“We were in a hurry,” he said, “and you would not give us a chance to
handle you gently. You delayed us. That may be serious.”
I strove to rise and struck my chest against a board. I was conscious
of a rhythmic motion, and a dull, squeaky sound, repeated without
cessation. My senses cleared. I turned my head. I was lying under a
seat in one of the life-boats and the boat was being rushed onward
under the impulse of eagerly pulled oars.
“What’s this?” I groaned. “What sort of an outrage is this?”
I twisted myself from under the seat and sat up, looking around for
the yacht. There was no sight of it. There was no sight of anything
but water and steep hills, and the second life-boat closely following
us. We were pulling up a narrow, winding bay. Its width was fairly
uniform, probably a hundred yards. Its water was pure blue. And on
both sides, and before and behind us, rose the craggy, fir-clad hills,
approaching the size of mountains, shutting us out from all the rest
of the world.
“Sit down, Mr. Pitt; it is more comfortable.” From the bow Brack
spoke, and I turned upon him.
“What do you mean?” I began, and there I stopped.
For, though Brack spoke in laughing fashion, there was no laughter
about his lips, none in his eyes. His face was set like a bronze mask,
his mouth was scarcely visible, his eyes shone hard and fiery between
slitted lids. Brack had ceased to pretend; the brute in him was having
its way, and he didn’t care who saw it.
“You would better have slept soundly this morning, Mr. Pitt,” he said.
“If your foolish fight delayed us too long—you will soon know why.”
“I want to know why right now!” I cried, in spite of the terror that
his face inspired. “You’ve assaulted me; you’ve taken me off the yacht
by force. You’ll pay for this when we get back home.”
“Suppose,” said he musingly, “suppose you should never get back home?”
His tone, not his words, froze me. I could not speak. I looked at the
faces of the men who were rowing furiously, at Garvin. And I looked at
the cold blue water through which we were speeding and knew it was no
more remorseless than the men in that boat.
“Don’t you think now it would have been better for you to have slept?”
said Brack.
“I think,” I retorted hotly as the power of speech came rushing back
to me, “that you had better take me back to the yacht; and I know that
I will see you punished for assault for this.”
A sound like laughter issued from his throat, but his expression did
not change.
“Assault?” he repeated. “Ha! You forget that you are out of the land
of courts now, Pity. Assault! Ha! Why, Pitt, that will be like a
maiden’s kiss compared to what’s going to happen in the next half
hour. Sit down; you’re in that oar’s way. Put him down, Garvin.”
Garvin obediently kicked me back of the knee-joints and I dropped with
a noisy clatter to the bottom of the boat.
“—— you!” swore Brack in a loud whisper. “If you make another noise
like that I’ll have you dumped overboard. You’ve made us late. Now
just you lay still and nice where you are, Pitt; we’re having no noise
on this excursion.”
I sat silent. I was half dazed from the blow on the head and by my
situation, and for the next few minutes I observed what was taking
place as one who is less than half awake. By this time we had come to
the head of the bay and were entering the mouth of a small river which
rambled crookedly down through a gap in the hills.
“More juice in your strokes, men,” whispered Brack. “It’s a strong
current, and we haven’t much farther to go.”
His words stimulated the men. Their fierce eyes grew fiercer, and they
bent to their oars with all their might. Most of them were panting
from excitement and exertion.
“We’ll land here,” said Brack presently. “No noise, men.”
The boats swung in to the bank indicated and the men tumbled out,
clutching their rifles eagerly.
“Come along, Pitt.”
“No,” I responded. “From what I hear you’re bound for some sort of a
crime.”
“So are you. That’s why I took you along—to make you pay for sleeping
so lightly. Get out.”
Two men sprang into the boat toward me, and I was forced to obey. With
Brack in the lead a single file was formed and I started up a faintly
marked footpath which ran along the stream. I was placed near the
middle of the line; Madigan brought up the rear. I was the only man in
the party who was not armed.
For the next ten minutes we hurried forward, through brush, over rocks
and fallen logs, and through muddy spring-holes without a word being
spoken. Brack in the lead, seemed to take no notice of the obstacles
that presented themselves, and every man in the line with the
exception of myself seemed imbued by the same fierce eagerness. I was
helpless. The man behind me was continually treading on my heels, his
heavy breath was on my neck, and I, too, was forced to hurry, driven
along, moving as in a cruel nightmare.
Brack stopped suddenly and held up his hand. A sound had broken the
silence ahead of us. It was repeated, a dull, slapping sound, and
Brack whispered an oath.
“They’re up; chopping wood for breakfast. Follow me.”
