“Great guns! The Darrell boy!” gasped Martin Mudd, as Dick boldly faced
the three men.
“Help! Oh, save me from this fellow!” screamed Clara.
Dick threw up his right hand and let one of the stones fly.
That was the time Martin Mudd came near seeing his finish.
If he had not dodged the stone he would have got it alongside the head.
Dick followed up with the other stone, but that was a miss also and
before he could show any further fight Tony and Bill Struthers rushed
upon him.
The case looked desperate then.
Clara Eglinton, terribly frightened, urged her horse on up the hill.
“Don’t kill him! Hold him till I come back, Tony!” shouted Mudd,
starting up the trail after the horse.
“Yes, hold me if you can get me!” cried Dick, whipping out his
revolver. “Now, then, slope, you scoundrels! Slope or I’ll make short
work of you both.”
The men dodged back.
Bill Struthers vaulted upon his horse and clashed away up the trail.
“Cowards!” snarled Tony, throwing up his hands. “I surrender, young
feller. They have both deserted me. I’m not going to do this act
alone.”
“Throw down your gun, then, and your knife, too, if you have one,”
retorted Dick. “I don’t trust your kind.”
Tony flung a revolver at Dick’s feet.
“Now the knife.”
“Hain’t got one.”
“I know better. Throw it down or I’ll make a finish of you--do you
hear?”
Tony pulled out a long knife and flung it upon the ground by the
revolver.
Then, as Dick stooped to pick them up he improved the opportunity to
take to his heels and run like a deer up the trail.
“By gracious, they are a sweet lot of cowards!” exclaimed Dick. “Never
saw their equal. What in the world shall I do about that girl, though?
Strange that I should meet her again away out here. I can’t imagine
what it means.”
He was hurrying along up the trail as these thoughts flashed over him,
for he had no notion of deserting Clara Eglinton, in spite of the fact
that she had deserted him.
There was evidently trouble ahead for himself, too, unless he could
keep out of the way of the man Mudd.
More puzzled than ever to know what it all meant, Dick made the best
time he could up the trail, but his wet clothes seemed to hold him back
and it seemed to him that he had never run so slow as he was running
now.
For a few moments he could hear the clatter of the horses’ hoofs upon
the stony trail and once he heard Mudd give a shout.
Then, after a few moments of silence, other horses were heard--there
seemed to be several of them. Then the sounds suddenly died away and
all was still.
Dick followed on, a good deal perplexed.
He had no idea where the trail was going to lead him, but he knew
enough about the Bad Lands to be quite well aware that to be lost in
them meant simply death.
Even the Indians avoid these dreary wastes. For a hundred miles east
and twice as much west Doctor Dan had told him that there was not a
ranch or a house of any kind and it was just as bad if he went north,
as he seemed to be going now.
“If it wasn’t for Miss Eglinton I would go straight down the mountain
and try to get back to camp by the trail we followed,” thought Dick,
“yet I can’t run away and leave the poor girl in the hands of those
scoundrels. What in the world shall I do, anyhow? I’m blest if I know.”
He pushed on for a short distance further, passing into a dark canyon
where the cliffs towered on either side of him.
There was nothing to be seen or heard of the horses here, either. They
seemed to have utterly vanished. With many windings the canyon led off
up the mountain; it was broken by cross canyons, dark, narrow passages
opening off every few yards.
Dick soon saw that the case was absolutely hopeless, for the horses
might have taken to any of these canyons.
He came to the conclusion that Martin Mudd and Tony must have had
horses concealed near by and had mounted them when they started away
from the scene of the fight.
“This won’t do,” exclaimed Dick, stopping short at last. “I must go
back. I must go straight down to the foot of the mountain and try to
get back to camp and rely upon Doctor Dan to help me find that girl.”
This was a wise resolve, no doubt, but Dick soon found that it was one
thing to come to it and quite another to carry it out.
He calculated that he was about three hundred yards away from the
entrance of the canyon and he expected to spend five or ten minutes
getting back, but, after he had walked twenty, he still found himself
between those towering walls of rock, the dark canyon still winding on.
Dick stopped again, a horrible fear coming over him.
“I’m lost already. That’s what’s the matter,” he muttered. “What in the
world am I to do?”
And, indeed, the situation was anything but pleasant.
The little moonlight which found its way down into the canyon did no
more than to enable Dick to keep from stumbling.
The entrances to all the cross canyons looked alike. It was the easiest
thing in the world to mistake one for the other and Dick knew that this
was just what he must have done.
He hurriedly retraced his steps, trying to determine which of the many
openings was the correct one and at last settled upon one a little
wider than the rest and undertook to follow that.
He was doomed to disappointment, however, for after going a short
distance down on the down grade the trail through the canyon suddenly
began to ascend, growing steeper and steeper every moment, but Dick
continued to follow it, for he could see more light ahead and a cold
damp wind came rushing down the canyon and both of these signs made him
fancy that he must be pretty close to the lake.
“If I can only strike it I don’t want anything better,” he thought;
“then all I’ve got to do is to follow the shore around till I come to
the camp.”
He had not far to go before he knew that he was right, for suddenly he
passed out of the canyon and came upon the shore of the lake.
Within a few rods of the end of the canyon stood an old, ruinous log
hut, in the window of which a light burned.
There were four horses hobbled near-by cropping the grass which grew
over a level stretch that extended back toward the rocks, being the
only trace of any green thing which Dick had seen since he entered the
Bad Lands.
“That’s where they are,” he muttered. “I’ve run them down at last.”
He hesitated a moment and then started to walk over to the hut.
“I’m bound to help that girl if I can,” thought Dick. “Those fellows
are such a lot of cowards that----”
Suddenly two hands were clapped upon his shoulders from behind and Dick
found himself whirled violently around to face Martin Mudd.
“That’s the talk. Glad you came around,” chuckled the man. “It’s
dollars in my pocket to do you up, Dick Darrell, and don’t you forget
it you are going to be done.”