by Zane Grey
“Shore. I feel that way,” replied Sue as she dismounted. “Things happen, and sometimes they’re not any fun. The boys may have trouble finding those mules. It’s pretty late to see far in the woods. Well, we’ve got to make the best of it. Tie your horse and we’ll walk around a bit.”
Some little way from the spruce thicket where they tethered their horses, a long beautiful glade opened in the forest. The gray forms of deer kept crossing it, adding a singular effect of wildness to the woodland scene.
“Shore you’re walking Spanish,” laughed Sue as she espied Patricia’s cramped little steps.
“It was a long ride,” answered Patricia ruefully.
“Well, pupil, another ride like that will graduate you out of the tenderfoot class,” declared Sue. “You shore did fine. Tine thinks you’re great—Say, isn’t that a cabin down there at the end of this open stretch?”
“It surely is,” replied Patricia, espying a long gray log structure just at the edge of the forest.
“Looks old—deserted,” said Sue. “Let’s go down there. We might find water.”
“Who ever could have built a cabin in these lonely woods?” queried Patricia.
“Rangers or wild horse hunters, most likely.”
They soon reached the cabin, to find it an old but well-preserved place. Patricia experienced a little chill as she peered in through the open doorway. The big room was empty except for a bench before a rude stone fireplace. A ladder close to the right of the door led up to a loft that extended over half the room.
“Wonder if the boys knew of this cabin,” said Sue. “It’d not be a bad place to camp, especially if they get back late. I’m shore glad—”
Sue broke off abruptly and bent her head. “I hear horses,” she added quickly.
Patricia could not hear anything but the soft rustle of pine boughs against the roof.
“Listen. Off heah,” said Sue, pointing. “Wrong direction for the boys to come back…. Now, I don’t like this.”
Patricia became conscious of a tremor running over her frame. She listened and soon heard the faint sound of horses’ hoofs on the forest floor.
“I see a bunch of riders,” Sue whispered, and clutching Patricia’s arm, she dragged her quickly inside the cabin. Then she peered out from behind the half-open door.
Patricia did likewise, disturbed by Sue’s agitation and her sudden action. But she could not see any riders, though the muffled thud of hoofs seemed louder. The sun had gone down, and among the huge trees of the forest, gray gloom was spreading. But in the glade daylight still lingered.
“If there were any cattle up heah I’d say that was a bunch of cowboys,” muttered Sue, talking to herself. “Four riders, with pack-horses…. No, there’s not a cowboy in that outfit.”
“What are they?” whispered Patricia, beginning to be alarmed.
“Men. And tough-lookin’ hombres at that,” replied Sue swiftly. “Looks like they’d pass close.”
“Suppose they do?” queried Patricia.
“Shore it’ll be all right if they do…. Gosh! They’re haided right for the cabin. I don’t like this a little bit.”
“Sue! You frighten me.”
“Miss Clay, we’re alone. We haven’t even got a gun. There are two desperados in that bunch, and the fellow ridin’ ahaid is no ranger, or cowman, or rancher.”
“You mean—they might be desperate characters?” faltered Patricia.
“I shore do. It’s not impossible to meet bad men on this side of the canyon…. Oh, don’t look like that. It’s all right. It just worries me. Shore they won’t harm us. But—they’re comin’ right to the cabin…. Let’s hide up in the loft!”
Patricia felt again that strong clutch on her arm, and she was dragged to the foot of the ladder. Sue climbed up like a squirrel. “Hurry,” she whispered down. “Don’t make a noise.”
Patricia climbed awkwardly, with unsure hands and feet, but she reached the loft, where Sue drew her back from the edge and whispered, “Lie down flat and be quiet!”
The intense silence of the next moment was broken by hoarse voices.
CHAPTER NINE
THE THUD of hoofs slowing to a stop, the jingle of spurs, the creak of saddles attested to the fact that riders had halted to dismount before the cabin.
“Reckon this hyar shack’s the place,” spoke a husky voice, deep and thick, suggesting a matured man. “I ain’t never been hyar.”
