The Rules of the Game
Page 86
XXVIII
In some manner Saleratus Bill had discovered the young man's escape, andhad already eliminated the other possibilities of his direction offlight. Bob shuddered at this evidence of the rapidity with which theexpert trailer had arrived at the correct conclusion. He could not nowskirt the mountain, as he had intended, for that would at once exposehim in full view; he could not return by the way he had come, for thatwould bring him face to face with his enemy. It would avail him littleto surrender, for the gun-man would undoubtedly make good his threats;fidelity to such pledges is one of the few things sacred to the race.With some vague and desperate idea of defence, Bob picked up a heavybranch of driftwood. Then, as the man drew nearer, Bob scrambled hastilyover the smooth apron to the tiny beach that the eddies had washed outbelow the precipice.
Here for the moment he was hidden, but he did not flatter himself hewould long remain so. He cast his eyes about him for a way of escape. Tothe one side was the river, in front of him was the rock apron with hisenemy, to the other side and back of him was a sheer precipice. In hisperplexity he looked down. A gleam of metal caught his eye. He stoopedand picked up the half of a worn horseshoe. Even in his haste of mind,he cast a passing wonderment on how it had come there.
If Bob had not been trained by his river work in the ways of currents,he might sooner have thought of the stream. But well he knew thatSaleratus Bill had spoken right when he had said that there were "noswimming holes" here. The strongest swimmer could not have taken twostrokes in that cauldron of seething white water. But now, as Boblooked, he saw that a little back eddy along the perpendicularity of thecliff slowed the current close to the sheer rock. It might be justpossible, with luck, to win far enough along this cliff to lie concealedbehind some outjutting boulder until Saleratus Bill had examined thebeach and gone his way. Bob was too much in haste to consider theunexplained tracks he must leave on the sand.
He thrust the branch he carried into the still black water. To hissurprise it hit bottom at a foot's depth. Promptly he waded in. Soundingahead, he walked on. The underwater ledge continued. The water nevercame above his knees. Out of curiosity he tapped with his branch untilhe had reached the edge of the submerged shelf. It proved to be somefour feet wide. Beyond it the water dropped off sheer, and the currentnearly wrenched the staff from Bob's hand.
In this manner he proceeded cautiously for perhaps a hundred feet. Thenhe waded out on another beach.
He found himself in a pocket of the cliffs, where the precipice so fardrew back as to leave a clear space of four or five acres in the riverbottom. Such pockets, or "coves," are by no means unusual in theinaccessible depths of the great box canons of the Sierras. Often thetraveller can look down on them from above, lying like green gems intheir settings of granite, but rarely can he descend to examine them.Thankfully Bob darted to one side. Here for a moment he might be safe,for surely no one not driven by such desperation as his own would dreamof setting foot in the river.
A loud snort almost at his elbow, and a rush of scurrying shapes,startled him almost into crying aloud. Then out into the moonlight fromthe shadow of the cliffs rushed two horses. And Bob, seeing what theywere, sprang from his fancied security into instant action, for in aflash he saw the significance of the broken horseshoe on the beach, thesunken ledge, and the secret of the horses' pasture. By sheer chance hehad blundered on one of Saleratus Bill's outlaw retreats.
Hastily he skirted the walls of the tiny valley. They were unbroken. Theriver swept by tortured and tumbled. He ran to the head of the cove. Nosunken ledge there rewarded him. Instead, the river at that point sweptinward, so that the full force of the current washed the very shores.
Bob searched the prospect with eager eye. Twelve or fifteen feetupstream, and six or seven feet out from the cliff, stood a huge roundboulder. That alone broke the shadowy expanse of the river, which hererushed down with great velocity. Manifestly it was impossible to swim tothis boulder. Bob, however, conceived a daring idea. At imminent riskand by dint of frantic scrambling he worked his way along the cliffuntil he had gained a point opposite the boulder and considerably aboveit. Then, without hesitation, he sprang as strongly as he was ablesidewise from the face of the cliff.
He landed on the boulder with great force, so that for a moment hefeared he must have broken some bones. Certainly his breath was all butknocked from his body. Spread out flat on the top of the rock, he movedhis limbs cautiously. They seemed to work all right. He backedcautiously until he lay outspread on the upstream slope of the boulder.At just this moment he caught the sinister figure of Saleratus Billmoving along the sunken ledge.
