The shadows of evening were falling when Saleratus Bill returned from
pasturing the wearied horses. Bob had been too exhausted to look about
him, even to think. From a cache the gun-man produced several bags of
food and a side of bacon. Evidently Bright's Cove was one of his
familiar haunts. After a meal which Bob would have enjoyed more had he
not been so dead weary, his captor motioned him to one of the bunks.
Only too glad for an opportunity to rest, Bob tumbled in, clothes and
all.
About midnight he half roused, feeling the mountain chill. He groped
instinctively; his hand encountered a quilt, which he drew around his
shoulders.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. A persistent discomfort which had
for an hour fought with his drowsiness for the ascendancy, now disclosed
itself as a ligature tying his elbows at the back. Evidently Saleratus
Bill had taken this precaution while the young man slept. Bob could
still use his hands and wrists, after a fashion; he could walk about but
he would be unable to initiate any effective offence. The situation was
admirably analogous to that of a hobbled horse. Moreover, the bonds were
apparently of some broad, soft substance like sacking or harness
webbing, so that, after Bob had moved from his constrained position,
they did not excessively discommode him.
He had no means of guessing what the hour might be, and no sounds
reached him from the other parts of the house. His muscles were sore and
bruised. For some time he was quite content to lie on his side, thinking
matters over.
From his knowledge of the connection between Baker and Oldham, Oldham
and his captor, Bob had no doubt as to the purpose of his abduction; nor
did he fail to guess that now, with the chief witness out of the way,
the trial would be hurried where before it had been delayed. Personally
he had little to fear beyond a detention--unless he should attempt to
escape, or unless a searching party might blunder on his traces. Bob had
already made up his mind to use his best efforts to get away. As to the
probabilities of a rescue blundering on this retreat, he had no means of
guessing; but he shrewdly concluded that Saleratus Bill was taking no
chances.
That individual now entered; and, seeing his captive awake, gruffly
ordered him to rise. Bob found an abundant breakfast ready, to which he
was able to do full justice. In the course of the meal he made several
attempts on his jailer's taciturnity, but without success. Saleratus
Bill met all his inquiries, open and guarded, with a sullen silence or
evasive, curt replies.
"It don't noways matter why you're here, or how you're here. You _are_
here, and that's all there's to it."
"How long do I stay?"
"Until I get ready to let you go."
"How can you get word from Mr. Oldham when to let me off?" asked Bob.
But Saleratus Bill refused to rise to the bait.
"I'll let you go when I get ready," he repeated.
Bob was silent for some time.
"You know this lets me off from my promise," said he, nodding backward
toward his elbows. "I'll get away if I can."
Saleratus Bill, for the first time, permitted himself a smile.
"There's two ways out of this place," said he--"where we come in, and
over north on the trail. You can see every inch--both ways--from here.
Besides, don't make no mistakes. I'll shoot you if you make a break."
Bob nodded.
"I believe you," said he.
As though to convince Bob of the utter helplessness of any attempt,
Saleratus Bill, leaving the dishes unwashed, led the way in a tour of
the valley. Save where the wagon road descended and where the steep side
hill of the north wall arose, the boundaries were utterly precipitous.
From a narrow gorge, flanked by water-smoothed rock aprons, the river
boiled between glassy perpendicular cliffs.
"There ain't no swimming-holes in that there river," remarked Saleratus
Bill grimly.
Bob, leaning forward, could just catch a glimpse of the torrent raging
and buffeting in the narrow box cañon, above which the mountains rose
tremendous. No stream growths had any chance there. The place was water
and rock--nothing more. In the valley itself willows and alders, well
out of reach of high water, offered a partial screen to soften the
savage vista.
The round valley itself, however, was beautiful. Ripening grasses grew
shoulder high. Shady trees swarmed with birds. Bees and other insects
hummed through the sun-warmed air.
In vain Bob looked about him for the horses, or for signs of them. They
were nowhere to be seen. Saleratus Bill, reading his perplexity, grinned
sardonically.
"Yore friends might come in here," said he, evidently not unwilling to
expose to Bob the full hopelessness of the latter's case. "And if so,
they can trail us in; _and then trail us out again!_" He pointed to the
lacets of the trail up the north wall. He grinned again. "You and I'd
just crawl down a mile of mine shaft."
