I will fire, and that way no one will everknow who did it, even should some spy see them fall. And if they don’t come out we will wait till they are asleep and set fire to the shack. It will burn like tinder. In that way we shall be free. What do you think?”
“Won’t de blaze be seen?” asked Dopey.
“I don’t care if it is. It is so far away that no one could get here in time to put it out and if they do find them it will be too late to do them any good. Well, I’ll tell Muriel.”
John knocked at the flimsy door and as Muriel asked what was wanted John said that they were going up the ravine, to reconnoitre their route for the next day, and that she should keep the door shut, as they might be gone until near daylight. Muriel answered that she would do so. Then the two men drew away from the shack, but kept in view of the door with drawn pistols, but Muriel had grown so suspicious of John that she never for one moment thought of taking her helpless charge from the shelter of the shack, poor as it was. So she sat down by the bunk and held the little hand in hers until Dora, after some more words of her home and Bennie, fell asleep.
How long Muriel sat there she had no means of telling, but, as she scented treachery, she never felt more fully awake. Hours passed, andshe still watched. The men outside began to think she had fallen asleep. Suddenly the watchers listened and, after a moment of suspense, they became sure they heard voices, and coming in their direction! This put a new phase on the matter. It was doubtless a searching-party and they had been tracked to this place. There was now but one thing to do, and that was to get the two women out at once and start again on their wandering. The voices approached and then receded, and finally died away in the distance.
It would be too dangerous now to set fire to the shack, and equally so to fire off a pistol, so for the time Muriel and Dora were left in peace. Muriel slept sitting by the side of the bunk with her weary head against the rough wall, after she had seen day was breaking.
In the morning she felt refreshed, and it was she who cooked the meagre allowance of bacon and bread, and made the coffee.
Four days they remained there, keeping as still as humans can, with John or Dopey all the time on the lookout. The fifth day John saw a thin spiral of smoke not more than a mile from where they were, and as he watched it he noticed that someone, an Indian probably, was making signals with it. It would rise in straight linesfor a time, then suddenly cease, only to rise again in increased volume. This he knew was a signal among the Indians, but he did not know their code, although he knew enough to be sure that it was time to leave there. He determined to go South with his party, and at the first opportunity he would rid himself of Muriel first and then Dora, whom he had begun to hate on account of the trouble she made him and the fact that she had seen the murder and was now beginning to remember.
So he roughly told Muriel to prepare to start.