by Max Brand
“Canada?” murmured the detective. His heart failed him.
“He traps there, you see, in British Columbia.”
“A wild life, that!”
Jack seemed to like it, she told him, and, besides, though she often yearned to have him back, he had been so delicate of health in California that it was better for him to stay away. Upon this the detective pondered. Here was another bit of truth from the lips of Saylor to his fiancie.
“But Jack makes very good money,” she told him. The conversation about the garden apparently had unlocked her heart. “He keeps the place up. Heaven knows what he retains for himself — he sends me so much, dear boy!”
Rankin seemed deeply touched by such an example of filial fidelity. He had an old mother himself, he told her, and it did his heart good to hear of such kindness from a son. Mrs. Richards was enchanted. Before another half hour had passed, he was sitting on her front porch sipping tea from a fragile china cup painted with flowers executed by the hands of the old lady herself in her youth! He tucked his heels under his chair and presented his best smile to her. He had himself been in the West recently. He had even been in Canada now and again. Then he had to answer many questions. Was the summer very hot? Was the winter bitterly cold? Were the people kind? Would a frail young man be mistreated by them?
He answered patiently. Most of his replies needed simply to be reassurances, and he lied liberally and with a loose hand when his information failed him. He made the winters in Canada fifteen degrees colder than mortal man ever endured; but he made up for this by telling her that such intense cold was nothing at all, “so long as a man dressed for it!” That was the solution. In short, he charmed Mrs. Richards with his omniscient touch. According to him, life even in the arctics was not very difficult. By this time, he vowed, her son was a stalwart from the life in the open.
“Do you think so?” she said, dwelling on his words plaintively. “But if you could see poor Jack, oh, he was always as delicate as a girl! He was a trial to raise! The picture of him” She broke off.
“Have you a picture?”
“Oh, of course!”
“You’ve told me so much about him — may I see it?”
She was delighted to show it. She led the way into the parlor, where the half-drawn window shades admitted a soft light.
“This is my Jack!” she said, and took the picture from the top of the upright piano, which was opened and dusted every morning and closed and dusted every night, but the keys of which were never touched from year to year.
The detective took the picture and examined it carefully. Beyond a doubt this was his man! This was Jeremy Saylor! There was the same thin face, the same pair of large, dark eyes. There was the same air of half-poetic, half- maidenly languor about the two. The likeness was unmistakable, though the wilderness had indeed darkened the skin of the wanderer and to a degree filled up the hollows in his cheeks.
Now something new caught his eye. It was of such importance that it made him run to the window and there examine the photograph in the sunshine.
“But,” cried she, as much alarmed as though a bad symptom had been detected in her boy by the doctor himself, “what’s wrong with Jack?”
“His hair,” cried the detective, too excited to try finesse. “What color was his hair?”
XXIV. THE TRAP
THE SCRUPLES OF Stew Morrison were of a type easily pacified by reflection. His duty as a human being forced him to mount a fast horse and race with all speed to the assistance of Jerry and of Joe Montague. But his duty as a private detective to a client urged him to let Jerry and Joe take their fate as it might come to them. For they were the bait with which he hoped to catch The Whisperer himself.
Yet he conducted a silent debate with himself before he was finally and completely persuaded that it was indeed right to persist in his first inclination.
“How,” said his conscience to Stew Morrison, “can you allow two men to ride to their execution, for there can be no doubt that The Whisperer means foul play!”
“If I can catch The Whisperer,” said Stew Morrison to his conscience, “I’m doing a devil of a lot more for the world than if I save a couple of bums like them two, that are bound to come to a bad end sooner or later anyway!”
“You are arguing for the sake of the money you can make out of the rancher,” said his conscience to Stew.
“I am arguing for the sake of everybody — for the sake of law ‘n order,” said Stew to his conscience. “This here I’m doing for the sake of mankind!”
That large idea finally convinced him that there was nothing right to be done except to go straight ahead and let the two miscreants pay, in the hope that in wreaking vengeance upon them their great chief might at last place himself within the danger of the law.
