When the boys had disposed of their money, most of which they carried
to bed with them, and had barricaded the door, they went to bed with
a feeling of tolerable security. They were usually both very sound
sleepers, but Sidney had worried so over his ill-advised exhibition of
money that he slept very lightly that night, and was constantly rousing
to a half-wakened state.
As he lay in an apprehensive half-slumber he dreamed that the captain
of the river boat had come to call on them and was trying to open the
door. But for some reason, which Sidney could not fathom, he could
neither admit the caller nor call out to him to come in. Suddenly he
wakened fully, and realized that there was some one really at the door.
He listened intently and could hear a movement outside, as though a
person were cautiously manipulating the door handle. He took hold
of his brother’s arm and shook him gently. Raymond started up in bed
as though he had been dreaming too, but Sidney put his hand over his
brother’s mouth and said “Sh-sh.”
The boys held their breath and listened. After a few moments there was
a slight grating sound and the fumbling ceased. Then the door strained
against the chair, which, however, held without sliding on the floor.
Whoever was attempting an entrance had, without doubt, succeeded in
shooting back the bolt of the lock, and had then tried to push the door
open, but had been balked by the chair.
After it was discovered that the door was blocked on the inside, no
further noise was audible. Indeed, what noise there had been was so
slight that it would not have roused the boys if Sidney had not been
nearly awake and really expecting something of that sort.
They sat up in bed and listened breathlessly for what seemed a long
time, then as they heard no sound, they lay quietly back on the
pillows. They did not talk, for they did not want whoever might be
lurking outside to know that they were awake.
The door was on Sidney’s side of the bed, and the window on Raymond’s.
From the bed, as the boys looked out of the window, they looked
directly against the sky, which was clear and brilliant with stars. The
boys were too thoroughly aroused to go to sleep again, and lay there
thinking about the possible future dangers of a journey that had begun
so ominously, when they were conscious that the light from the window
was darkened.
They turned their faces that way and saw the figure of a man outside
the open window. At first they thought he had climbed up from below,
but in a moment they saw that he was suspended by a thick rope from
above, and had without doubt let himself down from the flat roof of the
building.
A dark hand grasped the window sill and the intruder was evidently
steadying himself for the entrance. Raymond seized his new revolver,
which he had placed under his pillow, raised on his elbow, and, taking
a quick aim, fired. The figure at the window disappeared, and there was
a heavy thud.
“Oh, Ray!” whispered Sidney, “did you shoot him? I’m afraid we’ll get
into trouble for that.”
“No, I didn’t shoot him; I only cut his rope and let him down gently.”
“Did you aim for the rope?”
“Sure thing.”
Sidney lay back on the bed and shook with noiseless laughter. When he
was able to speak he whispered again,--
“I hope it didn’t jar him much when he struck the ground. He must have
been somewhat surprised.”
“I have just noticed a thing that has surprised me,” said Raymond.
“What is that?” asked his brother.
“You don’t see that rope at the window any more, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, after I cut it in two, the rest of it was drawn up. There was
somebody on the roof who let that fellow down. I believe the whole
caboodle of them were in on this thing.”
“You did a good job, though, Ray, when you cut his rope. I imagine they
will all be careful how they come within range of your gun again.”
“Yes, unless they think I tried to hit the man and couldn’t. Never
mind, maybe I’ll fool them next time.”
The boys expected that some one would come to their room to inquire
about the shooting, and they waited in some apprehension, but no one
came. There was no more sleep for them, and they lay in bed wide awake.
Presently the dawn flushed the sky and the light intensified until it
was day. Then the boys got up and dressed, and by the time that process
was concluded the muezzin’s call to prayers sounded from a near-by
mosque. The faithful were putting up their petitions in preparation for
the activities of the day. The boys descended from their room, and were
greeted with most obsequious politeness by the landlord, who placed
before them an appetizing breakfast.
“I wonder if his sleep was disturbed last night,” Said Raymond. “Isn’t
he an innocent old sinner?”
“Perhaps he didn’t have anything to do with it,” suggested Sidney.
“Don’t you believe it. If he had been surprised by the commotion, he
would have tried to find out what it was.”
“I guess maybe shooting, and perhaps shooting men, too, is so common
here that no one notices it.”
“But we haven’t heard any shooting at all,” said Raymond, “except what
I did.” “That’s so,” replied Sidney. “Perhaps they were so attracted by
the possibilities of my purse that they forgot everything else.”
“They’ll have to make another try for that purse. I suppose that we’ll
have to pack some grub now, and that’ll be no fun.” “I guess we’ll have
to,” replied Sidney, “if it’s nothing more than bread and cheese. I
don’t know whether we’ll find a village very often or not, and we must
be prepared to camp out if necessary.”
