"Would you be annoyed if I suggested turning back?" I asked, coming
right to the point.
It was Donoghue who answered.
"Guess we would n't be annoyed; but you would n't get leave, you dirty
turncoat."
But Apache turned wrathfully on him.
"Turncoat?" he cried. "Do you think he wants to go down and give us
away? If you do, you 're off the scent entirely. It 's the thought of
those dead men that has sickened him of coming."
"O, pshaw!" cried Donoghue, grinning. "Sorry I spoke, Francis. There
's my fist; shake. Never mind the dead men."
We "shook," but I have to say that I did not relish the feel of that
hand, somehow. He was a man, this, who lived in a different world from
mine.
"Why, sure you can go back, if you like," said he. And then suddenly he
caught himself up and said: "No, no, for the love of God don't do that!
Apache Kid and me don't do with being alone in the mountains."
On one point at least this man felt deeply, it would appear.
"Well," said Apache Kid to me. "That's a better tone of Donoghue's. To
beseech a favour is always better than to threaten or to attempt
coercion and I must add my voice to his and ask you to come on with us.
Though personally," he added, "had I once made a compact with anyone, I
would carry it through to the bitter end."
"I should never have suggested this," said I, feeling reproved. "I will
not mention it again."
This was the end of my uncertainty, and we rode on through the June day
till we came to the north part of the Kettle River, gurgling and
bubbling and moving in itself with sucking, oily whirlpools, and
travelled beside it a little way and then left it at the bend where it
seethed black and turbid with a sound like a herd bellowing.
The creek we came to at noon was kindlier, with a song in place of a
cry; swift flowing it was, so that it nearly took our horses from their
feet as we crossed it, or the nigher half of it, rather (for we camped
on an islet in the midst of it and the second crossing was shallower and
easy), but, though swift as the Kettle, it made one lightsome instead of
despondent to see. The sun shone down into its tessellated bed, all the
pebbles gleaming. The rippling surface sparkled and near the islet was
dappled over with the thin shadows of the birches that stood there
balancing and swaying. And scarcely had we begun our meal when we heard
a clatter midst the pebbles and a splashing in the water, and there came
an old Indian woman on a tall horse, with a white star on its forehead,
and pots and kettles hanging on either side of it. It came up with
dripping belly out of the creek and went slapping past us in the sand
and the old dame's slit of a mouth widened and her eyes brightened on us
under the glorious kerchief she wore about her head.
"How do," said my companion, and she nodded to us, passed on, and the
babe slung on her back stared at us with wide eyes.
For an hour after that they came in twos and threes, men and women, the
young folk laughing and chatting among themselves, giving the lie again
to all tales of an Indian never smiling. It was a great sight to me and
I can never forget that islet in the Kettle River. Not one of the
people stopped to talk. The men and the old women gave us "How do" and
drew themselves up erect in their saddles. The younger women smiled,
showing white teeth to us in a quick flash and then looking away.
Apache Kid was radiant. "They're a fine people, these," said he.
"Yes," said Donoghue, "when you 've got a gun and keep them at a
distance."
"Nonsense," cried Apache Kid. "I 've lived among them and I know."
"Yes, lived among 'em to buy 'em whisky, I guess, so as they could get
round about the law."
"No," said Apache Kid, "never bought them a single bottle all the time I
was with them."
I could see that Donoghue believed his partner, but I could see too that
he could not comprehend this story of living with the Indians for no
obvious reason. He looked at Apache Kid as men look on one they cannot
understand, but spoke no further word.
After we left that camp, as we struck away across the valley toward the
far-off range, we saw these folk still on the other mountainside and
caught the occasional flash of the sunlight on a disk, maybe, or on a
mirror, or the polished heel of a rifle swinging by the saddle; and then
we lost sight of them among the farther woods.
That picturesque sight did a deal to lighten my heart. Apache Kid, too,
was mightily refreshed the rest of the afternoon, and spun many an
Indian yarn which Donoghue heard without any suggestion of disbelief.
But it was no picnic excursion we were out upon. We had come into the
hollow of the hills. We were indeed at the end of the foothills, and
across the valley before us the mountains rose sheer, as though shutting
us into this vale. To right, the east, was a wooded hill, parallel with
which we now rode; and to left cliffs climbed upwards with shelving
places here and there on their front, very rugged and savage.
Donoghue nodded in the direction of a knoll ahead of us, and said:
"Shall we camp at the old spot? It's gettin' nigh sundown; anyway, I
guess we've done our forty to fifty mile already."
"Yes," said Apache Kid. "It's a good spot."
"You've been here before?" I inquired.
My two companions looked in each other's eyes with a meaning glance.
"Yes, we 've been here before," said Donoghue, and I had the idea that
there was something behind this. So there was; but I was not to hear
it--then.
Suddenly we all three turned about at the one instant for a far-off
"Yah-ah-ah-ah!" came to us.
There, behind us, we saw two riders, and they were posting along in our
track at great speed.
We reined up and watched them, Apache Kid drawing his Winchester across
his saddle pommel, and Donoghue following suit, I, for my part,
slackening my revolver in the holster.
