by Zane Grey
Jim gazed around, and then got up to see if the place was real or only a dream. But it magnified reality. Below him the little gray tent Hays had raised for his captive had been pitched against the grove of cottonwoods, which occupied a terrace and was composed of perhaps fifty trees, none of them old or even matured. One-half of the trees stood considerably higher than the other, which fact indicated rather a steep bank running through the middle of the grove. The luxuriant jungle of vines, ferns, flowers, moss, and grass on that bank was eloquent of water.
This grove was a point that was separated from the wall on each side by a deep gully. But these gullies ended abruptly where the point spread into the oval floor of the hole. Also both gullies opened into a canyon below, dark-walled, rugged, and deep, winding out of sight. Looking the other way, Jim saw some of the men at the camp fire, among them Hays. Beyond them rose a wall of white, gray, and reddish stone, worn by erosion into fantastic shapes. This cliff, on the other side, was red and gray, more precipitous, with shelves and benches covered with moss and cactus and flowers. Farther up a gorge split the cliff, and Jim was reminded of what Hays had said about outlets to their burrow. There was also, on the other side, the steep entrance down which Hays had come to get into this fascinating place.
The inclosed oval contained perhaps twenty-five acres of level sward, as grassy as any pasture; and at the far end the walls slanted down to a wide gateway, through which a long brush-dotted valley led to gray, speckled slopes. The walls all around were veined with ledges.
Evidently the horses had grazed on out of this hole, which fact spoke volumes for the grass farther on. Jim made the discovery that the middle of the oasis contained a knoll, considerably higher than its margins. Aside from the features that made this retreat ideal for robbers, and which they naturally would give prominence in calculations, it was amazing in its fertility, in its protected isolation, and in the brilliance of its many colors.
Jim strode over to the camp fire to wash. “Good morning, men. Wonderful place this is of Hank’s. I don’t care how long we stay here.”
“Hell gettin’ in, but shore good now,” replied someone.
“How’s Sparrowhawk?” asked Jim.
“Stopped bleedin’.” It was Hays who answered this time. “If fever don’t set in he’ll pull through. But I gotta dig out thet bullet an’ I’m plumb feared I can’t.”
“Let it be awhile. How’s our prisoner?”
“Say, all you fellers askin’ me thet! Fact is, I don’t know. She was dead to the world last night.”
“Let her sleep, poor girl. That was an awful ride.”
“After grub we’ll climb up an’ look our roost over,” announced Hays, presently. “You can’t appreciate it down here. Thet gully below is one way out an’ I reckon the best. There’s a waterfall about fifty feet high an’ it looks impassable. But it ain’t, as I found out by accident. There’s a slant thet you can slide a hoss down. It’s slippery an’ mossy under the water an’ takes nerve to put a hoss to it. I reckon any one foller’n’ us could do the same, if they saw our tracks. Thet gully heads into the one we took up from the Dirty Devil. Shore we could go back by the canyon we come up last night. A third way out is up the draw, an’ thet peters out on the uplands. An’ there’s a fourth way out, by thet north gap. But if we took it I reckon we’d get lost in the canyons.”
“It certainly is a great robber’s roost,” agreed Jim, wiping his face. “If we get surprised we’ll simply go out on the other side.”
“Wal, we jest can’t be surprised,” said Hays, complacently. “One lookout with a glass can watch all the approaches, an’ long before anybody could get close we’d be on our hosses an’ gone.”
“But, Hank, you fetched us hyar in the dark,” said Smoky.
“Shore, but it wasn’t easy. I was lost a dozen times. An’ I knowed the way.”
“Ahuh. Did any other men know this place?”
“Yes, but they’re dead.”
“Dead men don’t track nobody, thet’s shore,” said Smoky. “But, Hank, I wouldn’t swear nobody atall could never track us in hyar. What you think, Brad?”
“It would take a lot of nerve to tackle thet Dirty Devil,” replied Lincoln.
“What d’you say, Jim?”
“If I was Heeseman and had seen you, as he sure saw us, I’d find you in three days,” returned Jim, deliberately. “Provided, of course, I had pack-horses and supplies.”
