Brand, Max - Silvertip 06

by The Fighting Four

  "What makes you hate him so much? What's he done to you?" asked Bray.

  The first dark of the night was doubly thick and close. Through it Mantry stepped close to the prisoner, until his face was only inches away.

  "I hate his long, lean mug, if you want to know," said Mantry. "That's what I hate about him. Any objections, anybody?"

  He looked about him for a reply.

  "You're going to get yourself a knife through you some day," said Phil Bray.

  "Yeah? Who'll use the knife, then? Know his name?" asked Mantry in his most offensive manner.

  "Maybe I’ll use it myself," said Bray.

  There was a sudden silence at this. The silence continued until it appeared that even the savage eagerness of Joe Mantry was not quite prepared to match itself against his leader.

  Then Bray went on: "We gotta make up our minds. What about Wayland?"

  "Well," said Mantry, "I've said my say. Speak the word, and I'll do the rest of it. I ain't afraid of ghosts."

  Wayland's soul grew small in his breast. He waited. There was the voice of big Dave Lister to be heard, and Dave said:

  "Well, the quicker the job, the sooner we'll have him off our hands, as far as I see it."

  At that, Phil Bray answered suddenly: "I dunno. You don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth; anybody knows that. It spoils your luck for you. Anybody here that wants to be out of luck?"

  There was no answer.

  "We're not going to run all day and aU night with him," went on Bray. "We gotta camp somewhere and plan things out. He could stay with us a while, and we wouldn't be losing time. How about that?"

  "If you come across a whole orphanage," said bitter young Joe Mantry, "you'd take the whole shooting match along with you to rob a bird's nest. You've made up your mind. You'll take Wayland along with you. But mind you —hell is going to pop!"

  "What makes you think that?"

  "I feel it in my bones," answered Mantry. "I'll crack his head for him, and we'll roll a few rocks over him. He picked this place out for his grave, didn't he? He wanted a monument on the spot, didn't he?"

  Mantry laughed as he completed his suggestion. And still Phil Bray shook his head.

  "Mantry has a hunch, chief. Let him have his own way," urged Lister.

  Bray said: "Not now. We'll talk it over later on. I wouldn't want to see this poor fool socked on the head. Not now. We'll talk it over later on."

  In that casual manner, at the last moment, the life of Wayland was spared. But he knew that death was still in the very air that he breathed.

  XIX—THE DOUBLE CROSS

  Bray chose the camp, and in an odd place. He selected a hillside slope and a big clearing. Through the clearing ran a swift, shallow stream of snow water. There were a few bushes near by, but the trees all stood back a considerable distance. The exact spot where Bray chose to build the camp fire was where a number of rocks cropped out from the ground.

  Joe Mantry took serious exception to the site. He said: "All that a man hunter would need to do would be to lie down on the edge of the trees and snipe at us. We're all right out here in the open. We're held up to view. It's a cinch for anybody that's after us. Jimmy Lovell, say."

  Bray answered: "Well, they'll have nothing much to shoot by, considering the distance. Look at the fire."

  It was a small flame, just enough to heat coffee and broil some rabbit meat.

  "Look at the shadows," went on Bray.

  In fact, as tlie flame swayed this way and that, the shadows thrown by the rocks wavered also through the air, and no perceptible light reached the trees.

  "Come back, all of you, and take a look from the edge of the trees," went on Bray.

  Accordingly, they all retreated to the verge of the woods. From that viewpoint the camp seemed secure indeed. Even the big bodies of the horses were wavering and obscure in the sweep of the shadows, as though they were objects afloat in the water. The rocks themselves, it was apparent, were perfect breastworks behind which the party could take shelter.

  "Besides," said Bray, "there ain't much chance that we'll be sniped at. Suppose that Lovell got on the trail. It ain't blood that he wants, but the money. He'd try to sneak-thieve the coin again, and that's all there is to it. And we've got a place here where the horses get enough good grazing. We've got water at our feet. And with one man on guard, I wanta ask you how anything but a mole or a bird could get at us? Anybody answer up?"

