THE SIEGE OF DOUBLE MOUNTAIN
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
--_The Dictionary._
"Ho-o-e-ee! Hello-o!"
As the curtain rose to the flying echoes Long stepped to the edge of the
dump, frying-pan in hand, and sent back an answering shout in the
startled high note of a lonely man taken unawares.
"Hello-o!" He brandished his hospitable pan. Then he put it down, cupped
hands to mouth and trumpeted a hearty welcome: "Chuck! Come up! Supper's
ready!"
"Can't! See any one go by about two hours ago?"
"Hey? Louder!"
"See a man on a sorrel horse?"
"No-o! I been in the tunnel. Come up!"
"Can't. We're after an outlaw!"
"What?"
"After a murderer!"
"Wait a minute! I'll be down. Too hard to yell so far."
Mr. Long started precipitately down the zigzag; but the riders had got
all the information of interest that Mr. Long could furnish and they
were eager to be in at the death.
"Can't wait! He's inside the mountain, somewheres. Some of the boys are
waiting for him at the other end." They rode on.
Mr. Long posed for a statue of Disappointment, hung on the steep trail
rather as if he might conclude to coil himself into a ball and roll down
the hill to overtake them.
"Stop as you come back!" he bellowed. "Want to hear about it."
Did Jeff--Mr. Long--did Mr. Long now attempt to escape? Not so. Gifted
with prevision beyond most, Mr. Long's mind misgave him that these young
men would be baffled in their pleasing expectations. They would be back
before sundown, very cross; and a miner's brogan leaves a track not to
be missed.
That Mr. Long was unfeignedly fatigued from the varied efforts of the
day need not be mentioned, for that alone would not have stayed his
flight; but the nearest water, save Escondido, was thirty-five miles;
and at Escondido he would be watched for--not to say that, when he was
missed, some of the searching party would straightway go to Escondido to
frustrate him. Present escape was not to be thought of.
Instead, Mr. Long made a hearty meal from the simple viands that had
been in course of preparation when he was surprised, eked out by canned
corn fried in bacon grease to a crisp, golden brown. Then, after a
cigarette, he betook himself to sharpening tools with laudable industry.
The tools were already sharp, but that did not stop Mr. Long. He built a
fire in the forge, set up a stepladder of matched drills in the
blackened water of the tempering tub; he thrust a gad and one short
drill into the fire. When the gad was at a good cherry heat he thrust it
hissing into the tub to bring the water to a convincing temperature; and
when reheated he did it again. From time to time he held the one drill
to the anvil and shaped it, drawing it alternately to a chisel bit or a
bull bit. Mr. Long could sharpen a drill with any, having been, in very
truth, a miner of sorts--he could toy thus with one drill without giving
it any very careful attention, and his thoughts were now busy on how
best to be Mr. Long.
Accordingly from time to time he added an artistic touch to Mr.
Long--grime under his fingernails, a smudge of smut on an eyebrow. His
hands displeased him. After some experimenting to get the proper heat of
it he grasped the partially cooled gad with the drill-pincers and held
it very lightly to a favored few of those portions of the hand known to
chiromaniacs as the mounts of Jupiter, Saturn and other extinct
immortals.
Satisfactory blisters-while-you-wait were thus obtained. These were
pricked with a pin; some were torn to tatters, with dust and coal rubbed
in to give them a venerable appearance. The pain was no light matter;
but Mr. Long had a real affection for Mr. Bransford's neck, and it is
trifles like these that make perfection.
The next expedient was even more heroic. Mr. Long assiduously put
stone-dust in one eye, leaving it tearful, bloodshot and violently
inflamed; and the other one was sympathetically red. "Bit o' steel in my
eye," explained Mr. Long. Unselfish devotion such as this is all too
rare.
All this while, at proper intervals, Mr. Long sharpened and resharpened
that one long-suffering drill. He tripped into the tunnel and smote a
mighty blow upon the country rock with a pick--therefore qualifying that
pick for repointing--and laid it on the forge as next on the list.
What further outrage he meditated is not known, for he now heard a horse
coming up the trail. He was beating out a merry tattoo when a
white-hatted head rose through a trapdoor--rose above the level of the
dump, rather.
