Nan and Rex wandered down the cañon below where they had first entered
it, but were unable to find a way out. After a supreme effort they were
able to climb back over the rocks to where the slide ended, but were
unable to go any farther.
‘It doesn’t look very promising,’ said Rex wearily.
Nan sat down on a rock, tired out from the climb. She realized better
than Rex did what they were up against. Unless help came to them, they
were doomed to starvation in the bottom of Coyote Cañon. She knew that
it was only through a great piece of luck that Rex had been able to kill
those quail.
‘If we even had a gun,’ she said helplessly. ‘Perhaps they could hear
the echo of it.’
‘But there must be a way out,’ insisted Rex. ‘It seems to be an
impassable pocket, but there must be a way. I almost wish we were
buzzards,’ he said. ‘They are able to fly out with scarcely any effort.’
‘They are not the only buzzards in this country,’ said Nan.
‘You mean--human buzzards, Nan?’
‘Yes. Whoever shot your horse must know we are down here. They don’t
know whether we are alive or dead. How did the crazy man get down here,
I wonder? That must be his horse.’
‘Yes, it is all very queer. I wonder if he is still alive? Perhaps he
knows a way out, Nan. It seems a brutal thing to leave him up there
alone in that cave. But what can we do? At least, he is unconscious, and
does not seem to be suffering. But I wish he would wake up sane again,
because he might know a way out.’
‘He wouldn’t know. I guess we better go back to the cave and gather a
supply of wood. All we can do is to pray that some one will look down
here for us.’
They went back to the bottom of the cañon and had a drink at the little
spring. A copper-colored rattler, stretched out on the top of a boulder,
waiting for the sunshine, looked them over with beady eyes as they went
past. They did not see the snake, and the snake was too torpid from the
cold to sound a warning.
They climbed up from the bottom of the cañon near the old waterfall, and
twisted their way around the huge boulder. Nan was in the lead, and, as
she circled an outcropping of sandstone, she cried out sharply and
stepped back, bumping Rex sideways.
A man was standing against the sandstone, covering them with a rifle,
and so close was he that Nan’s elbow struck the barrel of the rifle as
she jerked back. Her first impression was that it was the crazy man, but
a second glance dissipated this idea.
The man was masked with a big bandanna handkerchief, with jagged
eye-holes, and his slouch hat was pulled low over his forehead. For
several moments he did not move or speak. Rex put his arms around Nan,
and tried to draw her behind him.
‘Don’t move,’ warned the man harshly.
‘Who are you?’ demanded Rex.
‘Ne’mind who I am. Keep yore hands up and foller me.’
He backed slowly to the open hillside below the cave, which was not
visible from there. Rex had shoved the empty revolver inside the
waist-band of his trousers, and now the man stepped over and yanked it
away. A quick glance showed him that the gun was empty.
‘Where’d yuh git that?’ he asked.
‘I--I found it,’ lied Rex.
‘Uh-huh.’
The man flung it far off down the cañon.
‘How did you git down here?’ he asked.
Rex explained how they happened to be there.
‘Yuh came all the way down that slide, eh?’
‘It was quite a slide,’ agreed Rex. ‘Now, I hope you will show us the
way out.’
‘Yuh hope so, do yuh? Who shot yore horse up there?’
‘We haven’t any idea.’
‘Anybody gunnin’ for yuh?’
‘I don’t know why they should.’
Nan noticed that the man had a lariat wrapped around his waist, and now
he began unwrapping it.
‘We just want to find the way out of here,’ said Rex.
‘Thasso?’ The man seemed amused. He shifted his gaze to Nan.
‘Set down on the rock!’ he snapped harshly. ‘Set down there and set
still.’
He shook the last coil of the rope loose, catching the _hondo_ and
quickly making his loop. Neither of them had any idea of what he was
intending to do. He flipped the twist out of the loop, and with a jerk
of his wrist he flung the loop over Rex’s shoulders, yanking it tight.