He struck off into a wooded ravine at right angles to the trail. At a
distance which I estimated to be three city blocks from the river he
led the way by zigzags up a series of hills and presently we were
nearing the crest of a ridge beyond which no further hills were
visible.
“Get down now,” he ordered. “The lake’s in the valley over this hill.
The man who shows himself above the brush or makes a noise’ll get
hurt.”
He began to wriggle himself forward through the stunted trees until at
last he was able to peer over the crest of the ridge, and the rest
followed his example.
A small, blackish lake lay in the marshy valley below. On the shore
opposite to us were two log cabins, several huge piles of dirt, and a
crude derrick. Daylight was streaming into the valley, dispersing the
night fogs, and we made out two men moving about the buildings. Brack
swore much but softly.
“Slade and Harris!” He paused to curse again. “—— ’em! We’re too late.
—— you, Pitt, you’ll pay for this.”
“What the ——!” snarled Madigan as the captain hesitated. “What’s all
this foxy work for, Foxy? They’re two and we’re ten. Why don’t we go
down an’ clean ’em up?”
“Easy—easy, Tad,” said Brack softly. “No noise. Slade and Harris are
too good with the rifle to try any straight rushing. Besides, there’s
a back trail over there, and they might get away. They’ve got the gold
cached some place and we may need ’em alive to learn where it is. A
little hanging up by the thumbs will make ’em tell. Gad! The fools!
They’ve got three dumps; that means three shafts. The thing’s richer
than I thought, and they’ve kept it all right down there because they
swore to stay there till they had a hundred thousand apiece.”
“Gawd!” whispered Garvin. “Let’s take a chance, cap.”
“Easy, Garvin, easy!” chuckled Brack. “They’re a couple of suckers,
but they can shoot.
“Well,” growled Madigan, “let’s have it—when do we go get ’em?”
Brack studied the scene before him for several minutes before
replying.
“We’ve got to wait until they’re in the shafts,” was his decision.
“This is too big a risk, giving ’em a chance. If we jump ’em now from
this side they’ll put up a stiff fight and at the same time have a
chance of getting away over their back trail. And if they get into the
woods, they won’t leave the gold where we can find it easily. We’ve
got to spoil that back trail for ’em.”
“Yep;” said Garvin, “leave ’em no getaway.”
“Madigan,” said Brack, “You take your men and circle around on this
side of the ridge and go north until you strike their trail running
out of the valley.”
“That’ll take a couple of hours.”
“A little longer, probably. When you’re set, fire three shots and
we’ll start to rush ’em from this side. The rest’ll be easy. Boys, by
ten o’clock we’ll all be rich.”
We fell back from the top of the ridge, and in a ravine well out of
sight Madigan led his four men into the forest. Brack waited until
they were out of sight and then hurried us back to the boats. Pulling
Madigan’s boat behind us we were swiftly rowed down the river into the
bay. Here the empty boat was tied up in a well-hidden nook, and we
went on toward the yacht.
I now had an opportunity to note the distance which we had traveled.
The fiord curved raggedly from the river’s mouth toward the sea. In
spite of the foothills which shut us in I saw that our course at first
took us away from the river and the lake. Then, where the bay began to
widen, we began to curve backward until when, at last the _Wanderer_,
riding serene and white on her cradle of blue water, appeared before
us, I knew that our course had been such that the distance overland to
the miner’s lake could not be much more than half of what it was by
water. I judged the distance down the bay from the river-mouth to the
_Wanderer_ to be about three miles.
As we made out the yacht in the distance, the Captain looked at his
watch.
“Back in nice time for breakfast,” he said. “Well, Pitt, how does it
feel to belong to a gang of robbers? Please don’t say you don’t
belong. You do, you know; we’ve elected you. Yes; you’re one of us
now, and we’re going to keep close watch on you until this little job
is over.”
“What is your object?” I asked. “Why did you drag me up there with
you?”
“Because I suspect that you like to talk, Pitt,” said he, as he
suddenly changed the course of the boat. “You were unfortunate enough
to see us leaving ship. Had I permitted you to stay on board you would
have talked. You might have talked in alarming fashion, and I do not
wish Miss Baldwin to be alarmed—until our work here is done, at
least.”
“Then why did you bring me back?” I cried. “For you certainly can not
expect me to keep silent after what I have seen and heard.”
“You can talk all you want to now, Pitt,” he laughed. Then I saw that
the boat was pointing toward the shore. “Talk your head off, Pitt.
Because no matter how loud you talk your voice won’t be among those
heard aboard.”
The boat shot into a tiny indentation of the fiord, from which the
_Wanderer_ could not be seen, and grounded on the gravelly beach.
“Will you get out sensibly, Pitt, or will you have to be knocked down
and dragged out?” said Brack carelessly.