Nearer they came, bending forward their heads to the wind of their
passage and the dust drifting behind them in two spiral clouds. Then I
saw that one was a white man with a great, fluttering beard; the other
an Indian, or half-breed. And just at the moment that I recognised the
bearded man Apache Kid cried out: "Why! It's the proprietor of the
Half-Way-to-Kettle House."
"What in hell do he want up here?" said Donoghue. "Lead?"
They came down on us in the approved western fashion, with a swirl and a
rush, stopping short with a jerk and the horses' sides going like
bellows.
"Good day, gentlemen," said the man of the beard. "Are you gentlemen
aware that there's no less than seven gentlemen followin' you up,
thirstin' for your money or your life-blood or something?"
"Well, sir," said Apache Kid, "it does not surprise me to hear of it."
"So," said the shaggy-bearded, whose name, by the way, was J. D.
Pinkerton, for all who passed by to read above his
hostel--"Half-Way-Rest Hotel--Prop.: J. D. Pinkerton," so ran the legend
there.
"So," he repeated again, and again and took the tangle from his beard.
"Well, I reckon from what I saw of two of you gentlemen already that you
don't jest need to be spoon-fed and put in your little cot at by-by
time, but--well, you see my daughter--she has a way o' scarin' me when
she puts it on. And she says: 'Dad,' she says, 'if you don't go and
warn them, their blood will be on your head should anything happen to
them.' Now, I don't want no blood on my head, gentlemen. And then she
says: 'Well, if you don't go, I 'll jest have to go myself with
Charlie--this is Charlie--Charlie, gentlemen--a smart boy, a good boy,
great hand at tracking stolen stock and the like employ. An old
prospector had seen you, and by good luck he stopped us, and by better
luck I was polite for once and listened to his chin-chin, and so we
heard where you had got off the waggon road. After that it was all
child's play to Charlie here."
"We owe you our thanks, sir," said Apache, and then the moodiness went
from his face, and he said in a cheerful tone: "But they may never find
out what way we 've gone. You see it was a mere chance, your meeting
that prospector and being told of the point at which we left the road."
"That's so," said Mr. Pinkerton: "but still there's chances, you know."
"Oh, yes," said Apache Kid, and again: "We owe you our thanks," said he.
"Not you, not you!" said Mr. Pinkerton.
"But what sort of outfit is this that you have come to post us up
about?"
"Why, just as dirty a set of greazers as ever stole stock, and they must
sit there talkin' away about you in the dining-room after they had told
my daughter they was through with their dinner; and my cook heard 'em
from his pantry--told my lass--she told me--I'm tellin' you--there you
have the whole thing,--how they 're to dog you up and wait till you get
to your Lost Cabin. And now we 're here. But I want to let you
know--for I 'm a proud man and would n't like any suspicions, though
they might be nat'ral enough for you to harbour--want just to let you
know that as for what you 're after--this yere Lost Cabin,--I don't give
that for it," and he snapped his fingers. "I 've got all a rational man
wants. But we 'll chip in with you, if you think of waiting on a bit to
see if you 're followed."
"Sir," said Apache Kid, "I have to thank you again. I have to thank
you, and your daughter through you, and your cook; but I must beg of you
to get back."
"Pshaw!" cried Pinkerton. "What's that for?"
"Well--this may be a bloody business, sir, if we are followed, and it
would be the saddest thing imaginable----" he broke off and asked
abruptly:
"Pardon the question, sir, but is Mrs. Pinkerton alive?"
"My good wife is in her resting grave in Old Kentucky," said Pinkerton
in a new voice.
"That settles it, sir," said Apache Kid. "It would be a sad thing to
think of that fine girl down at the Half-Way House as an orphan."
Pinkerton frowned.
"When you put it that way," said he, "you take all the fight out of
J.D."
"Then I must even beg you to be gone, sir, before there is any chance of
pursuit by these men," said Apache Kid. "If we come back alive, we may
all call and thank you again, and Miss Pinkerton too. I beg of you to
go and take care of meeting them on the way."
"Well, boys, luck to you all, then," and round he wheeled and away with
a swirl of leather while the half-breed laid the quirt, that swung at
his wrist, to his lean pony's flanks and, with a nod to us, shot after
Mr. Pinkerton.
We watched them till they had almost crested the rise and there suddenly
they stopped, wheeled, and next moment had dismounted.
"What's wrong?" said Donoghue. "Something wrong there."
"It looks as if the chance Pinkerton spoke of was against us after all,"
said Apache Kid, quietly.
We were not left long in doubt, for a puff of smoke rose near the
backbone of the rise and a flash of a rifle and then seven mounted men
swept down on these two.
We saw the half-breed tug at his horse's head; saw the brute sink down
to its knees, saw the half-breed fling himself on his belly behind it,
and then his rifle flashed.
The seven riders spread out as they charged down on the two and at the
flash of the rifle we saw one of them fall from the saddle and his horse
rear and wheel, then spin round and dash madly across the valley,
dragging the fallen rider by a stirrup for quite a way, with a hideous
bumping and rebounding.
