The Lost Cabin Mine

by Frederick Niven

  *CHAPTER XIV*

  _*Apache Kid Prophesies*_

  You may wonder how it was possible for me to lie down, to roll myselfround in my blankets, to fall asleep in such a camp, in such company asthat. I, indeed, wondered at myself as I did so, wondered how I came bythe heedlessness, for I cannot call it courage, that allowed me tocompose myself to slumber. Anything might have happened in the darkhours, murder and sudden death; but I was excessively fatigued; my bodyached; my nerves too were unstrung by the torture of the cliff. Sleep Imust and sleep I did, on the instant that I stretched myself and laiddown my head. Perhaps the sigh with which I dismissed from my mind theanxieties that might have kept me wakeful was more of a prayer than asigh.

  Across the fire of smaller branches that had cooked our supper, in thepreparing of which each took part, a great log was laid, so that noreplenishing would be necessary.

  It was the sound of Donoghue's voice that woke me to blue night,starshine, and the red glow of the log. His position was unaltered. Icould have believed that he had not moved a muscle since my lying down,and the stars told me I had slept some time. He reclined with his legscrossed, his feet stretched to the glow, his hands in his coat pockets,and his unloosened blanket-roll serving for a cushion to the small ofhis back.

  "There ain't no call for me to turn in," he was saying. "I don't haveto turn in to please you."

  I snuggled the blankets under my chin and looked to see who he wasaddressing.

  All the others of the company were lying down, but it was evidentlyFarrell who had made the prior remark, for he now worried with hisshoulders in his blankets to cast them from him, and rising on an elbow,said: "O, no! You don't have to. But it looks to me mighty like as ifyou was scared of us--that you don't lay down and sleep. We 're squareenough with you."

  Donoghue looked at him in that insolent fashion of opening the eyeswide, and then almost shutting them, and sneered:

  "Well, well, what are you always opening your eyes up a little ways andpeepin' at one for? One would think you was scared o' me; and thatfeller there, that Dan, or what you call him, he keeps waking up andgiving a squint around, too. You 're square with us? We 're squarewith you, ain't we?"

  Farrell flung the blankets back from him and cried out: "Do you knowwhat I'm goin' to tell you? I would n't trust you, not an inch. I gotmy gun here ready, if you try any nonsense."

  The gleam of an unholy satisfaction was on Donoghue's face then, and hecried out: "Well, sir, if I find a man trust me, I 'm square with him;but if he don't trust me, I don't play fair with him. That's right, Iguess, ain't it?"

  This, to my mind, was a very faulty morality, but it seemed not so toFarrell.

  "Yes," he agreed. "I reckon that's generally understood," and then heshowed quite a turn for argument on his own plane of thought.

  "But you don't trust me, neither," said he, "and if I was payin' youback the way you talk about, I 'd up and plug you through the head."

  Argument was not in Donoghue's line but he cried out:

  "And where would I be while you were tryin' it on?"

  Farrell did not answer, and in the pause Donoghue did indeed continuethe argument, unwittingly, to its logical conclusion:

  "No, no, my boy," he said, "you would n't plug me here. You would n'tplug me till we got you what you wanted. O! I know your kind well.You thought you held the trumps when you corralled the lad there," andhe jerked his head in my direction, "But you did n't."

  "It seems to me like as we did," said Farrell, with a vindictive leer,"else why are we here now?"

  "Here now?" snapped Donoghue. "Why, you're here because my partner isso durned soft, times. He would n't--go--on--and leave the lad," hedrawled contemptuously. "What good was the boy to you, anyhow?" heasked. "Looks as if you knew you were trying it on with a soft, queerfellow. I 'd ha' let you eat the boy if you wanted and jest taken anote o' your ugly blue mug in my mind and said to myself: 'Larry, myboy, when you see that feller ag'in after you 've got through with thisLost Cabin Mine--you shoot him on sight!'"

  "And what if the mug was to follow you up?" said Farrell.

  All this while there was no movement round the fire, only that I sawApache Kid's hand drawing down the blankets from his face. Pinkertonand the half-breed were a little beyond Donoghue and lying somewhat backso that I did not know whether or not they were awakened by this talk.And just then Dan sat up suddenly, glared out upon the plain to the fourpoints of the compass, and screamed out:

  "The hosses! Where's the hosses?"

  We were all bolt upright then, like jumping-jacks, and leaning on ourpalms and twisting about staring out strained into the moon-pallidplain.

