ROUNDING UP SASSOON
De Spain joined his associates at dark outside the Gap. Neither
Sassoon nor his friends had been seen. The night was still, the sky
cloudless, and as the three men with a led horse rode at midnight into
the mountains, the great red heart of the Scorpion shone afire in the
southern sky. Spreading out when they rode between the mountain walls,
they made their way without interruption silently toward their
rendezvous, an aspen grove near which Purgatoire Creek makes its way
out of the Gap and, cutting a deep gash along the edge of the range
for a hundred miles, empties into the Thief.
Scott was the first to reach the trees. The little grove spreads
across a slope half a mile wide between the base of one towering
cliff, still bearing its Spanish name, El Capitan, and the gorge of
the Purgatoire. To the east of this point the trails to Calabasas and
to Sleepy Cat divide, and here Scott and Lefever received de Spain,
who had ridden slowly and followed Scott's injunctions to keep the
red star to the right of El Capitan all the way across the Sinks.
Securing their horses, the three stretched out on the open ground to
wait for daylight. De Spain was wakeful, and his eyes rested with
curiosity on the huge bulk of Music Mountain, rising overwhelmingly
above him. Through the Gap that divided the great, sentinel-like front
of El Capitan, marking the northern face of the mountain rift, from
Round Top, the south wall of the opening, stars shone vividly, as if
lighting the way into the silent range beyond.
The breathing of his companions soon assured de Spain that both were
asleep. The horses were quiet, and the night gave no sound save that
vaguely through the darkness came the faint brawl of tiny cataracts
tumbling down far mountain heights. De Spain, lying on his side, his
head resting on his elbow, and his hands clasped at the back of his
neck, meditated first on how he should capture Sassoon at daybreak,
and then on Nan Morgan and her mountain home, into which he was about
to break to drag out a criminal. Sassoon and his malice soon drifted
out of his mind, but Nan remained. She stayed with him, it seemed, for
hours--appearing and disappearing, in one aspect more alluring than
another. Then her form outlined in the mists that rose from the
hidden creek seemed to hover somewhere near until Scott's hand laid on
the dreamer's shoulder drove it suddenly away. Day was at hand.
De Spain got up and shook off the chilliness and drowsiness of the
night. It had been agreed that he, being less known in the Gap than
either of his companions, could best attempt the difficult capture. It
was strictly a _coup de main_, depending for its success on chance and
nerve. The one that tried it might manage to bring out his man--or
might be brought out himself. Between these alternatives there was not
much middle ground, except that failing to find Sassoon, or in case he
should be intercepted with his prisoner, the intruder, escaping
single-handed from a shower of bullets, might still get away. But
Morgan's Gap men were esteemed fairly good marksmen.
Bob Scott, who knew the recess well, repeated his explicit directions
as to how de Spain was to reach Sassoon's shack. He repeated his
description of its interior, told him where the bed stood, and even
where Sassoon ordinarily kept his knife and his revolver. The western
sky was still dark when de Spain, mounting, discussed the last
arrangements with his scouts and, taking the bridle of the led horse,
turned toward Round Top. At its narrowest point the Gap opening is
barely two miles wide, and the one road, in and out, lies among the
rocks through this neck; toward it all trails inside the Gap converge.
De Spain gave his horse his head--it was still too dark to distinguish
the path--and depended on his towering landmarks for his general
direction. He advanced at a snail's pace until he passed the base of
El Capitan, when of a sudden, as he rode out from among high
projecting rocks full into the opening, faint rays of light from the
eastern dawn revealed the narrow, strangely enclosed and perfectly
hidden valley before him. The eastern and southern sides still lay in
darkness, but the stupendous cliffs frowning on the north and west
were lighted somewhat from the east. The southern wall, though
shrouded, seemed to rise in an unending series of beetling aretes.