  To this there was a silence, and Dave Lister actually bent back his head and looked up into the air, as though expecting that danger might at that moment be coming toward them on the wing.

  They went back to the camp, and the cooking started. Lister drew the lot as the first guard, and began to stalk back and forth, on the alert.

  Jimmy Lovell, they all admitted, was a clever fellow, but it was considered that the problem of getting at them in such an encampment as this would be totally beyond his powers.

  The hopes of Wayland, in the meantime, gradually diminished. Finally they reached zero, for it seemed clear that there was nothing for him to do except pray that his own life might be saved from the trouble in which he stood.

  Phil Bray still adopted an attitude of kindness. The hands of Wayland were freed, and, under strict guard, he was permitted to eat his share of the food and drink some coffee. He was even allowed to smoke a cigarette, and while he was smoking it, Joe Mantry opened the conversation again:

  "It's a queer thing that Lovell would pick out Iron Mountain. How come?"

  "Yeah, I been thinking about that," admitted Bray. "It beats me, too!"

  He was puffing at a short-stemmed pipe so hard that the glow of the coal kept illumining his face in short pulsations of light.

  "It wouldn't seem nacheral," said Bray, "for an hombre like Lovell to stay put with his wad of coin. Not after he knew that we were loose and on his trail. Seems more like he would keep drifting and pretty soon break right out of the mountaius and clear away. Did you talk to him, Wayland?"

  "I talked to him," said Wayland. "I've got an idea why he stays on Iron Mountain."

  "Why?" snapped Mantry.

  "Well, he says that he has a friend on Iron Mountain who would take care of him if anything happened."

  "A friend? What, you mean one man?" asked Bray.

  "Yes," said Wayland, and nodded thoughtfully. He was beginning to see a vague hope of a way out for himself.

  "One man to guard Lovell against the three of us? Jimmy ain't such a fool as all of that," remarked Joe Mantry. "He wouldn't trust any one man in the world to guard him against all of us. Not even Jim Silver, that Bray is always talking about."

  "Well," said Wayland, "he has a man that he trusts, just the same. He wasn't very worried because I got the money away from him. He said that his friend would follow along and get it back from me."

  "What friend?" asked Bray shortly.

  Wayland smiled. "Boys," he said, "you know how it is. I naturally want to do all I can for you. But the rule in business is that you never do something for nothing."

  "You hear that?" asked Mantry, turning his handsome head toward Bray.

  "I hear it," said Bray. "Blame him?"

  "I'd cut his throat for him if he didn't talk out!" observed Mantry.

  "A cut throat doesn't say a lot, either," answered Bray. "But maybe there's nothing behind all of this." He said to Wayland: "You stringing us along, Wayland?"

  Wayland shook his head.

  "Come out with it, then," said Bray.

  "It's worth a bargain, what I could tell you," said Wayland.

  "Joe," ordered Bray, "try a hand at making him talk."

  "I'll try a hand, all right," said Joe Mantry.

  He got to his feet and brought a gun into his hand. He stepped over to Wayland and put the gun against his head.

  "Now, you talk pronto," he said, "or I'll blow you into a deep sleep. I'll be the sandman for you. I'll close your eyes for you!"

  Wayland looked up at the savage face
of Mantry. By the tremor of the gun that was pressed against his temple, he could feel the wild desire to kill that was in Mantry. But there was in Wayland, at bottom, a calmly invincible stubbornness of character.

  "No," he said to Mantry calmly.

  "You hear that, chief?" snarled Mantry. And by the tightening of his face, Wayland knew that Mantry's finger was tightening on the trigger, also.

  "Wait a minute, Joe," put in Bray.

  "Yeah, I knew that you'd spoil it," said Mantry, stepping back with a curse. "I was going to soften him up so that he'd take fingerprints, was all. Now you've spoiled it."

  "You'd 'a' softened him up till he was dead," said Bray, "and the fact is that even Joe Mantry is old enough to know that dead men can't talk."

  "All the better," said Mantry.

  "Unless you want to hear what they know," replied Bray. "And I want to hear what Wayland knows."

  Dave Lister broke in suddenly as he came to a halt in his pacing:

  "I want to know, too. That bird has something in his crop."