“Wal, Bing, it cain’t be no other place,” replied another voice, high-pitched and nasal. “Pedro herded sheep on this end of Buckskin. We’re about a quarter mile from the road, straight up from the swale you said was where we turned off. Sure this is Long Park.”
“Boss, air we thro win’ the packs?” asked a third man.
“Jake, I ain’t sartin what we’ll do yet,” returned the leader. “But if there’s water I reckon we might as well camp heah. Pedro, how far is Long Park from thet ranger Eburne’s cabin?”
“Aboot three mile,” came the reply.
“Too close for comfort. Wal, we’ll see. Suppose you all scatter out an’ look fer water.”
“Bing, I hear a car hummin’ up the road,” said the man with the high-pitched voice.
Silence ensued, into which presently crept the low, melodious murmur of an automobile.
“Ha! That’s my men. They’re on time. Now you all clear out an’ come back when I whistle. Find some water or snow.”
“Bing, wouldn’t it be sense to let me hang around?”
“Yes, it would, Dave,” replied the other. “But he said for me to be hyar alone, at dark. He wouldn’t talk else I did. It’s a queer deal, Dave. I’m skatin’ on thin ice, savvy? Take the hosses in the woods an’ wait.”
The voices ceased, and there were more thuds of hoofs, creaks of leather, and metallic jingles. These grew softer, gradually died away.
Sue placed her lips to Patricia’s ear and whispered, “We’ve shore happened on somethin’. Don’t make a noise.”
Patricia had been clamped as in a vise, palpitating, yet thrilling with intense excitement. She relaxed her rigid muscles and sank on the dusty floor of the loft. In the dim light she saw Sue raise her head to peep down into the cabin. At the same moment she heard the man outside grunt as he sat down in the doorway. Then followed the scratch of a match, a flickering light that died, and the sound of slow puffs. Silently Sue lowered head and shoulders.
Patricia strove to hold in mind the thought that there was no real danger, that these strange men would soon leave or the cowboys would return. But the idea wavered. Sue had said there were bad men on this side of the river. These probably were the very ones she had had in mind.
The odor of tobacco smoke floated up to the loft. The man below puffed heavily. Patricia heard the chirp of insects, the sound of faintly rising wind, the distant yelp of some wild creature. Sue’s persuasive and cautioning hand found her arm and clasped it. Twilight had fallen, and inside the cabin was dark. Then rapid footsteps sounded outside.
“That you, Dyott?” queried a low, sharp voice.
“Reckon so,” replied the man in the doorway.
“Are you alone?”
“My outfit’s off in the woods.”
Patricia heard these quick queries and replies with tingling ears.
“Wal, all right, walk around the cabin if you want,” growled the man in the doorway, whose name seemed to be Dyott.
She heard the rapid footsteps pass around the cabin. Dyott’s boots scraped on the doorstep. He had risen. Then he knocked something on wood—his pipe.
“Get inside,” said the man with the sharp voice. “Talk in whispers. Walls have ears. And be quick.”
Dyott cursed under his breath. Then his heavy boots stamped on the cabin floor, to be followed by the quick light ones of his visitor. They went to the far end of the cabin, and there began a colloquy of whispers—the husky, impatient, reluctant whispers of one, and the guarded, decisive, imperative whispers of the other. Patricia cou
ld not distinguish a single word. But then her ears were full of a throbbing and beating. She felt the racing of her blood, a constriction in her throat.
Soon the colloquy ended. The man with the quick steps and sharp voice left the cabin as silently and mysteriously as he had come. Dyott’s heavy feet appeared to drag across the floor, and he was breathing hard.
“Holy Moses!” he ejaculated hoarsely. “I’ll end by pluggin’ thet fellar.”
Then he whistled and strode from the doorway, out into the open, where the girls could hear him pacing up and down.
Patricia leaned noiselessly over to Sue and whispered, “Who are they? What does it mean? Are you afraid of—of anything?”
“Shore stumps me,” replied Sue. “But I’m not afraid—yet. Reckon worse’s to come.”
“Oh—what—how? ’ ’
“That outfit’s going to camp heah, and we’re likely to be discovered before the boys get back.”
Patricia’s answer was checked by Sue’s hand softly covering her mouth, and an excited whisper: “Keep still. They’re coming.”