Rex stumbled forward, his arms cinched to his sides, and the man kicked
his feet from under him, throwing him heavily.
‘Stay there, damn yuh!’ he snarled. He gave Nan a sharp glance. She had
jumped to her feet now, as though intending to help Rex.
‘You stay put,’ warned the man. ‘Set down there!’
Nan sank back on the rock and watched the man deftly hog-tie Rex. He
knew ropes, and in a few moments Rex was completely helpless.
‘I reckon that’ll hold you,’ said the man.
‘But what has he ever done to you?’ asked Nan. ‘Why are you tying him
up? He never harmed you.’
‘Who in Hell’s doin’ this? Keep yore face out of it.’
‘But why are you tying him up?’ persisted Nan. ‘He never harmed you. All
we want is a chance to get out of here.’
She left the rock and came close to him. He watched her through the
jagged slits in the handkerchief.
‘Keep away from me,’ he growled. ‘I never hit no woman. Never thought a
man ort to hit a woman. But I got to protect myself.’
‘Oh, I’m not going to fight with you,’ wearily. ‘I just want to explain
things.’
‘Yeah? You set down. I’ve gotta figure out somethin’.’
‘But won’t you let him go--please?’
‘Hell, I can’t! Set down. If I had another rope, I’d tie you, too.’
Nan sat down while the man perched on a convenient boulder. Rex was
lying on his side, facing them. He was still bewildered, but unable to
move. The man in the mask rolled a cigarette, but discovered that he
would have to move his mask aside in order to smoke, and tossed the
unlighted cigarette aside.
He made no mention of the cave, and Nan decided that he had not
discovered it. For possibly five minutes they sat there silently. At
times the man leaned forward, rubbing his face through the handkerchief,
as though unable to arrive at a decision. At times he turned his head
and looked at the buzzards, which were circling about. Finally he got to
his feet, walked over and looked at the knotted rope, and then turned to
Nan.
‘I’m goin’ to take yuh out,’ he said.
‘Going to take me out?’ Nan got to her feet quickly.
‘What about him?’ pointing at Rex.
The man shook his head. ‘He stays.’
‘But we can’t leave him here alone.’
‘The hell we can’t? What’ll stop us?’
‘Why, he will die. Don’t you understand? We can’t leave him there.’
‘He stays, do yuh _sabe_ that? I’ll take you out.’
‘Go ahead, Nan,’ panted Rex. ‘You--you can tell where I am, don’t you
see?’
‘A hell of a lot of good it’ll do,’ laughed the man. He pointed at the
circling buzzards meaningly. Nan knew what he meant, and her face went
white.
‘I won’t go without him,’ she said firmly.
‘Yuh won’t? Well, I’ll be damned! What’s the idea? Are you--aw, have a
little sense, can’tcha? No use of both of yuh cashin’ in down here. I’m
willin’ to take yuh out, and you act like a fool ove this white-faced
jigger. I don’t git yore idea. What does he amount to, anyway?’
‘If he stays--I stay.’
Nan’s eyes were filled with tears, but her voice was firm. The man came
closer to her, peering through his mask.
‘You ain’t gone loco, have yuh?’
‘No, I am perfectly sane.’
‘And you’d give up a chance to git home safe--for that?’ He pointed
disgustedly at Rex.
‘I--I’ll stay with him,’ she said chokingly.
‘Well, f’r God’s sake!’
The man looked around, as though asking the wide world if the girl
wasn’t crazy. He looked at Nan and at Rex, who was watching Nan,
wide-eyed.
‘Of all the loco things I ever heard of,’ grunted the man. ‘Listen,
sister: is this on the square? Would you give up--say, don’tcha know
there ain’t a chance of yuh ever gettin’ out of here unless somebody
guides yuh? You’ll die here, and the buzzards will strip yore bones. Do
yuh realize that? Do yuh? And still you’d stay with that damn weak-kneed
tenderfoot? Slough off a chance to git home safe? Yuh would? Well, I’d
like to know why.’