When the conscience of Stew was thus easily pacified, so that he could assure himself that it could never reproach him for whatever might happen to the pair who were acting as his associates in the cause of justice, he addressed himself with all possible vigor to the execution of the scheme.
His plan was, of course, to lie in wait some-where on the sides of Richmond Valley, through which the two miscreants who had betrayed their leader had been expressly directed to ride. When Jerry and Joe appeared, he would wait until they were attacked by their terrible master and enemy, who was now prepared to avenge himself for the treason which he had so adroitly guessed at. The instant The Whisperer showed himself, he would be the target of the attack of Stew Morrison.
Though Stew was himself both a cool and a heady fighter, though he was a marksman par excellence, and though in a score of fights he had carried away no other damage than a few grazing wounds, yet he was not rash enough to consider himself a match for The Whisperer. He looked upon himself as a trailer in particular, and upon The Whisperer as a destroyer, in particular. Therefore he was determined to get aid before he struck at so formidable an antagonist, bearing in mind that there would be plenty of reward and of glory for him as the leader of the expedition. His followers would be to the world, numbers rather than names.
But it was necessary to find those who could be found ready and willing to act in such subordinate and yet dangerous capacities. Stew Morrison knew just where to find them. He spent the rest of that night and the next morning in routing out a group of vagabonds, men who had long lived by breaking the law, who had finally been caught, and who had purchased their safety by selling more notorious and more wanted criminals, their companions, into the arms of the law. In short, what Stew Morrison wanted were men who had played just such detestable parts as those of Joe Montague and Jerry Monson.
By a yet greater crime, because cowardly, such fellows saved their own lives but made themselves abhorrent to the whole world, both law-abiding and criminal. From the moment that it was discovered what they had done, it was impossible for them to mix with their fellows. Here and there, wretched and alone, they dragged out their existences, made savage and morose by the knowledge that all the world hated and dreaded them, and justly so!
Such men, knowing that they had nothing worth living for, were most willing to partake in dangerous adventures for the mere sake of money, and clever Stew Morrison had jotted down the names of all such in his mental notebooks. He kept them there ready to be used with caution, only now and again. But when a dangerous quarry was to be pulled down, he called upon these terrible and wolfish men, and they rode with him to the work.
He rounded up four stalwart graduates from the school of crime who had gone State’s evidence and therefore lived in security until friends of the men they had betrayed should hunt them down and butcher them. They rejoiced in the names of Chris, Red, Lefty, and Porky. What other names belonged to them, they themselves had almost forgotten.
They looked very much alike. Their faces were lean, their hair long, their skins blackened with dirt and with sunburn, and their eyes too bright — too animally bright. Their horses were of a type, ugly of head, hunched of body, savage and treache
rous of temper, but with the speed of deer and the endurance of wolves. With this body of light cavalry behind him, each man armed with a rifle and a revolver which alone of all the equipment was sure to be well cleaned and well oiled, Stew Morrison advanced toward Richmond Valley, and, before noon, they reached the post.
Richmond Valley was, in truth, no more than a cut between two great mountains. A glacier, perhaps, had pushed its plow of a million tons of ice through the defile, gouging out the valley narrow and deep — hundreds of feet deep. When the glacier melted, there remained a chasm of polished rock, smooth of side and of bottom. There the frosts of winter and the suns of summer began to work, cracking the faces of the rock until it was pried loose and fell away in boulders and great masses. By such means the walls ceased to be cliffs, in many places. The bottom of the defile was choked with fallen rock and boulders, among which the trail wound slowly back and forth. Speed seemed impossible through that pass.
The position which Morrison took up was about a hundred yards from the bottom of the western wall, at a point where a number of stone masses offered a perfect shelter for himself and his men, and, at the same time, enabled them to peer forth into every nook and corner of the pass. Also, from either side of the rock nest, it was possible to descend easily, down an almost smooth trail, to the bottom of the gorge. An ordinary horse, to be sure, would not be able to go down that descent without difficulty, but these hardy mustangs of Morrison and his followers were as sure-footed as goats.
