by Brand, Max
“Back yonder,” said Gary, with a very general wave of his hand.
“Back where?”
“Over yonder.”
“Who is he?” asked Thurston. “Don’t beat around the bush like this. Who is he?”
“A fellow you may have heard of. His name is Jim Silver.”
The effect was instant. Thurston dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground and nodded.
“Jim Silver’s with you, eh?” he said. “And doing what? Hunting Frosty?”
“How do you guess that?”
“Silver can’t do anything that people won’t talk about,” said Thurston. “Every time he lifts his hand, the shadow falls right across the sky.” He chuckled, amused by his own conceit.
“Get off your horse and sit down,” said Thurston finally.
Gary accepted the invitation.
“There’s nothing cooked yet,” said Thurston. “Can’t offer you anything.”
“That’s all right. Other fellows out hunting grub?”
“What other fellows?” snapped Thurston.
“Why,” said Gary, “you couldn’t be up here handling and feeding a mob of dogs like this all by yourself.”
But he was disturbed by the sudden way in which Thurston had snapped the words at him.
“I can handle those dogs and more,” was all that Thurston replied.
“That’s Frosty’s mate, isn’t she?” asked Gary.
“What makes you think so?”
“Why else would you have her on a chain?”
“Because she’s the finest she-wolf that I’ve ever seen. Some of the museums are always looking for outstanding specimens like her. They get plenty of fine dog-wolf pelts for stuffing, but mighty few females that are not runts.”
Gary merely smiled.
“You don’t believe me, eh?” asked Thurston, frowning.
“Sure, that’s all right,” answered Gary. “I believe anything that you want to tell me.”
“Thanks,” said Thurston coldly.
He kept on eying Gary as though with a profound distrust.
“All right,” said Gary. “You don’t have to open up and talk. We’re both after the same scalp, and I suppose you’ll get it — now that you have this museum hide staked out. Do you always do that, Thurston?”
“Do I always do what?”
“Stake out your big wolves and cool ‘em off with a little walking on a chain before you take their hides?”
Joe Thurston snapped suddenly: “You’re too curious.”
“Sorry,” said Alec Gary slowly.
Thurston turned suddenly on his heel and walked off through the trees.
He simply tossed over his shoulder the words: “He’s Jim Silver’s hunting partner, and Silver is somewhere around here.”
Whom was he addressing? Alec Gary glanced over his shoulder and saw two big men stepping out from behind the pine trees. One was heavily, strongly made about the shoulders and narrow through the hips; in body and in face he was something of the appearance of Jim Silver, though he was less clean-cut. His companion had a rather long, pale, handsome face. He looked as though he had not been much in the sunlight. His hair was very long. He had supple hands with very long fingers. One might have expected to see him sitting at an easel pointing a woodland scene rather than drawing a revolver with a practiced ease.
“Who are you, partner?” he asked as he approached.
His voice was wonderfully soft, gentle and low but that did not seem an excellent thing to Alec Gary. He had heard a cat purr on much the same note. In the face of the pale man’s companion there was a frank and open glint of mockery.
“My name is Alec Gary,” he answered. “Who are you?”
“Wilkins,” said the stranger. “This is my partner, Hal Murphy.”
“Or Jones?” queried Alec Gary. “Or Smith? Or Brown?”
For the falsity of the name suddenly rang hollow on his ear. He regretted that he had allowed his tongue to take the mastery over him.
“Wilkins” continued to regard him with a quiet eye.
“You’re with Silver, are you?” he asked.
“I’m with Jim Silver,” answered Gary, reassured as he mentioned the name.
For, even if these fellows were outlaws, they would be certain to respect that famous and terrible name.
“Then,” said the pale-faced man, “perhaps you wouldn’t mind spending a little time with us?”
“Why should I?” asked Gary.
“Because,” said the other, while his companion suddenly grinned more broadly, “Jim Silver knows me, and when he comes looking for you, to-night, I want him to find me in.”
“Jim Silver knows you?” repeated Gary. He could understand that there was a threat in the air, but he could not make out what seemed a very twisted meaning.
The pale man kept smiling gently at him. His voice was more poisonously caressing than ever as he answered: “You see the she-wolf, Gary?”
“Well?” asked Gary.
“She’s bait for Frosty. She’s his mate.”
“I guessed at that,” answered Gary, frowning.
“And I’ve been hoping,” said the other, “that Jim Silver might come investigating at about the same time that Frosty dropped in on us. But now that you’ve decided to stay with us, I’ll be the surer that Silver will come. Because there is one thing that one can always be sure of, when Jim Silver is in the case. He won’t let his friends down. Never! If one of ‘em gets in a pinch, honest Jim Silver, brave Jim Silver, noble Jim Silver will never fail to put his head in the lion’s mouth to get the fellow out of trouble.”
A strong chill of dread passed through Alec Gary, body and mind.
“What trouble?” he asked. “I don’t follow you!”
“Don’t you? Be patient, brother, be patient. If you stay here with us, you see, Jim Silver might get a wrong idea in his head. He might think that you were being forced to stay. He might think that we’d drawn guns on you, and tied you hand and foot, and that we intended to keep you until we decided how we’d cut your throat. And ideas like that are just the things to bring out all the nobility of Mr. Silver. Oh, I could tell you some strange stories about the ways he has walked into danger for the sake of his friends. Eh?”
