CROSS TRAILS
November marshaled her gray hosts and marched them across the
Shawangunks.
Out of the west they came, a slow, silent, grim array of clouds,
drifting steadily above the puny barrier of the mountains, covering the
sky from rim to rim--a vast army which alternately smeared out the sun
and allowed it to break through the gaps between their brigades. At
times they closed into mass formation and drizzled cold scorn down on
the impotent hills and the insignificant dwellers therein. Then they
drew apart and resumed their indifferent, disorderly route-step across
the heavens, perhaps to spit again on the New England mountains farther
east and then swing northward to merge into the fogs and snows of bleak
Labrador. Even when they passed in straggling groups instead of a long
battle-line, they gave the sun scant opportunity to light up the whole
countryside at once, as he recently had done. Ever their chill shadows
were creeping along the ground, darkening long belts of hill and dale
while other strips were agleam with light. Only at night, it seemed,
did they draw off into bivouac, leaving the sky clean and clear. Then
across the land sped their night-flying ally, Jack Frost.
And with the recurrence of that biting chill the silence of approaching
winter fell on the depths of the Traps. At last the katydids were
still. So, too, were the crickets. By night, when the music of hammer
and drill was hushed and the cheery voices of roosters and hens were
silenced by slumber, the stillness would have been painful but for the
gentle murmur of Coxing Kill, singing softly to itself as it crept
past the humble homes of the hillmen and on into the north. Only a few
weeks more, and even the friendly little stream would lose its voice
under the merciless grip of winter ice. Then indeed stark silence would
hold the great bowl at night--desolate, bitter silence broken only by
the sough of wind-beaten evergreens and the groans of cold-tortured
hardwoods.
That time was not quite come. But even now the face of the Traps was
gaunt and harsh. Gone was the velvety mask of green which had partly
hidden the austerity of the land; gone, too, the flaunting colors which
had replaced the emerald tone. Through the thinned forest everywhere
showed thickly strewn bowlders and the grim barrenness of crag-face
and naked rock slope. The vistas through the brush lengthened in all
directions. And with this opening of the woods a new, sullen, ominous
noise began to shock the quiet air from time to time--the sulphurous
explosion of gunpowder.
Thus far, the guns of the Traps had been noticeably silent. Only at
long intervals had one spoken. So dense was the undergrowth that
the Trapsmen, knowing they had little chance of sighting game, had
almost entirely refrained from hunting. But now the deep roar of
muzzle-loading shotguns smashed the stillness early and late, varied
occasionally by the blunt bang of some black-powder rifle. Mother
Nature, hitherto the protectress of her feathered and furred children,
now was betraying them into the hands of men. All hunted things moved
with increasing peril.
Yes, all hunted things--human as well as animal. Hunted men, and the
friends of those men traversing the brush in furtive missions, were
concealed but thinly now by the leafless branches. And while most of
the hunters prowling the wilds were seeking only meat and sport, there
were also those who stalked more dangerous game.
Three of them, there were. But they did not work together. In fact, one
of the three avoided the others, who worked always as a pair. Yet their
separate trails crossed at times, and at such times there was a verbal
fencing, a give-and-take of half-humorous banter with an undertone
of menace. Hammerless Hampton, free ranger, hunter of Snake Sanders
and silent partner of Steve, outfaced or outmanœuvred Ward and Bill,
who also sought Snake but whose more important quarry was that same
Steve--and who, consequently, scrutinized Hampton’s movements at every
opportunity.
“When we git somethin’ on you, Hampton, we’ll gather you right
in,” Ward reiterated in sardonic humor. To which Douglas, with
devil-may-care smile, would reply: “All right. But it’ll take both of
you to do it. How’s business?”
“Oh, pickin’ up all the time,” with a carelessness that might or might
not be assumed. “We know about where one of our guys is hangin’ out,
but we’ll let him lay until we git to talk to the other one a little.
We’re gittin’ a good vacation, and we ain’t in any rush.”
How much of this ambiguous answer was true Douglas could not tell.
And, suspecting that it was purposely phrased to evoke questions from
him, he made no queries as to which of the “guys” was being spared
while the other was sought. Nor did he ever allow his eyes to stray in
the direction of Steve’s subterranean cavern; he knew Ward was subtly
tempting him to give some involuntary indication of his knowledge of
the fugitive’s retreat, and he gave none. He observed with misgiving,
however, that the pair now seemed always to be somewhere near Dickie
Barre.
