by Max Brand
“Take those trees on the hill, there,” called someone who appeared to be in command of that immediate section of the hunt.
Four revolvers were instantly drawn in the thicket. At least they would not sell their lives cheaply.
“There ain’t no use. They couldn’t try to hid there, all four of ’em,” came the answer. And never were words spoken which gave greater joy to four men.
“Do what you’re told to do,” called the other. “We miss nothin’ on this beat so long as I run the gang. Go on and look. It won’t take long.”
Peering eagerly through the bushes they could see two youths swing aside from the rest of the advancing line and step up the hillside to carry out the order. The end, then, had come!
“Bill!” said Hank Geer very softly.
The other started.
“Well?” he answered, quivering with his excitement.
“Step out in front of these here trees. Start talkin’ to those two gents. Stop ’em from searchin’ here, or else the first bullet I fire is into your back. Remember — I’m watchin’ you hard. And — I don’t miss no chances when I shoot. Remember that!”
And Bill, white of face, shaking, his bright little eyes intent with desperate thought, rose without a word and stumbled out of the thicket. He came out on the farther side just above the advancing pair, and he was greeted with a shout of surprise.
“Bill Tucker! Where you been. Bill?”
“You kids ain’t got nothin’ in your heads except a hope to see them four crooks,” responded Bill, with a voice somewhat unsteady. “If you’d been lookin’ around you, you’d of seen me doin’ more work than any. I been ahead of the line doin’ a little prospectin’ on my own account.”
The other laughed. “Lookin’ for that reward all for yourself, Bill?”
“Never mind me and the reward.”
“What’d you of done if you seen all four of ’em?”
“I shoot straight enough an’ fast enough, sons. Don’t you worry none about me when it comes to a pinch. Old Bill can’t talk as fast as some of you kids, maybe, but he can shoot just as fast and a dog-gone sight straighter.” Then he continued, removing his hat and brushing his hair: “Whew, I wouldn’t go through this here little thicket ag’in for ten dollars. Brush matted in close as a barbed wire tangle when the fence is busted down.”
There was more laughter. “You’re gettin’ old. Bill. Ought to leave the real work to them that can do it.”
“Them that can do nothin’. I don’t need no pity, youngsters!”
“Don’t get riled. Bill. Fool idea to hunt for four gents in a little rat trap like that, anyway.”
“Fool, am I? Son, when you get to my age you’ll know that little things can cover a whole lot — little things no bigger than a man’s hat, say!”
“He’s a trump card!” whispered Jim to Allan. “Who’d of thought that the old chap had that much sense in his head? He’s steered them away.”
“Come on, then,” said the two. “Step on an’ show us how fast you can keep step. Bill.”
There was .another tense moment in the thicket, but Bill answered very casually: “I dunno that I ain’t done my share of the day’s work already. I might set me down here an’ have a rest. You kids trot along. I’ll be after you when I’ve had a smoke, maybe. I’ll be there when they tree the bear; you can lay on that!”
“All right, Bill. Never heard you talk so much before.”
“I got reasons for talkin’,” said Bill, “that you’ll never know, son.”
“What you mean by that?”
“Run along, kids. I’m tired of your chatter.”
They threw back a few jests at him, and Bill calmly sat down under the nearest tree and began to roll a cigarette.
“Good boy!” called Hank Geer softly to their sentinel. “Stay where you are till you get a chance to come back to us when nobody else ain’t lookin’.”
Bill raised a hand for answer.
24. MURDER NOT AN ADVENTURE
THERE WAS A general sigh of relief among the others in the thicket. Surely fire could not have come nearer without burning. But they had hardly escaped from one peril when another became apparent. He who rode with the horses now espied Bill, the smoking cigarette, and the coolness of the shade. He made instantly for the place with the horses tugging back on their leading ropes and then trotting obediently behind him.
“Hello, Bill!” he called as he came near. “Got room for company — hoss an’ man?”
