CHAPTER XLIII
TAKING THE TRAIL
Kathleen returned to her room and dressed herself fully. It was only amatter of time until pursuit would be organized, would arrive, and shewould be questioned. She would tell nothing. Her brothers should havetheir fighting chance.
Already her mind, recovering from the shock of the unexpected, was busywith the future. A sister of outlaws! Well, she would go away, adoptsome other name, and wait till she heard from Gavin.
With a swift pang of pain she thought of Angus Mackay. How badly was hehurt? With daylight she would see, she would offer to do what she could.Of course Faith and Jean would shrink from Blake's sister. She could nothelp that. She would take her medicine. There would be much bittermedicine to take.
She went downstairs and began to put away things that her brothers hadat first selected and then discarded. It would not be long, now, tillsomething happened. She picked up a coat of Larry's, turned with it inher hand, and saw Angus Mackay.
She had heard no sound. Yet he stood in the doorway. His head wasbandaged. A six-shooter in his hand advertised his purpose.
"Angus!" she cried. He raised his hand in a warning gesture.
"Don't make a noise! I didn't expect to see you. I'm sorry. I'll goaway."
"You are looking for Blake!"
He nodded silently.
"He isn't here, Angus. He has gone. I want to know what happened."
"It will not be pleasant for you to hear."
"I must know."
As he told her, her face grew white with anger.
"I knew he was a brute--a cur!" she said. "But this is too much."
"Yes, it is too much," he agreed gravely. "I am sorry, because he isyour brother, but it has come to a finish between Blake and me."
"I understand," she said with equal gravity. "I do not feel that he ismy brother. But they have all gone together, and I may as well tell youwhy."
He listened, frowning. He did not care about Braden, to whom heattributed the attempt of Blake and Garland to recover Faith's deeds.But if Blake had gone with the other boys it meant that they would allstand together. It was feud, then, at last, unavoidable. But his purposewas unchanged.
"They don't know," Kathleen said, "that Blake laid hands on Faith. Ifthey had known, they would not help him. They are bad enough but atleast they are men."
He nodded silently. There was no doubt of that. Kathleen raised herhead, listening. He became aware of a distant sound.
"That is--the law," she said. "Perhaps you would rather not be seenhere--with me."
"I am glad to be here. I will see them. You shouldn't be alone. If youwill go to Faith in the morning, and say that I asked you to stay withher--"
"No, no!" she cried. "It is kind of you. You are a good man, Angus. ButI can't do that."
"You would be welcome."
"Still I cannot do it."
But the hoof-beats swelled in volume and clattered to a halt in front ofthe house. Angus went to the front door and opened it. He found himselfconfronted by a long, lean, grizzled gentleman who held a gun oforthodox proportions in readiness for action. But as he recognized Angushe lowered it with a grunt of surprise.
"Didn't expect to see _you_! Any of the French boys in the house?"
"They've pulled out. Their sister is alone."
The grizzled gentleman grunted again. His name was Bush, and he was thesheriff's deputy. As the sheriff was old and carried much weight forage, the rough jobs fell to Jake Bush, who did them well. He possessedmuch experience, a craw full of sand, and a thorough understanding of agun. Behind him, with horses, Angus saw men he knew--Bustede, Drury,Fanning, McClintock--all men of the hills and of their hands.
"Yeh, I figgered them boys would pull out ahead of me," Bush admittedplacidly. "And of course they'll p'int out north for the hills, wherethey ain't no wires. They know the country darn well, too. So I calledin at your ranch and rousted out Dave. He's a wise old ram in themhills. Your brother wanted to come, and he bein' a useful kid I sworehim in, too. I wanted you, but when I found out where you was I sentDave and the kid after you, and come right along here. But I had a hunchit'd be too late. Still, it's a s'prise to see you."
"And you want to know why I'm here?"
"Well--yes. It might have some bearin' on the case."
Angus told him why, and Bush's eyebrows drew together.
"Now I'm free to say that for a low-down skunk this here Blake Frenchis some pumpkins. I sure thought he was with his brothers, but thisgives him a alibi, I s'pose. And I s'pose, also, you're out to git him.Is that right?"
"That's right."
"I don't say he don't need killin'," said the deputy. "But the darnlaw--nowadays--sorter discourages these here private executions. And I'man officer of the law."
"You and the law, Jake," Angus said deliberately, "can both go to hell!"
"Now don't be so darn hair-trigger!" the deputy protested. "Here's theproposition: You've give me information which justifies me in arrestin'him for murderous assault on your wife, and shootin' you with intent tokill. His brothers is wanted for robbery and murder, and they're allstringin' their chips together. I figger they'll resist arrest, and Idon't believe in allowin' my officers to be shot up. So if you was swornin, and was to kill Blake resistin' arrest, it would be all reg'lar.Savvy?"
"But suppose he doesn't resist arrest?"
"Never cross a bridge till you come to it," said Bush wisely. "You gotto come along with us to find him, anyhow. So I'll swear you in andwe'll hope for the best."
