"I don't know," the old chap answered surlily, "but it was there same
place it's restin' now--it ain't shifted none since you fingered it."
"That won't do, boys," Carney said; "if Caribou can't swear to a horse's
brand, how can he swear to the beast?"
"And if Fourteen-foot'd come back and stand up here and swear it was
his hawse, that wouldn't do either, would it, Bulldog?" And Kootenay
cackled.
"Johnson wouldn't say so--he'd know better. His cayuse had a club foot,
an inturned left forefoot. I picked it up, here and there, for miles
back on the trail, sometimes fair on top of Johnson's big boot track,
and sometimes Johnson's were on top when he travelled behind."
The men stared; and Graham asked: "What do you say to that, Caribou? Did
you ever map out Fourteen-foot's cayuse--what his travellers was like?"
"I never looked at his feet--there wasn't no reason to; I was minin'."
"There's another little test we can make," Carney suggested. "Have you
got any of Johnson's belongings--a coat?"
"We got his coat," Graham answered; "it was pretty bad wrecked with the
wolves, and we kinder fixed the remains up decent in a suit of store
clothes." At Carney's request the coat was brought, a rough Mackinaw,
and from one of the men present he got a miner's magnifying glass,
saying, as he examined the coat:
"This ought, naturally, to be pretty well filled with hairs from that
cayuse of Johnson's; and while two horses may look alike, there's
generally a difference in the hair."
Carney's surmise proved correct; dozens of short hairs were imbedded in
the coat, principally in the sleeves. Then hair was plucked from many
different parts of the cayuse's body, and the two lots were viewed
through the glass. They were different. The hair on the cayuse standing
in the yard was coarser, redder, longer, for its Indian owner had let
it run like a wild goat; and Fourteen-foot had given his cayuse
considerable attention. There were also some white hairs in the coat
warp, and on this cayuse there was not a single white hair to be seen.
When questioned Caribou would not emphatically declare that there had
not been a star or a white stripe in the forehead of Johnson's horse.
These things caused one or two of the men to waver, for if it were not
Johnson's cayuse, if Caribou were mistaken, there was no direct evidence
to connect Harry Holt with the murder.
Kootenay Jim objected that the examination of the hair was nothing; that
Carney, like a clever lawyer, was trying to get the murderer off on a
technicality. As to the club foot they had only Carney's guess, whereas
Caribou had never seen any club foot on Johnson's horse.
"We can prove that part of it," Graham said; "we can go back on the
trail and see what Bulldog seen."
Half a dozen men approved this, saying: "We'll put off the hangin' and
go back."
But Carney objected.
When he did so Kootenay Jim and John from Slocan raised a howl of
derision, Kootenay saying: "When we calls his bluff he throws his hand
in the discard. There ain't no club foot anywheres; it's just a game to
gain time to give this coyote, Holt, a chance to make a get-away. We're
bein' buffaloed--we're wastin' time. We gets a murderer on a murdered
man's hawse, with the gold in his pockets, and Bulldog Carney puts some
hawse hairs under a glass, hands out a pipe dream bout some ghost tracks
back on the trail, and reaches out to grab the pot. Hell! you'd think we
was a damn lot of tender-feet."
This harangue had an effect on the angry men, but seemingly none
whatever upon Bulldog, for he said quietly:
"I don't want a troop of men to go back on the trail just now, because
I'm going out myself to bring the murderer in. I can get him alone, for
if he does see me he won't think that I'm after him, simply that I'm
trailing. But if a party goes they'll never see him. He's a clever
devil, and will make his get-away. All I want on this evidence is that
you hold Holt till I get back. I'll bring the foreleg of that cayuse
with a club foot, for there's no doubt the murderer made sure that the
wolves got him too."
They had worked back into the hotel by now, and, inside, Kootenay Jim
and his two cronies had each taken a big drink of whisky, whispering
together as they drank.