Hammer in hand, Long straightened up joyfully as best he could, but
could not straighten up the telltale droop of his shoulders. It was not
altogether assumed, either, this hump. Jeff--Mr. Long--had not done so
much work of this sort for years and there was a very real pain between
his shoulderblades. Still, but for the exigencies of art, he might have
borne his neck less turtlewise than he did.
"Hello! Get him? Where's your pardner?"
"Watching the gap." The young man, rather breathless from the climb,
answered the last question first as he led his horse on the dump. "No,
we didn't get him; but he can't get away. Hiding somewhere in the Basin
afoot. Found his horse. Pretty well done up." The insolence of the
outlaw's letter smote him afresh; he reddened. "No tracks going out of
the Basin. Two of our friends guarding the other end. They say he can't
get out over the cliffs anywhere. That so?" The speech came jerkily; he
was still short of breath from his scramble.
"Not without a flying machine," said Long. "No way out that I know of,
except where the wagonroad goes. What's he done?"
"Robbery! Murder! We'll see that he don't get out by the wagonroad,"
asserted the youth confidently. "Watch the gaps and starve him out!"
"Oh, speaking of starving," said Tobe, "go into the tent and I'll bring
you some supper while you tell me about it. Baked up another batch of
bread on the chance you'd come back."
"Why, thank you very much, Mr.----"
"Long--Tobe Long."
"Mr. Long. My name is Gurdon Steele. Glad to meet you. Why, if you will
be so kind--that is what I came up to see you about. If you can let us
have what we need; of course we will pay you for it."
"Of course you won't!" It had not needed the offer to place Mr. Gurdon
Steele quite accurately. He was a handsome lad, fresh-complexioned,
dressed in the Western manner as practised on the Boardwalk. "You're
welcome to what I got, sure; but I ain't got much variety. Gwin, the old
liar, said he was coming out the twentieth--and sure enough he didn't;
so the grub's running low. Table in the tent--come on!"
"Oh, no, I couldn't, you know! Rex--that's my partner--is quite as
hungry as I am, you see; but if you could give me something--anything
you have--to take down there? I really couldn't, you know!" The
admirable doctrine of _noblesse oblige_ in its delicate application by
this politeness, was easier for its practitioner than to put it into
words suited to the comprehension of his hearer; he concluded lamely:
"I'll take it down there and we will eat it together."
"See here," said Tobe, "I'm as hungry to hear about your outlaw as you
are to eat. I'll just throw my bedding and a lot of chuck on your
saddle. We'll carry the coffee-pot and frying-pan in our hands--and the
sugar-can and things like that. You can tank up and give me the news in
small chunks at the same time. Afterward two of us can sleep while one
stands guard."
This was done. It was growing dark when they reached the bottom of the
hill. The third guardsman had built a fire.
"Rex, this is Mr. Long, who has been kind enough to grubstake us and
share our watch with us."
Mr. Steele, you have observed, had accepted Mr. Long without question;
but his first impression of Mr. Long had been gained under circumstances
highly favorable to the designs of the latter gentleman. Mr. Steele had
come upon him unexpectedly, finding him as it were _in medias res_, with
all his skillfully arranged scenery to aid the illusion. The case was
now otherwise--the thousand-tongued vouching of his background lacked to
him; Mr. Long had naught save his own unthinkable audacity to belie his
face withal. From the first instant Mr. Rex Griffith was the prey of
suspicions--acute, bigoted, churlish, deep, dark, distrustful, damnable,
and so on down to zealous. He had a sharp eye; he wore no puttees; and
Mr. Long had a vaguely uncomfortable memory, holding over from some
previous incarnation, of having seen that long, shrewd face in a
courtroom.
The host, on hospitable rites intent, likewise all ears and eager
questionings, was all unconscious of hostile surveillance. Nothing could
be more carefree, more at ease than his bearing; his pleasant
anticipatory excitement was the natural outlook for a lonely and
newsless man. As the hart panteth for the water, so he thirsted for the
story; but his impatient, hasty questions, following false scents,
delayed the telling of the Arcadian tale. So innocent was he, so open
and aboveboard, that Griffith, watching, alert, felt thoroughly ashamed
of himself. Yet he watched, doubting still, though his reason rebelled
at the monstrous imaginings of his heart. That the outlaw, unarmed and
unasked, should venture--Pshaw! Such effrontery was inconceivable. He
allowed Steele to tell the story, himself contributing only an
occasional crafty question designed to enable his host to betray
himself.