Bush's questioning of Kathleen was perfunctory. He grinned at herrefusal to give information. "I wouldn't think much of you if you did,"he admitted, and went on a tour of investigation, from which he drewsome very accurate deductions.
Turkey and Rennie arrived, and for the first time Angus heard ofBraden's dying declaration that Gavin French was responsible for thekilling of Adam Mackay. But beyond the bare statement there were nodetails. Braden's end had come before he had been able to amplify it.
"Do you suppose it's so?" Turkey queried. "Or was he just trying to hangsomething on Gavin?"
Angus did not know. There were times, in the years, when he had beenpuzzled by Gavin's peculiar regard for him. There had always beensomething in the big man's eyes which he could not read, somethingveiled, inscrutable. He alone of the brothers had been reluctant to takeup their father's quarrel with Angus. This might be the reason.
"If he killed father," said Turkey grimly, "he's got it coming to him.You take Blake, and I'll take him."
"There is nothing to go on but what Braden said," Angus pointed out. Buthe thought of his father's dying words. His father had not wished to laya feud upon him. It fitted.
At dawn, acting on Bush's theory, they headed north for the pass. Whenthey struck it there were fresh footprints, many of them, heading intothe hills.
"That's them," said Bush. "Hey, Dave?"
"Sure," said Rennie. "It ain't Injuns. These horses is shod."
A mountain pass is not a road. It merely represents the only practicableway of winning through the jumbled world of hills. Railway constructionin the mountains follows the pass, but persons who admire scenery fromvestibuled coaches know nothing of the old pass of the pack-trail, thebinding brush, the fallen timber, the slides, the swift creeks, thegulches, the precipices to which the trail must cling.
The trail itself--the original trail--is invariably the line of leastresistance. It proceeds on the theory that it is easier to go aroundthan through or over. If traveling on the other side of a creek iseasier it crosses. When conditions are reversed, it comes back. Itwanders with apparent aimlessness, but eventually gets there, at thecost of time, but without much work. To natural obstacles the wildanimals and the equally wild men who first trod the passes opposedpatience and time, of which they had great store. Later the pioneerbrought the ax. He slashed out the brush, so that he and his might getby without trouble; but he followed the windings of the trail.
The
pass upon which the pursuit entered was a good trail. It ledgradually and almost imperceptibly upward, following the general courseof a creek. The hills sloped back on either hand. Into them led widedraws, timbered, little valleys in themselves. But this pass was merelya vestibule. It reached the summit of the first range of hills, andthere was a way down the other side. The trail had been cut out. Butbeyond were hundreds of square miles of mountains in which what fewtrails there were had never known an ax.
In the afternoon they reached the summit of the first divide. It wascomparatively low, and timbered. There was a lake, scarcely more than apond. There the fugitives had halted.
Rennie and Bush nosed among the signs like old hounds, not looking foranything in particular, but because they could not help it.
"I sh'd say they got two pack ponies," Bush decided. "There's the fourFrench boys, and maybe Garland."
"Garland ain't with 'em," Rennie returned with conviction. "He's toodarn wise. He knows Angus would go after Blake, or if he didn't me orTurkey would. So he'd quit Blake right away and pull out by himself.I'd bet money on it."
"Not with me," Bush grinned. "I guess you're right."
They were standing by the little lake, and Rennie pointed to a moccasintrack that lay in the soft ground. The foot that made it was shapely,rather small, and straight along the inner line. The toes were spreadwidely, naturally.
"That's funny," said Rennie.
"Why?" Bush asked. "It's some Injun. He jumped from there onto that log.I s'pose he wanted water without wettin' his feet."
"What's an Injun doin' here?"
"What's an Injun doin' any place?" Bush countered with the scorn of theold-timer. "S'pose you loosen up some. You know as much about Injuns asI do."
"Well, we ain't met this Injun," said Rennie, "so he's travelin' thesame way we are. Maybe he's just one of a bunch that's in here huntin'.But I was tellin' you about how old Paul Sam come to Angus' wife's placelast night. He was lookin' for Blake. 'Course you heard what was saidabout Blake and his granddaughter. I just wondered."
Bush removed his hat and scratched his head.
"By gosh, I wonder!" he observed. "He's mighty old, but it might be. Heain't no fish-eatin' flat-face Siwash. He's a horse Injun--one of theold stock. But he is darn old."
"He thought a heap of the girl," said Rennie. "He sent her to school. Hewas goin' to make her all same white girl."
"Uh-huh!" Bush growled. "A lot of darn fools think they can do trickslike that. But she's a job for the Almighty. Well, if this is the oldbuck, he couldn't go on a better last war-trail, and I wish him a heapof luck. Now let's get goin'."
Night found them at the foot of the range they had crossed. They werenow in the valley of the Klimminchuck, a fast stream of the proportionsof a river, fed by tributary creeks. Across it rose mountains, range onrange, nameless, cut by valleys, pockets, basins and creeks. Their arearesembled a tumbled sea. It was a mountain wilderness, little known,unmapped, much as it came from the hands of the Creator.
