Otis felt the trunk of the tree tremble and give at the first shock of
the flood. Almost instantly the rushing waters overwhelmed him. Their
icy grip clutched and tore at his arms and legs as he clung to the
trunk. All sight and sound was blotted out by the chocolate flood.
Abruptly he became conscious that he no longer was in an upright
position. Still clinging to the tree, he felt himself turning over and
over with it. He remembered that the roots had been partly exposed in
the creek-bank, and knew that the pine had been uprooted by the flood.
For a mere instant he felt himself above the surface. He gasped for
breath. Immediately he was plunged beneath the rushing waters again. He
clung to the tree with all his strength. He knew that once his legs
were torn from the trunk, he would be hurled about by the torrent until
his arms, still pinioned by the handcuffs, would be snapped in a dozen
places.
Strangely enough, his terror of the instant before had left him. His
brain was remarkably clear. He knew that what little chance for life
was left him depended upon his clinging to the tree.
His first impulse had been to struggle. Instinct urged him to release
his grip, to strive to break his bonds, to fight his way to the
surface. But reason conquered. He gripped the whirling tree with every
atom of his strength.
With a jar that racked every bone in his body the tree stopped. For
just an instant he felt the swift current tugging at his body again.
Then he felt the tree lifted from the water.
He shook the water from his eyes. At first he saw a jumble of rocky
walls and green trees and blue sky and chocolate water. Then he
realized that he was upside down. He saw that the tree-top had collided
with a huge boulder. The force of the water was hurling the trunk,
roots uppermost, through the arc of a huge circle. The tree-top, jammed
against the boulder, formed the axis of the arc.
It seemed ages before the tree was upended, and crashed down again
through the lower half of the arc. Clutching leechlike, upside-down, he
had time to note that the tree-top was now but a mass of jagged
branches, broken off close to the trunk. But although it seemed ages
that he was being hurled through the air with the tree, in reality he
had barely time to gasp again for air before he was plunged beneath the
surface. Once more he felt himself whirling and turning with the tree
as it was swept down the rocky gorge.
Otis had feared that he would be crushed in the maelstrom of milling
logs and debris at the forefront of the flood. A quick glance while he
hung suspended in the air showed him that the boiling surface of the
waters was free of all except the smallest branches. He knew that the
tree must have withstood the first shock of the flood--the wall of
water he had seen bearing the swirling mass of timber.
* * * * *
But the peril of being crushed in the tumbling conglomeration of debris
was far from being the only risk. He knew that at any instant he might
be battered against a boulder, or ground between the trunk and the
rocky walls of the gorge. True, the jagged stumps of the branches at
one end of the trunk, and the spreading mass of roots at the other to
some extent served to protect him from the rocks. Once, indeed, he felt
a shock and became conscious of a numbness in his right leg. He never
knew whether it was a jutting boulder or a log which had struck him.
He was becoming dizzy from the ceaseless whirling, and from the
repeated necessity of holding his breath. He feared he would become so
dazed that his grip on the tree would relax. The tree collided with
another rock, and the shock left him breathless.
Strangely enough, he had no fear of drowning, so long as he could
remain conscious. He knew that unconsciousness meant drowning, or else
being beaten to a lifeless pulp against the rocks. But every few
seconds he would find himself thrown above the water as the trunk
revolved in the murky maelstrom. And each time he managed to gasp for
breath before he was again submerged.
Suddenly above the roar of the flood came a terrific, wrenching crash,
accompanied by a shock that left his senses reeling. There was a
rending and a tearing of splintered wood. He felt his grip loosen on
the rough trunk. The lower part of his body was torn away from the
tree.
“This is the end,” was the one thought that emerged from the confusion
of his senses.
The flood clutched at him, dragged him along the trunk, his manacled
wrists jerking and tearing along the rough bark. Darkness overwhelmed
him. He felt that he was floating away on billowy clouds. The roar of
the flood grew dim....
* * * * *
Returning consciousness found Otis Carr lying on a high gravel bar. He
started to raise a hand to his eyes; but he had forgotten the
handcuffs.
He sat up. He still heard the roar of the flood. As his brain cleared,
he saw the brown waters rushing past, less than a yard from his feet. A
chocolate fountain spurted high in the air where the rushing waters
encountered a submerged rock. The tree--
He looked about for the tree that first had been the means of pinioning
him in the path of the flood, and then had been the means of saving his
life. Thirty yards upstream he saw a mass of roots jammed between two
boulders. An immense splinter was all that remained of the bole. The
branches and upper portion of the trunk were nowhere to be seen.