Again the sound of hoofs and hoarse voices could be heard coming from the woods. What was going to happen? Surely she and Sue would be found hiding up here. And if they were discovered, what then?
“Find any water?” called Dyott.
“That’s a snowbank handy,” came the reply.
“Fetch the packs in, an’ rustle firewood. We’ll camp hyar.”
Patricia was certain that she felt Sue’s hand tremble in its contact with her arm. As for herself, the cold chills were chasing hot flushes over her body. She tried to make herself believe that the cowboys would return soon. Meanwhile her ears were filled with the hard words and coarse laughter of these men, of the pound of hoofs and thud of packs, the shuffling scrape of boots accompanied by the musical clink of spurs. A man entered the cabin, and there followed the sound of brush being dumped on the floor. Again Patricia heard the scratch of a match and saw a faint light gleam. It grew. The roof became distinguishable. Sue’s form took shape. Then the crackling of sticks and the spluttering of flames told that a fire had been kindled. Other men entered to throw packs thudding on the floor, and following that came the clatter of pots and pans, the clink of metal.
It relieved Patricia to see that the space above Sue and her was obscured in black darkness, for the floor of the loft obstructed direct light from the fire. If they could only keep still! Patricia could conceive of no reason why the men should want to explore the loft, unless something made them suspicious. Yet the strain of guarding against making the slightest sound, of sneezing or coughing, was unbearable. That whispered colloquy in the darkness of the cabin between the man Dyott and his visitor did not have an honest look. Even a tenderfoot could discern that. And if Dyott discovered there had been listeners in the cabin at the time of his meeting with the stranger, he might be ugly.
“Bing, how’d you make out?” queried one of the men when evidently he and the leader were alone.
“Wal, Dave, not to please me particular,” was the response. “ Settled fer thet Utah deal. But this hyar new idee of mine didn’t jibe. You know he’s really agin Settlemire, though he pretends to be fer him, an’ thet’s why he won’t trust me. It’s do his way or nuthin’. An’ I had to take him up.”
“Makes a lot of work fer us—when our plan’d be easy,” complained Jake.
“Wal, I’d a hunch thet after this he wouldn’t be able to hold a Mormon jail over my head,” replied Dyott gruffly, as if to excuse his weakness in giving in to the stranger.
“Ahuh! Mebbe you was—” The entrance of others interrupted Dave’s response, and he lapsed into silence.
Patricia moved her head carefully to find an easier position, and she rested it upon her arm. She was lying prone, face down, the same as Sue, who was, however, a foot closer to the edge of the loft floor. Patricia caught a faint ray of light penetrating the floor, very close to her. It appeared to come through a long crack. By moving slightly, she could see down into the room below. The fire was bright; pots were steaming at its edge; an iron kettle sat right in the flames, and a little grizzled man appeared to be wiping it out with a rag. She saw one other man, who sat within range of her vision. He had a thin face, dark, smooth, with sloe-black, glittering eyes. He held a cigarette between his fingers, daintily, and now and then he put it to his lips. Surely he must be one of the desperados Sue had mentioned. This position grew uncomfortable, cramping her neck. She resumed the former one, at the same time reaching cautiously to find Sue’s hand. She appeared to be calmer now. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that very soon one of the cowboys, or all, would enter the cabin. They would return to where they had left her and Sue, find them gone and the horses tied, and at once begin a search, which would lead to the cabin. But suddenly the thought occurred to Patricia that when they did come the situation might be worse rather than better. Those cowboys might put up a fight! But then how were they to know Sue and she were hidden up here, unless they revealed themselves.
Sue’s thoughts must have been following the same line, for just then she whispered in Patricia’s ear, “When Nels and Tine come we’d better keep mum until we see how this Dyott acts.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” returned Patricia. “But how will they find out we’re up here?”
“That Nels is sharp. If he walks in this cabin he’ll shore know I’m up heah.”
Sue’s reply was illuminating in a way she had not intended it to be.
She had scarcely concluded when a rapid and rhythmic beat of hoofs came to the ears of the girls on the loft floor. Sue gave her hand a quick squeeze, then let go.