Thus arranged, Morrison awaited the results with perfect confidence. The rifles of his men commanded the entire length of the pass. And what rifles they were! Not one of them but could bring down a hawk far above him, though shooting like lightning down the wind. Not one of them but would fire with as cool a deliberation at a human being as at a deer. To miss was not in their category of sins. It was highly improbable that The Whisperer would be able to do any harm to Joe and Jerry as the latter pair hurried down the gulch. The instant he appeared, he would be riddled with five rifle bullets.
In the meantime, he directed his men to keep a sharp lookout upon the upper walls and rocks of the ravine so that The Whisperer could not descend into it without being spied out. To be sure, it might be barely possible for a crafty man to work his way down the opposite side of the ravine to the bottom, shielding himself behind the rocks as he did so, unseen by the five pairs of eyes which were on the lookout. But it was highly improbable. For, coming there to lay an ambush, The Whisperer, and those with him, if there were any riding on this mission, would be apt to come boldly in and take his place. And before he took that place, he would fall dead.
Morrison described him exactly. “He’s about middle height, but has very broad shoulders that make him look short. He’ll probably be masked, with a black cloth. If his hair shows, it’ll be red!”
There was no need to say more. Four pairs of eyes, each sharper than the eyes of an eagle, were now at work for him, and he could await the result. But the hot middle of the afternoon arrived, and still the great bandit had not been seen. Then the valley became an intolerable oven. But the shaggy creatures with Morrison sweltered in silence. They had the patience of beasts of prey; of a cat at the mouth of a gopher hole.
Then came a murmur. Morrison looked to the south and saw two horsemen slowly winding up the rise toward the mouth of the valley. Jerry and Joe had come at last into the trap. But where was the trap?
XXV. THE LAST KILLING
FOR THERE WAS, in fact, not a sign of another human being in Richmond Valley, neither had that battery of five pairs of hawk-eyes been able to detect either possible trail or horse by which others might have entered the gorge. Lefty suddenly exclaimed: “By the heavens, The Whisperer got wind that we was coming, and he’ll never show up!”
“He’s got to show up,” said Stew Morrison, shaking his head. “He’s made the boys in his gang think that he can do anything, and that there ain’t any fear in him. He’s got to show up. He told ’em to ride this way, and he’s got to meet ’em. He can’t have ’em ride into his camp some day and tell how he sent ’em out on a wild goose chase. He can’t explain to ’em that there was five men waiting in the pass and that he didn’t dare to show his face to ’em there. Because he’s made ’em think that he’s as strong as six hundred!”
This he muttered more to himself than to the others, as though he were simply increasing his own conviction without trying to greatly affect the minds of his comrades.
“This here Whisperer is a fake,” said Porky. “Besides, he’d be a fool to try to play a lone hand with Jerry Monson and Montague. I know them two. They’re hard, I’ll tell a man. They’re fast; they shoot straight, and they don’t need no coaxing to get ’em into a fight. Nope, The Whisperer ain’t going to tackle them two boys without some help at his back. Take it by and large, Jerry and Joe are better’n any two of us right here — not leaving out Stew, either! No man in the world would stand up to ’em”
He had reached this point in his exclamations when there was a stifled shout from Lefty. They all stared down to the hollow and straightway saw a strange sight. There had appeared in the trail — not shooting from behind a rock, but calmly walking into full view — a short, wide-shouldered man, whose face was covered with a mask.
He bore no weapon in his hands, which rested upon his hips, but upon either hip there was belted a revolver, ready at his finger tips. He must have called out, for the two miscreants now whirled their horses about, and so they sat confronting their master.
“For Heaven’s sake!” moaned Stew Morrison. “Get him now — salt him away — before he starts something with the boys!”