‘Because,’ said Nan wearily, ‘I love him.’
The man jerked forward. ‘You what? You love him? You love----’
‘I have told you why I will stay,’ said Nan. ‘If he stays here, I stay,
too.’
‘Well, good God!’ exploded the man. ‘With all the reg’lar men in the
State of Arizona--you pick that.’
He moved back and sat down on the rock, where he rolled another
cigarette, only to toss it aside. After a long silence he said softly:
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’
‘Won’t you cut him loose?’ begged Nan. ‘Can’t you see those ropes are
cutting him?’
‘Pretty soft-skinned. Why in hell didn’t he stay where he belonged?’
But he made no move to release Rex; he was studying Nan, humped on the
rock, her hands between her knees, as she looked at Rex, her eyes filled
with tears.
Finally the masked man got to his feet, looking down at Rex.
‘I ain’t got the sense that Gawd gave geese in Ireland,’ he said slowly.
‘I’ve knowed lotsa married folks, and I’ve had me a girl once or twicet;
but I never knowed that any damn woman ever cared enough f’r a man to
slough off a chance to save her life--f’r him.’ He stepped over to Rex
and quickly unfastened the ropes.
‘You’re not going to leave him here?’ asked Nan, hardly believing that
such was his intention.
‘Not if yuh want him that damn bad. T’ me, he don’t amount to a damn,
and I’d jist as soon use him for buzzard bait as not; but if you--you
two wait here. I’ve got to git my bronc. There’s a way out the lower end
of this cañon, if I can remember it. It’s a long ways around, but it
can’t be helped.’
He picked up his rope, swung it over his arm, grasped his rifle, and
went stumbling up the cañon, while Nan and Rex stood there, looking at
each other.
‘Thank God!’ breathed Nan.
‘Did you mean what you told him, Nan? Did you mean that you love me?’
‘Well, I would have stayed,’ she said simply.
* * * * *
Hashknife had little trouble in following Morgan, although Morgan seemed
to be traveling more by guess than from any pretense of following a
trail. It was so steep that a horse was obliged to almost sit on his
rump and keep angling from one side to another to keep from going
headlong into the cañon.
About halfway down the side of the cañon, Hashknife’s gray horse shoved
loose a boulder of considerable size, which went bounding down the steep
slope, crashing through the brush, and splitting itself on the boulders
at the bottom.
Hashknife realized that Dave Morgan would have to be deaf not to have
heard it; but there was no turning back now. He was riding the rump of
the gray, his feet drawn back as far as possible to escape the brush.
Slipping and sliding, careening from side to side, the tall gray took
him safely to the bottom of the cañon, where he dismounted. He had lost
Morgan’s trail, and there did not seem to be any way of recovering it.
The bottom of the cañon at this point was a jumble of broken sandstone,
boulders, and brush, which seemed an impassable barrier to man and
beast; but Hashknife knew there must be a way out.
The cañon was about six miles in length, and Hashknife had entered it at
about a mile below the north end. After waiting a while, trying to
figure out where Morgan had gone, Hashknife picked up his reins and
started trying to pick out a route down the cañon.
It was slow traveling. Time after time he was obliged to retrace his
steps and select a new route. For over a mile he managed to find his
way. But he was paying for it. His overall-clad legs were flapping rags,
and the knees of the tall gray were torn and bleeding.
‘Tough goin’, Ghost,’ grinned Hashknife. ‘If we ever go the length of
this cañon, we deserve a medal.’
At last he came to a place where he could not find a way through. The
cañon narrowed to a box-like affair, not over sixty feet in width, with
perpendicular sides, a hundred feet high.
Back went Hashknife and the gray horse to a point about three hundred
yards away, where they began climbing the east side of the cañon. It was
slow work, but they managed to get above the perpendicular sides of the
box cañon.
