“What’re you going to do with me?” Otis inquired, the trace of a smile
playing about his lips.
The Sheriff, puzzled, turned to his deputy.
“You better stay here with Otis, Seth,” he directed. Then he glanced at
the spot across the stream where the moving figure had disappeared in
the trees. For an instant he pondered, uncertain.
“No,” he announced in a moment, “that wont do. It would take two of us
to get him, now that he’s in that timber. Guess we’ll have to let him
go.”
“Wait a minute,” objected the deputy. “I’ll fix it so we can both go.”
He swung from the saddle, reached in his saddlebags and drew forth a
pair of nickel-plated handcuffs.
“Hate to do this, Otis,” he began hurriedly, “but we wont be gone long.
Just step over by this tree.”
Otis dismounted, not at all pleased that his pledge not to attempt to
escape had not been accepted. He resolved, however, to make no protest,
knowing that were he in the place of his captors, he would take every
precaution to prevent the escape of a prisoner, if he deemed that
prisoner guilty of murder. So without a word he stepped to the tree.
The deputy snapped one of the steel circlets about his left wrist. Then
he brought Otis’ right hand about the trunk of the tree, a fairly large
lodgepole pine, and snapped the other end of the handcuffs about his
right wrist. Otis was left standing, facing the tree, his arms about
its trunk, and his wrists pinioned on the other side of the pine.
“Sorry,” the deputy told him shortly as he flung himself into the
saddle again. “We’ll be back pretty soon.”
The Sheriff had said nothing while Markey had been fastening Otis’ arms
about the tree. Otis watched them ford the creek and plunge into the
timber on the farther bank. He was glad that the tree was far enough
removed from the road that none of his friends, who might be passing,
could discover him in his humiliating predicament. Pie-face stood on
the creek bank, a few yards distant, cropping the grass by the water’s
edge. Otis knew that so long as his bridle was dragging there would be
no danger of his straying away into the timber.
* * * * *
For perhaps five minutes Otis struggled vainly to work himself into a
position where he might draw his tobacco and cigarette papers from his
vest pocket. Finally, with an exclamation of impatience, he desisted in
his attempt to prepare a smoke, and devoted his efforts to devising a
means whereby he might sit down.
This, too, he found to be impossible. The base of the tree-trunk was
too large, and the roots sloped off over the creek bank at such an
angle as to make a sitting posture out of the question.
Otis was curious to know the result of the expedition of Sheriff Ogden
and Seth Markey in pursuit of the figure which had melted into the
timber. He too had caught a fleeting glimpse of the man, and believed
it to be “Soggy” Radley of the Jackson’s Hole country. Soggy had gained
his sobriquet through his ability to enjoy his own flapjacks, which no
one else, even his brother Ginger, could stomach.
The presence of one of the Radley boys so far from his own range was
full of meaning to Otis. Coupled with the recent brandblotting from
which various stockmen in the vicinity had suffered, it meant that
Soggy would have much to explain--particularly in that he was not
keeping to the open trail, but was skulking through the timber afoot.
A chipmunk approached Otis over the rocks in a series of quick advances
and shorter retreats. The little animal finally reached a point within
a yard of his feet, and for a moment sat erect on its haunches, eying
him curiously from beadlike eyes. Presently it discovered a seed fallen
from a pine-cone, and retired to a near-by rock, where it sat nibbling
away and flirting its tail, but keeping a wary eye upon him.
Otis wondered what Sheriff Ogden would do if he should discover Soggy
Radley in the act of using a running-iron on a Footstool calf. He
believed that the Sheriff would relish making such an arrest far more
than he had relished making the arrest of Otis himself on the charge of
murdering Ranger Fyffe.
The capture of one of the Radley boys, with sufficient evidence for a
conviction, would meet with popular approval, and would make many votes
at the next election. Otis knew Sheriff Ogden to be an easy-going
official of the type which makes a good politician, eager to please
everyone, if possible, and loath to make enemies.
Although the Sheriff was likable enough, and when the occasion demanded
it, a fearless officer, Otis knew that most of his official acts were
accomplished with an eye to their effect at the next election.
He believed, also, that Ogden would have been reluctant to cause his
arrest, had he not been convinced of Otis’ guilt. And in view of the
circumstances of the damning bit of writing on the cabin floor, and the
empty shells in his revolver, he could not hold it against the Sheriff
that that official was so confident he had committed the crime.
“Wait until he talks to Gus Bernat,” Otis said aloud, frightening the
chipmunk, “then I’ll have the laugh on him.”