As Carney and Graham entered, Kootenay's shrill voice was saying:
"We're bein' flim-flammed--played for a lot of kids. There ain't been
a damn thing 'cept lookin' at some hawse hairs through a glass. Men has
been murdered on the trail, and who done it--somebody. Caribou's mate
was murdered, and we find his gold on a man that was stony broke here,
was bummin' on the town, spongin' on Seth Long; he hadn't two bits.
And 'cause his sister stands well with Bulldog he palms this three-card
trick with hawse hairs, and we got to let the murderer go."
"You lie, Kootenay!" The words had come from Jeanette. "My brother
wouldn't tell you where he got the gold--he'd let you hang him first;
but I will tell. I took it out of Seth's safe and gave it to him to get
out of the country, because I knew that you and those two other hounds,
Slocan and Denver, would murder him some night because he knocked you
down for insulting me."
"That's a lie!" Kootenay screamed; "you and Bulldog 're runnin' mates
and you've put this up." There was a cry of warning from Slocan, and
Kootenay whirled, drawing his gun. As he did so him arm dropped and his
gun clattered to the floor, for Carney's bullet had splintered its butt,
incidentally clipping away a finger. And the same weapon in Carney's
hand was covering Slocan and Denver as they stood side by side, their
backs to the bar.
No one spoke; almost absolute stillness hung in the air for five
seconds. Half the men in the room had drawn, but no one pulled a
trigger--no one spoke.
It was Carney who broke the silence:
"Jeanette, bind that hound's hand up; and you, Seth, send for the
doctor--I guess he's too much of a man to be in this gang."
A wave of relief swept over the room; men coughed or spat as the tension
slipped, dropping their guns back into holsters.
Kootenay Jim, cowed by the damaged hand, holding it in his left,
followed Jeanette out of the room.
As the girl disappeared Harry Holt, who had stood between the two men,
his wrists bound behind his back, said:
"My sister told a lie to shield me. I stole the gold myself from Seth's
safe. I wanted to get out of this hell hole 'cause I knew I'd got to
kill Kootenay or he'd get me. That's why I didn't tell before where the
gold come from."
"Here, Seth," Carney called as Long came back into the room, "you missed
any gold--what do you know about Holt's story that he got the gold from
your safe?"
"I ain't looked--I don't keep no close track of what's in that iron
box; I jus' keep the key, and a couple of bags might get lifted and I
wouldn't know. If Jeanette took a bag or two to stake her brother, I
guess she's got a right to, 'cause we're pardners in all I got."
"I took the key when Seth was sleeping," Harry declared. "Jeanette
didn't know I was going to take it."
"But your sister claims she took it, so how'd she say that if it isn't a
frame-up?" Graham asked.
"I told her just as I was pullin' out, so she wouldn't let Seth get in
wrong by blamin' her or somebody else."
"Don't you see, boys," Carney interposed, "if you'd swung off this man,
and all this was proved afterwards, you'd be in wrong? You didn't find
on Harry a tenth of the gold Fourteen-foot likely had."
"That skunk hid it," Caribou declared; "he just kept enough to get out
with."
Poor old Caribou was thirsting for revenge; in his narrowed hate he
would have been satisfied if the party had pulled a perfect stranger off
a passing train and lynched him; it would have been a _quid pro quo._
He felt that he was being cheated by the superior cleverness of Bulldog
Carney. He had seen miners beaten out of their just gold claims by
professional sharks; the fine reasoning, the microscopic evidence of the
hairs, the intoed hoof, all these things were beyond him. He was honest
in his conviction that the cayuse was Johnson's, and feared that the man
who had killed his friend would slip through their fingers.
"It's just like this, boys," he said, "me and Fourteen-foot was together
so long that if he was away somewhere I'd know he was comin' back a day
afore he hit camp--I'd feel it, same's I turned back on the trail there
and found him all chawed up by the wolves. There wasn't no reason to
look over that cliff only ol' Fourteen-foot a-callin' me. And now he's
a-tellin' me inside that that skunk there murdered him when he wasn't
lookin'. And if you chaps ain't got the sand to push this to a finish
I'll get the man that killed Fourteen-foot; he won't never get away.