And it was here that Hashknife was rewarded for his labor. Cut deeply in
the side of the hill were the tracks of a horse which had come down the
side of the cañon at this point. Hashknife studied the situation, and
from his point of view Dave Morgan had cut back to the top of the cañon
again, and had tried the descent at another place.
But this time Hashknife was careful to follow the tracks, which kept to
the side of the hill, until reaching the sheer cliffs, less than a mile
above where Nan and Rex had found the cave, where they descended again
to the bottom of the cañon. Hashknife stopped near the cliffs and
scanned the country. Far above him and across the cañon, he could see
the tiny scars which indicated graded curves on the wagon road. Far down
the cañon he could see a few buzzards, spiraling upward from the cañon
bed.
That was where he wanted to go--down where the buzzards were. It was
another hard slide down the cañon, but they made it in safety. For some
distance the trail led down the bottom of the cañon, where the tracks in
the sand made it easy to follow the spoor of the other horse.
The buzzards were getting closer all the time. Again the trail led from
the bottom, and Hashknife was obliged to dismount to follow, leading his
horse. The last few hundred yards required nearly an hour to negotiate,
and he suddenly broke through the brush on the very spot where the
buzzards had been feeding on the roan horse from the 6X6, across the
cañon bottom from the cave.
Hashknife watched the big birds leave their meal, and then examined the
carcass. He found the strip of skin, which carried the 6X6 brand, and he
sat down to ponder over it. There was no question in his mind that this
horse had slid down from the grades, as the bones of the legs were
broken, and, as far as he was able to determine, the neck had also been
broken. The saddle bore no name, and had been badly damaged.
Hashknife left the carcass and tied his horse to a snag. Sliding down
into the bottom of the cañon, he discovered Nan’s tracks, which were
very plain. This proved to him that Nan was still alive, and he heaved a
sigh of satisfaction. Fifty feet farther down the cañon he found the
empty revolver, where the masked man had thrown it. From the way it had
skidded in the sand, he knew it had been thrown from the west side of
the cañon.
Hashknife felt sure that neither Nan nor Rex had been armed when they
left the ranch; and this gun, with six empty shells in the cylinder,
proved that some one had been doing some shooting in the cañon.
He climbed the west bank and came out almost under the overhang of the
cave. After a careful survey of the surrounding country, he climbed up
over the shelves of sandstone to the entrance of the cave.
Here was an odor of wood-smoke, although the fire had long since died
out. Cautiously he advanced into the shallow cave, gun in hand. It was
light enough for him to see the outstretched form of Napoleon Bonaparte
Briggs near the pile of ashes.
He had been tied securely with a length of lariat rope, with the loop
drawn tightly around his neck. Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs was as dead as
a man might be, and Hashknife could see that he had died from
strangulation, although he had been badly battered.
Hashknife loosened the ropes. In spite of the battered face, Hashknife
was able to recognize the old 6X6 cook. On the left side of his head was
a furrow which seemed to have been made by a bullet, but with so many
cuts and bruises it was difficult to say which was the worst.
The old man’s coat had been almost torn from his body, but in the inside
pocket Hashknife found several folded papers, which he took to the cave
entrance to examine.
For perhaps five minutes he sat on a sandstone ledge, pondering deeply
over them, while the shadows of the buzzards drifted back and forth
across the slope below him.
Finally he pocketed the papers and went back into the cave, where he
dragged the old man’s body farther away from the entrance.
‘Mebby you’ll be a mummy by the time yuh get out of here, old-timer,’ he
said. ‘I’d take yuh out, if I could; but I can’t. So-long.’
Hashknife went back down the slope, where he found the track of a horse,
going down the cañon. It went down past the old waterfall, where the
tracks were plainly outlined in the sand.
‘Must be a way out the lower end,’ he decided. ‘If I can get Ghost down
into this danged place, I’ll try my luck. It can’t be any worse than the
way I came in--and it must be shorter.’
He managed to pick out a possible place to get down, and went back for
the gray horse.