And yet in this wilderness there were trails. Up tributary creekshunters had made them for short distances, but they soon petered out.Beyond, into the heart of the hills, were other faintly marked routes,scarcely trails but ways of traverse, by which at various and widelyseparated times man had penetrated into these solitudes and even crossedthem entirely.
All the men knew something of this mountain area, but Rennie's knowledgewas the most extensive. His was the restlessness, the desire to seesomething of what lay beyond, of the pioneer. He had made longincursions, alone. Bush leaned on this knowledge. Around the fire thatnight, pipes alight, they held council.
"They've turned up river," said Bush. "If they keep on for the headwaters they get into mighty bad country, hey, Dave?"
"Mighty bad," Rennie agreed. "They couldn't get no place."
"And they ain't outfitted to winter. Do they know she's bad up there?"
"Sure they know. Anyhow, Gavin does. My tumtum is they'll ford abovehere and try for a clean get-away, maybe up Copper Creek, right acrossthe mountains."
"Can they make it?"
"They might. Depends on what they know of the country, and what luckthey have."
"With horses?"
"Well, they might."
"How far have you ever gone yourself?"
"I been up to where the Copper heads and over the divide and on apiece."
"Good travelin'?"
"No, darn mean."
"Trail?"
"Only a liar would call it a trail. Still, you can get along if you'recareful."
"Could they have gone farther?"
"Sure."
"Did you ever hear of anybody gettin' plum' through, say to Cache River,that way?"
"I've heard of it--yes. Old Pete Jodoin claimed he made her. And onetime I run onto an old Stoney buck and he told me how, long ago, hispeople used to come down huntin' onto this here Klimmin, but they don'tdo it no more."
"Pete Jodoin was an old liar," said Bush, "and so's any Stoney, ongen'ral principles. But it's funny the places you can go if you knowhow. Think these French boys would know enough to make a trip likethat?"
"Gavin knows a lot about these hills," Rennie replied. "He's hunted in'em a lot by himself. He can pack near as much as a pony, and it's darnhard to say where he went and didn't go."
"Well," said Bush, "I only hope we don't lose their trail."
So far the trail had been plain, the hoof marks on it visible. But onbad ground this would not be the case. There would be no trail, in thesense of a path, and the trail in the sense of hoof-marks mightdisappear entirely. Therefore it was important to ascertain if theycould the line of flight, so that if signs temporarily ceased theremight be a possibility of finding them again further on.
But in the morning the trail of the fugitives led straight to the ford,crossed it and held up the farther side. They came to the mouth ofCopper Creek, a delta with much gravel wash, but the trail of thefugitives, in place of turning the Copper, led straight on up the valleytrail. A couple of miles on, just after crossing a patch of rockyground, Turkey who was in the lead pulled up and dismounted.
"What's the matter, kid?" Bush asked.
"Matter!" Turkey exclaimed. "Why there isn't a shod horse in this bunchof tracks we're following."
Investigation showed that Turkey was right. They had been riding on thetracks of unshod horses, presumably of an Indian hunting party. And asthey had trampled on these with their own shod horses it was going to behard to ascertain just how far they had gone on this false trail. ButRennie had his own idea of a short cut.
"They made the side jump somewheres on these here rocks," he said. "Theyfiggered we'd go hellin' along on the tracks of them barefoots. Now thisbad ground is the end of that there shoulder you see, and she runs backand dips down on the other side to the Copper."
"Sounds reas'nable," Bush admitted, "Then we go back to the Copper."
The two were standing together apart from the others.
"Look over there," said Rennie, "and line up this rock with that lonecottonwood. What do you see?"
Bush looked along the line indicated. "By gosh," he ejaculated, "thatcottonwood's _blazed_!"
"Blazed both sides," Rennie informed him. "I been there. And further onthere's another tree blazed. Fresh."
"Lord--ee!" said Bush. "Them French boys wouldn't do that. You thinkit's the old buck?"
Rennie nodded. "He's wiser 'n we are; also closer to 'em. He's playin' alone hand, so he has to wait his chance at Blake. He figgers Angus willbe after Blake, and as he may run into bad luck himself he wants to makesure somebody lands him. He don't know why the other boys are there, buthe knows there must be some good reason, because they're in a hurry andtryin' to hide their trail. So on gen'ral principles he blazes thatcottonwood where he strikes their tracks where they've turned off, andkeeps goin'."
"Uh-huh!" Bush agreed. "I guess we better not tell them Mackay boysabout the Injun. They'd be for crowdin' things, and likely mess 'em up.The
y don't want nobody to get ahead of 'em. I wish I hadn't told 'emwhat old Braden said. But it seemed right they should know."
"So it is right," said Rennie. "Adam Mackay hadn't no gun. She wasmurder. Only thing, I don't savvy it bein' Gavin French. Givin' thedevil his due, he's all _man_. And Braden was such a darn liar. Well,there's many a card lost in the shuffle turns up in the deal."
The Land of Strong Men Page 43