  Dan leapt to his feet.

  "The hosses is gone!" he cried, and he rushed across to the two horsesthat were tied with the lariats.

  "Lend me a hoss," he cried. "We must go out and see where Pete has gotto with them horses."

  "I lend you dis--you sumracadog!" said the half-breed in his gutturalvoice and he flung up his polished revolver in Dan's face.

  It was Apache Kid who restored some semblance of order to the camp.

  "All right, Dan," he said. "Don't worry. It's too late now."

  We all turned to him in wonder.

  "Pete thought it advisable to take the whole bunch away. He agreed thatit was advisable to make what little capital he could out of hisexpedition into this part of the country. On the whole, I think he wassensible. Yes--sensible is the word," he said, thoughtfully wagging hishead to the fire and then looking up and beaming on us all.

  "What you mean?" cried Farrell.

  "Just what I say," said Apache Kid. "He simply walked the whole bunchquietly away five minutes after he bunched them together out there."

  "You saw him doin' that! You saw his game and said nothing!" criedFarrell.

  "Even so!" replied Apache Kid.

  Farrell glared before him speechless.

  "What in creation made him do that?" said Dan, going back like a mandazed to his former place.

  "You mean _who_ in creation made him do that?" Apache Kid said lightly:"and I have to acknowledge that it was I."

  "You!" thundered Farrell. "I did n't see you say a word to him. Youbought him off some ways, did you? How did you do it?"

  "O!" said Apache Kid. "I simply gave him a hint of the terrors in storefor him if he remained here. You heard me; and he was a man who couldunderstand a hint such as I gave. I took him first, as being easiest.But I have no doubt that you two also will think better of yourintention and depart--before it is too late. He went first. You, Mr.Farrell, I think, will have the honour of going last."

  "I don't know what you mean," said Farrell, like a man scentingsomething beyond him.

  "No," said Apache Kid. "I understand that. You will require some othermethod used upon you. I don't know if it was, as you suggested, thegentleman's religion that was to blame for it, but he suffered from thefear of man. That was why he went away. Now you, Farrell, I don't thinkyou fear man, God----"

  "No! Nor devil!" cried Farrell.

  "Nor no more do I!" said Dan, turning on Apache Kid. "Nor no more do I.And if the loss o' the hosses don't cut any figure to you, it don't nomore to us, for we 're goin' through with you right to the end."

  But I thought that a something about his underlip, as I saw it in theshadows of the fire, belied his strong statement. Apache Kid was of myopinion, for he looked keenly in Dan's face and remarked: "A very goodbluff, Daniel."

  "Don't you Daniel me!" cried the man. "You 're gettin' too derned freshand frisky and gettin' to fancy yourself."

  "That's right. A bluff should be sustained," said Apache Kid,insolently, and then dropping the conversation, as though it were ofabsolutely no moment, he rolled himself again in his blanket. And thishe had no sooner done--unconcerned, untroubled, heedless of any possiblevillainy of these two men--than Pinkerton's voice spoke behind me:

&nb
sp; "He 's a good man spoiled, is that Apache Kid. I could ha' been doin'with a son like that."

  "I think you 're kind o' a soft mark, right enough," sneered Farrell tothe now recumbent form of Apache Kid. "I think you 're too soft toscare me."

  Apache Kid was up in a moment.

  "Soft!" he cried, "soft!"

  And on his face was the look that he gave the Italian livery-stablekeeper at Camp Kettle, only, as the saying is, _more_ so.

  I heard Donoghue gasp, you would have thought more in fear than inexultation: "Say! When he gets this ways you want to be back out of hisway."

  "Look at me!" said Apache, standing up. "You see I 've got on no belt;my gun's lying there with the belt. I 've got no knife--nothing. Willyou stand up, sir, and let me show you if I 'm soft, seeing that I havegiven you my word--not to kill you?" You should have heard the waythese last words came from him. "Will you stand up and let me justhammer you within an inch of your end?"

  Farrell did not quail; I will do him that justice. But he satconsidering, and then he jerked his head and jerked it again doggedly,and, "No," he said, "no, I reckon not."

  The fire of anger had leapt quick enough to life in Apache Kid, and itseemed to ebb as suddenly.

  "All right," he said. "All right. Perhaps it is better so. It woulddirty my hands to touch you. And indeed," he was moving back to hisplace now, "lead is too clean for you as well."

  He turned as he reached where his blankets lay.

  "Farrell," he said, "it is at the end of a rope that you will die."