“Wal, I’ll bet you two to one thet you can’t even git out of here,” declared Hays.
“Why, man, you just told us all how to get out.”
“Down the gully, yes. But you’ve never seen it an’ you’d shore be stuck. . . . Wal, we’ll keep watch durin’ daylight. What’s your idee about keepin’ watch? One man’s enough. Two hours on an’ ten off? Or four on, an’ every other day.”
“I’d like the four-hour watch better,” replied Jim.
“Me too.”
“Reckon thet’d suit.”
“Wal, four hours on it’ll be, then,” asserted Hays. “An’, Jim, seein’ as you spoke up so keen, you can have first watch. There absolutely ain’t no need of any watch before breakfast.”
“Hays, don’t forget thet you got here after nightfall, an’ some other man might,” said the pessimistic Lincoln.
At breakfast Hays departed from his habit of silence and he talked, betraying to the thoughtful Jim the presence of excitement. He repeated himself about the security of the place and sought to allay any doubts in the minds of his men.
“It’ll be hotter’n blazes down here in summer,” he said. “An’ it rains. Say, but it rains! Course you-all got a hunch of thet from the cut-up canyons we come through. An’ never be ketched in any of them when it rains hard. . . . I’ll build some kind of a shack, an’ we’ll need a shelter to eat an’ gamble under, an’ as fer sleepin’ dry, there’s some shelvin’ cliffs thet air as good as cabins. So after eatin’, I’ll show you the lay of the land from up on top. We’ll leave Jim on guard, and start to work.”
It chanced that during the part of this speech referring to shelter, Jim happened to see Smoky and Brad Lincoln look at each other in a peculiar way. They did not change glances. They merely had the same thought in mind, and Jim wagered he had caught it.
“Fellers,” Hays said at the end of the meal, and his impressiveness was marked, “I forgot to tell you thet we took a little money from Herrick. I’ll make a divvy on thet today.”
This news was received with manifest satisfaction.
“How much, about, Hank?” asked Bridges, eagerly.
“Not much. I didn’t count. Reckon a couple thousand each.”
“Whew! Thet added to what I’ve got will make me flush. An’ I’m gonna keep it.”
“Hank, as there’s no deal in sight all summer, an’ mebbe not then, we can gamble, huh?”
“Gamble ourselves black in the face, provided there’s no fightin’. It’s good we haven’t any likker.”
“Boss, I forgot to tell you thet I bought a couple of jugs at the junction,” spoke up Smoky, contritely.
“Wal, no matter, only it ‘pears we’re all forgettin’ things,” said the leader, somewhat testily.
“It shore do,” rejoined Lincoln. “Hank, when’re you aimin’ to collect ransom fer the girl?”
“Not while thet hard-shootin’ outfit is campin’ on our trail, an’ don’t you fergit it.”
“Brad, so long’s the boss had honest intentions we can’t kick about how the deal’s worked out,” said Jim, thinking it wise not to be always silent.
“No — so long’s he had,” admitted Smoky, casually. But Lincoln did not reply.
Later Jim caught Smoky aside, digging into his pack, and approached him to whisper:
“Smoky, I wish we had time to talk. But I’ll say this right from the shoulder. It’s up to you and me to see no harm comes to this girl.”
“Why you an’ me, Jim?” returned Smoky, his penetrating eyes on Wall’s.
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br /> “That’s why I wish I had time to talk. But you’ve got to take me straight. If I wasn’t here you’d do your best for her — that’s my hunch. . . . Shoot now, quick! Hays is suspicious as hell.”
“Wal, yore a sharp cuss, Jim,” returned Smoky, going back to his pack. “I’m with you. One of us has always got to be heah in camp, day an’ night. Do you savvy?”
“Yes. . . . Thanks, Smoky. Somehow I’d have sworn by you,” replied Jim, hurriedly, and retraced his steps to the fire.
After breakfast Hays led his men, except Latimer, up through the west outlet, from which they climbed to the highest point in the vicinity. It was to the top of a bluff fully five hundred feet above the draw. It afforded a magnificent view of this baffling country. Every point of the green hole was in plain sight. Every approach to it, even that down the dark gully, lay exposed; and a sharp-eyed scout with a field-glass could have detected pursuers miles away, and have caught their dust long before they came in sight.