But it was on the two dismounted men on the hill-front that my attention
was concentrated, and round them the remaining six of their assailants
were now circling.
"Come on!" cried Apache Kid.
He dropped the reins of our pack-horse to the ground and remarked: "She
'll not go far with the rein like that and the pack on her."
Next moment we three were tituping along the valley in the direction of
the two held-up men.
Apache Kid was a little ahead of me, Donoghue a length behind, but
Donoghue's mount would not suffer us to go in that order long. With a
snort it bore Donoghue abreast of me and I clapped my heels to the
flanks of my beast. Next moment we were all in line, with the wind
whistling in our ears. The six men who seemed to be parleying with
Pinkerton and the half-breed, suddenly catching sight of us in our
charge, I suppose, wheeled about and went at a wild gallop, with dirt
flying from their horses' hoofs, slanting across the hill.
And then I had an exhibition of Donoghue's madness.
He cried out an oath, the most terrible I ever heard, and, "Come on,
boys," he shouted to us.
"Yes, let's settle it to-day," came Apache's voice.
"Right now!" cried Donoghue, and away we went after the fugitives.
I saw the reason for this action at once; for to put an end to these men
now would be the only sure way to make certain of an undisputed tenancy
of the Lost Cabin. Indeed, their very flight in itself was enough to
suggest not so much that they were afraid of us (for Pinkerton had given
them the name of fearless scoundrels) as that they did not want an
encounter yet--that their time had not yet come. But for Pinkerton,
they might have followed up quietly the whole way to our goal. Thanks
to him, we knew of them following. This, though not their time to
fight, was our time.
Suddenly I saw Donoghue, who was ahead, rear his horse clean back on to
its haunches and next moment he was down on a knee beside it, and, just
as I came level with him, his rifle spoke and in a voice scarcely human
he cried, "Got 'im! Got 'im! The son of a dog!"
And sure enough, there was a riderless horse among the six and a man all
asprawl in the sunshine before us.
But at that the flying men wheeled together and all five of them were on
their feet before Apache Kid and I could draw rein. I heard a rifle
snap again behind me, whether Apache Kid's or Donoghue's I did not know,
and then, thought I, "If I stop here, I 'm done for; I 've got to keep
going."
The same thought must have been in Apache Kid's mind for I heard the
quick patter of his pony as it came level with me. He passed me and he
and I--I now a length behind him--came level with the five men clustered
there behind their horses and the horse of the fallen man, Apache crying
to me:
"Try a flying shot at them."
He fired at that, and a yell rose in the group and I saw one man fall
and then I up with my revolver and let fly at one of the fellows who was
looking at me along his gun-barrel.
And just at that moment it struck me, in the midst of all the fluttering
excitement, that they let Apache Kid go by without a shot. But right on
my shot my horse went down--his foot in a badger hole--and though
afterwards I found that I had slain the horse that the fellow who was
aiming at me was using as a bastion, I knew nothing of that then--for I
smashed forward on my head.
The last thing I heard was the snort of pain that my horse gave, and the
first thing, when I awakened, that I was aware of was that I was lying
on my back looking up at the glaring sky, a great throbbing going on in
my head.
My hands were tied together behind my back and my ankles also trussed up
in a similar manner.
I was in the wrong camp. I had fallen somehow into the hands of our
enemies.
*CHAPTER XI*
_*How It Was Dark in the Sunlight*_
You will hear persons speak of one who has been in a trance or swoon as
"returning to consciousness." I remember once of hearing someone
objecting to the phrase, saying that a person was either conscious or
unconscious, and to speak of one returning to consciousness as though
there was a middle state, he argued, was erroneous; but I discovered for
myself, that day, the full meaning of the phrase; for first it was a
sound that I heard, a sound as of rustling wings, and this presently
changed and became the sound of whispering as of a whole chamber full of
furtive, stealthy persons talking under the breath. Then I was aware of
the sunlight in my face and at the same moment the number of voices
dwindled and the power of them increased. I opened my eyes and found
myself lying in a mighty uncomfortable and strained position upon a slab
of rock, so hot with the sun that my hands, which were behind my back
and under me as I lay, were absolutely scorched. I made to withdraw
them and then found they were fast tied together.
As for the voices I heard, they were only two in number, I think.
"He's all right; I see his eyes flickerin'," said one, and there,
bending over me, was a face as full of evil as ever I desired to see.
I have seen a cast of an eye that almost seemed to give a certain quaint
charm to a face; but the cast in these eyes that scrutinised me now was
of the most diabolic.
My head was beating and thumping like a shipyard with all its riveters,
and the pain between my eyes was well-nigh unbearable.
With puckering eyebrows I scrutinised my captor, and as I did so he
cried out: "Here you are now, Farrell."
"Right!" came a voice from behind, and the man called Farrell shuffled
down on us, a big-boned, heavy-browed man with a three days' stubble on
his face which was of a blue colour around the upper lip and on the
jaws--and over his right cheek-bone there was an ugly scar of a dirty
white showing there amidst the sun-tan.