But the other four were already doing their best to get in a shot at the man in the pass. This was not so easy. For, instead of standing quietly, when they would have instantly marked him and dropped him with four perfect shots, The Whisperer was stepping lightly back and forth as he faced the two men on horseback just in front of him. He never appeared saving for just a glimpse as he turned, or as he passed between them. Had the group been a trifle nearer, even these glimpses would have been enough, but as all hunters know, snapshots are impossible at a considerable distance.
The result was that five rifles were handled with a burning impatience on the side of the gorge, and every second or so fingers would curl around triggers. But there was no shot fired. For at that distance the slightest error would mean a death for Joe or Jerry, whose backs were turned upon their secret and distant allies.
What was happening in the hollow of the pass it was not hard to guess. The Whisperer was talking as he shifted rapidly back and forth. The other two denied vehemently. They were being taxed home with something, and they were eagerly denying all guilt. Finally The Whisperer was seen to point, and the direction in which he pointed was toward that very group of rocks among which the five lay concealed. The two horsemen turned their heads in that direction. But apparently they saw nothing but the rocks, for all five were now lying low with the very greatest care.
Then The Whisperer for an instant stood still in his pacing back and forth and suddenly said something which caused the two to go for their guns. But The Whisperer was lightning on the draw; he fired twice, and the saddles of the horses before him became empty. In the same instant that his victims were plunging from their saddles, the bandit leaped sidewise among the rocks.
He escaped the salvo which now poured from the rocks above, as the five saw that they had no fear of injuring either of the men who rode in the hollow. But those rifles were aimed so quickly that every bullet missed him by inches only, and more than one of the marksmen above could have sworn that the outlaw wore armor which enabled him to escape such concentrated fire.
They now flung themselves upon their horses to rush to the bottom of the gorge and then press up the farther slope in pursuit. But they had hardly issued from their shelter when they returned to it pell-mell, for as the first rider darted forth, the air just in front of him was cut by a bullet. He recoil
ed and threw himself back upon his companions just in time to avoid a second shot which came even closer.
They now dismounted again, and hastily taking up position among the rocks which they had just prepared to abandon, they looked out upon the farther slope with malevolent eyes. Presently the fugitive was seen, a mere glimpse, as he turned the corner of a boulder. But three pairs of eyes caught sight of him at the same instant and three rifle bullets were instantly on the wing.
“I’ve got him!” cried Porky. “In the leg!”
“You lie!” shouted Chris. “I nailed him plumb through the head. Didn’t you see him start to drop as he went around the rock?”
“It was me!” said Lefty. “I nailed him right in the middle of the back and after he dropped he didn’t kick, you can lay on that!”
The three lunged out from cover. They were greeted by the light, swift hissing of bullets past them which splashed the hard brows of the rock about them with lead, and as they recoiled, cursing and gasping their surprise, the hurried, staccato barking of the gun from the farther side of the gorge came to their ears, repeated faintly up and down the gorge by echoes.
“Dead, is he?” mocked Stew Morrison.
“He’s wearing a charm,” vowed Porky, and straightway threw down his rifle and resolutely refused to fire another shot. “If I didn’t nail him in the left leg right between the knee and the hip, I’m a fool and never fired a gun before!”
“But” broke in Stew Morrison, and then interrupted himself by pressing the trigger of his rifle. “A clean miss again!” he muttered to himself. “No matter what you boys think, he’s still living and moving, and he’s halfway to the top of the gorge, now!”
“It ain’t nacheral or right,” said Lefty. “I never seen such a thing!”
But Stew Morrison had a cooler head, and he was not surprised at what had happened. He had more than once heard a party of hunters vow that each had planted his bullet in the body of a running grizzly which nevertheless refused to fall. Stew himself had trailed down the bear the next day, killed it with a slug through the brain, and found its body quite unscathed by all the bullets of the hunters, men who could ring the bull’s-eye nine times in ten in shooting at a most distant target, so long as it were stationary and lifeless. But to shoot at a bear was different; to shoot at a man was another story, and to shoot at a hero, famed like The Whisperer, was indeed another story yet. So he smiled to himself and said nothing.