Ward’s half-jest about the “vacation,” though, seemed to hold much of
truth. He looked like the instinctive outdoorsman, who really would
derive much pleasure from working in rough country. Certainly both he
and Bill showed the good effects of open-air life: the city sleekness
of flesh and redness of face were gone, and they were more lean of
frame, more lithe of movement, brown of skin and clear of eye. Bill
still wore the sour look which seemed habitual, and toward Hampton
he always maintained a grouchy silence--perhaps because he knew he
would get the worst of any verbal encounter. But, from the physical
standpoint, there could be little doubt of his ability to hold his own
with almost any one. He and his mate now were a formidable combination.
“If it’s not a sassy question, how do you fellows manage to live in
here?” Douglas wondered at one of their unexpected meetings. “Shouldn’t
think you’d find it easy to get food and shelter.”
“Oh, that’s easy. We’ve got a little shelter of our own, where
nobody’ll bat us over the dome when we’re sleepin’. And for grub, we
have a wagon that comes up every so often from down below; meets us
outside, and we pack in the fodder. Anything else you want to know?”
“Sure. How much longer are you staying?”
“Till we git our man, of course. Do I have to keep tellin’ you? It’s
takin’ a little longer than we thought, but we’ll be here as long as he
is.”
The quiet determination of the tone stirred Hampton’s admiration
despite himself.
“You ought to be on the Royal Northwest Mounted,” he laughed. “You have
the same stick-to-the-trail doggedness.”
“I was with ’em,” was the unexpected reply. “Five years ago. Up in
Alberta. Too much snow. Too much horse. Too lonesome. But I know what
stickin’ on the trail means, yeah. This here stuff is nothin’ but play,
lined up alongside of some things I seen.”
The simple statement was a revelation to Douglas. Bill of Brooklyn,
if left to himself, would have quit in disgust before now. But Ward,
former R. N. W. M. P., would never abandon his quest until officially
called in--or unofficially shot. He would imperturbably stick until
the coming of the snows should make it impossible for any one to carry
food to Steve without leaving a trail. And with the laying of that
trail he would run his man to earth in no time. The sky suddenly looked
very black for Steve.
But the blond man strove to keep his thoughts out of his face, and
after a few more words he passed on, cudgeling his brain for some means
of helping the fugitive to evade the remorseless power creeping closer
and closer to his covert. A number of ways had previously occurred to
him, but none of them was feasible in view of Steve’s own refusal to
leave his native environment, his determination to die first “like a
wolf--into the rocks or the trees.” Against that immovable decision
what could he do? Nothing.
Nothing except the thing he now was trying to do--corner Snake Sanders.
If cornered, Sanders might possibly be forced to clear Steve. The hope
was slim, but still there was a chance--_if_ he could corner Sanders!
The thought revolved on itself and maddened him with its futility. The
man Sanders was still eluding him, and, despite Ward’s nonchalance,
undoubtedly was evading the officers also. And the telltale snow which
must reveal Steve’s refuge might come at any time now.
Through Marion, he knew that the earth-bound boy had fought off his
lung-pains and was somewhat stronger, though by no means well. For the
present, therefore, he was not worrying over the youth’s condition.
In fact, he had asked himself a couple of times why he should take so
deep an interest in the fellow anyway; then he had left the question
unanswered, merely telling himself that “the poor kid’s in hard luck,
and he’d do as much for me--maybe.” He had not faced squarely the fact
that the basic motive for his sympathy was his desire to aid the girl.
He had seen her several times since the death of the ha’nt, but
only for short periods. Her mother, he learned, still was bitter
against him, and--as perhaps might have been expected from one of her
type--persisted in putting on him some of the blame for the death of
her “man.” Marion herself, though frankly asserting that she had no
patience with such an attitude, was pensive and rather reserved in
manner. Therefore he refrained from unnecessary calls.
She had asked him, of course, about his success in hunting the ha’nt;
indeed, she had shown unmistakable relief when he rambled into her yard
the next day to ask whether “Spit got home all right.” In pursuance
of his decision to keep hidden for the present the annihilation of
Dalton’s Death, he had answered evasively, telling her truth but not
all of the truth: that Spit had torn madly about in an effort to
escape, that the door had swung open later on and the cat had run
out, that he himself had tired of watching and fallen asleep on his
blankets. “And you can see for yourself,” he concluded, “that nothing
gobbled me.”