I thought at first it was a whip he carried in his hand, but suddenly
what I took for the thong of the whip wriggled as of its own accord, and
addressing himself to it, he said: "None o' your wrigglin', Mr. Rattler,
or I 'll give you one flick that 'll crack your backbone."
Then I saw that what he carried was a stick, with a short string at the
end of it and in the end of that string was a noose, taut around a
rattlesnake's tail, just above the knob of the rattle.
"See what I've bin fishin' for you?" he said, and laughed in an ugly
way.
He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the shoulders and drew me
to a sitting posture, so that I saw where we were--on a rock-strewn
ledge of some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had seen on our
left from the valley. But owing to the rise of the ledge toward the
front I could not see the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs,
blue and white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top. And lying on
their bellies at the verge of the shelf on which we were, I then saw two
other men, with their rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing down
intently on the valley.
I had no thought then as to how we came there, where my friends were,
nor for any other matter save my own present peril. For before I was
well aware, and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too dazed
to make any protest, I was flung down upon my face in the sand, and
then, "Give me a hand here, you two," said Farrell, and the scouts
turned and rose, and, one of them clutching me by the back of the neck
and thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt a weight gradually
crushing upon my back and legs.
"That's him!" said one, and then my neck was freed.
The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing else than a great, flat
slab of rock. I thought, though it had been lowered gently enough on
me, that the heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush my
bones. Certainly to move below the waist was quite out of the question.
All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away fashion, my head
hammering and my tongue parched in my mouth like a piece of dry wood.
But when these four laughed brutally among themselves and began a series
of remarks such as: "See and don't give it an inch too short," or, "See
that the string's taut or we 'll not get what we want," I came more to
my senses and wondered what was to befall me. Then, for the first time,
I was addressed directly by Farrell.
"Well, kid," he said, "you 're in a tight corner--you hear me?
"I hear you," said I, speaking with difficulty, so dry was my throat.
"Well," said he, "you can get out of this fix right off by telling us
where the Lost Cabin Mine lies. And that's business right off, with no
delay."
"I can never do that," said I, "for I don't know myself."
There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and then: "All right," snapped
the voice. "Fact is, we have n't much inclination to loiter here. You
've taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it is--shove it in," he
broke off.
But the last words were not for me.
One of the others stepped before me, his foot grazing my head, and I
heard him say, "There?"
"No," said another. "That's over close--yes, there. That's the spot."
And then they all stepped back from me, and I, lying with my chin in the
dust, saw what the man had been about; for directly before me was the
point of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake noosed by the
tail to it.
No sooner had the man who fixed it in leaped back (and he did so very
smartly, while the others laughed at him and caused him to rip out a
hideous oath) than the reptile coiled fiercely up the stick; but the
hand was gone from the end of it, and down it slithered again.
Then it saw me with its beady eyes, rattled fiercely, again coiled,
and--I closed my eyes and drew in my head to the shoulders and wriggled
as far to the side as I could.
But something smote me on the chin. I felt my heart in my throat, and
thought I to myself, "I am a dead man now"; but before I opened my eyes
again I heard another rattle, opened my eyes in quick horror, saw the
second leap of the snake toward me, and shrivelled backward again.
"Close shave!" cried one of my tormentors; but this time, after the tap
on my chin I felt something moist trickle down upon the point of it, and
I thought me that I was close enough to get the poison that it spat, but
not close enough to allow of its fangs reaching me.
"But if this stuff should reach my eye it might be fatal," thought I,
heedless now of headache or weariness, or anything but the terrible
present. My mouth, too, I kept tight closed, as you may guess.
"Will you tell us now, kid?" cried Farrell. "Will you spit it out now?"
Thought I to myself: "I must die now for certain. I trust that even if I
knew, I would not reveal this that they ask. But assuredly, to reveal
it or to keep it secret is not mine to choose. I must even die."
It came into my head that soon the thin string would, at one of these
leaps, cut clean through the snake's tail, and then-- Then it leapt
again.
"I do not know!" cried I. "I cannot tell you!"
"Then you can just lie there!" snapped one of the four, and went back to
his place of outlook on the ledge. And the other, who had been watching
the valley, came and stood by my shoulder, irritating the snake, by his
presence, to fresh efforts.
"You 're a fool," he said. "Your partners have deserted you. They 're
off. There ain't hide nor hair to be seen of them. If they 'd leave
you in a lurch like this, you 're a fool not to let us know the
location. We 'll follow 'em up again and take vengeance on 'em for
you--see?"
And just then, as though to refute his remarks as to the heedlessness of
my partners, I heard a faint snap of a rifle, and the man with the
squint, who had taken his turn on guard at the place this fellow had
vacated, turned round and said he: "Boys, O boys, I 'm hit!"
Something in the tone of his voice made me glance at him sharply, but
with half an eye for the snake, as you may be sure, and my ears alert
for its warning rattle. I was never more alert in my life than then,
and, strange though it may seem, the predominating thought in my mind
was, "How sad, how very sad to leave this world, never to see the rich,
rich blue of that sky again!"
