On the Blue Lake Ranch there was more than one man ready to scoff at
the idea of a robbery like this one, frank enough to voice the
suspicion: "It's just a stall for time!" So much had last week's rumor
done for them, preparing them to expect something that would set aside
the customary monthly pay-day. But when they had seen Charlie Miller's
bruised head and heard his story; when they had sat on their horses and
looked down at the animal which had been shot under Bud Lee, they were
silent. And, besides, when long after dark they came in behind Carson
from a fruitless quest, their pay was ready for them as formerly, in
gold and silver.
Major Langworthy imbibed an unusually large number of cocktails and
long before noon of the following day had suggested that the ranch be
put immediately under military law, hinting that a military-mustached
gentleman be appointed commanding general of the Blue Lake forces, and
forming within his own mind the picture of himself in the office,
revolver on table, cocktail at elbow, directing the manoeuvres from
this point of vantage, not to say safety. Mrs. Langworthy ruffled her
feathers and sniffed when Judith's name was mentioned. It was
perfectly clear to her that all the ruffians of the West would be quick
to take the advantage arising from the ridiculous condition of a rowdy
girl assuming men's pantaloons.
"I am rather inclined to think, mama," said Marcia, "that you don't do
Judith justice."
Trevors, with little to say to any one, took his departure in the
forenoon, extracting from Hampton the promise to ride over and see the
lumber-camp some day soon.
Judith, held at the office by a lot of first-of-the-month details, did
not get away until close to eleven o'clock that morning. Then she rode
swiftly down the river, a purpose of her own in mind. At the store she
stopped for a sympathetic word with Charlie Miller who had long ago
forgotten his own hurt in his grief and anger that he had lost her
thousand dollars for her.
"What's a thousand dollars, Charlie?" she laughed at him. "We'll lose
and make many a thousand before the year dies."
Just below the Lower End settlement she came upon Doc Tripp. He was in
one of the quarantine hog-corrals, his sleeves rolled up, a puzzled
look of worry puckering his boyish face.
"What's up, Doc?" asked Judith.
"Don't know, Judy. That's what gets my mad up. Just performed an
autopsy on one of your Poland-China gilts."
"Found it dead?" asked Judith.
"Killed it," grunted Tripp. "Sick. Half dozen more are off their feed
and don't look right. A man's always afraid of the cholera. And,"
stubbornly, "I won't believe it! There's been no chance of infection;
why, there's not an infected herd this side of the Bagley ranch, sixty
miles the other side of Rocky Bend, a clean hundred miles from here.
But, just the same, I'm taking temperatures this morning and having my
herders cut out all the dull-looking ones and break the herds up."
"Not getting nerves? Are you, Doc?" And Judith spurred on down the
valley.
Before she came to the spot where Bud Lee's horse had been shot she
came upon Lee himself. A rifle across his arm, he was looking up at
the cliffs of Squaw Creek cañon.
"Well, Lee," she said, "what do you make of it?"
He showed no surprise at seeing her and answered slowly, that far-away
look in his eyes as though he were alone still and speaking simply to
Bud Lee.
"Using smokeless powder nowadays is a handy thing for a man shooting
under cover," he said. "Then rig up your gun with a silencer and get
off at fair range, half a mile and up, with a telescope sight, and it's
real nice fun picking folks off!"
"All of that spells preparation," suggested Judith.
He nodded. When he offered no further remark but sat staring up at the
cliffs, Judith asked:
"What else have you learned by coming back down here? Anything?"
"There were two men, anyway. I'd guess, three. The one who stuck up
Charlie and then drifted while the drifting was good. Then the two
other jaspers that tried to wing me."
"How do you know that?"
"My horse that was shot," he explained, "got it in the left side of the
neck. Now, look at that hole in the little fir-tree yonder."
Judith saw what he meant now. At this point Lee yesterday had heard
the second bullet singing dangerously near. It had struck the fir, and
plainly had been fired from some point off to the right of the cañon.
Her eyes went swiftly, after his up the cliff walls.