De Spain caught his breath. No description he had ever heard of the
nook that screened the Morgans from the outside world had prepared him
for what he saw. From side to side of the gigantic mountain fissure,
it could hardly be, de Spain thought, more than a few thousand
yards--so completely was his sense of proportion stunned by the
frowning cliffs which rose, at points, half a mile into the sky. But
it was actually several miles from wall to wall, and the Gap was more
than as much in depth, as it ran back to a mere wedge between unnamed
Superstition peaks.
Every moment that he pushed ahead warned him that daylight would come
suddenly and his time to act would be short. The trail he followed
broadened into a road, and he strained his eyes for signs, first of
life, and then of habitation. The little creek, now beside his way,
flowed quietly albeit swiftly along, and his utmost vigilance could
detect no living thing stirring; but a turn in the trail, marked by a
large pine-tree and conforming to a bend of the stream, brought him up
startled and almost face to face with a long, rambling ranch-house.
The gable end of the two-story portion of the building was so close to
him that he instantly reined up to seek hiding from its upper and
lower windows.
From Scott's accurate description he knew the place. This was Duke
Morgan's ranch-house, set as a fortress almost at the mouth of the
Gap. To pass it unobserved was to compass the most ticklish part of
his mission, and without changing his slow pace he rode on, wondering
whether a bullet, if fired from any of the low, open windows--which he
could almost throw his hat into as he trotted past--would knock him
off his horse or leave him a chance to spur away. But no bullet
challenged him and no sound came from the silent house. He cantered
away from the peril, thinking with a kind of awe of Nan, asleep, so
close, under that roof--confident, too, he had not been seen--though,
in matter of fact, he had been.
He quickened his pace. The place he wanted to reach was more than a
mile distant. Other cabins back toward the north wall could be seen
dimly to his right, but all were well removed from his way. He found,
in due time, the ford in the creek, as Scott had advised, made it
without mishap, scrambled up a steep and rocky path, and saw
confronting him, not far ahead, a small, ruinous-looking cabin shack.
Dismounting before this, he threw his lines, shook himself a little,
and walked up to the cabin door. It was open.
The mild-minded conspirators who had planned the details of the
abduction were agreed that if the effort could be made a success at
all, there was but one way to effect it, and that was to act, in
every step, openly. Any attempt to steal on Sassoon unawares would
be a desperate one; while to walk boldly into his cabin at daybreak
would be to do only what his companions were likely at any time to do,
and was the course least calculated to lead to serious trouble. None
of the three were unaware of the psychological action of that
peculiar instinct of danger possessed by men habitually exposed to
surprise--they knew how easily it may be aroused in a sleeper by the
unusual happening about him, and how cunningly it is allayed by
counterfeiting within his hearing the usual course of normal events.
De Spain, following the chosen policy, called gruffly to the cabin
inmate. There was no answer. All had sounded extremely plausible to de
Spain at the time he listened to Bob Scott's ingenious anticipation of
the probabilities, and he had felt while listening to the subtle
Indian that the job was not a complicated one.
But now, as he hitched his trouser band near to the butt of his
revolver with his right hand, and laid his left on the jamb of
the door with an effort to feel at home, stepped unevenly across
the threshold, and tried to peer into the interior darkness,
Scott's strategy did not, for some reason, commend itself quite
so convincingly to him. There seemed, suddenly, a great many
chances for a slip in the programme. De Spain coughed slightly, his
eyes meantime boring the darkness to the left, where Sassoon's bed
should be. The utmost scrutiny failed to disclose any sign of it
or any sound of breathing from that corner. He took a few steps
toward where the man should be asleep, and perceived beyond a
doubt that there was no bed in the corner at all. He turned
toward the other corner, his hand covering the butt of his gun.
"Hello, Shike!" he called out in a slightly strained tone of
camaraderie, addressing Sassoon by a common nickname. Then he
listened. A trumpeting snore answered. No sound was ever sweeter to
de Spain's ear. The rude noise cleared the air and steadied the
intruder as if Music Mountain itself had been lifted off his
nerves.