If you boys is just a pack of coyotes that howls good and plenty till
somebody calls 'em, and is goin' to slink away with your tails between
your legs for fear you'll be rounded up for the lynchin', you can turn
this murderer loose right now--you don't need to worry what'll happen to
him. I'll be too danged lonesome without Fourteen-foot to figger what's
comin' to me. Turn him loose--take the hobbles off him. You fellers
go home and pull your blankets over your heads so's you won't see no
ghosts."
Carney's sharp gray eyes watched the old fanatic's every move; he let
him talk till he had exhausted himself with his passionate words; then
he said:
"Caribou, you're some man. You'd go through a whole tribe of Indians for
a chum. You believe you're right, and that's just what I'm trying to do
in this, find out who is right--we don't want to wrong anybody. You
can come back on the trail with me, and I'll show you the club-footed
tracks; I'll let you help me get the right man."
The old chap turned his humpy shoulders, and looked at Carney out of
bleary, weasel eyes set beneath shaggy brows; then he shrilled:
"I'll see you in hell fust; I've heerd o' you, Bulldog; I've heerd you
had a wolverine skinned seven ways of the jack for tricks, and by the
rings on a Big Horn I believe it. You know that while I'm here that jack
rabbit ain't goin' to get away--and he ain't; you can bet your soul
on that, Bulldog. We'd go out on the trail and we'd find that
Wie-sah-ke-chack, the Indian's devil, had stole 'em pipe-dream,
club-footed tracks, and when we come back the man that killed my chum,
old Fourteen-foot, would be down somewhere where a smart-Aleck lawyer'd
get him off."
It took an hour of cool reasoning on the part of Carney to extract from
that roomful of men a promise that they would give Holt three days
of respite, Carney giving his word that he would not send out any
information to the police but would devote the time to bringing in the
murderer.
Kootenay Jim had had his wound dressed. He was in an ugly mood over the
shooting, but the saner members of the lynching party felt that he
had brought the quarrel on himself; that he had turned so viciously on
Jeanette, whom they all liked, caused the men to feel that he had got
pretty much his just deserts. He had drawn his gun first, and when a
man does that he's got to take the consequences. He was a gambler, and
a gambler generally had to abide by the gambling chance in gun play as
well as by the fall of a card.
But Carney had work to do, and he was just brave enough to not be
foolhardy. He knew that the three toughs would waylay him in the dark
without compunction. They were now thirsting not only for young Holt's
life, but his. So, saying openly that he would start in the morning,
when it was dark he slipped through the back entrance of the hotel to
the stable, and led his buckskin out through a corral and by a back way
to the tunnel entrance of the abandoned Little Widow mine. Here he left
the horse and returned to the hotel, set up the drinks, and loafed about
for a time, generally giving the three desperadoes the impression that
he was camped for the night in the Gold Nugget, though Graham, in whom
he had confided, knew different.
Presently he slipped away, and Jeanette, who had got the key from Seth,
unlocked the door that led down to the long communicating drift, at the
other end of which was the opening to the Little Widow mine.
Jeanette closed the door and followed Carney down the stairway. At the
foot of the stairs he turned, saying: "You shouldn't do this."
"Why, Bulldog?"
"Well, you saw why this afternoon. Kootenay Jim has got an arm in a
sling because he can't understand. Men as a rule don't understand much
about women, so a woman has always got to wear armor."
"But we understand, Bulldog; and Seth does."
"Yes, girl, we understand; but Seth can only understand the evident. You
clamber up the stairs quick."
"My God! Bulldog, see what you're doing for me now. You never would
stand for Harry yourself."
"If he'd been my brother I should, just as you have, girl."
"That's it, Bulldog, you're doing all this, standing there holding up a
mob of angry men, because he's _my_ brother."
"You called the turn, Jeanette."
"And all I can do, all I can say is, _thank you_. Is that all?"
"That's all, girl. It's more than enough."