“Better keep up closer to the boys,” said Bill without cordiality.
The other, however, was already in the act of dismounting.
“This here hunt is nigh ended,” he said, “if they’re goin’ to find the skunks to-day. Which I got my doubts. Things have been workin’ too dog-gone smooth an’ easy to suit me. They’ve narrowed down the ground until there ain’t but mighty little left — hello, what’s that?”
There was a chorus of shouts, ringing clearly across the open space. It came from that section of the thicket where the four had taken shelter during the night and the earlier morning and there could be no doubt as to its meaning. The searchers, in their careful beating, had discovered signs of the occupancy of that place. It would not be long, therefore, before they were beating their way back in the direction in which the four had retreated to their present shelter. In fact, when Sam Buttrick cautiously parted some of the shrubs just before him, he saw that a round dozen were already emerging from the other woods and approaching in the fatal direction. But Hank Geer had already risen and called out: “You there with the hosses!”
At that voice from behind, the horse keeper whirled as though touched with a bullet, and found himself staring into the muzzles of two revolvers, held as steady as rocks in the hands of formidable Hank Geer — Hank who never missed a chance when he shot.
“Stick them hands right up, son,” said Geer.
He was obeyed; the guard stood shaking, round eyed, before them, helpless.
“Rustle out and get the horses, lad,” said Hank, “while I cover my friend, yonder. We might be needin’ hossflesh before the day is much older.”
They were through the thicket like so many tigers. To such practiced eyes it was only the work of an instant to select the best mounts in the group. Into the saddles they flung themselves, while a wail of fury and astonishment showed that some of the hunters had already sighted them. They broke into a run, but they were far too slow. Riding four and leading the remaining three animals, the bandits were off and streaking down the hillside, leaving the poor guard and Bill disarmed and helpless behind them. The rise of the hill protected them from rifle fire during their first rush. And before the hill was circled or climbed by the men of Cranston, the fugitives were dipping out of sight over the next hill beyond. Even so, out of pure fury and despair they tried a few random shots and one of these whistled unpleasantly close above the head of Allan. He regarded it not except with a sigh of relief, for, after the grim tension of the last few hours, such a small winged peril as a single bullet seemed nothing at all.
They, rode hard, and yet with a great and growing hope as no pursuit developed at once behind them. As a matter of fact, they were not only well mounted, but they had robbed the hunters immediately behind them of the means of making speed. Other horses would be quickly gathered, of course, from more distant quarters of the circle, but before they could straighten out-in pursuit, the fugitives would be well off to a running start. And a stem chase is proverbially a long one.
So it proved on that day.
They had a second advantage and a most vital one. In the hunt for them, nearly all the available men of the district had been drawn in to make the closing circle which was to entrap them and which had so nearly succeeded in so doing. Between them and the mountains were few horsemen indeed, and even the telephones would not be able to draw out any formidable posses to head them off.
Yet, though they thought of this advantage also, in good time, they continu
ed to ride as hard as the horseflesh beneath them permitted. For every mile took them closer to the mountains, and every mile closer to the mountains was a mile that much nearer to comparative safety — to a reunion with Harry Christopher, if the latter had succeeded in shaking off his own pursuers.
At the end of two hours every horse except the unusually fine animal which Jim had selected for his own use was staggering with weakness. Therefore all saving Jim changed to the fresher mounts they were leading and they pressed on again. And still there was no sign of the pursuit.
In fact, those who followed fast and hard had gone astray two miles on a false trail, and two miles in such a hunt was a fatal handicap. By noon the quartette were among the mountains, and in the golden time of the afternoon, when the air first was turning chill on the heights, when the blue of the shadows in the gulches turns dusky black, they came to the place of rendezvous — an old deserted shack at the mouth of what had once been a shaft of a mine. And behold, Harry Christopher and all of his men came out before them. In all that wild pursuit which the men of Cranston had undertaken, not one of that half of the band had been harmed. What had been the fortune of those led by Lefty Bill no one could as yet say.