Having thus, to his satisfaction, impressed Bob with the utter futility
of an attempt to escape, Saleratus Bill led the way back to the deserted
village. There he turned deliberately on his captive.
"Now, young feller, you listen to me," said he. "Don't you try no monkey
business. There won't be no questions asked, none whatever. As long as
you set and look at the scenery, you won't come to no harm; but the
minute you make even a bluff at gettin' funny--even if yore sorry the
next minute--I'll shoot. And don't you never forget and try to get
nearer to me than three paces. Don't forget that! I don't rightly want
to hurt you; but I'd just as leave shoot you as anybody else."
To this view of the situation Bob gave the expected assent.
The next three days were ones of routine. Saleratus Bill spent his time
rolling brown-paper cigarettes at a spot that commanded both trails. Bob
was instructed to keep in sight. He early discovered the cheering fact
that trout were to be had in the glass-green pools; and so spent hours
awkwardly manipulating an improvised willow pole equipped with the short
line and the Brown Hackle without which no mountaineer ever travels the
Sierras. His bound elbows and the crudity of his tackle lost him many
fish. Still, he caught enough for food; and his mind was busy.
Canvassing the possibilities, Bob could not but admit that Saleratus
Bill knew his job. The river was certain death, and led nowhere except
into mysterious and awful granite gorges; the outlets by roads were well
in sight. For one afternoon Bob seriously contemplated hazarding a
personal encounter. He conceived that in some manner he could get rid of
his bonds at night; that Saleratus Bill must necessarily sleep; and that
there might be a chance to surprise the gun-man then. But when night
came, Saleratus Bill disappeared into the outer darkness; nor did he
return until morning. He might have spent the hours camped under the
trees of the more remote meadow, whence in the brilliant moonlight he
could keep tabs on the trails, or he might be lying near at hand; Bob
had no means of telling. Certainly, again the young man reluctantly
acknowledged to himself, Saleratus Bill knew his job!
Nevertheless, as the days slipped by; and Bob's physical strength
returned in its full measure, his active and bold spirit again took the
initiative. A slow anger seized possession of him. The native combative
stubbornness of the race asserted itself, the necessity of doing
something, the inability tamely to submit to imposed circumstances.
Bob's careful analysis of the situation as a whole failed to discover
any feasible plan. Therefore he abandoned trying to plan ahead, and fell
back on those always-ready and comfortable aphorisims of the
adventurous--"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and "one
thing at a time." Obviously, the first thing to do was to free his arms;
after that he would see what he would see.
Every evening Saleratus Bill took the candle and departed, leaving Bob
to find his own way to his bunk. This was the time to cut his bonds; if
at all. Unfortunately Bob could find nothing against which to cut them.
Saleratus Bill had carefully removed every abrasive possibility in the
two rooms. Bob very wisely relinquished the idea of passing the
threshold in search of a suitable rock or piece of tin. He had no notion
of risking a bullet until something was likely to be gained by it.
Finally his cogitations brought him an idea. Saleratus Bill was
attentive enough to such of the simple creature comforts as were within
his means. Bob's pipe had been well supplied with tobacco. On the fourth
evening Bob filled it just as his jailor was about to take away the
candle for the night.
"Just a minute," said Bob. "Let me have a light."
Bill set the candle on the table again, and retired the three paces
which he never forgot rigidly to maintain between himself and his
captive. Bob thereupon lit his pipe and nodded his thanks. As soon as
Saleratus Bill had well departed, however, he retired to his bunk room,
shutting the door carefully after him. There, with great care, he
deliberately set to work to coax into flame a small fire on the old
hearth, using as fuel the rounds of a broken chair, and as ignition the
glowing coal in the bowl of his pipe. Before the hearth he had managed
to hang the heavy quilt from his bunk, so that the flicker of the flames
should not be visible from the outside.
The little fire caught, blazed for a few moments, and fell to a steady
glow. Bob fished out one of the chair rungs, jammed the cool end firmly
in one of the open cracks between the timbers of the room, turned his
back, and deliberately pressed the band around his elbows against the
live coal.
A smell of burning cloth immediately filled the air. After a moment the
coal went out. Bob replaced the charred rung in the fire, extracted
another, and repeated the operation.
It was exceedingly difficult to gauge the matter accurately, as Bob soon
found out to his cost. He managed to burn more holes in his garment--and
himself--than in the bonds. However, he kept at it, and after a half
hour's steady and patient effort he was able to snap asunder the last
strands. He stretched his arms over his head in an ecstasy of physical
freedom.
