And that was why Darragh, or Hal Smith, finally decided to return to
Star Pond; — because if Quintana had been told or had discovered that
circuitous way out of Drowned Valley, he might go straight to Clinch’s
Dump. … And, supposing Stormont was still there, how long could one
State Trooper stand off Quintana’s gang?
* * * * *
No sooner had Clinch and his motley followers disappeared in the dusk than Smith unslung his basket-pack, fished out a big electric torch, flashed it tentatively, and then, reslinging the pack and taking his rifle in his left hand, he set off at an easy swinging stride.
His course was not toward Star Pond; it was at right angles with that trail. For he was taking no chances. Quintana might already have left Drowned Valley by that third exit unknown to Clinch.
Smith’s course would now cut this unmarked trail, trodden, only by game that left no sign in the shallow mountain rivulet which was the path.
The trail lay a long way off through the night. But if Quintana had discovered and taken that trail, it would be longer still for him — twice as long as the regular trail out.
For a mile or two the forest was first growth pine, and sufficiently open so that Smith might economise on his torch.
He knew every foot of it. As a boy he had carried a jacob-staff in the
Geological Survey. Who better than the forest-roaming nephew of Henry
Harrod should know this blind wilderness?
The great pines towered on every side, lofty and smooth to the feathery canopy that crowned them under the high stars.
There was no game here, no water, nothing to attract anybody except the devastating lumberman. But this was a five thousand acre patch of State land. The ugly whine of the stream-saw would never be heard here.
On he walked at an easy, swinging stride, flashing his torch rarely, feeling no concern about discovery by Quintana’s people.
It was only when he came into the hardwoods that the combined necessity for caution and torch perplexed and worried him.
Somewhere in here began an outcrop of rock running east for miles. Only stunted cedar and berry bushes found shallow nourishment on this ridge.
When at last he found it he travelled upon it, more slowly, constantly obliged to employ the torch.
After an hour, perhaps, his feet splashed in shallow water. That was what he was expecting. The water was only an inch or two deep; it was ice cold and running north.
Now, he must advance with every caution. For here trickled the thin flow of that rocky rivulet which was the other entrance and exit penetrating that immense horror of marsh and bog and depthless sink-hole known as Drowned Valley.
* * * * *
For a long while he did not dare to use his torch; but now he was obliged to.
He shined the ground at his feet, elevated the torch with infinite precaution, throwing a fan-shaped light over the stretch of sink he had suspected and feared. It flanked the flat, wet path of rock on either side. Here Death spread its slimy trap at his very feet.
Then, as he stood taking his bearings with burning torch, far ahead in the darkness a light flashed, went out, flashed twice more, and was extinguished.
Quintana!
Smith’s wits were working like lightning, but instinct guided him before his brain took command. He levelled his torch and repeated the three signal flashes. Then, in darkness, he came to swift conclusion.
There were no other signals from the unknown. The stony bottom of the rivulet was his only aid.
In his right hand the torch hung almost touching the water. At times he ventured sufficient pressure for a feeble glimmer, then again trusted to his sense of contact.
For three hundred yards, counting his strides, he continued on. Then, in total darkness, he pocketed the torch, slid a cartridge into the breech of is rifle, slung the weapon, pulled out a handkerchief, and tied it across his face under the eyes.
Now, he drew the torch from his pocket, levelled it, sent three quick flashes, out into the darkness.
Instantly, close ahead, three blinding flashes broke out.
For Hal Smith it had all become a question of seconds.
Death lay depthless on either hand; ahead death blocked the trail in silence.
Out of the dark some unseen rifle might vomit death in his very face at any moment.
He continued to move forward. After a little while his ear caught a slight splash ahead. Suddenly a glare of light enveloped him.
“Is that you, Harry Beck?”
Instinct leg again while wits worked madly: “Harry Beck is two miles back on guard. Where is Sard?”