Allan had expected that there would be some show of excitement when they came in, but the two sections greeted one another with perfectly casual words.
“We been writin’ your epitaphs,” observed Harry Christopher. “Have you got the money with you?”
It was handed over to him.
“How did things come with you?” asked Geer.
“Fine,” said Christopher. “We give our hosses a little exercise, that was all. And I like to breathe my hossflesh good and plenty once in a while, you know. How was things with you?”
“We had a Jonah with us,” said Sam Buttrick, staring darkly at Allan. “But we managed to pull through. There was two of us had old heads.”
This self-praise drew forth no comments. The whole of Christopher’s party, in fact, seemed buried in the most profound gloom. And the cause was not very deeply hidden. There had been one grave mistake made by Harry Christopher when he split his party into two divisions. Though he assigned the greater number to his own leadership, in the haste of the instant he had given to the party of Lefty Bill no less than four of the six men who carried the treasure sacks. Of the approximate million dollars in currency which must have been taken from the safe, two thirds now was held by a small party of nine men at whose head was one whose immense avarice was a watchword among all of his associates. That was Lefty Bill. And his daring and invention and persuasive powers being on a par with his lust for money, it was more than probable that he might get his followers to split the money equally among them and thereby secure shares more than twice as large as those which would ordinarily have come to them.
In the meantime, though there had been plenty of time for it, Lefty had not sent in a report of his whereabouts, neither had he come in with his whole party and their plunder. Matters began to look black, and every instant made them blacker.
Only to Allan these tidings were no great burden, but actually good news. And, when he and the others of the starving quartette had eaten their fill, he took Jim aside for a stroll in front of the shack.
“Do you see how it is, Jim?” he said to his friend. “They’re a bad lot from the ground up. Didn’t this trip show you that?”
“I’ve always knowed it,” said Jim quietly. ‘They’re out for themselves. They’re simply crooks and me — I’m something else, Al, if I have to say it myself. You know why I throwed in with ’em to begin with. But even after I had to go in with ’em — or thought that I had to — there was something else that kept me. It looked sort of like having adventures. You understand?”
“Of course I do. But murder isn’t an adventure, Jim. It looks to me simply like murder.”
“I’ve never done it!”
“Suppose that some of those people had come into the thicket where we were hiding and fired at you. Would you have fired back?”
“Of course!”
“Suppose you had killed one of them. What would that have been?”
“Self-defense,” said Jim promptly.
But when Allan shook his head, he saw that Jim was gravely thoughtful and that he remained so for many an hour thereafter.
25. OUTLAWS AFTER OUTLAWS’ GOLD
IT WAS A gloomy party which rolled in its blankets that night, at last, but they had hardly fallen asleep when a rapid crackling of guns down the mountainside brought them to their feet again, reaching for weapons. Running to the front of the shack they could see a drama unfolding beneath them — a single horseman spurring a staggering animal up the slope while, behind him, three others rushed on, gaining at every stride. They had unlimbered their guns and were firing rapidly at the fugitive who, in turn, made no effort to return their bullets but bent low over the neck of his horse and urged the animal ahead.
“It’s all that’s left of Lefty’s bunch,” said Hank Geer, ever ready to look on the seamy side of things. “It’s the last man of Lefty’s party and that’s the first of a posse. Boys, we got to hustle into the saddle again.”
But Harry Christopher, instead of answering with words, took up a rifle and fired hastily, without taking aim. The single shot had a great effect, however wildly it may have flown. The three drew rein at once; a second shot made them wheel and gallop away while the rescued fugitive let his horse fall back to a jog trot coming up the steep slope. He gained the group in front of the shack and slid wearily from his saddle. It was Chick Martin, and he was indeed a member of the second half of Christopher’s gang.
They surrounded him at once with rapid questions. But he brushed through them and went with sagging steps into the shack.
“I’m spent, boys,” he said. “Gimme a cup of coffee. Or a slug of red-eye. Dog- gone me — I’m near done!”