Otis rose slowly to his feet. His right leg was still numb. The sleeves
of his coat, above the manacles, were ripped and frayed. Blood trickled
in a thin stream from beneath one cuff. His clothing was saturated with
the muddy water. Every muscle in his body was stiff and sore. He felt
of a good-sized lump above one ear, but noted that there was no
abrasion.
Gradually, as he stared at the mass of roots jammed in the boulders, it
dawned on him what had happened. The tree--his tree--had collided with
the boulders with terrific force. The impact had been so great that the
trunk had been shattered. The upper part of the tree had been swept
downstream by the current, which had dragged him along the splintered
portion of the trunk until it had swept him free. It had carried him,
too, downstream, to cast him up on the high gravel bar as if he had
been but another fragment of driftwood.
He wondered how far downstream he had been swept by the flood. The time
he had been buffeted about by the onrush of waters had seemed
interminable. He cast about to get his bearings--and to his surprise,
he found he was barely three hundred yards from the spot where he had
been manacled to the tree.
Slowly, because of his stiffened limbs and handcuffed wrists, he
climbed up the rocks and out of the gorge. He made for the Buffalo
Forks road sixty yards away, and started back upstream. Rounding a bend
in the road, he beheld Pie-face standing, ears upraised inquiringly,
not one hundred feet above the spot where Otis had been swept away with
the tree.
Otis swung into the saddle, and immediately Pie-face started down the
road at a trot. Unlike the cavalry horse, which is trained to stand
after the rider mounts until a touch of the heels gives him the signal
to go, the range horse moves the instant he feels the weight of the
rider in the stirrup. So Otis without directing the horse, found
himself headed back toward the Footstool ranch.
* * * * *
For the first time he realized that it might be unwise to return to the
ranch, particularly with his wrists in manacles. His narrow escape from
the flood had driven from his mind, for the time being, all thought of
his predicament resulting from his arrest for the murder of Fyffe. Now
it was brought home to him forcibly by the instinctive course of his
horse.
What should he do? Undoubtedly he could make his way to the ranch and
rid himself of the handcuffs. Any of the ranch employees, he knew,
would assist him in filing them off, and would aid in his concealment
from the Sheriff, if he asked it. For that matter, virtually any of the
cattle men between Jackson and Two-Gwo-Tee would do as much, if they
knew he was sought for the slaying of the ranger.
It would be easy enough to make his escape. Nowhere in the United
States were conditions more favorable for flight from pursuing
officers. Jackson’s Hole lay but a few miles to the west, and beyond
the Hole lay the Tetons, offering a secure and inviting sanctuary. More
than that, he knew the pursuit would be far from diligent. Undoubtedly
Sheriff Ogden, to save his face, would follow him as far as the Tetons.
But he knew the Sheriff, if he possessed any sort of an excuse, would
probably prefer to have him escape.
And then, the Sheriff might believe him drowned, swept away in the
flood, which was still roaring through the gorge. Again, Otis could, if
need be, bring pressure to bear upon Ogden if he became too
conscientious, simply by revealing that he had left a prisoner, chained
and helpless, in the path of the flood.
On the other hand--why should he flee from a charge which he knew to be
groundless? Flight would convince the entire rangeland of his guilt--if
it retained any doubt, after it heard of the murder. Cowardice was
worse than being the object of unfounded suspicion--worse even, than
paying the extreme penalty for the crime of some one else. Besides,
there was Gus Bernat, who would swear to his alibi--
So Otis fought with himself his first great battle. Two hours later
Ogden’s chief deputy, sitting in the Sheriff’s office in Jackson,
brought down the forelegs of his chair in startled surprise as he saw
Otis, still handcuffed, dismount and approach stiffly.
“You’re dead!” the chief deputy called out at his approach. “Lafe
phoned a hour ago that you was drownded in the flood. He’s still
huntin’ for your body.”
“Not quite drowned, but almost,” Otis grinned. “You see, I’d promised
Lafe I wouldn’t attempt to escape, so here I am.”
“Damn fool!” snorted the chief deputy. “Why didn’t you beat it while
the beatin’ was good?”
“I preferred to have the Sheriff turn me loose himself,” Otis replied,
smiling. “He’ll do it, too, when he hears what Gus Bernat has to say.”
“Gus Bernat?” repeated the chief deputy. “Why, he was drownded in the
flood hisself. The coroner stopped for his body on the way back with
Fyffe’s.”