The silence became terrible. Once the glaring light in front moved, then become fixed. There was a light splashing. Instantly Smith realised that the man in front had set his torch in a tree-crotch and was now cowering somewhere behind a levelled weapon. His voice came presently:
“He! Drap-a that-a gun damn quick!”
Smith bent, leisurely, and laid his rifle on a mossy rock.
“Now! You there! Why you want Sard! Eh?”
“I’ll tell Sard, not you,” retorted Smith coolly. “You listen to me, whoever you are. I’m from Sard’s office in New York. I’m Abrams. The police are on their way here to find Quintana.”
“How do I know? Eh? Why shall I believe that? You tell-a me queeck or
I blow-a your damn head off!”
“Quintana will blow-a your head off unless you take me to Sard,” drawled Smith.
A moment might have meant death, but he calmly rummaged for a cigarette, lighted it, blew a cloud insolently toward the white glare ahead. Then he took another chance:
“I guess you’re Nick Salzar, aren’t you?”
“Si! I am Salzar. Who the dev’ are you?”
“I’m Eddie Abrams, Sard’s lawyer. My business is to find my client. If you stop me you’ll go to prison — the whole gang of you — Sard, Quintana, Picquet, Sanchez, Georgiades and Harry Beck, — and you!”
After a dead silence: “Maybe you’ll go to the chair, too!”
It was the third chance he took.
There was a dreadful stillness in the woods. Finally came a slight series of splashes; the crunch of heavy boots on rock.
“For why you com-a here, eh?” demanded Salzar, in a less aggressive manner. “What’a da matt’, eh?”
“Well,” said Smith, “if you’ve got to know, there are people from
Esthonia in New York. … If you understand that.”
“Christi! When do their arrive?”
“A week ago. Sard’s place is in the hands of the police. I couldn’t stop them. They’ve got his safe and all his papers. City, State, and federal officers are looking for him. The Constabulary rode into Ghost Lake yesterday. Now, don’t you think you’d better lead me to Sard?”
“Christi!” exclaimed Salzar. “Sard he is a mile ahead with the others. Damn! Damn! Me, how should I know what is to be done? Me, I have my orders from Quintana. What do I do, eh? Christi! What to do? What do you say I should do, eh, Abrams?”
A new fear had succeeded the old one — that was evident — and Salzar came forward into the light of his own fixed torch — a well-knit figure in slouch hat, grey shirt, and grey breeches, and wearing a red bandanna over the lower part of his face. He carried a heavy rifle.
He came on, sturdily, splashing through the water, and walked up to
Smith, his rifle resting on his right shoulder.
“For me,” he said excitedly, “long time I have worry in this-a damn wood! Si! Where did you say those carbiniery? Eh?”
“At Ghost lake. Your signature is in the hotel ledger.”
“Christi! You know where Clinch is?”
“You know too. He is on the way to Drowned Valley.”
“Damn! I knew it. Quintana also. You know where is Quintana? And
Sard? I tell-a you. They march ver’ fast to the Dump of Clinch. Si!
And there they would discover these-a beeg-a dimon’ — these-a
Flame-Jewel. Si! Now, you tell-a me what I do?”
Smith said slowly: “If Quintana is marching on Clinch’s he’s marching into a trap!”
Salzar blanched above his bandana.
“The State Troopers are there,” said Smith. “They’ll get him sure.”
“Cristi,” faltered Salzar, “ — then they are gobble — Quintana, Sard, everybody! Si!”
Smith considered the man: “You can save your skin anyway. You can go back and tell Harry Beck. Then both you can beat it for Drowned Valley.”
He picked up his rifle, stood a moment in troubled reflection:
“If I could overtake Quintana I’d do it,” he said. “I think I’ll try. If I can’t, he’s done for. You tell Harry Beck that Eddie Abrams advises him to beat it for Drowned Valley.”
Suddenly Salzar tore the bandana from his face, flung it down and stamped on it.