“Bing, thar’s someone comin,” spoke up one of the men.
“Heard him myself. Reckon it’s that thar ranger Eburne,” growled Dyott.
“Nope. Thet’s a cowboy, or I don’t know nuthin’.”
Outside, spurs jingled, boots thudded. A quick step sounded at the door. The men below were silent.
“Howdy, men,” drawled a cool, slow voice Patricia easily recognized as belonging to Nels.
Sue raised herself on her hands to peep over the edge of the loft floor. Patricia, as curious as she was agitated, bent over to put an eye to the crack in the floor. She saw Nels saunter into the line of her sight and up to the bright fire.
“Who’n thunderation air you?” demanded Dyott.
“I was just goin’ to ask you that same. More civil like, though,” returned Nels.
“Wal, we’re a hoss outfit from Utah, lookin’ for strays.”
“I’m Nels Stackhouse from Flag. Me an’ my pard Higgenbottom come over to see the deer herd.”
“Ahuh! Wal, fetch him in an’ eat with us.”
“Thanks, reckon we don’t care if we do,” drawled Nels.
Patricia could not see Dyott, but she had a fairly good view of Nels. He surely was a capital actor. He seemed casual, indifferent, lazy, with no particular interest in these men. Yet the covert roving gleam of his eyes revealed much to the New York girl. Suddenly his gaze swept the loft, glinted, and dropped blankly. An instant later she felt Sue leaning over her, scarcely breathing.
“Nels saw me,” she whispered tensely.
More of the jingling spurs and lazy steps gave Patricia the idea Nels was leaving.
“Me an’ my pard aimed to camp here tonight. Any objections?” he said.
“None a-tall,” rejoined Dyott. “More the merrier.”
They heard Nels walk out, mount his horse, and ride away.
“Nice set-up young cowpuncher,” remarked one of the men. “Funny how you can allus tell thet brand.”
“Wal, I was thinkin’ it wouldn’t be a bad idee to git some outside news,” rejoined Dyott thoughtfully. “So I was sociable.”
This last remark of Dyott’s had subtle power to ease the tension of Patricia’s nerves. Sue very cautiously edged closer to her until their shoulders touched. In the pale gloom of the loft she could just make out the gir
l’s face. Her fingers, too, as they closed in Patricia’s, had less of that steel-like grasp. Sue, too, was feeling relieved that Nels and Tine were close at hand.
“If they find us heah there’ll be a fight, shore,” she whispered. “Nels has a name for bein’ a bad hombre. But I begin to feel we’ll escape.”
“Why a fight—if they discover us?” whispered Patricia in Sue’s ear.
“Because Nels won’t stand much. And this Dyott will get ugly if he finds out we were heah when he met that man. He wasn’t very anxious to have any witnesses to that meetin’.”
“Did you hear anything they said?”
“After they began whisperin’ I couldn’t catch a single word. But Dyott would never believe it.”
Down below, the men were moving about and there was a clatter of cooking utensils. Under cover of the noise, the girls held a whispered conversation without risk of detection. It helped Patricia toward a recovery of her composure.
“There, the boys are heah. Hear them?” whispered Sue.
Somebody below was also aware of the arrival of the cowboys. Heavy steps approached the door.
“Grub’s ready, boys,” called Dyott.
But Nels and Tine, though answering, did not at once come in Presently the sound of hoofs ceased, to be followed by clinking footsteps outside, on the step, and then in the cabin. Heavy thuds on the floor marked the dropping of bed rolls.
“This here’s my ridin’ mate,” said Nels, as obviously he and Tine were walking toward the fire.
“What’s your handle, son?” queried Dyott.
“Higgenbottom. Tine Higgenbottom,” replied the cowboy.
“What a handle! Thet’s orful.”
“What might your name be, Mister?” asked Tine coolly.
“Wal, it might be Abe Lincoln, only it ain’t,” replied Dyott.
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared one of Dyott’s men.
“Reckon who I am won’t interest you boys much,” said Dyott, “an’ if you ain’t got any fine hosses you won’t be sorry you met me.”
“My pard said you was a wild hoss hunter, not buyer.”
“Wal, reckon I’m both.”