"Bransford?" interrupted Mr. Long. "Not Jeff Bransford--up South Rainbow
way?"
"That's the man," said Steele.
"I don't believe it," said Long flatly. He was sipping coffee with his
guests; he put his cup down. "I know him, a little. He don't----"
"Oh, there's no doubt of it!" interrupted Steele in his turn. He
detailed the circumstances with skilful care. "Besides, why did he run
away? Gee! You ought to have seen that escape! It was splendid!"
"Well, now, who'd 'a' thought that?" demanded Long, still only half
convinced. "He didn't strike me like that kind of a man. Well, you never
can tell! How come you fellows to be chasin' him?"
"You see," said Steele, "every one was sure he had gone up to Rainbow.
The sheriff and posse is up there now, looking for him; but we
four--Stone and Harlow, the chaps at the other end, were with us, you
know--we were up in the foothills on a deerhunt. We were out
early--sun-up is the best time for deer, they tell me--and we had a
spyglass. Well, we just happened to see a man ride out from between two
hills, quite a way off. Stone noticed right away that he was riding a
sorrel horse. It was a sorrel horse that Bransford stole, you know. We
didn't suspect, though, who it was till a bit later. Then Rex tried to
pick him up again and saw that he was going out of his way to avoid the
ridges--keeping cover, you know. Then we caught on and took after him
pell-mell. He had a big start; but he was riding slowly so as not to
make a dust--that is, till he saw our dust. Then he lit out."
"You're not deputies, then?" said Long.
"Oh, no, not at all!" said Steele, secretly flattered. "So Harlow and
Stone galloped off to town. The program was that they'd wire down to
Escondido to have horses ready for them, come down on Number Six and
head him off. They were not to tell any one in Arcadia. There's five
thousand dollars' reward out for him--but it isn't that exactly. It was
a cowardly, beastly murder, don't you know; and we thought it would be
rather a big thing if we could take him alone."
"You got him penned all right," said Tobe. "He can't get out, so far as
I know, unless he runs over us or the men at the other end. By George,
we must get away from this fire, too!" He set the example, dragging the
bedding with him to the shelter of a big rock. "He could pick us off too
slick here in the light. How're you going to get him? There's a heap of
country in that Basin, all rough and broken, full o' boulders--mighty
good cover."
"Starve him out!" said Griffith. This was base deceit. Deep in his heart
he believed that the quarry sat beside him, well fed and contented. Yet
the unthinkable insolence of it--if this were indeed Bransford--dulled
his belief.
Long laughed as he spread down the bed. "He'll shoot a deer. Maybe, if
he had it all planned out, he may have grub cached in there somewhere.
There's watertanks in the rocks. Say, what are your pardners at the
other side going to do for grub?"
"Oh, they brought out cheese and crackers and stuff," said Gurd.
"I'll tell you what, boys, you've bit off more than you can chaw," said
Jeff--Tobe, that is. "He can't get out without a fight--but, then, you
can't go in there to hunt for him without weakening your guard; and he'd
be under shelter and have all the best of it. He'd shoot you so dead
you'd never know what happened. I don't want none of it! I'd as lief put
on boxing gloves and crawl into a hole after a bear! Look here, now,
this is your show; but I'm a heap older'n you boys. Want to know what I
think?"
"Certainly," said Rex.
"Goin' to talk turkey to me?" An avaricious light came into Long's eyes.
"Of course; you're in on the reward," said Rex diffidently and rather
stiffly. "We are not in this for the money."
"I can use the money--whatever share you want to give me," said Long
dryly; "but if you take my advice my share won't be but a little. I
think you ought to keep under shelter at the mouth of this canyon--one of
you--and let the other one go to Escondido and send for help, quick, and
a lot of it."
"What's the matter with you going?" asked Griffith disingenuously. He
wanted Long to show his hand. It would never do to abandon the siege of
Double Mountain to arrest this _soi-disant_ Long on mere suspicion. On
the other hand, Mr. Rex Griffith had no idea of letting Long escape his
clutches until his identity was established, one way or the other,
beyond all question.
That was why Long declined the offer. His honest gaze shifted. "I ain't
much of a rider," he said evasively. Young Griffith read correctly the
thought which the excuse concealed. Evidently Long considered himself an
elder soldier, if not a better, than either of his two young guests, but
wished to spare their feelings by not letting them find it out. Griffith
found this plain solution inconsistent with his homicidal theory: a
murderer, fleeing for his life, would have jumped at the chance.