  "What's your price?" asked Bray.

  "You turn me loose," said Wayland.

  "Not on your life!" answered Mantry.

  "I dunno," said Lister. "Why not? What's the good of dragging this guy around with us? And if we slam him, we're marking off our trail with red. And that's no business, either."

  "Wayland," said Bray suddenly, "you'll get what you want, then. Tell us about the friend of Lovell?"

  "His name is Jim Silver," said Wayland.

  Bray got up to his feet. He took the pipe out of his mouth and made a gesture that sent the ashes from the bowl flying out into a thin arc that hung an instant in the air.

  "Silver?" he muttered. "Jim Silver?"

  "That's what Lovell told me."

  "Jim Silver?" echoed Dave Lister. "Then Silver will come down on our trail!"

  "Steady," said Joe Mantry. "You gents make me sick. Silver's only flesh and blood, and he can't see in the dark. We're safe enough here till the morning. And if he sees us then, why, we'll have a chance to see him, too, and if three can shoot as well as one, maybe we'll nail that hombre and put an end to him!"

  He spoke with a rising confidence, so that it was plain that the need of a fight was in his blood.

  "We'll stay here till morning," said Bray slowly. He put the pipe back between his teeth and gritted them against the stem of it. "And then, in the morning," he went on, "we'll start trekking. We'll split up the coin, and we'll head every man for a different point on the compass."

  He fell silent again.

  "What's the main idea?" said Dave Lister, his voice running up sharp and high. "Split up in a pinch?"

  "Because," said Bray, "if he finds us all together, he'll swallow us all at a bite. We've got no chance against him. But if we scatter, probably two of us will get away. One of us is pretty sure to, by traveling fast and keeping on gomg."

  "You're that afraid of him, are you?" asked Joe Mantry, sneering again.

  Bray looked at him with a vague eye.

  "Don't talk to me, Joe," he said. "I've got to think."

  He sat down again, and was buried in thought. Then Wayland said:

  "All right, boys. I've lived up to my side of the bargain. I'll go now. I'm not afraid of the dark."

  Bray did not seem to hear, but Mantry laughed loudly. He crossed to Wayland, and, with a jab of his foot, drew attention.

  "You poor fool," he said, "we told you that we'd turn you loose, but we didn't tell you when! You'll stay put till we're ready to handle you."

  Wayland stared at Bray, and the big man gave him no heed. He looked toward Dave Lister, and saw the tall fellow grinning as he strode back and forth.

  There was no use in appealing to either of them, he understood. The double cross was perfectly apparent. There was nothing for Wayland to do but stare at the fire and wonder how many hours separated him from the death that would now surely come. He knew too much, and he had revealed too much. They would have to get rid of him. That swiftly running stream of snow water might be the answer.

  XX—FOLLOWING FROSTY

  It had seemed to Jimmy Lovell that he would never be able to set Silver in motion, but once that famous man had commenced to act, Lovell felt that all he needed to do was to sit back and take things easy. In the first place, he would merely bring Jim Silver to the place where he had last seen Wayland. Then he would simply watch Silver work. "But it's going to be dark," wailed Lovell. "It's going t to be dark before long, and then you can't do anything."

  "You show me the place where you met him," said Silver, and mounted Parade. At the same time there was a rustling sound in the I brush, and Frosty came bounding out at them. There was enough light to show thin streaks of blood on his vest, and it was plain that even in this short absence the matchless hunter had managed to find food. When he saw his master on Parade, he sat down and pointed his nose at the man and ruffed out his mane. Lovell set himself to withstand the ghostly sound of the wolf howl. But it did not come.

  Lovell was on his mustang by this time. They had broken camp in a very few minutes, because a Jhn Silver camp never had many things lying about. A wolf can pause where it pleases and curl up for sleep, and Jim Silver seemed to be able to do the same thing.

  So Lovell led the way down the slope to the spot where he had last seen Wayland.

  The day was nearly dead now, but out of the ground, lingering on the grass, there seemed to rise a thin luster. The dew was not yet falling, but the gleam of the green was as though it were wet.