It would be odd indeed, he thought, if the Sheriff should return with
Soggy Radley as his prisoner, charged with the theft of cattle from
Otis, whom he held on a charge of murder.
* * * * *
A cold wind, sweeping down from the snow-covered Tetons, set the leaves
of the quaking aspen atremble, and sung through the branches of the
pines. Otis glanced at the sky, and uttered an exclamation of
exasperation.
“Looks like I’m in for a good drenching,” he remarked to the chipmunk,
which scuttled away among the rocks again. “It’s a wonder they didn’t
take a look at the weather before they left me chained up like this.
But then, I suppose prisoners can’t be too particular.”
The wind ceased. A big drop of rain splashed on the rock where the
chipmunk had sat. Then, with a rush, the storm broke. The wind lashed
the aspen grove, until Otis, peering through the sheets of rain, could
see nothing but the silvery under side of the leaves.
He shrank against the tree, circling to the east so the trunk might
afford him some measure of protection from the driving rain. He was
thankful for the little shelter that the spreading branches of the pine
gave him.
There was a flash of lightning--the lessening roll of thunder echoing
from the rocky walls of the gulch. He could barely make out the trees
on the far side of the creek. Pie-face, his back humped to the storm,
stood head down, now and then casting a curious glance at his master,
who made no move to lead him to shelter.
Suddenly there was a terrific report. Otis believed he could feel the
earth tremble beneath him. He knew that the lightning had struck a tree
somewhere in the gulch near by.
Then, for the first time, he was assailed by a questioning fear for his
own safety. He remembered coming upon the bodies of a score of sheep
that had sought shelter beneath a huge tree in the highlands near
Two-Gwo-Tee pass two years before, only to be electrocuted in a mass
when a bolt of lightning struck the tree. He cursed the deputy for his
thoughtlessness in chaining him to the pine, when it was plain that the
electrical storm was approaching.
Tied to his saddle was his slicker, which might have saved him from the
chilling rain. He called to Pie-face, but the animal, true to the
tradition of the range horse, would not stir so long as his bridle was
dragging.
Presently he raised his head and sniffed suspiciously. He thought he
detected the odor of burning pine. He wondered if the lightning had set
fire to the tree which it had struck. He edged about his tree and swept
every portion of the narrow gulch with a searching glance.
What if the lightning had started a forest fire? He had known of fires
started by lightning which had swept through the timber for miles
before they had been checked or had burned themselves out. Was he
chained and helpless in the path of such a fire, to be burned to death
without a chance for his life?
Presently, however, the storm subsided. A few minutes more, and it had
gone as suddenly as it had come. The sun broke through over the jagged
crest of the Tetons. Otis watched the black rain-clouds as they swept
on rapidly eastward.
Still there was no sign of the return of Sheriff Ogden and his deputy.
* * * * *
Otis edged about the tree into the sun light. He became conscious,
presently of a low hum which seemed to pervade the air. Pie-face
pricked up his ears nervously and stood gazing up the gulch. The
chipmunk emerged from the rocks and scuttled away up the mountainside.
The hum grew into a roar. The roar became like the crash of artillery.
Otis shot one glance up the narrow gulch. He saw a brown wall of
twisting, turning and crashing timber sweeping down upon him. He could
see no water. Yet he knew that the twelve-foot wall of smashing
treetrunks and rubbish was the forefront of a brown and swirling flood.
He threw himself backward with all his weight in an attempt to break
his bonds. The handcuffs bit deep into his wrists, but held. He was
insensible to the agony as he threw himself backward again and yet
again.
Twice he had seen sudden floods caused by mountain cloudbursts sweep
down a narrow gulch, carrying everything before them, eating away at
the mountainside and tearing out great boulders in their path. He had
seen a stanchly built log cabin blotted out in an instant, and had
aided in the search for the body of its occupant, which was never
found.
Terror conquered training in Pie-face. The horse broke and ran,
striking diagonally up the rocky slope, struggling upward with the
agility of a pine marten.
Even as he struggled, Otis, white-faced and gasping, could picture
himself crushed beneath the crashing wall of logs. With a tremendous
heave, he threw himself backward for the last time. The handcuffs held.
He swung himself about the tree. It flashed through his mind that its
sturdy trunk might protect him to some extent against the shock of the
impact. But even if he were not crushed like a bear in a deadfall, he
felt that, chained to the tree, he would be drowned beneath the
chocolate waters. In a last frantic effort to escape he began awkwardly
to climb the tree.
The cold breath of the flood engulfed him. The smashing of the timbers
drowned out all other sound. He closed his eyes and clung to the trunk.
Then the flood struck.