He put a strong hand on her arm, almost shook her, saying with an
earnestness that the playful tone hardly masked:
"When you've got a true friend let him do all the friending--then you'll
hold him; the minute you try to rearrange his life you start backing
the losing card. Now, good-bye, girl; I've got work to do. I'll bring
in that wolf of the trail; I've got him marked down in a cave--I'll
get him. You tell that pin-headed brother of yours to stand pat. And if
Kootenay starts any deviltry go straight to Graham. Good-bye."
Cool fingers touched the girl on the forehead; then she stood alone
watching the figure slipping down the gloomed passage of the drift,
lighted candle in hand.
Carney led his buckskin from the mine tunnel, climbed the hillside to a
back trail, and mounting, rode silently at a walk till the yellow blobs
of light that was Bucking Horse lay behind him. Then at a little hunch
of his heels the horse broke into a shuffling trot.
It was near midnight when he camped; both he and the buckskin had eaten
robustly back at the Gold Nugget Hotel, and Carney, making the horse lie
down by tapping him gently on the shins with his quirt, rolled himself
in his blanket and slept close beside the buckskin--they were like two
men in a huge bed.
All next day he rode, stopping twice to let the buckskin feed, and
eating a dry meal himself, building no fire. He had a conviction that
the murderer of the gold hunters made the Valley of the Grizzley's
Bridge his stalking ground. And if the devil who stalked these returning
miners was still there he felt certain that he would get him.
There had been nothing to rouse the murderer's suspicion that these men
were known to have been murdered.
A sort of fatality hangs over a man who once starts in on a crime
of that sort; he becomes like a man who handles dynamite--careless,
possessed of a sense of security, of fatalism. Carney had found all
desperadoes that way, each murder had made them more sure of themselves,
it generally had been so easy.
Caribou Dave had probably passed without being seen by the murderer;
indeed he had passed that point early in the morning, probably while the
ghoul of the trail slept; the murderer would reason that if there was
any suspicion in Bucking Horse that miners had been made away with, a
posse would have come riding over the back trail, and the murderer would
have ample knowledge of their approach.
To a depraved mind, such as his, there was a terrible fascination in
this killing of men, and capturing their gold; he would keep at it like
a gambler who has struck a big winning streak; he would pile up gold,
probably in the cave Carney had seen the mouth of, even if it were more
than he could take away. It was the curse of the lust of gold, and, once
started, the devilish murder lust.
Carney had an advantage. He was looking for a man in a certain locality,
and the man, not knowing of his approach, not dreading it, would be
watching the trail in the other direction for victims. Even if he had
met him full on the trail Carney would have passed the time of day
and ridden on, as if going up into the Eagle Hills. And no doubt the
murderer would let him pass without action. It was only returning miners
he was interested in. Yes, Carney had an advantage, and if the man were
still there he would get him.
His plan was to ride the buckskin to within a short distance of where
the murders had been committed, which was evidently in the neighborhood
of the cliff at the bottom of which Fourteen-foot Johnson had been
found, and go forward on foot until he had thoroughly reconnoitered
the ground. He felt that he would catch sight of the murderer somewhere
between that point and the cave, for he was convinced that the cave was
the home of this trail devil.
The uncanny event of the wolves was not so simple. The curious tone of
the wolf's howl had suggested a wild dog--that is, a creature that was
half dog, half wolf; either whelped that way in the forests, or a train
dog that had escaped. Even a fanciful weird thought entered Carney's
mind that the murderer might be on terms of dominion over this half-wild
pair; they might know him well enough to leave him alone, and yet devour
his victims. This was conjecture, rather far-fetched, but still not
impossible. An Indian's train dogs would obey their master, but pull
down a white man quick enough if he were helpless.
However, the man was the thing.
The sun was dipping behind the jagged fringe of mountain tops to the
west when Carney slipped down into the Valley of the Grizzley's Bridge,
and, fording the stream, rode on to within a hundred and fifty yards of
the spot where his buckskin had shied from the trail two days before.