“No use talkin’,” was Smoky’s comment.
Others were loud in their encomiums.
Brad Lincoln said, sarcastically: “So you been savin’ this roost for your old age?”
They all laughed, then Jim put in his quiet opinion: “A band of men could hang out here for twenty years — unless they fought among themselves.”
“Ha!” Slocum let out a single sharp exclamation, impossible to designate as containing mirth or censure, yet which was certainly corroborative.
“Wal, I never give it no name,” concluded Hays. “An’ we’ll let the future do thet. I’ll gamble every dollar I got thet some outfit will last hyar twenty years. If Heeseman does for us, then Morley will do fer him. An’ so it’ll go. None of us will ever live to see cowboy posses ride into these brakes.”
They left Jim on the bluff to keep the first watch.
“I’d like this job every day,” he replied to jocular remarks.
“Shore you would, an’ git out of real work. So would I. Haw! Haw!”
Jim was well pleased to be left alone. The die was cast now. Hays had made his bed and must lie in it — no doubt to a last long bloody sleep. He had betrayed his loyal allies, not only in the matter of making way with the girl, but in regard to honest division of stolen gains. Jim had Miss Herrick’s word as to the amount taken from her. It was a certainty that Hays had also robbed her brother. But he had not reported the truth as to amount; and this was another singular proof of the disintegration of the chief’s character. Only by strict, fair dealings could he ever have gained the confidence and loyalty of that hardened crew.
In all likelihood Sparrowhawk Latimer was aware of this omission on the chief’s part, for men of his type were not easily fooled. Probably he had been bribed to keep his mouth shut. Jim resolved to lose no time being kind and thoughtful to the wounded man. Whatever there was to learn, Jim meant to learn. Latimer was seriously ill. Presently the outfit would begin to gamble and then for them the hours would pass as moments.
There was a round depression on the mound-like eminence of the bluff, and it made a comfortable seat. It would be very hot here in midsummer, but a sunshade of some sort could be erected. Today the sun felt good.
He could see the men with his naked eye, and with the field-glass he could almost read their thoughts. How much more jealously and savagely could he now watch Hays than if he were below! It was an unique situation, but devastating. Jim had nothing to hide up there.
Notwithstanding the cue he had for passion, he did not neglect exercising the requirements of a good scout. And presently he applied himself to a careful study of his surroundings. The horses grazed in the valley below, between him and the camp, and in all probability they would stay there indefinitely. As summer advanced with warm rains, the valley would grow more and more luxuriant. Horses used to the barrens would have to be dragged away. That disposed of the all-important necessity of having the animals close.
To the north and west the whorls of red rock dominated the scene, but there were many grassy plots and meadows and valleys down in between. The main canyon, an extension of Hays’ retreat, ran for miles, to widen and grade out on the western horizon. Jim espied innumerable rabbits, some coyotes, and many antelopes. That country to the west must be a paradise for the fleet-footed, white-rumped deer of the plains. There was no evidence of water in that direction.
To the south and east spread the brakes, and it was one white slash, red slash, gray slash, yellow slash after another, clear to the dark slopes that formed the base of the mighty Henrys, black and deceiving, their peaks lost in the clouds. Only a blue, faintly streaked gulf marked the zone of the canyon country, of which the Dirty Devil brakes were merely the stepping-off point. Jim remembered the great, dim cliffs glancing down from Wild Horse Mesa. They would be thousands of feet in depth and all sheer rock; the walls of the brakes were mostly clay, loam, gravel, and only hundreds of feet at their deepest. Still they were forbidding, and inaccessible except to the most desperate and resourceful of men.
What would Heeseman’s persistent pursuit of Hays mean, provided it were persistent? That chase and attack of the other day did not amount to much. Riders without pack-animals could easily have made that. But if Heeseman made a long pursuit of it his motive would be either revenge or money, very likely both. Jim had divined in Heeseman a strong antipathy for Hays, something born far back in the past. Jim rather inclined to Lincoln’s skepticism and looked for further dealings with Heeseman.