“What I tell Quintana!” he yelled, his features distorted with rage. “I
don’t-a like! — no, not me! — no, I tell-a heem, stay at those Ghost-a
Lake and watch thees-a fellow Clinch. Si! Not for me thees-a wood.
No! I spit upon it! I curse like hell! I tell Quintana I don’t-a
like. Now, eet is trouble that comes and we lose-a out! Damn! Damn!
Me, I find me Beck. You shall say to Jose Quintana how he is a damfool.
Me, I am finish — me, Nick Salzar! You hear me, Abrams! I am through!
I go!”
He glared at Smith, started to move, came back and took his torch, made a violent gesture with it which drenched the weeds with goblin light.
“You stop-a Quintana, maybe. You tell-a heem he is the bigg-a fool!
You tell-a heem Nick Salzar is no damn fool. No! Adios, my frien’
Abrams. I beat it. I save my skin!”
Once more Salzar turned and headed for Drowned Valley. … Where Clinch would not fail to kill him. … The man was going to his death. … And it as Smith who sent him.
Suddenly it came to Smith that he could not do this thing; that this man had no chance; that he was slaying a human being with perfect safety to himself and without giving him a chance.
“Salzar!” he called sharply.
The man halted and looked around.
“Come back!”
Salzar hesitated, turned finally, slouched toward him.
Smith laid aside his pack and rifle, and, as Salzar came up, he quietly took his weapon from him and laid it beside his own.
“What-a da matt’?” demanded Salzar, astonished. “Why you take my gun?”
Smith measured him. They were well matched.
“Set your torch in that crotch,” he said.
Salzar, puzzled and impatient, demanded to know why. Smith took both torches, set them opposite each other and drew Salzar into the white glare.
“Now,” he said, “you dirty desperado, I am going to try to kill you clean. Look out for yourself!”
For a second Salzar stood rooted in blank astonishment.
“I’m one of Clinch’s men,” said Smith, “but I can’t stick a knife in your back, at that! Now, take care of yourself if you can — —”
His voice died in his throat; Salzar was on him, clawing, biting, kicking, striving to strangle him, to wrestle him off his feet. Smith reeled, staggering under the sheer rush of the man, almost blinded by blows, clutched, bewildered in Salzar’s panther grip.
For a moment he writhed there, searching blindly for his enemy’s wrist, striving to avoid the teeth that snapped at his throat, stifled by the hot stench of the man’s breath in his face.
“I keel you! I keel you! Damn! Damn!” panted Salzar, in convulsive fury as Smith freed his left arm and struck him in the face.
Now, on the narrow, wet and slippery strip of rock they swayed to and fro, murderously interlocked, their heavy boots splashing, battling with limb and body.
Twice Salzar forced Smith outward over the sink, trying to end it, but could not free himself.
Once, too, he managed to get a hidden knife, drag it out and stab at head and throat; but Smith caught the fist that wielded it, forced back the arm, held it while Salzar screamed at him, lunging at his face with bared teeth.
Suddenly the end came: Salzar’s body heaved upward, sprawled for an instant in the dazzling glare, hurtled over Smith’s head and fell into the sink with a crashing splash.
Frantically he thrashed there, spattering and floundering in darkness.
He made no outcry. Probably he had landed head first.
In a moment only a vague heaving came from the unseen ooze.
Smith, exhausted, drenched with sweat, leaned against a tamarack, sickened.
After all sound had ceased he straightened up with an effort. Presently he bent and recovered Salzar’s red bandana and his hat, lifted his own rifle and pack and struggled into the harness. Then, kicking Salzar’s rifle overboard, he unfastened both torches, pocketed one, and started on in a flood of ghostly light.
He was shaking all over and the torch quivered in his hand. He had seen men die in the Great War. He had been near death himself. But never before had he been near death in so horrible a form. The sodden noises in the mud, the deadened flopping of the sinking body — mud-plastered hands beating frantically on mud, splattering, agonising in darkness— “My God,” he breathed, “anything but that — anything but that! — —”
* * * * *
II
Before midnight he struck the hard forest. Here there was no trail at all, only spreading outcrop of crock under dying leaves.