But, as I say, the tone of the man's voice breaking in on my thoughts
and terrors was peculiar, and, with my head still as low in my shoulders
as I could manage to hold it, I laid my cheek to the hot sand and looked
at him. He had turned to the man who had been standing by me, but at
sound of the shot had dropped to his knees.
"Does it look bad?" said he, drawing his finger across his forehead,
where was a tiny mark, and then holding out his hand and looking on it
for traces of blood, raising up his face for inspection by the man
beside me at the same time, and a question in his eyes, very much as you
have seen a child, "Is my face clean, mother?" Yes, and with a very
childish voice, too.
"It don't look bad," was the reply--and neither it did.
But when he turned away again to the other sentry who lay further off,
repeating his question to him in that simple voice, I saw the back of
his head. And his brains were dribbling out behind upon his neck. A
terrible weakness filled my heart. I heard him say, with no oath, as one
might have expected, but in a soft voice: "Dear me!" and again, "Dear
me! How very dark it is getting!"
Which was an awful word to hear with the sun blazing right in his eyes
out of the burnished, palpitating sky. And then he put it as a question
and still with the note of astonishment: "Dear me, isn't that strange?
Is n't it getting very----" and he sank forward on his face; but what
followed I do not know. In the terror of my own position I kept all my
faculties alert; but at the sight of that man's back and the bloody
wound, and at the childish voice of him, the world seemed to wheel. A
sickness came on me and I fainted away.
*CHAPTER XII*
_*I Am Held as a Hostage*_
It must have been more of a momentary squeamishness, that, rather than a
fainting fit, I think; for I heard myself moan twice, was conscious of
the moaning. There seemed something pressing on my heart and forcing me
to gasp for breath and relieve the tension on it. A sweat broke on me
then, and after that I felt myself, as it were, swinging through space,
and with another gasp and a great gulp of air the world spun back again
and there I lay, the cold sweat standing on my brow, and the rattlesnake
coiling afresh.
"Why! What's this move now?" I heard one of my captors cry. "What's he
doin' with his rifle carried and waggling his hand in the air that
ways?"
"Don't you know what that is? That's the peace sign--flat of the hand
held up, palm open and pushed forward wi' that there kind o' to-and-fro
movement."
"Peace sign be durned! If I was sure we could get the information out
of this here kid laying behind us, I'd put a bullet through his skull
and let out his brains--front of his face or back of his neck like
Cockeye there--all the same to me."
"Reckon you 'd be safer not to do that."
"Think the kid here won't speak, then?"
"No; I don't think he'll speak. I've just been figurin' that neither
Apache Kid nor Larry might tell him. He's liable to be givin' you
straight goods and no lie when he says he don't know the location."
"Pity we did n't drop Apache Kid's hoss that time they charged down. We
could ha' got him, instead, that way. Reckon we need n't have been so
scared o' killin' Apache Kid himself without gettin' the news. But say!
This won't do. I don't like the looks of this thing. They all are
getting a move on 'em and edgin' up this way, the whole three of 'em."
"Three of them," thought I, with my eye on the rattler. "That's one
short. I wonder who has been killed or disabled."
"Say! Shout to him to stop. Tell him if he wants to pow-wow with us to
come up alone."
"Yes, and leave his rifle down. You do the talkin' now, Farrell."
"Right," said Farrell, and then he shouted, "Well, what do you want?"
"I want to come up and talk this out with you," hailed a voice that I
recognised for Apache Kid's.
"He can't come up here," said Farrell. "We don't want 'em to know that
we 're only a threesome now, same as 'em."
"I 'll tell you what to do," said one of them, with the voice of a man
who has been visited by a sudden inspiration.
"Stop there a minute!" cried Farrell, and then turning to the speaker he
said sharply: "Spit it out then, Pete; what's your notion?"
"Loosen the kid there," said Pete, "and set him on the front here and
hold your gat to his head while we hear what they 've got to palaver."
"Hum!" mused Farrell. "Kind o' hostage notion? Heh? Well, there's
something in that," and he stood upright fearlessly and held his hand
aloft, the palm facing away to those in the valley.
"You can come up the length o' that there white rock," he cried, and
then to his companions: "See! Lend a hand here."
The snake had coiled again. I cannot guess how often it had sprung at
me; I do not know. All that I know is that at every fresh rattle I
crouched my head into my shoulders and gasped to myself the one word
"God"; for we all, I believe, no matter what manner of lives we have
led, at the last moment give a cry to the Unknown, in our hearts, if not
with our lips. And every leap of the snake I was prepared to find the
one that was to make an end of my acquaintance with the sunlight and
with the sweet airs that blow about the world.
But that torment was over now, for with one swift drop of his rifle-butt
Farrell cut the head clean from the hideous long body, and then lent the
other two men a hand to roll the great stone from off my aching limbs.
"Stand up, you son of a whelp," he said, and spurned me with his boot.
After the terror of the snake there seemed little now that I need heed.
"It's easier said than done!" I cried, angry at his words. "I 'm like a
block of stone from my waist down."
"I guess that's right. He must be feeling that way," said one of the
others, with a touch of commiseration in his voice.