While Jim’s thoughts ran in this fashion, skipping from one aspect to another, his keen manipulation of the field-glass followed suit. He would study the white-ridged draw by which Hays had entered the hole, and try to follow its devious wanderings till he lost it in the brakes. He would bend his magnified sight upon the dark seamed gorge heading under the terrace of cottonwoods. And the two other exits to that rendezvous came in for their share of attention. In this way he gradually became acquainted with them. And after each survey he would shift the glass back to the oval bowl where the robbers were at work.
Some were carrying water, brush, stones, while others were digging post-holes. Hays was apparently a mason, for at once he began to lay a square fireplace of flat stones. The stone, sand, water were fetched to him, but he did the building himself. An hour or so after the start, the square grate appeared to be completed, and the chimney was going up. Four cottonwoods formed the four corner posts of the shack. Poles of the same wood were laid across for beams. Probably Hays would construct a roof of brush, and give it pitch enough so that the rain water would run off.
That growing structure became fascinating to Jim Wall. What was going to happen in it? Three times Hays left off work to walk across the green to the tent where Miss Herrick kept herself. No doubt the robber called to her. The third time he peeped in.
“Go in, you —— scurvy bloodhound!” ejaculated Jim, fiercely. There was a hot joy at the ring of his words in his ears. He need not even deceive himself. He could roar like a bull if he wished.
But Hays did not attempt to enter the tent. Certain it was, however, that he glanced back to see if any of his men were watching him. They were, though perhaps to his estimate not at all obtrusively. Jim, however, with the strong field-glass, could actually catch the expression on their faces. Smoky spoke to Lincoln, and with a suggestive jerk of his head toward Hays and the tent added a volume of meaning. Then Hays retraced his steps back to the job.
The sun grew hot, and when it reached the zenith Hays and his gang suspended their labors for a while. The others gathered at the shelter, evidently eating and drinking. Presently Latimer appeared, coming out of the cottonwoods, and he walked unsteadily across to the group. One of them came out to help him. They spent an hour, perhaps, under Happy Jack’s shelter. All this morning no sign of life from the tent!
Long after noonday, and when Jim had spent at least six hours on watch, Jeff Bridges detached himself from his comrades and laboriously made his way out the west entrance and up the long, gr
ay-green slope to the red bluff, upon the top of which Jim was stationed.
Jeff was a heavy man, not used to climbing on foot. His red face was wet with sweat. “Jim, we ‘most forgot you,” he panted, good-naturedly. “The boss had us — a-goin’. He’s shore — enthusiastic over makin’ a roost of thet hole!”
Jim relinquished the glass and his seat to Bridges. “I don’t mind,” he said. “Sort of like it up here.” He left and made his way leisurely down off the smooth red ledges to the slope, and eventually to the valley floor. Cottontail rabbits scurried out from under his feet, to crouch in the grass or under a bush not far off. Jim drew his gun, and selecting a favorable shot he put out the eye of a rabbit; and presently he repeated the performance. With the rabbits dangling, one from each hand, he turned into the oval, amused to find not a single man in sight. They had heard his shots and had taken to cover.
As he approached, one by one they reappeared, out of the earth it looked to Jim, and when he reached Happy’s camp-site they were all back.
“Huh! You scared the very hell out of us,” declared Hays, forcibly. “How’n hell could we know you was shootin’ rabbits?”
“Young rabbit for supper won’t go bad,” rejoined Jim.
“They shore won’t,” agreed Smoky. “Lemme see, Jim.” He took the rabbits and examined them. “Look ahyar, Brad. He shot the eye out of both of them.”
“Durned if he didn’t,” said Brad, enthusiastically. “How fer away, Jim?”
“I didn’t step it off. Reckon one was about twenty paces and the other farther,” returned Jim, stretching the truth a little. He knew such men, how their morbid minds centered about certain things.
“Ahuh. You’re a poor shot,” declared Lincoln.
“Hank, fer Gawd’s sake don’t let’s give Jim a chanct to shoot at us!” ejaculated Smoky, with a loud laugh.