And since then he had been steadily seeking Sanders. He had changed
his hunting-ground now from the vicinity of Snake’s shack to a section
nearer his own house--the long wall of Dickie Barre. Thither he had
been led by an idea of his own, and there he worked day after day with
a grim persistence equalling that of Ward and Bill, coupled with a
methodical thoroughness which they might well have emulated.
The germ of his idea was the recollection of his first meeting with
Steve and of Marion’s production of the jug which, she said, belonged
to Snake. She had not gone far that morning to get that jug. So,
starting from the well-remembered crack among the bowlders where his
camp had been, he now delved into every crevice and cavern within a
radius of a few minutes’ traveling time from that focal point.
He found snakes, but none with legs. In one gloomy passageway leading
inward he was halted by a rustle among leaves just ahead. His ears
telling him that the sound was too slight to be made by stealthily
moving feet, he hazarded the light of a match--and found himself in a
den of copperheads. The deadly reptiles had abandoned the well-watered
lower lands and sought higher ground to bed themselves down for the
coming winter, and now they lay in a sluggish knot, nearly buried among
the leaves. Their lifted heads and unwinking stare, however, showed
that they were by no means too numb to attack; and Douglas, though well
booted to the knee, had no desire to tread among them. Moreover, the
presence of the reptiles and the untrodden appearance of the leaves
virtually proved that no man was beyond. Wherefore he withdrew.
In other recesses farther north he found, at times, evidence of the
occasional visits of men, clandestine or otherwise; the mute testimony
of charred fagots and smutted stone, of scrapes on rock and of
indentations showing that weighty things had stood for some time in
certain spots. These traces, however, all indicated bygone activities,
not recent occupancy. Whatever had been carried on in those crevices
and culs-de-sac, both the equipment and the products now had vanished.
Whether the evanishment was due to the fact that the Law still prowled
about was a question which did not concern the silent hunter. He was
looking for a man, one man; and, not finding that man or his lair, he
moved on without delay.
Then came an unexpected impetus to his search. One afternoon, as he was
threading his way around a bulk of detritus which obviously contained
no opening, a drab figure detached itself from a massive tree-trunk
near at hand. He looked into the foxy face of the little cooper, David
McCafferty.
“Jest a-layin’ for a couple o’ squir’ls,” Davy explained his presence.
“Havin’ any luck?”
“Not yet. I’m hunting--snakes.”
A shrewd nod and a glance around followed. In a hoarse whisper the
barrel-maker informed him: “I hearn ther’s a bad one--wust one round
here--been seen down ’long here a piece. Mebbe ’bout haff a mile or so
down. I dunno nothin’ ’bout it. But ther’ might be somethin’ into it.”
With another quick look around, he retreated to his tree. Douglas,
without trying to render unwanted thanks, waved a hand and went on. A
little later he heard behind him two roaring gunshots, and hoped Davy
had bagged both his squirrels.
He did not, however, swing away through the woods for an estimated
half-mile and there resume his conning of the crags. Davy’s directions
had been too indefinite, and he was determined not to leave an
unexplored gap in his steadily lengthening line. His system was to
cover as much ground as he could in each short day, leaving some sort
of marker at the point where twilight compelled him to cease, then
return to that marker the next morning and do another section. Thus,
though his progress through the welter of stone was necessarily slow,
he was making it absolutely sure. And now he held himself to the
deliberate course he had set.
When the dusk descended he had laboriously made certain that Sanders’
hide-hole, if he had one along here, was somewhere to the north of a
buttress-jut beside which he had stopped. After fixing that outcrop
firmly in memory and lightly blazing a couple of beech saplings with
his pocket-knife for reassurance the next morning, he swung down
through the brush to the road and home to his cheerless house.
“Ho-hum!” he yawned over his after-supper pipe. “I’m beginning to
sympathize with Ward. Hunting down a man in this old Indian stronghold
is real work. If it weren’t for Davy’s tip to-day I’d begin to think
Snake was dead somewhere, like Nigger Nat. But there’s no such luck.
Well, Snake, maybe to-morrow night I’ll know more about you.”
The vague hope was to become terrible truth. To-morrow night he would
know much more about Snake Sanders--including something which would
stagger the entire Traps.