He was spent indeed. He had slumped down against the wall, his legs sprawling on the floor, his head fallen on his breast, his breath coming in gasps. A flask was instantly placed in his hand, which trembled as it raised the bottle. He took such a drink as one exhausted and thirsty can take. Then he lowered the flask to the floor with a bump and continued to sit for a time with eyes closed, breathing deeply.
“What you got in the line of chuck?” he asked hoarsely, without opening his eyes.
They could see, then, as the fire was built up and the light from it flickered across the room that his face was pinched and haggard to an extreme. They brought him cold pone and raw bacon. He devoured it like a wolf, washed it down with more whisky, and then sat up like one transformed. Still a cigarette had to be rolled and lighted and a few breaths of smoke inhaled before he would speak. The others, in the meantime, waited in a circle, patient because they understood.
“It’s Lew Ramsay,” croaked Chick Martin.
That caused a stir and then a groan from the others, for Ramsay headed the meanest bunch of outlaws that ever roamed the hills.
“Tell it quick,” said Harry Christopher, his face working.
“Ramsay jumped Lefty and the rest of you and cleaned you up and grabbed the coin — is that it?”
“Ramsay met us comin’ up through the pass,” said Chick Martin, not to be hurried too much in the high points of his narrative. “He come by us and give us a good word. He could see by the way we was ridin’ and the sweat on the hosses that we’d done something and been ridin’ to get away from what might happen later. He didn’t say nothin’, though.
“But that night, while we was camped. Lefty went out for a stroll all by himself after eatin’. You know that way he has of doin’. He goes out for a stroll and comes back hot-footin’ it after a while.
“‘Jump them saddles onto the hosses,’ says he. “I’ve seen a dozen or fifteen riders comin’ through the hills.’
“We sure got up an’ moved. We jumped them saddles onto them dog-gone tired hosses and we lit out fast as we could go. It wasn’t fast enough, though. Ramsay’
s men was fresh and their hosses was fresh. He pretty near run us down, but then we got to the mouth of a canon and started to ride up it.”
Here there was a groan from Hank Geer. “It was blind!” he said.
“Nope,” said Chick sadly, “it wasn’t blind. But ridin’ by night it looked blind to us. We seen the hills closin’ together in front of us. We could see Ramsay’s devils coming fast behind us. Then we seen an old shack that was standin’ near the head of the canon. Lefty Bill told us to head for it, and we done it. We got inside quick enough to bring Ramsay’s gang up standing. They rode off in a circle around the shack and we started thankin’ Heaven that we was safe.
“It wasn’t long, though, before we seen that we wasn’t safe at all. There was water in an old pump in that house, and we had enough water in our canteens to prime the dog-gone thing and just barely bring up the water. It was so choked with red dust that it looked like blood, and we had to take turns pumpin’ for near half an hour before the water begun to run clear. After that it was like a spring; never tasted sweeter water in my life. Well, there was the water. But that was all. There wasn’t no sign of food around that place.”
“What about your packs?” snapped out Harry Christopher.
“Packs?” said the other angrily. “D’you think that we’d been out pleasure ridin’ maybe? No, sir, we’d had that devil Ramsay behind us, and anybody that’s ever rode with a tired hoss in front of Ramsay knows what ridin’ means. We’d fed our hosses the spurs till our boots was red. We’d throwed away everything that made a weight that we could spare. We even got rid of spare guns. We tossed off our blankets, our extra cartridges. Dog- gone me if Hammond didn’t take off his saddle and ride along barebacked. Otherwise he sure would of been caught, because his old brown hoss was sure fagged. Anyway, we got to that shack I been talkin’ about with nothin’ but a loaded gun apiece, our hosses, and the coin. And the hosses wasn’t ours very long. One of Ramsay’s half-breeds sneaks up like a snake durin’ the night and stampedes the hosses right under the nose of Champ Sullivan.