That was all very well, but what next? Bob was suddenly called to a
decision which had up to that moment seemed inconceivably remote.
Heretofore, an apparent impossibility had separated him from it. Now
that impossibility was achieved.
A moment's thought convinced him of the senseless hazard of attempting
to slip out through any of the doors or windows. The moon was bright,
and Saleratus Bill would have taken his precautions. Bob attacked the
floor. Several boards proved to be loose. He pried them up cautiously,
and so was enabled to drop through into the open space beneath the
house. Thence it was easy to crawl away. Saleratus Bill's precautions
were most likely taken, Bob argued to himself, with a view toward a man
bound at the elbows, not to a man with two hands. In this he was
evidently correct, for after a painful effort, he found himself among
the high grasses of the meadow.
There were now, as he recognized, two courses open to him: he could
either try to discover Saleratus Bill's sleeping place and by surprise
overpower that worthy as he slept; or he could make the best of the
interim before his absence was discovered to get as far away as
possible. Both courses had obvious disadvantages. The most immediate to
the first alternative was the difficulty, failing some clue, of finding
Saleratus Bill's sleeping place without too positive a risk of
discovery; the most immediate to the second was the difficulty of
getting to the other side of the river. As Saleratus Bill might be at
any one of a thousand places, in or out of doors; whereas the river
could be crossed only by the bridge. Bob, without hesitation, chose the
latter.
Therefore he made his way cautiously to that structure. It proved to be
lying in broad moonlight. As it constituted the only link with the
outside world to the south, Bob could not doubt that his captor had
arranged to keep it in sight.
The bridge was, as has been said, suspended across a strait between two
rocks by means of heavy wire cables. Slipping beneath these rocks and
into the shadow, Bob was rejoiced to find that between the stringers and
the shore, smaller cables had been bent to act as guy lines. If he could
walk "hand over hand," the distance comprised by the width of the stream
he could pass the river below the level of the bridge floor. He measured
the distance with his eye. It did not look farther than the length of
the gymnasium at college. He seized the cable and swung himself out over
the waters.
Immediately the swift and boiling current, though twenty feet below,
seemed to suck at his feet. The swirling and flashing of the water
dizzied his brain with the impression of falling upstream. He had to fix
his eyes on the black flooring above his head. The steel cable, too, was
old and rusted and harsh. Bob's hands had not for many years grasped a
rope strongly, and in that respect he found them soft. His muscles,
cramped more than he had realized by the bonds of his captivity, soon
began to drag and stretch. When halfway across, suspended above a
ravening torrent; confronted, tired, by an effort he had needed all his
fresh energies to put forth, Bob would have given a good deal to have
been able to clamber aboard the bridge, risk or no risk. It was,
however, a clear case of needs must. He finished the span on sheer nerve
and will power; and fell thankfully on the rocks below the farther
abutment. For a half minute he lay there, stretching slowly his muscles
and straightening his hands, which had become cramped like claws. Then
he crept, always in the shadow, to the level of the meadow.
Bob was learning to be a mountaineer. Therefore, on the way down, he had
subconsciously noted that from the head of the meadow a steep dry wash
climbed straight up to intersect the road. The recollection came to the
surface of his mind now. If he could make his way up this wash, he would
gain three advantages: he would materially shorten his journey by
cutting off a mile or so of the road-grade's twists and doublings; he
would avoid the necessity of showing himself so near the Cove in the
bright moonlight; and he would leave no tracks where the road touched
the valley. Accordingly he turned sharp to the left and began to pick
his way upstream, keeping in close to the river and treading as much as
possible on the water-worn rocks. The willows and elders protected him
somewhat. In this manner he proceeded until he had come to the smooth
rock aprons near the gorge from which the river flowed. Here, in
accordance with his intention of keeping close in the shadow of the
mountain, he was to turn to the right until he should have arrived at
the steep "chimney" of the wash. He was about to leave the shelter of
the last willows when he looked back. As his eyes turned, a flash of
moonlight struck them full, like the heliographing of a mirror. He fixed
his gaze on the bushes from which the flicker had come. In a moment it
was repeated. Then, stooping low, a human figure hurried across a tiny
opening, and once again the moonlight reflected from the worn and
shining revolver in its hand.