There are two sides to every question. Let us, this once, prove both
sides. Wholly oblivious to Griffith's lynx-eyed watchfulness and his
leading questions, Mr. Long yet recognized the futility of an attempt to
ride away on Mr. Griffith's horse with Mr. Griffith's benison. There we
have the other point of view.
"We'll have to send for grub anyway," pursued the sagacious Mr. Long.
"I've only got a little left; and that old liar, Gwin, won't be out for
four days--if he comes then. And--er--look here now--if I was you boys
I'd let the sheriff and his posse smoke your badger out. They get paid
to tend to that--and it looks to me like some one was going to get hurt.
You've done enough."
All this advice was so palpably sound that the doubter was, for the
second, staggered--for a second only. This was the man he had seen in
the prisoner's dock. He was morally sure of it. For all the difference
of appearance, this was the man. Yet those blasts--the far-seen
fire--the hearty welcome--this delivery of himself into their hands?...
Griffith scarcely knew what he did think. He blamed himself for his
unworthy suspicions; he blamed Gurdy more for having no suspicions at
all.
"Anything else?" he said. "That sounds good."
Tobe studied for some time.
"Well," he said at last, "there may be some way he can get out. I don't
think he can--but he might find a way. He knows he's trapped; but likely
he has no idea yet how many of us there are. So we know he'll try, and
he won't be just climbing for fun. He'll take a chance."
Steele broke in:
"He didn't leave any rope on his saddle."
Tobe nodded.
"So he means to try it. Now here's five of us here. It seems to me that
some one ought to ride round the mountain the first thing in the
morning, and every day afterward--only here's hoping there won't be many
of 'em--to look for tracks. There isn't one chance in a hundred he can
climb out; but if he goes out of here afoot we've got him sure. The man
on guard wants to keep in shelter. It's light to-night--there's no
chance for him to slip out without being seen. You say the old watchman
ain't dead yet, Mr. Griffith?"
"No. The latest bulletin was that he was almost holding his own."
"Hope he gets well," said Long. "Good old geezer! Now, cap, I've worked
hard and you've ridden hard. Better set your guards and let the other
two take a little snooze."
Griffith was not proof against the insidious flattery of this unhesitant
preference. He flushed with embarrassment and pleasure.
"Well, if I'm to be captain, Gurd will take the first guard--till
eleven. Then you come on till two, Mr. Long. I'll stand from then on
till daylight."
In five minutes Mr. Long was enjoying the calm and restful sleep of
fatigued innocence; but his poor captain was doomed to have a bad night
of it, with two Bransfords on his hands--one in the Basin and one in the
bed beside him. His head was dizzy with the vicious circle. Like the
gentlewoman of the nursery rhyme, he was tempted to cry: "Lawk 'a' mercy
on me, this is none of I!"
If he haled his bedmate to justice and the real Bransford got away--that
would be a nice predicament for an ambitious young man! He was sensitive
to ridicule, and he saw here such an opportunity to earn it as knocks
but once at any man's door.
If, on the other hand, while he held Bransford cooped tightly in the
Basin, this thrice-accursed Long should escape him and there should be
no Bransford in the Basin----What nonsense! What utter twaddle!
Bransford was in the Basin. He had found his horse and saddle, his
tracks; no tracks had come out of the Basin. Immediately on the
discovery of the outlaw's horse, Gurd had ridden back posthaste and held
the pass while he, the captain, had gone to the mouth of the southern
canyon and posted his friends. He had watched for tracks of a footman
every step of the way, going and coming; there had been no tracks.
Bransford was in the Basin. He watched the face of the sleeping man.
But, by Heaven, this was Bransford!
Was ever a poor captain in such a predicament? A moment before he had
fully and definitely decided once for all that this man was not
Bransford, could not be Bransford; that it was not possible! His reason
unwaveringly told him one thing, his eyesight the other!... Yet
Bransford, or an unfortunate twin of his, lay now beside him--and, for
further mockery, slept peacefully, serene, untroubled.... He looked upon
the elusive Mr. Long with a species of horror! The face was drawn and
lined. Yet, but forty-eight hours of tension would have left
Bransford's face not otherwise. He had noticed Bransford's hands in the
courtroom--noticed their well-kept whiteness, due, as he had decided, to
the perennial cowboy glove. This man's hands, as he had seen by the
campfire, were blistered and calloused! Callouses were not made in a
day. He took another look at Long. Oh, thunder!
