SOME DANGEROUS TARGET PRACTICE.
This settled, Max and Sandy returned to their mining, while Len and
Morris lay down behind the newly-strengthened breastwork. The elder man
filled his pipe and stretched himself in the sunshine, while Len brought
out one of the few books they had and read the stirring story of the
robber Doones, and the giant farmer who got his sweetheart from among
them by such a pleasant mixture of strategy and strength.
Morris was interested, but his position was easy, the pipe was soothing,
the sun was warm, and Len’s steady tones were slumberous in their
influence. The reader, therefore, presently found his listener asleep,
in spite of his interest and his resolution. Seeing this he shut the
book, and fell into a reverie over the strange series of circumstances
that had brought him to this remote spot and outlandish surroundings,
how--Crack--ping!
Morris was wide-awake. Len’s dreams had vanished. Both men were on their
knees behind the breastwork, guns in hand and every sense alert.
On the opposite dump they saw all three of the jumpers sitting with guns
by their sides. They were gesticulating toward the smooth, whitish panel
on the cliff walk which showed where the dyke had been cut through by
the ice and floods that in ages past had carved this channel in the
mountain side; they seemed to be paying no attention to the Last Chance
people, but were pointing as though at a target, on the face of the
cliff. After a short time Scotty raised his rifle and took steady aim,
apparently at the target previously pointed out. The report of his gun
was followed by the sharp click of the ball against the porphyry wall,
and then by its rattling among the rock on the slope of the dump in
front of our sentinel friends.
“What do you suppose they’re shooting at?” muttered Len, straining his
eyes to find some mark.
Morris did not reply. He was watching the enemy going through another
pantomime, which looked as though Bob was explaining something wrong in
the shot. This was speedily concluded by Scotty’s moving his position
and aiming a third time at the face of the cliff, sighting at a little
different angle than before.
Crack!--ping! went the report, and almost at the same instant a spruce
log which lay just in front of Morris’s face jarred under the blow of a
half-ounce of lead, which sank deeply into its tough core.
“Great Harry!” shouted the incensed miner. “They’re caroming on us!”
And before Len could interfere, Morris rose on one knee, brought his
rifle to bear on the gambler, and pulled the trigger.
Scotty’s hat flew off, and he tumbled over, while Bob and Stephens let
loose a volley, which rattled harmlessly against the breastwork.
But Morris’s snap shot had not gone quite true, for Scotty picked
himself up almost instantly and scrambled out of range, followed by his
two companions.
This firing had brought Sandy and Max to the door of the mine with
anxious faces, and you may believe they were not only enraged, but made
very solicitous by the incident.
“It’s clear,” remarked Max, “that they mean to kill us if they can do so
without open-handed murder. Of course they intended those balls to
glance and hurt somebody.”
“I meant mine to, anyhow!” exclaimed Morris.
“I am glad you fired; it’ll teach those scoundrels that we are
wide-awake. But do you not think they knew you!”
“No, they couldn’t see well enough. I was kneeling behind the wall.”
“There is a’ the mair necessity, Mr. Bushwick,” remarked Sandy, “why you
should go to town to-night.”
“I feel it strongly, and Morris and I’ll get away as soon as it is dark.
You fellows have worked enough to-day, haven’t you? Suppose you stay out
now.”
“All right; we will. We’ve got a fair sort of a hole in there, anyhow.
It’s pretty deep, and a man can walk upright all the way except in one
or two places.”
They saw no more of the enemy that day, however, and Sandy occupied
himself by cooking an extra good supper.
By seven o’clock that evening a deep gloom filled the gulch, and was
scarcely less heavy on the cliffs, for thick clouds stretched like a
canopy from peak to peak.
The only means by which the jumpers could get away from their camp was
by the trail down the cañon, along which, during daylight, any one would
be exposed for some distance to the fire of our friends in the
garrison.
From the Last Chance, however, a man might easily ascend, as we know,
and then, by care and trouble, he could pass along ledges above the
Aurora, to where, some distance beyond, a crevice enabled him to clamber
down to the bottom of the gulch, a few hundred yards below where the
trail crossed the creek.
This is what Morris and Len did, as soon as the shadows of the range
enveloped them in its curtaining gloom. When they had made their way far
enough, they crept to the edge of the cliff, and could see the jumpers
eating their supper around their fire on the safe side of the dump. A
horse was hitched near by, and Old Bob was saddling him.
“You are right,” Lennox whispered. “He’s going to town to-night, and is
most ready to start. We’d better hurry up, if you want to get into
ambush ahead of him.”
Moving as quietly as possible, they hastened to where the shelving of
the cliff let them get down to the bed of the creek.
[Illustration: A SHORT CUT.
Silver Caves, Page 159.]
Just as they reached this point, where they most needed the light to aid
them, a fierce squall swept down upon the groaning and cracking branches
of the spruce fringing the border of the crags, the air became suddenly
colder, and whirling volleys of snowflakes were dashed in the faces of
the wanderers.
“This is bad!” growled Morris. “‘Taint none too easy a job to crawl down
here in daylight, let alone trying to do it in this pitch; look out!”