The silent companion nodded and grinned. Both of them were watching Gary steadily, and a big Colt kept shifting in the supple hand of the pale man.
“Who are you?” broke out Gary suddenly.
“Why,” said the pale man, “as you suggested a while ago, you might call us Smith, or Jones, or Brown, or, perhaps, Barry Christian and Duff Gregor!”
At this, as the flesh of Gary turned to stone, Gregor broke out:
“Why give him the names, Barry? That’s a fool play, it seems to me!”
“Because,” said Christian calmly, “after he’s been used, he won’t be alive to talk about us, Duff.”
He made a gesture that jerked up the muzzle of the Colt.
“Put up your hands, you poor half-wit,” he said to Gary. “You’ve walked right in on us, and now you’ll stay a while.”
There was plenty of fighting blood in Alec Gary. To put up his hands meant to surrender his hope of living. But not to raise them, as he plainly saw in the face of Barry Christian, meant to die at once. Besides, the evil name of the man enchanted him and killed his heart. Slowly he raised his hands in surrender.
CHAPTER XIX
The Coming Storm
JIM SILVER, as he went down the hillside on Parade, heard out of the north and the west a heavy rumbling, as if a great wagon were rolling over a wooden bridge, gradually disappearing.
The noise died away. It began again. Then he saw the glimmer of distant lightning above the mountaintops. Either that was a storm which would presently walk up across the sky and put out the stars, or else it was to be confined to the farther side of the range, only its head showing in thin flashes above the crest of the peaks.
He passed the bottom of the valley, and Parade started
through the trees, weaving suddenly to this side and then to that, for Parade knew perfectly well that branches which he could easily clear himself might nevertheless sweep his master out of the saddle, and when Silver was on his back, the man was a part of the horse. One nervous system seemed adequate for them both. So they went snaking through the woods at a pace that would have been ruinous for any other rider on any other mount.
When they were well up the slope of the mountain, at about the place where Silver expected to find the clearing, he halted Parade, dismounted, and whispered for a moment into the ear of the great horse. Parade would stand quietly now, straining his ears to hear from his master even the faintest and most distant whistle. And if there were a sound of footfalls coming toward him through the woods, Parade could tell perfectly if the step of his master were among the noises. Otherwise he would shift and give ground and hide himself with all the cunning of some great jungle beast.
So Silver left him and went gradually forward, listening continually for noises of any sort. Now and again he heard the voices of the dogs as they whimpered in their sleep or wakened to growl at imaginations of the night.
That was all that he could make out until he suddenly found himself clear of the trees. That was all he could make out for an instant, but dropping to one knee, he commenced to scan everything around him with care until the starlight showed him the main details.
He was on the verge of the clearing. Yonder skulked the she-wolf, with the long steel chain clinking musically as she walked back and forth. Now she lay down and gritted at the chain with her strong teeth; and out of the distance — no, it was not so very far away — Frosty’s melancholy call came echoing through the woods.
Then a man’s voice said: “He’s on the trail now. He’s pretty close, too.”
The words were not what made Silver flatten himself against a tree to gain a better shelter. They were not what brought the Colt suddenly into his hand. But it was the voice that ran all through him with an electric shock of savage joy and desire.
It was the prime goal of all his questing, and he was now in reaching distance of it. It was Barry Christian who spoke there.
He could see the man, at first obscured against the shadow of the trees, but now discernible with a smaller companion at his side. Whoever it was, it was not Duff Gregor.
“He’s coming in,” said the smaller man. “I thought he’d have more sense. It’s a pity in a way, Barry. It’s like seeing a great man throw himself away on account of a woman.”
“I’ll pity him to-morrow, if I can catch him to-night,” answered Christian. “Whisper hears him now. Listen to her whining.”
“Who gave her that name?” asked the smaller man.
“Gregor,” said Barry Christian. “And it fits her. If it weren’t for the chain that she carries around, we’d never hear her moving.”
“Whisper!” said the other. “Well, isn’t it time for you to get on guard? Isn’t Silver likely to show up any moment?”
“Not for a time, I think,” said Christian. “Only the devil can tell just what Silver will do or how long it will take him to do it. But he won’t be here for a while, I suppose. If he does come — well, he may simply blunder into the clearing and — ”
His voice stopped.
“You’ll have only starlight to shoot by,” said the smaller man.
“There are handfuls of buckshot in those shotguns,” said Christian. “We won’t miss. This time of all times, we won’t miss.”
They retired toward the base of the big rock. From the darkness there, unseen, the voice of Alec Gary spoke. There was the hard, smacking sound of a blow and a snarling answer. Gary spoke no more. One of the dogs whimpered, as though in sympathy. Then the forest settled back into silence.
It was only silence close at hand. In the distance there was still the muttering and the rumbling of the thunder, from time to time.
