The flare of the Flagg camp fires painted the mists luridly; the vapor
rolled sluggishly through the tree tops and faded into the blackness of
the night.
Lida was seated apart from the men of the crew, knowing that they
mercifully wished to spare her from hearing the plans for the morrow.
The logs were down the deadwater to a point where the supremacy at
Skulltree dam must be settled.
She could hear the mumble of the voices of those who were in conference
around the fires.
Across a patch of radiance she beheld the swaggering promenade of one of
the young cookees; he brandished a hatchet truculently. Old Vittum
reached out and swept the weapon from the youngster's grasp.
Lida heard Vittum's rebuke, for it was voiced sharply. "None o' that! We
don't fight that way. And I'm believing that there are still enough
honest rivermen in the Comas crowd to make it a square fight, like we've
always had on the Noda when a fight had to be!"
Unreconciled, all her woman's nature protesting, she had come to a
settled realization that the fight must happen; Vittum was putting it in
words. Now that the struggle was imminent--on the eve of it--she wanted
to go down on her knees and beg them to give up the project; but she
did not dare to weaken their determination or wound their pride. She
crouched on her cot of spruce boughs in anguished misery.
"Nobody has got to the point of using hatchets and guns on this river,"
corroborated a man on the other side of the fire from Vittum.
Other men pitched their voices higher then, giving up the cautious
monotone of the preceding conference.
"Is any man afeard?" asked Vittum.
They assured him with confidence and gay courage that no man was afraid.
"I didn't hear any of you Injuns pipe up," said Vittum. "You ain't very
strong on talk, anyway. But I'd kind of like to know how you feel in
this matter. We all understood--all of us regulars--that we was coming
up here to fight when it got to that point. You have grabbed in later
and perhaps didn't understand it. We ain't asking you to do anything you
don't want to do."
The Indians were silent. Even Felix Lapierre said nothing when Vittum
questioned him with a glance. The French Canadian turned to Frank Orono,
squatting within arm's reach, and patted him on the shoulder. It became
plain that there was an understanding which did not require words.
Orono rose slowly; he grinned. From the breast of his leather jacket he
brought forth a cow's horn and shook it over his head, and its contents
rattled sharply. The other Indians leaped up. They were grinning, too.
Orono began a slow march around the camp fire, lifting his knees high,
stepping slowly, beating the rattling horn into the palm of his hand.
Behind him in single file, imitating his step, marched the other
Indians. The smiles faded out of their countenances; their jaws were
set, and deep in their throats they growled a weird singsong.
"My Gawd!" yelped Vittum. "It's the old Tarratine war dance and it just
fits my notions right now, and I'm in on it!"
He scrambled to his feet and fell into line at the rear of the Indians.
Every man in the Flagg crew followed suit. They imitated the Indian
singsong as best they were able, their voices constantly giving forth
greater volume until they were yelling their defiance to the Three C's
company and all its works.
The men far out on the deadwater, pushing against the bars of the
capstan, heard the tumult on the shore and shouted the chorus of their
challenging chantey.
Between Lida and the men who were circling the fire there was a veil of
mist, and in the halation her champions loomed with heroic stature. She
did not want them to suppose that she was indifferent; courage of her
own leaped in her. The campaign which she had waged with them had given
her an experience which had fortified the spirit of the Flaggs. She
stepped forth from her little tent and walked down and stood in the edge
of the light cast by the camp fire. They cheered her, and she put aside
her qualms and her fears as best she was able.
When she was back in her tent she did not shield her ears from the
challenging chantey, as she had done before, and she heard with
fortitude the vociferous pledges of faith in the morrow.
The dawn came so sullenly and so slowly that the day seemed merely a
faded copy of the night.
A heavy fog draped the mountains and was packed in stifling masses in
the river valley.
Crews in shifts marched tirelessly around the capstans of the headworks.
Their voices out in the white opaqueness sounded strangely under the
sounding-board of the fog.
It was a brooding, ominous, baleful sort of a day, when shapes were
distorted in the mists and all sounds were magnified in queer fashion
and the echoes played pranks with distances and locations and
directions.
Out of the murky blank came one who had gone a-scouting. He touched his
cap to the girl and reported to her and to all who were in hearing.
"The Three C's chief pirate has got along. Craig is down at the dam. I
was able to crawl up mighty close in the fog. I heard him. He's ugly!"
"I reckoned he would be a mite peevish as soon as the news of the social
happenings along the river for the past few days got to him," said
Vittum. "It's no surprise to me--been expecting him!"
"He's got a special edge on his temper--has been all bunged up by an
auto accident, so I heard him giving out to the men he was talking to."
"And what's he saying of particular interest to us?"
"Says he's going to stick right at Skulltree and kill us off singly and
in bunches, just as we happen to come along."
"News is news, and it's good or bad according to the way you look at
it," declared the old man. "Does that fresh news scare anybody?"
There was a vigorous chorus of denial; when one man averred that the
statement only made the fight more worth while he was indorsed with
great heartiness.