He could see a few stars. Cautiously he ventured to shine his compass close to the ground. He was still headed right. The ghastly sink country lay behind him.
About of him, somewhere in the darkness — but how far he did not know
— Quintana and his people were moving swiftly at Clinch’s Dump.
It may have been an hour later — two hours, perhaps — when from far ahead in the forest came a sound — the faint clink of a shod heel on rock.
Now, Smith unslung his pack, placed it between two rocks where laurel grew.
Salzar’s red bandanna was still wet, but he tied it across his face, leaving his eyes exposed. The dead man’s hat fitted him. His own hat and the extra torch he dropped into his basket-pack.
Ready, now, he moved swiftly forward, trailing his rifle. And very soon it became plain to him that the people ahead were moving without much caution, evidently fearing no unfriendly ear or eye in that section of the wilderness.
Smith could hear their tread on rock and root and rotten branch, or swishing through frosted fern and brake, or louder on newly fallen leaves.
At times he could even see the round white glare of a torch on the ground — see it shift ahead, lighting up tree trunks, spread out, fanlike, into a wide, misty glory, then vanish as darkness rushed in from the vast ocean of the night.
Once they halted at a brook. Their torches flashed it; he heard them sounding its depths with their gun-butts.
Smith knew that brook. It was the east branch of Star Brook, the inlet to Star Pond.
Far ahead above the trees the sky seemed luminous. It was star lustre over the pond, turning the mist to a silvery splendour.
Now the people ahead of him moved with more caution, crossing the brook without splashing, and their boots made less noise in the woods.
To keep in touch with them Smith hastened his pace until he drew near enough to hear the low murmur of their voices.
They were travelling in single file; he had a glimpse of them against the ghostly radiance ahead. Indeed, so near had he approached that he could hear the heavy, laboured breathing of the last man in the file — some laggard who dragged his feet, plodding on doggedly, panting, muttering. Probably the man was Sard.
Already the forest in front was invaded by the misty radiance from the clearing. Through the trees starlight glimmered on wat
er. The perfume of the open land grew in the night air, — the scent of dew-wet grass, the smell of still water and of sedgy shores.
Lying flat behind a rotting log, Smith could see them all now, — spectral shapes against the light. There were five of them at the forest’s edge.
They seemed to know what was to be done and how to do it. Two went down among the ferns and stunted willows toward the west shore of the pond; two sheered off to the southwest, shoulder deep in blackberry and sumac. The fifth man waited for a while, then ran down across the open pasture.
Scarcely had he started when Smith glided to the wood’s edge, crouched, and looked down.
Below stood Clinch’s Dump, plain in the starlight, every window dark. To the west the barn loomed, huge with its ramshackle outbuildings straggling toward the lake.
Straight down the slope toward the barn ran the fifth man of Quintana’s gang, and disappeared among the out-buildings.
Smith crept after him through the sumacs; and, at the foot of the slope, squatted low in a clump of rag-weed.
So close to the house was he now that he could hear the dew rattling on the veranda roof. He saw shadowy figures appear, one after another, and take stations at the four corners of the house. The fifth man was somewhere near the out-buildings, very silent about whatever he had on hand.
The stillness was absolute save for the drumming dew and a faint ripple from the water’s edge.
Smith crouched, listened, searched the starlight with intent eyes, and waited.
Until something happened he could not solve the problem before him. He could be of no use to Eve Strayer and to Stormont until he found out what Quintana was going to do.
He could be of little use anyway unless he got into the house, where two rifles might hold out against five.
There was no use in trying to get to Ghost Lake for assistance. He felt that whatever was about to happen would come with a rush. It would be all over before he had gone five minutes. No; the only thing to do was to stay where he was.
As for his pledge to the little Grand Duchess, that was always in his mind. Sooner or later, he was going to make good his pledge.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1020