Silver remained on one knee. If ever he had been close to praying, he was close now; and if ever temptation had taken him by the throat, it had been when the dark form of Barry Christian loomed so close through the night. One flick of Silver’s thumb over the hammer of his revolver, and Barry Christian would have gone, at last, to his final account. It seemed to Jim Silver, as he kneeled there, that there was a perverse deity controlling him, bringing him so often close to the great criminal, and so often letting Christian slip away from him again.
He had lodged Christian in prison, to await the death penalty; and Christian had managed to escape almost on the last day. He had seen Christian hurled into a flooded river that ran like a galloping horse toward a cataract. But chance and the unlucky hands of another man had drawn Christian out of the danger that time. And now, as Silver kneeled in the dark, he knew that at last he could bring the trail to an end and kill his man. It was the thing for which he had waited. It was an incredible good fortune that had brought Christian into his hand. He would speak one word — and then the bullet would strike.
But the thought of young Alec Gary held Silver back. Gary was somewhere near. Gary and a she-wolf were baits for him and for the great wolf, Frosty.
That thought was still working in his mind, holding his hand, as Christian moved away through the darkness. And then, after Gary had spoken and had been silenced, and after the dog had whimpered and silence fallen yet again, Silver was aware that something lived beside him. There had been no sound of the approach, but something was there — something formidably big and dangerous.
Gradually he turned his head and saw, hardly two steps away, the dim loom of the figure of a wolf.
Perhaps it was because Silver was on one knee, but it seemed to him at the first glance that the creature had the outline of a wolf but the bulk of a bear. A shock of fear struck Silver.
Then he realized that it was Frosty.
He had come through the darkness to the edge of the clearing. Would he venture out across ground that was doubtless sewed thick with traps?
The big fellow drifted a little forward, crouched on his belly, stretched out a shadowy paw, and then drew it back. He moved to the side, and then the wind seemed to come to him from the man so close.
There was an instant of pause. Frosty bristled to his full height. The green glare of his eyes burned into the soul of Silver. And then he was gone. For all the speed of that withdrawal, still there had not been a sound.
Was that not another of the ironies which chance was heaping upon the head of Jim Silver on this night? The wolf had been there beside him. He had even been able to make out the glimmer of the steel links of the collar that was around his neck. And yet Silver had not dared to shoot.
He had not dared because of Alec Gary. The young fellow seemed to be hung like a leaden weight around his neck.
But what could be done?
To cross the clearing was impossible because of the traps. It was impossible because of the shotguns, also. For Barry Christian would not miss. Even Silver himself was hardly a hairbreadth more accurate with weapons than Christian — and on this night Christian would be shooting for the prize of all his life.
How to come at the prisoner at the base of the rock, then?
It was typical of Christian that he should have had wit enough to secure his man at a point which was so perfectly open, and which was nevertheless so unapproachable.
Suppose that Silver tried to skirt around through the woods and come at the others?
Well, there would be traps through the woods, too — on the verge of them, at least. And if a wolf trap closed on his foot it would be a bad business — the last business for Jim Silver in this world.
He gritted his teeth and waited for a thought. None came.
He withdrew through the trees to Parade and saw the pale glimmer of the great eyes of the horse. Parade stood with high head, turning it a little from side to side, his ears stiffly forward as he listened and scented a hundred dangers. His fear was so great that he had broken into a fine sweat, but still he waited at his post for his master.
And a great outrush of admiration for the dumb brute poured from the heart of Silver. What is so admirable as those who can endure even when they cannot understand?
As he stroked the horse, his hand touched the rope which was coiled and tied to the front of the saddle. With it came his first hope of making the delivery of Alec Gary.
It was only a vague hope, for the scheme seemed so ridiculous that he smiled and shook his head in the darkness. He gripped his hands hard, also, and flexed the big muscles of his arms.
He was stronger, far stronger than other men, and yet he could not help doubting the sufficiency of his might for the task which he contemplated.
He took Parade back through the woods, circled them at a distance, and as the wind blew from him toward the clearing, he heard the dogs of the pack break out into one of their sudden clamors. He continued in the wide sweep of the semicircle, quitted Parade in the trees up the slope, and at last came slowly forward, carrying the rope which he had taken from the saddle.
He had laid his course, through the darkness of the night and the trees, with such accuracy that he came out just above the lip of the rock at the foot of which the men of the camp were posted.
The night was dimmer than ever. It seemed that the storm which had been roaring in the north and west was now breaking out of the higher mountains and approaching this section. Gusts of wind moaned distantly through the trees or sounded close at hand with sudden rushings. Big clouds, also, were poured in broken streams across the sky, so that the stars were blotted out in great parts of the heavens. But in intervals of the noise of the coming storm, Silver, stretched out at full length on the ground, staring down from the ledge, could hear and vaguely see the men below.
CHAPTER XX
Rope Rescue
WHAT Silver made out, at last, was one figure continually in place at the bottom of the rock. That he took to be his friend, particularly since the silhouette never moved, and therefore was probably bound hand and foot. There were three others who changed places from time to time. Sometimes one of them would move away into the woods on one side, and sometimes one would pass into the other trees. He heard the name “Thurston” used, which served to identify the smaller man of the trio. The others would be Christian and Gregor, of course.