"All right!" agreed Vittum. "We'll consider that point settled." He drew
a long breath; he inquired with anxious solicitude; "Did you overhear
him saying anything about Latisan? He might have heard something, coming
in fresh from outside."
The scout gave the girl a glance of apology; he was a tactless
individual in shading facts. "Of course, all that Three C's bunch is
liars, and Craig worst of all. But I did hear him say that Latisan is
loafing in New York and is prob'ly in jail by this time."
The girl rose and walked away, and the fog shut her from their sight
immediately. She heard the old man cursing the incautious scout. "Why
the blazes didn't you smooth it? You've gone to work and hurt her
feelings. She made her mistake, and she admits it. We all make our
mistakes," said the rebuker. "But she's true blue! I ain't laying up
anything against Latisan because he doesn't show up. It's because the
girl is here that we are making men of ourselves right now. She's
deserving of all we can give her. By gad! say I, she's going to make
good with our help."
She was a considerable distance down the river path, but she heard that
speech and the shout of the men indorsing the declaration.
Lida hastened as rapidly as she was able along the path that led to
Skulltree; she had reconnoitered on the previous day--going as near the
dam as she dared, trying to make the lay of the land suggest some method
by which battle might be avoided.
While she ran down the path that morning she was arriving at some
definite conclusions. The news about Director Craig had put desperate
courage into her. The upper and the nether millstones of men and events
in the north country had begun their grim revolutions; she resolved to
cast herself between those stones in an effort to save faithful men who
were innocent of fault.
When the dull rumble of the sluiceway waters informed her that she was
near the camp of the enemy she went more cautiously, and when she heard
the voices of men she called, announcing that she desired to speak with
Director Craig.
Somebody replied, after a pause which indicated that considerable
amazement had been roused by a woman's voice.
"Come along, whoever you are! Mr. Craig is on the dam."
A man who kept jerking his head around to stare frankly at her led her
along the string piece of the great structure.
Their meeting--she and the Comas director--was like a rencontre in the
void of space; on the water side of the dam the mists matched the hue of
the glassy surface and the blending masked the water; on the other side,
the fog filled the deep gorge where the torrent of the sluiceway
thundered.
She was obliged to go close to him in order to emerge from the vapor
into his range of vision and to make her voice heard above the roar of
the water. His one visible eye surveyed her with blank astonishment;
near as she was to him, he did not recognize her at first in her rough
garb of the woods.
"Mr. Craig, I _was_"--she stressed the verb significantly--"an employee
in the Vose-Mern agency in New York. I met you in their office."
He clasped his hands behind him as if he feared to have them free in
front of him; her proximity seemed to invite those hands, but his
countenance revealed that he was not in a mood then to give caresses.
"Was, eh? May I ask what you are right now?"
"I'm doing my best to help in getting the Flagg drive down the
river--without trouble!"
"Trouble!" He was echoing her again; it was as if, in his waxing ire, he
did not dare to launch into a topic of his own. "What do you call it,
what has been happening upriver?"
"I presume you mean that dams have been blown to get water for our
logs."
"Our dams!" he shouted.
"I'm a stranger up here. I don't know whose dams they were. I have heard
all kinds of stories about the rights in the dams, sir."
"I can't say to you what I think--and what I want to say! You're a girl,
confound it! I'll only make a fool of myself, talking to you about our
rights and our property. But I can say to you, about your own work, that
you have been paid by our money to do a certain thing."
She opened her eyes on him in offended inquiry.
"I take it that you're the same one who called herself Miss Patsy Jones
when you operated at Adonia."
"I did use that name--for personal reasons."
He did not moderate his wrath. "Here I find that Patsy Jones is Miss
Kennard of the Vose-Mern agency. We have paid good money to the agency.
When I settled for the last job I added two hundred dollars as a present
to you."
"I have not received the gift, sir. It does not belong to me. I'm here
on my own account. I came north at my own expense without notifying
Chief Mern that I was done with the agency; and strictly personal
reasons, also, influenced me on that point." She was trying hard to keep
her poise, not loosing her emotions, preserving her dignity with a man
of affairs and phrasing her replies with rather stilted diction. "I have
my good reasons for doing all I can in my poor power to help the Flagg
drive go through."
The fact that her name was Kennard meant nothing to Rufus Craig, a New
Yorker who had never bothered himself with the ancient tales of the Noda
country. He did not understand what interest she could have in opposing
the Comas company; he could see only the ordinary and sordid side of the
affair. He looked her up and down and curled his lip.
"You have been a traitor!"
"Not to the right, sir, when I found out what the right was."
"I think you'll have a chance to say something about that in court, in
your defense! You have put the devil into those men and I'm giving you
warning."
"I shall tell the truth in court, Mr. Craig. You may or you may not
find that promise a warning of my own to you and your corporation
methods."