"I doped it out while I was running," he went on. "Look at the way the
trees grow here. If a man was on the cliffs shooting at me, and coming
that close to winging me, why, he'd have to be off to the right. These
big pines would shunt him off from the other side. It's open and shut
there were two of them. And darn good shots," he added dryly.
Briefly he went on to give her the rest of the results of his two-hour
seeking for something definite. If she'd ride on a little she'd come
to the spot where his horse had been killed; she would see in the road
the signs where, at Tripp's, orders, the carcass had been dragged away.
From there, looking off to the left, up the cliffs, she would see the
spot which Lee believed had harbored one of the riflemen. High above
the cañon rose the rocky pinnacle he had marked yesterday, with brush
standing tall in a little depression.
"Indian Head," broke in Judith, gazing upward. "Bud Lee, I'll bet a
horse you're right. . . ."
"And," said Lee, swinging from the saddle, "I'm going up there to have
a little look around."
In an instant the girl was at his side.
"I am going with you," she said simply.
He looked at her curiously. Then he shrugged his shoulders. An angry
flush came to the girl's cheeks, but she went on with him. Not a word
passed between them during the entire hour required to climb the steep
side of the mountain and come under Indian Head cliffs. Here they
stood together upon a narrow ledge panting, resting. Again Judith saw
Lee glance at her curiously. He had not sought to accommodate his
swift climbing to a girl's gait and yet he had not distanced her in the
ascent. But in Lee's glance there was nothing of approval. There were
two kinds of women, as he had said, and . . .
"Pretty steep climb from here up," he remarked bluntly.
"For a valley man or a cobble-pounder, maybe," was Judith's curt
rejoinder.
Thereafter they did not speak again until, after nearly another hour,
they at last came to the crest of Indian Head. And here, in the
eagerness of their search, rewarded by the signs which they found, they
forgot, both of them, to maintain their reserve.
In the clump of brush, close to the outer fringe, behind a low, broad
boulder, a man had lain on his belly no longer ago than yesterday.
Broken twigs showed it, a small bush crushed down told of it, the marks
of his toes in some of the softer soil proclaimed it eloquently. And,
had other signs been required, there they were: two empty brass
cartridges where the automatic ejector had thrown them several feet
away. Lee picked up one of the shells.
"Latest thing in an up-to-the-minute Savage," he told her. "That gun
is good for twice the distance he used it for. I'm in tolerable luck
to be mountain-climbing to-day, I guess!"
While Judith visualized just what had occurred, saw the tall man--he
must have been tall for his boot toes to scratch the earth yonder while
his rifle-barrel lay for support across the boulder in front--resting
his gun and firing down into the cañon--Lee was back at her side,
saying shortly:
"What do you think? There's a plain trail up here, old as the hills,
but tip-top for speedy going."
"And," said Judith without looking up, "it runs down into the next
saddle, to the north of that ridge, curves up again and with monuments
all along the way, runs straight to the Upper End and comes down from
the northeast to the lake."
Lee looked at her, wondering.
"You knew about it all the time, then?"
"If we hadn't been on our high horses," she told him quietly, "I should
have told you about it. It's the old Indian Trail. If the man we want
turned east, then he went right on to the lake before he stopped
putting one foot in front of the other. Unless he hid out all night,
which I don't believe."
"What makes you think he went that far?"
"There's no other trail up here that gets anywhere. If he left this
one for a short cut he'd know, if he knows anything, that he'd have to
take a chance every ten steps of breaking his neck in the dark. Now,"
and she rose swiftly, confronting him, "the thing for you to do, Bud
Lee, is to get back to your horse, take the road, make time getting to
the Upper End and see what you can see there!"
Hurrying back to their horses, they rode to the ranch-house where
Judith, with no word of adieu, left Lee to go to the house. Lee made a
late lunch, saddled another horse, and when the bunk-house clock stood
at a quarter of four, started for the Upper End.
"That girl's got the savvy," was his one remark to himself.
X