NO TRAIL
The chase, which had been flung far, swung back towards Deadman
Canyon, where the trail of the fugitives had disappeared; and with the
others came the Randolphs and Isham Scarborough, riding up the creek
from Tonto. Apache trailers came drifting in, drawn like vultures by
the crowd; and soon, under their guidance, the search party crossed
the creek and came out on the bench below the castle. Hall and
Allifair could hear their shouts as they found the marks of his first
turkey-trap, in the underbrush above the little spring; and then the
chase led on to the cliff-dwellings below them, where Hall had made
camp the first time. But the signs were all old and they came back to
the spring, where they could look up and see the lost castle. Every
word that they said could be heard now perfectly and Allifair trembled
as she listened.
"Well, the house is there, ain't it?" argued Isham, trying to bully the
Apache trailers. "How'd they git up to it? Well, _busca_ the trail!"
"No! No tlail!" responded the Apaches, and that was the last heard of
them, for the cowboys had taken sides on the matter. Some swore that
the trail came down from the top, and that they could see a kind of
bear-track down the cleft; and the others were just as positive that it
had ascended the cliff but had been lost by a cave-off of the rock.
"No! No tlail!" repeated the Apaches when the uproar had subsided, and
Isham Scarborough came back at them angrily.
"You're scairt, you black rascals!" he shouted. "Hey, Charley--you take
me up that mountain? Well, there now--you see? These danged Injuns are
buffaloed--they're afraid Old Man Baker will kill 'em!"
"No! No 'flaid!" grunted the Indians, but they would not go up the
chasm, for no Apache ever set foot on Baker Mountain.
"Hey, I'll tell you!" hollered Isham, his voice rising above the babel
like the roar of a mountain bull, "I'll tell you where they've gone! Up
Devil's Chasm and plumb over the summit--they couldn't get nowhere's
else! Didn't we trail 'em to the crick, and ain't we rode clean to
Tonto, cutting circles to pick up their tracks? Well, they crossed then
I'm telling ye, even if you fellers couldn't, and by this time they're
clean to Geronimo!"
"Well, let's go to Geronimo, then," spoke up Cal Randolph's even voice,
"what's the use of trying to climb this mountain?"
"They may be hid up there," cried Isham. "But cripes, boys, we know one
thing--they never went down that crick. And if they didn't go there
where else could they go, except----"
He paused as a voice began shouting his name, and Hall peeped over the
rampart. A man had ridden down to their camp across the creek and was
waving his hat and hallooing.
"What d'ye want?" demanded Isham, walking to the edge of the bench and
looking across at the runner, "what's the matter with you, anyhow?"
"Your wife says to come home!" shouted the messenger. "They's been a
big raid--all your horses are run off! And three of the boys was found
hung!"
"Hung!" echoed Isham, and every man in the party jumped up and ran to
the rim.
"What's that?" they clamored, and Hall and Allifair rose up to catch
the startling news.
"W'y, they was night-riders," explained the runner. "They wore masks
and dressed like Injuns! Yes, come in at night and caught three boys
standing guard! We found them hung to a tree! And they run off all your
horses!"
"Hell's fire!" exclaimed Isham, and stood staring across the canyon
while his men gathered together in groups.
"That was that sheepman, Grimes," whispered Hall to Allifair. "He's
organized all those Mormons above the Rim."
"Oh, will he come down here?" asked Allifair aghast. "Because Ewing and
Cal----"
"Maybe they'll leave, now," suggested Hall, and they listened again,
for Isham was beginning to shout.
"Which way'd they go?" he inquired, and when the man answered north he
burst into a fit of cursing.
"It's them dadburned Mormon ranchers!" he exclaimed, and started back
for his horse.
"Well, let's go, boys," he said, when they had gathered by the spring,
"we can tend to McIvor afterward. But if any one wants to stay here
I'll give one thousand dollars to the man that brings me his hair. He's
the dirty, doggoned rascal that stirred up all this ruckus, but I can't
stop to monkey with him now. Come on, Cal; ain't you coming with me?"
"No!" answered Cal's voice and then, after a silence, "we didn't come
out here to help you steal horses."
"Oh, you didn't, eh?" railed Isham, his voice tense with excitement,
"well, since when have you got to be so good? Jest the minute they's
any trouble----"
"We come out here to get our sister!" broke in Ewing's high voice. "And
we're going to hunt till we find her."
"Well, hunt and be damned to ye!" burst out Isham in a fury, and went
spurring off down the trail. His cowboys followed after him, talking
low among themselves, and Hall and Allifair crouched down and listened.
"Well?" spoke up the voice which they recognized as Cal's; but Ewing
did not reply. "Let's ask these Indians," went on Cal, "maybe they know
of some trail. Hey!" he called, "come over here!"
"What you want?" demanded the Indian in arrogant tones, and Cal asked
about the trail up the chasm. "No good!" replied the Apache. "Go
hup--steep! Go hup mo'--mo' steep! Bimby too steep--fall down. Me no
likum. Go home."
"Where you think this man go?" spoke up Ewing. "You find him, we give
you two hundred dollars."
There was a gutteral conversation in Apache then, and Allifair began
to cry softly, but Hall was listening over the wall. If the Apaches
took up his trail they would undoubtedly find his horses; and his
turkey traps and saddles, too. They might even find the entrance to
their cave, with results which he did not care to contemplate; for he
could not kill the Randolphs and they were sworn to kill him--but fate
turned the shaft away. The Indians were afraid of Old Man Baker and his
mountain and they revised their opinions to suit.
"Go hon--down wate'," answered the spokesman at last "Fall in--maybeso
both dlown. How much you give--findum body?"
"Nothing!" burst out Cal, "go on away, you dirty devil. By God, Ewing;
I believe he's right."
"Well, I told ye!" accused Ewing, his voice high and complaining, "I
told you we hadn't ought to come! But you had to have your way, and now
who's going to face Dad----"
"Aw, hush up!" returned Cal impatiently.
"You--give--coffee?" asked the Indian with painful distinctness, and
Cal flew into a fury.
"No--damn ye!" he cursed. "Git away, before I kill ye. Come on, Ewing;
let's quit and go home."
There was a silence then, broken by sonorous Apache as the Indians
talked on gravely among themselves; and finally, across the creek, Hall
saw the Texans riding north and the Randolphs heading for Tonto. Then
he stooped and gathered up Allifair, who had given herself over to
weeping, and carried her into the house.
"I can't help it!" she sobbed, "they're all so rough and brutal; and
they curse and--oh, I just hate them! And to think of Cal and Ewing
offering two hundred dollars----"
"And they'd have found us, too," nodded Hall. "But God looks after
His own. I believe He is saving us, to work His will elsewhere--I'll
never doubt it again. When I came here to look for you I was sure of
my mission. I knew He was leading me to you; and I knew that somehow
we should manage to escape, and be united, and unite our own people.
But afterwards, when I was hiding like a rabbit among the rocks and the
Scarboroughs were prospering so wonderfully--well, I couldn't believe
it, it didn't seem possible, it hardly seems possible now. But hatred
raises up hatred until it destroys itself; and now this sheepman,
Grimes, whose herders they killed, has descended like a destroying
angel upon them. It will all work out now, and when I come back----"
"Are you going?" she asked suddenly, sitting bolt upright. "Oh, Hall,
I want you--here with me! I'll live on acorns, I'll do anything--won't
you stay?"
"I'll be back soon," he said, and turned away.