That was the first sign of any heart that I had discovered in the
ruffians.
"Oh, you guess it's right, do you, Dan?" sneered Farrell. "Well, lend a
hand and haul him here to the front of this ledge."
Next moment it was as if a thousand red-hot needles were being run into
my stiff, trailing legs, for they caught me up by my arms and drew me
like a sack to the front of the cliff.
And then I saw the whole plateau below us. Apache Kid was half-way up
the rise, among the long wire-grass at the verge of the cliffs; further
down, leaning upon a rock, his shoulders and head visible, was Larry
Donoghue. The third man that had been spoken of I could not see and
searched the hillside in vain for; but when Farrell stood upright beside
me and waved his hand I saw the half-breed, Charlie, who had come after
us with Mr. Pinkerton, rise behind a flat rock and lounge across it,
looking up on us with his broad sombrero pushed back on his head.
Mr. Pinkerton, I supposed, had been prevailed upon to return out of our
dispute, lest his life might be the forfeit for his interest in our
behalf. But just as that explanation for his non-appearance had
satisfied me I saw, half across the plain, something moving slowly--a
pack of horses it seemed, and so clear was the air of that late
afternoon that I recognised the form of the mounted man who guarded
them, could almost, with a lengthy and concentrated survey, descry his
great beard like a bib upon his breast.
"Well," said Farrell, "what do you want to pow-wow about? You see who
we got here?"
"I see," said Apache Kid, putting a foot upon the white stone. "How are
you, Francis?"
"He 's all right," said Farrell. "But he 's a kind o' prisoner o' war
just now."
"Oh!" said Apache Kid. "Well, I suppose if we want to get him back we
'll have to buy him back?"
"That's what!" said Farrell, emphatically.
"Well," said Apache Kid, "we are going on,--my friends and I,--and, as
we have your horses now as well as our own, we thought we might perhaps
be able to trade you them back for the lad."
And here, as you will be wondering how the horses had changed hands, I
must tell you what I had afterwards explained to me.
It seems that no sooner did I fall from my horse, at the time it put its
foot in the badger hole (Apache Kid having gone past wildly, bringing
down one man and one horse with his two running shots), than the four
men, seeing my predicament, swung to their horses' backs, opened out,
and two of them passing, one on either side of me, swung from their
saddles and yanked me up by my arms.
Then full tilt they charged down the centre of the plain, intending
evidently to make the rising knoll, of which I spoke, in the valley's
centre. And with me lying across Farrell's saddle, they doubtless
thought they had the key to the Lost Cabin. But Apache Kid wheeled his
horse below, and Donoghue mounted again above, and from the hill-crest
the half-breed spurred down, and so these three set after us, converging
on each other as they came.
But Farrell's mount was falling behind with the burden of my extra
weight, and they wheeled sharp to left and put their horses directly to
the cliff-front. These ponies can do marvels in climbing, but they were
over-jaded, having been very hard ridden, and right on the slope it was
evident that not only the half-breed, but Larry next, and Apache Kid
following, were coming within effect range. It was Farrell who proposed
their move then, considering that with me in their hands half the battle
was won if only they had something in the way of a fort from which to
stave off attack. So they flung off there, and, letting their horses
go, up they came, dragging me along. But at the foot of the hill the
others stopped, seeing how they had all the odds against them then and
were so fully exposed. For it had not yet occurred to them, as indeed
was very natural it should not, that the last thing these men wanted to
do was to fire upon them.
The intention of this little company of cut-throats had been to follow
up softly in the rear, as near as possible without being seen by us,
until we came to our journey's end. What they had planned for us then
it is, perhaps, needless to so much as hint. Little did they think that
between them and us was Mr. Pinkerton, carrying the news of their
possible pursuit. But when they saw him riding out of that plain, with
the half-breed, the whole reason for his presence there was guessed by
them, especially when they saw us halted within sight, the whole three
of us turned round as though already watching for their approach. It
was, undoubtedly, this upsetting of their plans that made them so
short-tempered and snappish with one another.
But by now I think even Farrell was convinced that I was useless to them
in so far as the giving of information went. And so I was now to be
used as a hostage,--a sort of living breastwork before them,--as though
they were to say: "See! if you fire, you kill your partner!"
Farrell laughed loud at Apache Kid's suggestion.
"Why," said he, "you talk as if you held the trumps; but you don't. And
for why? Why, because we do." And he spat in the sand and put a hand
on either hip. "We don't need our horses, my mates and me. We ain't in
any hurry, and can set here as long as you like,--aye, or go away when
we like, for that matter. What we want is that Lost Cabin Mine, and if
you don't tell us where it is, why, then we'll let the wind out of your
partner here."
"And where do we come in?" yelled Donoghue, rearing up beside his bush.
"Oh!" said Farrell, insolently, "are you talking, too? Well, you don't
come in at all. There you are! That's something for you to consider!"
Donoghue broke out in a roar of laughter.
"Oh," he said, "the lad is nothing to us. You can do what you like with
him."
