DANGEROUS WATERS
Dexter searched about him with wide bewildered eyes. A deep,
lifeless hush brooded once more over the forest, and he saw nothing
anywhere but the still shadows of trees. His woodsman's instinct
assured him that no human being lurked within hailing distance. Yet
he could not doubt the testimony of his own senses. He had heard the
thin, far call; a muffled, impalpable voice, that was the voice of
Alison Rayne.
As he waited with bated breath, the murmur of sound again flickered
through space--microscopic syllables of speech, apparently sent from
nowhere. "Cabin--lower pass--help!" He made out the words
distinctly, and in spite of reason, he knew that he could not be
mistaken. Alison Rayne was calling him from somewhere, needing him
for some reason, and as though his mind were attuned telepathically
to hers, he heard.
He did not stop to wonder what it all might mean. On occasions
before this he had observed the effects of strange phenomena at work
in the wilderness, and by now he would not allow himself to be
surprised at anything that might happen. He knew only that he had
received a mysterious appeal for help, and if Alison wanted him, he
would go the world over to find her.
Luckily the directions were clear. The voice had mentioned a cabin
in the lower pass. How far it might be, he did not know, but he had
already puzzled his way through the mountains, and was confident that
he would have no difficulty in locating the mouth of the valley
beyond. And if there were a cabin along the route, he could not miss
it. He did not linger even to pack his traveling equipment, but
started forward as fast as darkness and difficult ground permitted.
The mountain slope tumbled downward at a sharp slant, and he pushed
blindly on through obscurity, feeling his way among the trees,
crashing recklessly through briary patches, stumbling and sometimes
falling over unseen obstacles in his path. How he traversed that
length of dangerous hillside, without broken bones, he could not have
said. But the luck of the mounted was with him, and when dawn
finally overtook him, he had gained the bottom levels and found safer
ground opening before him.
He found himself in a wild, steep-walled gulley, where a mountain
torrent rushed and swirled among ugly bowlders. Fed from the distant
heights by melting snows, the stream had already flooded level with
the high spring marks, and the water still appeared to be rising.
The upper embankment shelved above the surface of the rapids and he
struck a slippery pathway that enabled him to follow along with the
current.
For four or five miles he descended through the cut, and then the
walls of the ravine began to widen, and at length he reached an open
stretch of valley land, where a second stream came plunging out of a
forking gulch to join the creek that had led him from the heights.
He halted briefly to peer ahead through the morning mist.
Before him lay a strip of rising ground--a wooded hummock that, in
ordinary stages of the water, would have been accessible from the
embankment on which he stood. But the branching creeks had overflown
their banks and the flood washed around the spit of land forming a
small, triangular-shaped island. As he gazed across the swollen
current, he discerned the dim outline of a log cabin, half hidden
among the trees.
Dexter stared across the stream with narrowing eyes. This was the
lower pass, and before him stood the cabin that the voice had told
him he would find. No sound reached him above the noise of the
rapids, and no movement was visible through the smoky haze of the
dawn. Nevertheless, it must be here that he had been summoned by the
cry for help, and there was nothing to do but investigate.
He glanced dubiously at the swift-running stream that cut him off
from the isolated shore. It was fifty feet or more across the main
channel, and the water boiled and eddied dangerously among sharp,
slippery rocks. Swimming in such water was out of the question. In
places the stream appeared to be almost shallow enough for fording
but if a man happened to be swept off his feet nothing could save him
from the rapids, and death among the rocks. Realizing the chance he
was taking, the corporal hesitated only long enough to settle upon
the safest place of crossing. He chose the spot where the current
ran whitest, knowing that there he would find the shoalest water; and
without removing his boots, or making any sort of preparation, he
stepped into the water and started to wade out from shore.
The bank dropped away at a steep slant, and almost before he knew it
he had plunged waist-deep in the icy stream. The current pulled and
tugged at his legs and body, but he dug in his toes, leaned his full
weight against the seething tide, and slowly and laboriously made his
way forward. The gravel bottom sloped gradually downward, and by the
time he had fought his way to the middle channel the water was
gurgling above his armpits. At this stage of his journey,
fortunately, a series of bowlders offered him a precarious anchorage,
and he managed to work his way from one to another, until at last he
could plant his feet once more. The rest of the trip across was only
a question of holding his balance between each cautious step, and he
soon stumbled into shallow water and clambered out on the shore of
the island.
For a moment he stood in the lee of a hazel thicket, shivering with
the cold, peering towards the cabin that loomed in the shadows not
twenty paces beyond him. He had come up on the rear of the place,
and the door, presumably, opened on the farther side. There were two
windows in the wall that fronted his direction, but both were
barricaded tight with heavy shutters. No sign of smoke came from the
clay-daubed chimney. Judging by appearances, there was nobody about
the premises. Nevertheless, he moved with caution when he finally
went forward.
Circling the clearing on tiptoe, he passed around the corner of the
cabin, and halted suddenly with a quick-drawn breath. Before the
shut door, almost within arm's reach, crouched a bulky human figure.
Instinctively the corporal's hand slid into his pocket, and came out
again, gripping the small pistol that had served him on another
occasion. The sound of the rapids had smothered his footfalls, and
his presence so far was undiscovered. The intruder's back was turned
to him, and he saw only a bulging pink neck and a fat, gross body
belted in a Mackinaw coat. For several seconds Dexter held his
position, looking on with keenest interest. The thick-waisted
stranger held a hunting knife gripped in his hands, and was hacking
and sawing away at the planks of the battened front door. He had
chipped a hole through the heavy slabs, and was now engaged in
enlarging the aperture. It would appear that he was trying to cut an
opening big enough to reach the inner latch-bar.
Dexter watched in silence for a space, and then quietly interrupted
the work. "My hand isn't quite as pudgy as yours," he remarked.
"Maybe mine'll go through."
The man's fingers opened with a jerk, his knife fell to the ground,
and he whirled with a choking gasp to stare behind him.
Dexter smiled as he observed the reddish, flabby face that had turned
his direction. The man was the outlaw, "Pink" Crill.