Dismounting, he took off his coat and draping it over the horse's neck
said: "Now you're anchored, Patsy--stand steady."
Then he unbuckled the snaffle bit and rein from the bridle and wound
the rein about his waist. Carney knew that the horse, not hampered by a
dangling rein to catch in his legs or be seized by a man, would protect
himself. No man but Carney could saddle the buckskin or mount him unless
he was roped or thrown; and his hind feet were as deft as the fists of a
boxer.
Then he moved steadily along the trail, finding here and there the
imprint of moccasined feet that had passed over the trail since he had.
There were the fresh pugs of two wolves, the dog-wolf's paws enormous.
Carney's idea was to examine closely the trail that ran by the cliff to
where his horse had shied from the path in the hope of finding perhaps
the evidences of struggle, patches of blood soaked into the brown earth,
and then pass on to where he could command a view of the cave mouth. If
the murderer had his habitat there he would be almost certain to show
himself at that hour, either returning from up the trail where he might
have been on the lookout for approaching victims, or to issue from the
cave for water or firewood for his evening meal. Just what he should do
Carney had not quite determined. First he would stalk the man in hopes
of finding out something that was conclusive.
If the murderer were hiding in the cave the gold would almost certainly
be there.
That was the order of events, so to speak, when Carney, hand on gun, and
eyes fixed ahead on the trail, came to the spot where the wolf had stood
at bay. The trail took a twist, a projecting rock bellied it into a
little turn, and a fallen birch lay across it, half smothered in a lake
of leaves and brush.
As Carney stepped over the birch there was a crashing clamp of iron,
and the powerful jaws of a bear trap closed on his leg with such numbing
force that he almost went out. His brain swirled; there were roaring
noises in his head, an excruciating grind on his leg.
His senses steadying, his first cogent thought was that the bone was
smashed; but a limb of the birch, caught in the jaws, squelched to
splinters, had saved the bone; this and his breeches and heavy socks in
the legs of his strong riding boots.
As if the snapping steel had carried down the valley, the evening
stillness was rent by the yelping howl of a wolf beyond where the cave
hung on the hillside. There was something demoniac in this, suggesting
to the half-dazed man that the wolf stood as sentry.
The utter helplessness of his position came to him with full force; he
could no more open the jaws of that double-springed trap than he could
crash the door of a safe. And a glance showed him that the trap was
fastened by a chain at either end to stout-growing trees. It was a
man-trap; if it had been for a bear it would be fastened to a piece of
loose log.
The fiendish deviltry of the man who had set it was evident. The whole
vile scheme flashed upon Carney; it was set where the trail narrowed
before it wound down to the gorge, and the man caught in it could be
killed by a club, or left to be devoured by the wolves. A pistol might
protect him for a little short time against the wolves, but that even
could be easily wheedled out of a man caught by the murderer coming with
a pretense of helping him.
Suddenly a voice fell on Carney's ear:
"Throw your gun out on the trail in front of you! I've got you covered,
Bulldog, and you haven't got a chance on earth."
Now Carney could make out a pistol, a man's head, and a crooked arm
projecting from beside a tree twenty yards along the trail.
"Throw out the gun, and I'll parley with you!" the voice added.
Carney recognized the voice as that of Jack the Wolf, and he knew that
the offered parley was only a blind, a trick to get his gun away so that
he would be a quick victim for the wolves; that would save a shooting.
Sometimes an imbedded bullet told the absolute tale of murder.
"There's nothing doing in that line, Jack the Wolf," Carney answered;
"you can shoot and be damned to you! I'd rather die that way than be
torn to pieces by the wolves."
Jack the Wolf seemed to debate this matter behind the tree; then he
said: "It's your own fault if you get into my bear trap, Bulldog; I
ain't invited you in. I've been watchin' you for the last hour, and I've
been a-wonderin' just what your little game was. Me and you ain't good
'nough friends for me to step up there to help you out, and you got a
gun on you. You throw it out and I'll parley. If you'll agree to certain
things, I'll spring that trap, and you can ride away, 'cause I guess
you'll keep your word. I don't want to kill nobody, I don't."