Apache Kid turned upon him with a glance as of astonishment, and then
again to Farrell he said:
"I 'll give you the offer we came up with, and you and your two mates
can consider it."
"Three mates, you mean," snapped Farrell.
"Na! Na!" cried Donoghue. "When I look along a rifle I never err."
"Oh, it was you did it?" cried Farrell. "Well, what's your offer?"
"This is our offer," said Apache Kid. "You can come along with us. We
are three, and so are you, and we can split the Lost Cabin between us."
Farrell turned to his two companions and looked a question at them.
"I guess you 'd better take that," said the man Dan, "for I reckon even
if we did suggest killing this kid, it would n't bring the facts out of
'em."
"And anyhow," said the other, him they called Pete, speaking low, but
yet I caught the drift of his words, "we can easy enough fix them all
when we get there."
"Come on!" said Apache Kid. "How does our offer strike you? Are you
aware that every hour we delay there may be others getting closer to the
Lost Cabin Mine?"
"Take the offer, man. Take the offer," said Pete and Dan.
"All right," cried Farrell. "But mind, we're bad men, and this will
have to be run on the square."
Donoghue laughed, and for a moment, as I looked at him, I saw an evil
glitter in his eye. "Oh, yes!" he ejaculated, "we 're all bad men
here."
My three captors made no delay; but as for their fallen friend, they
paid no heed to him. Only Farrell took the cartridges from his belt and
ran his hands through the pockets, which contained a knife, a specimen
of ore, two five-dollar bills, and a fifty-cent piece.
For my part, I had the utmost difficulty in getting to my legs, and
still more in descending the face of the precipice. I noticed, too,
that Farrell kept close by my side, as though he thought still that it
was as well to have me between Apache Kid and himself.
Just as we came down the rise, there was Mr. Pinkerton leading the
horses along toward us.
"Say!" cried Farrell. "What about him?" And he pointed to Pinkerton.
"O!" said Apache Kid. "He wants nothing to do with this expedition
whatever."
Then suddenly Farrell's face lighted with a new thought. "And he goes
down to the camps and blabs the whole thing, eh?"
"I believe he won't say a word about it,--neither he nor the half-breed
here."
Farrell seemed scarcely convinced, and we went down in silence a little
way. Then suddenly he said: "I think you 've got some game on. Say! do
you swear you are on the square with us?"
Apache Kid frowned on him and, "I give you my word of honour," said he;
and so we came ploughing through the loose soil and sand into the
sun-dried grass, and thence on to the level below, where Mr. Pinkerton,
now aided by his half-breed follower who had gone on down-hill and
mounted his horse, was bunching the horses together. And over all was
the sky with the daylight fading in it.
*CHAPTER XIII*
_*In Which Apache Kid Behaves in His Wonted Way*_
What with the pains upon my forehead, caused by the blow I had come by
when my unfortunate horse put his foot in that unchancy burrow and sent
me flying; what with that pain and the ache of my legs, and something
else that was not a pain, but worse than a pain, I had scarcely the
heart, I fear, to give Mr. Pinkerton as kindly a smile of welcome as he
had in store for me on seeing me again alive.
That other thing I speak of as worse than a pain was a horrible
nervousness with which my hour of torture with the snake had endowed me.
Yes, it can only have lasted about an hour, I think, that hideous
experience, though then it seemed an eternity. But so had it affected
me that when we gathered together on the plateau I paid little heed to
the council of my companions,--had lost interest in their affairs.
Instead, I kept jerking my head into my shoulders, and caught myself
even gasping suddenly and dodging a snake that leaped at me in the
air,--a snake that, even as I sought to evade, I knew was not there at
all,--a mere creature of my harassed and frayed nerves. Mere fancy I
knew it to be, but still I must needs dodge it and blurt out a gasp of
terror again and again.
It was while I was still busied on this absurd performance,--still
standing in the talking group and heedless of the talking,--that I saw
Apache Kid knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in contempt;
and that caused me to pull myself together and square myself, as a
soldier may do under the eye of an officer. When I did so, I remember
that I seemed to go to the other extreme; in my attempt to master this
nervousness, I caught myself grinning.
It was then that Mr. Pinkerton, who was holding back a little way,
looking on, but not party to our doings, remarked to me, as he caught my
eye again:
"I took a long shot at that horse of yours, sir, and put it out of its
agony when it got its leg broke; but things have been levelling up since
then, and I think men and horses are just on a par again--one horse, one
man."
I laughed hilariously at this saying, as though it were something hugely
amusing. But between you and me, I do not think that Mr. Pinkerton
spoke it from his own kind heart but spoke thus more as some sensitive
men wear a cloak of pride or shyness or a false bombast to protect them
from other men less finely tuned. It was, I believe, only to show a
hard front before these new partners of ours, as villainous a trio as
you ever clapped eyes on, that he spoke in this light way of the doings
of death; because at my laugh I saw him frown as though he regretted
that I could enjoy his bitter jest so fully.
In a dazed way I saw the party mounting; but so great difficulty had I
in gaining the saddle of a horse--whose horse I do not know; I think it
was the mount of the man called Cockeye--that Donoghue came to my side
and held the stirrup and gave me a "leg up" and, "Are you scared, or
what?" he said in my ear, low and angry and with something of contempt.