He crept from bed. He whispered a word to sentry Steele; not to outline
the distressing state of his own mind, but merely to request Steele not
to shoot him, as he was going up to the mine.
He climbed up the trail, chewing the unpalatable thought that Gurdon had
seen nothing amiss--yet Gurd had been at the trial! The captain began to
wish he had never gone on that deerhunt.
He went into the tent, struck a match, lit a candle and examined
everything closely. There was no gun in the camp and no cartridges. He
found the spill of twisted paper under the table, smothered his qualms
and read it. He noted the open book for future examination in English.
And now Tobe's labors had their late reward, for Rex missed nothing.
Every effort brought fresh disappointment and every disappointment
spurred him to fresh effort. He went into the tunnel; he scrutinized
everything, even to the drills in the tub. The food supply tallied with
Long's account. No detail escaped him and every detail confirmed the
growing belief that he, Captain Griffith, was a doddering imbecile.
He returned to the outpost, convinced at last. Nevertheless, merely to
quiet the ravings of his insubordinate instincts, now in open revolt, he
restaked the horses nearer to camp and cautiously carried both saddles
to the head of the bed. Concession merely encouraged the rebels to
further and successful outrages--the government was overthrown.
He drew sentry Steele aside and imparted his doubts. That faithful
follower heaped scorn, mockery, laughter and abuse upon his shrinking
superior: recounted all the points, from the first blasts of dynamite to
the present moment, which favored the charitable belief above mentioned
as newly entertained by Captain Griffith concerning himself. This belief
of Captain Griffith was amply indorsed by his subordinate in terms of
point and versatility.
"Of course they look alike. I noticed that the minute I saw him--the
same amount of legs and arms, features all in the fore part of his head,
hair on top, one body--wonderful! Why, you pitiful ass, that Bransford
person was a mighty keen-looking man in any company. This fellow's a
yokel--an old, rusty, cap-and-ball, single-shot muzzle-loader. The
Bransford was an automatic, steel-frame, high velocity----"
"The better head he has the more apt he is to do the unexpected----"
"Aw, shut up! You've got incipient paresis! Stuff your ears in your
mouth and go to sleep!"
The captain sought his couch convinced, but holding his first opinion,
savagely minded to arrest Mr. Long rather than let him have a gun to
stand guard with. He was spared the decision. Mr. Long declined Gurdon's
proffered gun, saying that he would be right there and he was a poor
shot anyway.
Gurdon slept; Long took his place--and Captain Rex, from the bed,
watched the watcher. Never was there a more faithful sentinel than Mr.
Long. Without relaxing his vigilance even to smoke, he strained every
faculty lest the wily Bransford should creep out through the shadows.
The captain saw him, a stooped figure, sitting motionless by his rock,
always alert, peering this way and that, turning his head to listen.
Once Tobe saw something. He crept noiselessly to the bed and shook his
chief. Griffith came, with his gun. Something was stirring in the
bushes. After a little it moved out of the shadows. It was a prowling
coyote. The captain went back to bed once more convinced of Long's
fidelity, but resolved to keep a relentless eye on him just the same.
And all unawares, as he revolved the day's events in his mind, the
captain dropped off to troubled sleep.
Mr. Long woke him at three. There had been a temptation to ride away,
but the saddles were at the head of the bed, the ground was stony; he
would be heard. He might have made an attempt to get both guns from
under the pillow, but detection meant ruin for him, since to shoot these
boys or to hurt them was out of the question. Escape by violence would
have been easy and assured. Jeff preferred to trust his wits. He was
enjoying himself very much.
When the captain got his relentless eyes open and realized what had
chanced he saw that further doubt was unworthy. Half an hour later the
unworthy captain stole noiselessly to Long's bedside and saw, to his
utter rage and distraction, that Mr. Bransford was there again. It was
almost too much to bear. He felt that he should always hate Long, even
after Bransford was safely hanged. Bransford's head had slipped from
Long's pillow. Hating himself, Griffith subtly withdrew the miner's
folded overalls and went through the pockets.
He found there a knife smelling of dynamite, matches, a turquoise carved
to what was plainly meant to be the form of a bad-tempered horse, and
two small specimens of ore!
Altogether, the captain passed a wild and whirling night.