The argument was specious. If Carney had not known Jack the Wolf as
absolutely bloodthirsty, he might have taken a chance and thrown the
gun.
"You know perfectly well, Jack the Wolf, that if you came to help me
out, and I shot you, I'd be committing suicide, so you're lying."
"You mean you won't give up the gun?"
"No."
"Well, keep it, damn you! Them wolves knows a thing or two. One of 'em
knows pretty near as much about guns as you do. They'll just sit off
there in the dark and laugh at you till you drop; then you'll never wake
up. You think it over, Bulldog, I'm----"
The speaker's voice was drowned by the howl of the wolf a short distance
down the valley.
"D'you hear him, Bulldog?" Jack queried when the howls had died down.
"They get your number on the wind and they're sayin' you're their
meat. You think over my proposition while I go down and gather in your
buckskin; he looks good to me for a get-away. You let me know when
I come back what you'll do, 'cause 'em wolves is in a hurry--they're
hungry; and I guess your leg ain't none too comf'table."
Then there was silence, and Carney knew that Jack the Wolf was circling
through the bush to where his horse stood, keeping out of range as he
travelled.
Carney knew that the buckskin would put up a fight; his instinct would
tell him that Jack the Wolf was evil. The howling wolf would also have
raised the horse's mettle; but he himself was in the awkward position of
being a loser, whether man or horse won.
From where he was trapped the buckskin was in view. Carney saw his head
go up, the lop ears throw forward in rigid listening, and he could see,
beyond, off to the right, the skulking form of Jack slipping from tree
to tree so as to keep the buckskin between him and Carney.
Now the horse turned his arched neck and snorted. Carney whipped out his
gun, a double purpose in his mind. If Jack the Wolf offered a fair mark
he would try a shot, though at a hundred and fifty yards it would be
a chance; and he must harbor his cartridges for the wolves; the second
purpose was that the shot would rouse the buckskin with a knowledge that
there was a battle on.
Jack the Wolf came to the trail beyond the horse and was now slowly
approaching, speaking in coaxing terms. The horse, warily alert, was
shaking his head; then he pawed at the earth like an angry bull.
Ten yards from the horse Jack stood still, his eye noticing that the
bridle rein and bit were missing. Carney saw him uncoil from his waist
an ordinary packing rope; it was not a lariat, being short. With this in
a hand held behind his back, Jack, with short steps, moved slowly toward
the buckskin, trying to soothe the wary animal with soft speech.
Ten feet from the horse he stood again, and Carney knew what that
meant--a little quick dash in to twist the rope about the horse's head,
or seize him by the nostrils. Also the buckskin knew. He turned his rump
to the man, threw back his ears, and lashed out with his hind feet as
a warning to the horse thief. The coat had slipped from his neck to the
ground.
Jack the Wolf tried circling tactics, trying to gentle the horse into a
sense of security with soothing words. Once, thinking he had a chance,
he sprang for the horse's head, only to escape those lightning heels
by the narrowest margin; at that instant Carney fired, but his bullet
missed, and Jack, startled, stood back, planning sulkily.
Carney saw him thread out his rope with the noose end in his right
hand, and circle again. Then the hand with a half-circle sent the
loop swishing through the air, and at the first cast it went over the
buckskin's head.
Carney had been waiting for this. He whistled shrilly the signal that
always brought the buckskin to his side.
Jack had started to work his way up the rope, hand over hand, but at
the well-known signal the horse whirled, the rope slipped through
Jack's sweaty hands, a loop of it caught his leg, and he was thrown. The
buckskin, strung to a high nervous tension, answered his master's signal
at a gallop, and the rope, fastened to Jack's waist, dragged him as
though he hung from a runaway horse with a foot in the stirrup. His body
struck rocks, trees, roots; it jiggered about on the rough earth like a
cork, for the noose had slipped back to the buckskin's shoulders.