"You 've made a hash of to-day for us as it is, with goin' and gettin'
that accident. Are you scared o' them fellers?"
"Scared!" said I. "Man! I 've been tortured."
"Been what?" said he, and he got on to that vicious mount of his with
such a viciousness himself, in his pull of the rein and lunge of his
spurs, that I saw Mr. Pinkerton give him a look as who should say: "He's
a devil of a man, that."
But Donoghue crowded his beast to my side and asked me what I meant by
my remark of being tortured, and I told him the whole matter of it as we
rode across the plateau, all lit now with the thin last glow of day.
He listened with his head to one side and his loose jaw tightening and
thrusting out.
"I take back what I said to you," said he. "I take it back right now;
and as for hindering our journey--why that could n't be helped. Better
that we met these fellows right here, face to face, instead of goin' on
unknowing and getting shot by 'em round the fire to-morrow night or
plugged through the windows of the Lost Cabin three nights hence."
This might have given me an idea of how far we had still to go--or
rather should I say, in a country such as this, of vast distance, of how
nigh we already were to our journey's end, had I been much heeding that
evening.
He held out his hand to me across his saddle (I was riding on his left),
and as we shook hands I saw the man Pete look at us with a doubtful eye.
And for a surety there was every reason why these fellows should be
suspicious of us and be wary and watchful of our movements.
That they were three unscrupulous scoundrels--"The toughest greazers
that ever stole stock," as Mr. Pinkerton had phrased it when speaking of
them and their cronies (using the word "greazer" in its loose, slang
sense, not necessarily implying thereby that they were actually
Mexicans, which is the meaning of the name)--that they were capable of
any treachery and cruelty themselves, there was no doubt. And as they
were, so they would be very prone to judge others and were, doubtless,
already thinking to themselves that we three had after all--for the
present at least--the best of the bargain; for had they set upon us and
done away with us, where would have been their chance of coming to the
Lost Cabin? As far away as ever; the Lost Cabin would still have been a
needle in a haystack.
On the other hand, I guessed them already arguing, we would be glad and
even eager to kill them, though they desired to keep us alive--for a
time.
I suppose they took our handshake--Larry's and mine--for a sign of some
understanding between us and scented in it a treacherous design upon
them, for they kept upon our flanks hereafter, at sight of which
Donoghue laughed his ugly laugh and shook his horse forward a step,
sneering at them over his shoulder.
O! We were a fine company to go into camp together, as we did within
half an hour, before the last grasshoppers had ceased their chirring, on
the side of the knoll where was a spring of water, a little pool
overhung by a rock with strange amphibious insects darting away from its
centre to the sheltering banks as we dipped our cans for water to make
the flapjacks.
To any chance observers, happening into our camp at twilight, we would
have seemed nothing more dire than a round-up camp of cow-boys, I fancy,
for after the meal, when pipes and cigarettes were lit and belts let out
a hole or two and boots slackened, there was an air of out-door peace
around the fire.
Yet I need not tell you that the peace was on the surface--fanciful,
unreal. As for me, the snake was leaping in my eyes out of the fire,
when Apache Kid, as calm as you please, struck up a song.
Heads jerked up and eyes glanced on him at the first stave. It seemed
as though everything that any man there could do or say was to be
studied for an underlying and furtive motive.
It was "The Spanish Cavalier" he sang, with a very fine feeling, too,
softly and richly. There is a deal of the sentimentalist about me, and
the air, apart from the words, was ringing in my heart like a regret.
"The bright, sunny day," he sang, "it soon fades away," and after he
ceased the plain had fallen silent. The chirring of insects had gone and
left the valley empty of sound. During all the journey I never heard so
much as the twitter of any bird (except one of which you shall hear
later), so I think that the gripping silence at the end of day must have
been due only to the stopping of the insect life. By day one was not
aware of any sound; but at the close of day, when the air chilled, the
silence was suddenly manifest.
Sure enough, the bright, sunny day was fading and in the silence, when
the voice of the singer ceased, I must needs be away back in the
homeland, counting the hours in my mind, reckoning them up and judging
of what might probably be afoot in the homeland then--and there is
something laughable in the thought now, but I counted the difference in
time the wrong way about and sat sentimentalising to myself that my
mother perhaps was just gone out to walk in the Botanic Gardens, and
picturing my little sister prattling by her side with her short white
stockings slipping down on her brown legs, and looking back, dragging
from my mother's hand, to watch the blue-coated policeman at the corner
twirling his whistle around his finger. Had I not been so wearied and
worn, I would not have made this error in the reckoning. As likely as
not my mother was then waking out of her first sleep, and thinking, as
women do, of my material and spiritual welfare, all at the one time;
perhaps wondering if my socks were properly darned and putting up a
loving prayer for my welfare.
Then the singing ceased, and the cry that I now knew well, the dusk cry
of the coyotes, rose in a howl, with three or four yelps in the middle
of it and the doleful melancholy baying at the close.