Len had slipped on a wet stone and started to make the descent by an
extremely short cut, but caught hold of a young tree stem just in time
to stop himself. Warned by this, they felt their way with more caution,
and finally succeeded in clambering down to the creek-bed without
serious mishap. On reaching the trail the coating of snow was found
undisturbed, showing that as yet no one had passed over it.
A few rods below, the path was crowded into a narrow passage between a
steep bank and the water. This place Morris thought would suit his
purpose capitally, and here he proposed to meet the unsuspecting enemy
and turn him back.
His first movement was to cut and carefully trim a stout cudgel.
“Quakin-asp is the kind of a stick to make his bones ache,” said Morris,
as he trimmed away the twigs.
“I’ve no doubt of it, and I’d like to stay and see the fun, but I reckon
I’d better mosey if I’m to get to town before this snow buries me.”
“You bet you had!” was the earnest advice of his roughly-speaking but
good-hearted comrade. “It’s no soft job you’ve got on hand, and you want
to be mighty careful. Got a thick overcoat?”
“Yes.”
“Any matches?”
“Yes, lots of ’em.”
“Got your pistol?”
“Yes, borrowed Max’s. Thought I might meet wolves. I’ve heard ’em howl
down here once or twice.”
“They’re ’round on snowy nights, but they’re cowardly. Any whisky?”
“No; and I don’t want any.”
“Hm! I’m not so sure about it. Whisky’s always good, I’m thinkin’,
especially on a cold night like this.”
“You and Old Bob could agree on one point, at any rate.”
“Me and Squint-eyes agree?--not much! Still,--whisky’s good.”
“Well, I’ll wager you a jug o’ molasses, or a new hat, that I can get to
town better to-night without whisky than with it.”
“Mebbe you’re right. I know whisky’s done me a heap more harm ’n it ever
did me good, or any other fellow I ever heard of. Still, whisky’s good!”
Len laughed at this defiance of rhyme and reason, and shaking hands,
started away, Morris calling out as a last word that if he lost the
trail in the snow, or got bewildered, the only proper thing to do was
to build a fire and camp “right there,” instead of working into worse
difficulties.
The brief gale with which the storm had leaped down from its
headquarters in the heights of the Sierra had wholly subsided now, or
only reappeared in occasional momentary squalls. The snow continued
falling steadily, nevertheless, and already the ground, tops of the
bushes, and all the protruding rocks were white. The stars of course
were blotted out, but there was a pale, unearthly luminosity in the air
which showed that somewhere the moon was shining.
“How splendid a sight it would be,” thought the plucky young traveler as
he pushed steadily on, “to be above this storm, and able to look down
upon the wide sea of heaving, billowy snow-clouds, a sea of wan, soft
vapor, gleaming in the moonlight here and there as rounded masses are
rolled upward, and showing shadowy hollows or curving wrinkles, coming
and going, forming and changing before one’s eyes.”
Len had no great difficulty in keeping upon the trail, though he often
felt himself in very delicate places where a wrong step might mean a bad
fall, if not death.
In the wooded district lying between the Panther Creek gorge and the
village side of the mountain, he got bewildered once or twice, but by
keeping his wits about him passed safely beyond the forest, and felt
thereafter in no great danger of going astray. Yet he was not prepared
for the way the storm had quickly disguised all the landmarks, so that
he found the trail unexpectedly hard to follow.
This latter half of the journey was the strangest part of all. Now that
he had got out of the gorge and past the woods upon the ridge, he could
see abroad for the most part; but the whole wide and beautiful landscape
with which he had grown familiar was so lost and transformed that it was
hard to recognize its most familiar features. Where in the summer
daylight, of that wonderfully crystal-clear daylight of the alpine air,
he had been confronted by bold bluffs and clearly cut, prominent peaks,
only the vaguest outlines of a few of the nearest headlands now
appeared. Everything else was hidden under a veil of snowflakes. To his
left, as he reached the opening, half-way down, which allowed the
broadest view, a misty expanse took the place of a well-known rank of
towering peaks; in front, an undefined, Titanic shadow against the sky
showed dimly the wall of guardian cliffs enclosing the valley; while at
the right, clusters of rugged and spruce-grown foot-hills were merged
and invisible under the graceful arch of a mighty dome, faintly outlined
in the tumult of the storm, which was wrapping its mantle so swiftly
round every mountain.
In spite of his haste, and of the cold wind which hurled the powdered
snow against his face and drove it into the crevices of his clothing,
Lennox stood still here to gaze upon this shadowy picture of a new
world, this ghostly Walpurgis Night, which formed the most impressive
scene he had ever beheld. And as he gazed, there came faintly to his
ear, from far up the mountain behind him, a long, shrill scream as of
some one in deadly distress.
Len knew it was the cry of the mountain lion, but in that palely-lighted
dance of the snow-spirits among these awful rocks, it might well have
been taken for the last cry of some forlorn and freezing witch.
Shaking off these fancies and the snow together, our hero turned his
steps downward, and an hour later aroused the astonished landlord and
went to bed at the hotel, thoroughly tired, but safe and far ahead of
his adversaries.
OLD BOB TAKES A THRASHING.