Just as the horse reached Carney, Jack the Wolf's two legs straddled a
slim tree and the body wedged there. Carney snapped his fingers, but as
the horse stepped forward the rope tightened, the body was fast.
"Damned if I want to tear the cuss to pieces, Patsy," he said, drawing
forth his pocket knife. He just managed by reaching out with his long
arm, to cut the rope, and the horse thrust his velvet muzzle against
his master's cheek, as if he would say, "Now, old pal, we're all
right--don't worry."
Bulldog understood the reassurance and, patting the broad wise forehead,
answered: "We can play the wolves together, Pat--i'm glad you're here.
It's a hundred to one on us yet." Then a halfsmothered oath startled the
horse, for, at a twist, a shoot of agony raced along the vibrant nerves
to Carney's brain.
In the subsidence of strife Carney was cognizant of the night shadows
that had crept along the valley; it would soon be dark. Perhaps he
could build a little fire; it would keep the wolves at bay, for in the
darkness they would come; it would give him a circle of light, and a
target when the light fell on their snarling faces.
Bending gingerly down he found in the big bed of leaves a network of
dead branches that Jack the Wolf had cunningly placed there to hold
the leaves. There was within reach on the dead birch some of its silver
parchment-like bark. With his cowboy hat he brushed the leaves away from
about his limbs, then taking off his belt he lowered himself gingerly
to his free knee and built a little mound of sticks and bark against the
birch log. Then he put his hand in a pocket for matches--every pocket;
he had not one match; they were in his coat lying down somewhere on the
trail. He looked longingly at the body lying wedged against the tree;
Jack would have matches, for no man travelled the wilds without the
means to a fire. But matches in New York were about as accessible as any
that might be in the dead man's pockets.
Philosophic thought with one leg in a bear trap is practically
impossible, and Carney's arraignment of tantalizing Fate was inelegant.
As if Fate resented this, Fate, or something, cast into the trapped
man's mind a magical inspiration--a vital grievance. His mind, acute
because of his dilemna and pain, must have wandered far ahead of his
cognizance, for a sane plan of escape lay evident. If he had a fire he
could heat the steel springs of that trap. The leaves of the spring
were thin, depending upon that elusive quality, the steel's temper, for
strength. If he could heat the steel, even to a dull red, the temper
would leave it as a spirit forsakes a body, and the spring would bend
like cardboard.
"And I haven't got a damn match," Carney wailed. Then he looked at the
body. "But you've got them----"
He grasped the buckskin's headpiece and drew him forward a pace; then he
unslung his picket line and made a throw for Jack the Wolf's head. If he
could yank the body around, the wedged legs would clear.
Throwing a lariat at a man lying groggily flat, with one of the
thrower's legs in a bear trap, was a new one on Carney--it was some
test.
Once he muttered grimly, from between set teeth: "If my leg holds out
I'll get him yet, Patsy."
Then he threw the lariat again, only to drag the noose hopelessly off
the head that seemed glued to the ground, the dim light blurring form
and earth into a shadow from which thrust, indistinctly, the pale face
that carried a crimson mark from forehead to chin.
He had made a dozen casts, all futile, the noose sometimes catching
slightly at the shaggy head, even causing it to roll weirdly, as if the
man were not dead but dodging the rope. As Carney slid the noose from
his hand to float gracefully out toward the body his eye caught the dim
form of the dog-wolf, just beyond, his slobbering jaws parted, giving
him the grinning aspect of a laughing hyena. Carney snatched the rope
and dropped his hand to his gun, but the wolf was quicker than the
man--he was gone. A curious thing had happened, though, for that erratic
twist of the rope had spiraled the noose beneath Jack the Wolf's chin,
and gently, vibratingly tightening the slip, Carney found it hold.
Then, hand over hand, he hauled the body to the birch log, and, without
ceremony, searched it for matches. He found them, wrapped in an oilskin
in a pocket of Jack's shirt. He noticed, casually, that Jack's gun had
been torn from its belt during the owner's rough voyage.