For the first time Bob remembered the tracks he must have left and theman's skill at trailing. A rapid review of his most recent actionsreassured him at one point; in order to gain to the first of the minorcliff projections by means of which he had spread-eagled along the faceof the rock, he had been forced to step into the very shallow water atthe stream's edge. Thus his last footprints led directly into the river.
The value of this impression, conjoined with the existence of a ledgebelow over which he had already waded safely, was not lost on Bob'spreception. As has been stated, his earlier experience in river drivinghad given him an intimate knowledge of the action of currents. Castinghis eye hastily down the moonlit river, he seized his hat from his headand threw it low and skimming toward an eddy opposite him as he lay. Theriver snatched it up, tossed it to one side or another, and finallycarried it, as Bob had calculated, within a few feet of the ledge alongwhich Saleratus Bill was still making his way.
The gun-man, of course, caught sight of it, and even made an attempt tocapture it as it floated past, but without avail. It served, however, toprepossess his mind with the idea that Bob had been swept away by theriver, so that when, after a careful examination of the tiny cove, hecame to the trail leading into the water, he was prepared to believethat the young man had been carried off his feet in an attempt to wadeout past the cliff. He even picked up a branch, with which he poked atthe bottom. A short and narrow rock projection favoured his hypothesis,for it might very well happen that merely an experimental venture on soslanting and slippery a footing would prove fatal. Saleratus Billexamined again for footprints emerging; threw his branch into the river,and watched the direction of its course; and then, for the first time,slipped the worn and shiny old revolver into its holster. He spentseveral moments more reexamining the cove, glanced again at the river,and finally disappeared, wading slowly back around the sunken ledge.
Bob's next task was to regain solid land. For some minutes he satastride the boulder, estimating the force and directions of the current.Then he leaped. As he had calculated, the stream threw him promptlyagainst the bank below. There his legs were immediately sucked beneaththe overhanging rock that had convinced Saleratus Bill of his captive'sfate. It seemed likely now to justify that conviction. Bob clungdesperately, until his muscles cracked, but was unable so far to drawhis legs from underneath the rock as to gain a chance to struggle outof water. Indeed, he might very well have hung in that equilibrium offorces until tired out, had not a slender, water-washed alder rootoffered itself to his grasp. This frail shrub, but lightly rooted,nevertheless afforded him just the extra support he required. Though heexpected every instant that the additional ounces of weight he frommoment to moment applied to it would tear it away, it held. Inch by inchhe drew himself from the clutch of the rushing water, until at length hesucceeded in getting the broad of his chest against the bank. A fewvigorous kicks then extricated him.
For a moment or so he lay stretched out panting, and considering whatnext was to be done. There was a chance, of course--and, in view ofSaleratus Bill's shrewdness, a very strong chance--that the gun-manwould add to his precautions a wait and a watch at the entrance to thecove. If Bob were to wade out around the ledge, he might run fairly intohis former jailer's gun. On the other hand, Saleratus Bill must befairly well convinced of the young man's destruction, and he must bedesirous of changing his wet
clothes. Bob's own predicament, in thischill of night, made him attach much weight to this latterconsideration. Besides, any delay in the cove meant more tracks to benoticed when the gun-man should come after the horses. Bob, his teethchattering, resolved to take the chance of instant action.
Accordingly he waded back along the sunken ledge, glided as quickly ashe could over the rock apron, and wormed his way through the grasses tothe dry wash leading up the side of the mountains. Here fortune hadfavoured him, and by a very simple, natural sequence. The moon had by anhour sailed farther to the west; the wash now lay in shadow.
Bob climbed as rapidly as his wind would let him, and in that manneravoided a chill. He reached the road at a broad sheet of rock whereonhis footsteps left no trace. After a moment's consideration, he decidedto continue directly up the mountainside through the thick brush. Thistravel must be uncertain and laborious; but if he proceeded along theroad, Saleratus Bill must see the traces he would indubitably leave. Inthe obscurity of the shady side of the mountain he found his task evenmore difficult than he had thought possible. Again and again he foundhimself puzzled by impenetrable thickets, impassable precipices, roughoutcrops barring his way. By dint of patience and hard work, however, hegained the top of the mountain. At sunrise he looked back into Bright'sCove. It lay there peacefully deserted, to all appearance; but Bob,looking very closely, thought to make out smoke. The long thread of theroad was quite vacant.