After breakfast they went out to a bazaar and bought two small leather
pouches, in which they placed a little food and the few small articles
they had to carry. The pouches they slung over their shoulders with the
blanket rolls above. Then they were ready to begin their tramp, and the
undertaking, when it was close at hand, seemed so formidable that their
courage almost failed them. It was necessary for Sidney to bolster up
their declining spirits by declaring again that they would probably not
be able to return to Nizhni-Novgorod even if they should wish to do
so. So they took the road, or rather the trail, for beyond Timour Kahn
Shoura there was no wagon road, but only narrow saddle trails that led
up into the high plateaux and ranges of the Caucasus.
That first day their way was through a succession of narrow, wooded
ravines that were pleasant rather than difficult. The ascent was
gradual and was not difficult at any time, and there was sufficient
shade to temper the sun’s rays, which, in those southern valleys, would
otherwise have been scorching.
The boys would have covered the ground more effectively if they had not
been somewhat nervous as a result of the events of the preceding night.
They fully expected that the men who had tried to enter their room at
the inn would waylay them somewhere on the road that day. The country
through which they passed was ideal for such an enterprise, for there
was frequent and abundant shelter for an ambush. They were, therefore,
constantly on the _qui vive_, and examined rather carefully before
passing every spot that seemed favorable for an attack from robbers.
Such vigilance retarded their speed, and they had a feeling that they
were making very little progress. The packs, too, though not really
heavy, were burdensome, and toward night made the boys’ legs, which
lately had not been used to tramping, drag distressingly.
“I guess those fellows at Timmy got scared last night after all,”
remarked Raymond as the day waned and there had been no alarm.
“I hope so,” replied Sidney; “a long mountain tramp is bad enough
without having to watch out all the time for highwaymen.”
“I don’t believe they would have come out so far as this, anyway. There
were plenty of good places to hold us up back on the road. What do you
say to making camp? I’m dead tired.”
“I’m ready to stop. If we don’t get too tired to-day we’ll travel
better to-morrow.”
“Yes, and the day after, and the day after that, and so on _ad
infinitum_. I guess it will take us _ad infinitum_ to get through.”
“It won’t do for us to get discouraged at this stage of the game, Ray.”
“I’m not discouraged; I’m only ready to quit for the night, and here’s
a good place.”
The travelers were following up a ravine through which a small stream
flowed, a tributary of the larger stream on which Timour Khan Shoura
was situated. At the point where Raymond proposed to stop, the wall of
the ravine was a rocky bluff that rose nearly perpendicularly. A short
spur jutted out, forming a small cove which faced up the ravine and
made a well-sheltered spot. Across to the other side the distance was
perhaps two hundred yards, and midway flowed the stream. About half a
mile farther up, the walls of the ravine drew together until a narrow
gorge was formed.
The boys unslung their blanket rolls and threw themselves down on
the ground with exclamations of relief. The disturbance of the night
before, with the nervous strain and consequent loss of sleep, was a
greater tax on their strength than they had realized at the time. All
day they had been keyed up by the expectation of trouble, which they
had been braced to meet and defeat. When the necessity for alertness,
as they supposed, was removed, and the tension was relaxed, they
settled down, feeling too languid to exert themselves further.
Raymond declared that he would rather loaf than eat, and he didn’t
care if he never ate again if he only got well rested. That was the
way they felt when they stopped, but a very little rest will suffice
to make healthy boys conscious of gnawing hunger, especially when they
have eaten very little through the day, as was the case with Sidney and
Raymond.
Soon both of them began to feel a strong desire to explore the
lunch-bags, but they remembered how dry that lunch was, and how
difficult it would be to eat it without something to wash it down.
Raymond proposed that they move down to the stream and eat their supper
there where the water was handy, but Sidney told his brother to stay
where he was and he would take a large cup with which they had provided
themselves and bring water up.
Raymond lay at his ease on the ground, lazily watching Sidney as he
went down to the stream and knelt to fill his cup and take a drink
before returning to camp. From the stream, Raymond allowed his gaze to
wander on to the rugged mountains of the opposite side, and then up the
ravine to the narrow gorge. There his look paused with a start, for he
saw an object moving, which in a moment he identified as a man. The
figure was coming down the ravine, just below the gorge. As Raymond
looked, the man dropped to one knee and brought a long rifle up to a
sight down the ravine.
Raymond wondered what the game could be that was the object of the
hunter’s aim. The gun, apparently, pointed directly down the ravine,
and the boy looked rapidly along to try to discover the animal. His
gaze traveled down until it encountered his brother still stooping
to fill the cup, and he had seen no game. Then, as his eye rested on
Sidney, in a flash he realized that his brother was the game the hunter
was stalking. His heart seemed to leap into his throat, where it nearly
stifled him. Making a supreme effort he overcame the convulsion of
terror and shouted,--
“Drop flat, Sid!”