The finding of the matches was like an anesthetic to the agony of the
clamp on his leg. He chuckled, saying, "Patsy, it's a million to one on
us; they can't beat us, old pard."
He transferred his faggots and birch bark to the loops of the springs,
one pile at either end of the trap, and touched a match to them.
The acrid smoke almost stifled him; sparks burnt his hands, and his
wrists, and his face; the jaws of the trap commenced to catch the heat
as it travelled along the conducting steel, and he was threatened with
the fact that he might burn his leg off. With his knife he dug up the
black moist earth beneath the leaves, and dribbled it on to the heating
jaws.
Carney was so intent on his manifold duties that he had practically
forgotten Jack the Wolf; but as he turned his face from an inspection
of a spring that was reddening, he saw a pair of black vicious eyes
watching him, and a hand reaching for his gun belt that lay across the
birch log.
The hands of both men grasped the belt at the same moment, and a
terrible struggle ensued. Carney was handicapped by the trap, which
seemed to bite into his leg as if it were one of the wolves fighting
Jack's battle; and Jack the Wolf showed, by his vain efforts to rise,
that his legs had been made almost useless in that drag by the horse.
Carney had in one hand a stout stick with which he had been adjusting
his fire, and he brought this down on the other's wrist, almost
shattering the bone. With a cry of pain Jack the Wolf released his grasp
of the belt, and Carney, pulling the gun, covered him, saying:
"Hoped you were dead, Jack the Murderer! Now turn face down on this log,
with your hands behind your back, till I hobble you."
"I can spring that trap with a lever and let you out," Jack offered.
"Don't need you--I'm going to see you hanged and don't want to be
under any obligation to you, murderer; turn over quick or I'll kill you
now--my leg is on fire."
Jack the Wolf knew that a man with a bear trap on his leg and a gun in
his hand was not a man to trifle with, so he obeyed.
When Jack's wrists were tied with the picket line, Carney took a loop
about the prisoner's legs; then he turned to his fires.
The struggle had turned the steel springs from the fires; but in the
twisting one of them had been bent so that its ring had slipped down
from the jaws. Now Carney heaped both fires under the other spring and
soon it was so hot that, when balancing his weight on the leg in the
trap, he placed his other foot on it and shifted his weight, the strip
of steel went down like paper. He was free.
At first Carney could not bear his weight on the mangled leg; it felt as
if it had been asleep for ages; the blood rushing through the released
veins pricked like a tatooing needle. He took off his boot and massaged
the limb, Jack eyeing this proceeding sardonically. The two wolves
hovered beyond the firelight, snuffling and yapping.
When he could hobble on the injured limb Carney put the bit and bridle
rein back on the buckskin, and turning to Jack, unwound the picket line
from his legs, saying, "Get up and lead the way to that cave!"
"I can't walk, Bulldog," Jack protested; "my leg's half broke."
"Take your choice--get on your legs, or I'll tie you up and leave you
for the wolves," Carney snapped.
Jack the Wolf knew his Bulldog Carney well. As he rose groggily to his
feet, Carney lifted to the saddle, holding the loose end of the picket
line that was fastened to Jack's wrists, and said:
"Go on in front; if you try any tricks I'll put a bullet through
you--this sore leg's got me peeved."
At the cave Carney found, as he expected, several little canvas bags
of gold, and other odds and ends such as a murderer too often, and also
foolishly, will garner from his victims. But he also found something he
had not expected to find--the cayuse that had belonged to Fourteen-foot
Johnson, for Jack the Wolf had preserved the cayuse to pack out his
wealth.
Next morning, no chance of action having come to Jack the Wolf through
the night, for he had lain tied up like a turkey that is to be roasted,
he started on the pilgrimage to Bucking Horse, astride Fourteen-foot
Johnson's cayuse, with both feet tied beneath that sombre animal's
belly. Carney landed him and the gold in that astonished berg.
And in the fullness of time something very serious happened the
enterprising man of the bear trap.