He tried again: "Where are you, Shike?" he growled. "What's this stuff
on the floor?" he continued, shuffling his way ostentatiously to the
other side of the room. But his noise-making was attended with the
utmost caution. He had dropped, like a shot, flat on the floor and
crawled, feeling his way, to the opposite side of the room, only to
find, after much trouble, that the bed in the darkness was there, but
it was empty. De Spain rose. For a moment he was nonplussed. An inside
room remained, but Scott had said there was no bed within it. He felt
his way toward the inner door. This was where he expected to find it,
and it was closed. He laid a hand gingerly on the latch. "Where are
you, Shike?" he demanded again, this time with an impatient expletive
summoned for the occasion. A second fearful snore answered him. De
Spain, relieved, almost laughed as he pushed the door open, though
not sure whether a curse or a shot would greet him. He got neither.
And a welcome surprise in the dim light came through a stuffy pane of
glass at one end of the room. It revealed at the other end a man
stretched asleep on a wall bunk--a man that would, in all likelihood,
have heard the stealthiest sound had any effort been made to conceal
it, but to whose ears the rough voices of a mountain cabin are mere
sleeping-potions.
The sleeper was destined, a moment later, to a ruder awakening than
even his companion outlaws ever gave him. Lying unsuspectingly on his
back, he woke to feel a hand laid lightly on his shoulder. The
instinct of self-preservation acted like a flash. His eyes opened and
his hands struck out like cat's paws to the right and left: no knife
and no revolver met them. Instead, in the semidarkness a strange face
bent over him. His fists shot out together, only to be caught in a
vise that broke his arms in two at the elbows, and forced them back
against his throat. Like lightning, he threw up his knees, drew
himself into a heap, and shot himself out, hands, arms, legs, back,
everything into one terrific spring. But the sinewy vise above only
gave for the shock, then it closed again relentlessly in. A knee, like
an anvil, pushed inexorably into his stomach and heart and lungs.
Another lay across his right arm, and his struggling left arm he could
not, though his eyes burst with the strain from their sockets, release
from where, eagle-like claws gripped at his throat and shut off his
breath.
Again and again, with the fury of desperation, Sassoon drew in his
powerful frame, shot it out, twisted and struggled. Great veins
swelled on his forehead, his breath burst in explosive gasps, he
writhed from side to side--it was all one. After every effort the
cruel fingers at his throat tightened. The heavy knee on his chest
crushed more relentlessly. He lay still.
"Are you awake, Shike?" Sassoon heard from the gloom above him. But he
could not place the voice. "You seem to move around a good deal in
your sleep. If you're awake, keep still. I've come from Sleepy Cat to
get you. Don't mind looking for your gun and knife. Two men are with
me. You can have your choice. We've got a horse for you. You can ride
away from us here inside the Gap, and take what hits you in the back,
or you can go to Sleepy Cat with us and stand your trial. I'll read
your warrant when the sun gets a little higher. Get up and choose
quick."
Sassoon could not see who had subdued him, nor did he take long to
decide what to do. Scott had predicted he would go without much fuss,
and de Spain, now somewhat surprised, found Bob right in his forecast.
With less trouble than he expected, the captor got his man sullenly on
horseback, and gave him severely plain directions as to what not to
do. Sassoon, neither bound nor gagged, was told to ride his horse down
the Gap closely ahead of de Spain and neither to speak nor turn his
head no matter what happened right or left. To get him out in this
manner was, de Spain realized, the really ticklish part of the
undertaking.
Fortune, however, seemed to favor his assurance in invading the lions'
den. In the growing light the two men trotted smartly a mile down the
trail without encountering a sign of life. When they approached the
Morgan ranch-house de Spain again felt qualms. But he rode close to
his prisoner, told him in restrained monologue what would happen if he
made a noise, and even held him back in his pace as they trotted
together past the Gap stronghold. Nevertheless, he breathed more
freely when they left the house behind and the turn in the road put
them out of range of its windows. He closed up the distance between
himself and Sassoon, riding close in to his side, and looked back at
the house. He looked quickly, but though his eyes were off his path
and his prisoner for only a fraction of a second, when he looked ahead
again he saw confronting him, not a hundred yards away, a motionless
horseman.