  Lovell pointed out the important features. Here he had ridden the horse; here he had shot the rabbit; there Wayland had stood among the trees; there he had stalked out; here he had confronted Lovell; there they had wrestled on the ground, there where the crushed grass was slowly erecting itself again; and, finally, in these places the little burro had gone away, with its master following after him.

  While this explanation took place, Silver kept Parade and the wolf at a distance. As it ended, he brought in Frosty with a gesture and showed him first the impressions of the feet of Wayland, letting him M his nostrils with the scent. Afterward he picked up the trail of the burro. Then he mounted.

  It was deep twilight now, and Frosty struck off along that trail at a steady lope that kept the horses at a trot or a canter. Only now and then the wolf paused, scented right and left, or threw his muzzle high into the air, and then went rapidly on again.

  Another picture came suddenly into the mind of Lovell —of himself fleeing for life, and this relentless pursuer following over a trail that the eyes of no man could hold, with Parade striding in the rear, and Jim Silver and his guns moimted on the stallion. It was a partnership, Lovell felt, of more than human power. Dread made his scalp prickle, and anger worked in his heart. Even while Silver was laboring for him, LoveU felt a finer hatred distilling in his soul.

  They got into rough country, where it was difficult to foUow the wolf by sight, for the gray of his coat seemed to fit into the color of the shrubbery and of the rocks. He glided like a vanishing thought before them.

  Even then Lovell did not have to worry. For Parade would follow Frosty by the scent, easily. So, blindly conducted, LoveU went forward, his mustang on a constant lope now, until they were journeying up a big canyon with a flat floor. In the midst of this Frosty stopped. Parade halted a moment later beside him, snorting softiy, and stamping.

  "Something strange," said Silver, "but probably it's not dangerous. Frosty won't go closer unless I lead him in."

  He rode Parade forward a short distance, then turned in a moment and called:

  "The body of a dead horse. That's all. But there's one strange thing about it. The saddle and bridle are still on it!"

  "Somebody was in a hurry. How did it die?" asked Lovell.

  Silver was already on the ground, lighting a match. Lovell did not even dismount. It was useless, he felt, to add his acute observation to the all-seeing eyes of Jim Silver.

  "Shot," s
aid Silver. "A rifle bullet at fairly long range."

  He dropped the match. His stem face disappeared in the night once more. Again Lovell had the strange, shuddering feeling that this man was pursuing him, not Way-land.

  Frosty, in the meantime, had slipped up to the dead carcass, sniffed at the saddle, and now uttered a faint howl and started on back trail.

  "He's afraid!" exclaimed Lovell.

  "Not afraid. He's telling us that our man left this horse and went back down the canyon."

  "But Wayland had a burro, not a horse!"

  "Well, if he wanted a horse, he had money enough with him to buy it, I suppose."

  "Or he might steal it. And then somebody started shooting at him?"

  Silver had lighted another match and with it was running back up the canyon floor in the direction from which i the dead horse had evidently been coming. Parade, his mane and the reins of his hackamore tossing, followed his master closely. But Frosty remained in the distance, sitting down and watching Silver's proceedings. There in the starlight, the big wolf looked like a dim ghost.

  Silver had lighted several more matches. Now he mounted Parade and returned to Lovell. He reported: "That horse was travelling on a dead run. A bullet hit it. It began to sag. Its strides shortened back there. The rider dismounted and ran on ahead. That rider was Wayland, or Frosty would not be so keen to follow him. Come on!" Silver called. The wolf once more sprang out on the ' invisible trail, and passing down the ravine for a short distance, he then made a sharp turn to the right, into the black mouth of a narrow valley. Silver whistled. Frosty went on at a skulking walk until they came out of the utter blackness of that entrance into a wider valley inside. Before them they saw the dim outlines of a rocky hummock.

  Silver dismounted at once.

  "That's the sort of a place that a man might use as a fort," he said. "I'm going to take a look at it."

  Take a look at it, thought Lovell, in the black of the night, not knowing what danger or desperate men might be concealed? He himself remained well to the rear while Silver ran ahead with Frosty. They slowed as they came near to the rocks. Then they disappeared from view.