He blinked and looked away from her. "I'm busy! What are you doing here
on this dam? What do you want of me? Is it more detective work?" he
sneered. "Are you getting ready to double-cross the new gang you're
hitched up with. For what reason you went over to 'em God only knows!"
"He does know!" she returned, earnestly. She stepped closer to him. "I
came down here to plead that you'll let the Flagg logs go through this
dam."
"I will not." His anger had driven him to the extreme of obstinacy.
"Mr. Craig, that stand means a wicked fight between men who are not paid
to fight."
"You've had a lot of influence in making men blow our dams. Use that
influence in keeping 'em away from this one, and there'll be no fight."
He turned away, but she hastened forward and put herself in front of
him.
"I cannot do it, sir! That will be asking our men to give up all they
have been struggling for. I don't know what the law is--or what the law
will say. Please listen to me! Keep the men from fighting--this season!
Then allow the law to put matters right up here. The Flagg logs have
gone down the river every year before this one. The good Lord has
furnished the water for all. Mr. Craig, out of the depths of my heart I
entreat you." She had tried hard to keep womanly weakness away. She
wanted to conduct the affair on the plane of business good sense; but
anxiety was overwhelming her; she broke down and sobbed frankly.
What appeared to be recourse to woman's usual weapons served to make him
more furious. "The matter is before the courts. There's a principle
involved. This dam stays as it is. That's final!"
"I'm pleading for a helpless old man who cannot come here to talk for
his own rights."
"Look here, my girl, you're merely a smart trickster from the city--a
turncoat who can't give one good excuse for being a traitor to your
employers."
"I can give an excuse!"
"I've had enough of this," he retorted, brutally, pricked by the
reflection that his corporation would disown him and his methods if he
failed to make good. "Can't you see that you're driving me insane with
your girl's folly? You're lucky because I haven't brought officers up
here and ordered your arrest for conspiracy. You belong in jail along
with that fool of a Latisan." His rage broke down all reserve. "Do you
see what he did to me in New York?" He pointed to his bandaged face.
"I'll admit that he did have some sort of an excuse. You have none."
"I have this," she said. "Mr. Craig! I am Echford Flagg's
granddaughter."
The shell of his skepticism was too thick!
"Do you think I am a complete fool? Flagg has no kin whatever!"
"How long have you been acquainted in these parts?"
"Three years," he admitted; but he scowled his sentiment of utter
disbelief in her claim.
"I am what I say I am," she insisted. "Does that make any difference in
your stand here to-day?"
"Not a bit!"
They surveyed each other for some time, the mists swirling slowly about
their heads.
"If I shed any more tears and do any more pleading, sir, you'll have
good reasons for believing that I have no blood of the Flaggs in me! Do
you still think I'm not what I say I am?"
He sliced the fog contemptuously with the edge of his palm. "You can't
talk that stuff to me!" She understood the futility of appeal; he turned
from her and she looked for a moment on the bulging scruff of his
obstinate neck.
"Very well, Mr. Craig! If talk can't convince you, I'll try another
way!"
She ran along the string piece and the curtain of the fog closed in
behind her.
During her absence from the deadwater there had been a rallying of
forces.
All the men were called in from the headworks and the booms. In that
following conference over the methods of the impending battle the
riverjacks were able to express themselves with more sanguinary
vehemence than would have been allowed in the presence of the girl.
They felt that the fog was a particularly fortunate circumstance, and
with grim haste they set about taking advantage of the mask that would
hide their advance. In single file they began their march down the river
shore. There were men who bore cant dogs; others were armed with pike
poles. But there was no intent to cut and thrust. It was to be a man's
fight with the flat of those weapons, with the tools of the job, honest
thwacks given and taken. If one of them had ventured to pack an edged
weapon or a gun he would have been shamed among his fellows.
Halfway to the dam they met the girl, hurrying back. She understood. She
did not ask questions. But when they halted she explained her own
movements.
"I took it on myself to go to Director Craig," she said. "I was hoping I
might be able to make him look at the thing in the right way. I did not
apologize for you or for what has been done. If I could prevent this
trouble I would make any sacrifice of myself."
"We know that," stated Vittum, and he was indorsed by whole-souled
murmurs.
"But he would not listen to me. And all I can say to you men is this:
God bless you and help you!"
They thanked her and then they stood aside from the path, offering her a
way for retreat to the rear.
But she turned and walked on toward the dam. She shook her head when
they protested. "No, I claim it as my right to go with you." She was
even brave enough to relieve the tenseness of the situation by a flash
of humor. "I don't believe one of those Comas cowards will get near
enough to hurt any one of you. Haven't we found them out already? But if
anybody in this crew does get hurt, you'll find me in full charge of the
field hospital!"
There was no more talk after that; they trod softly on the duff under
the trees; they dodged the ledges where their spike-soled boots might
have rasped.
"Did you note where the main bunch is, miss?" whispered the old man at
her side.
"I saw only one man except Craig. The director was out on the dam, near
the gates."
"Where the cap'n is, there the gang must be. We'll use that tip."
The men deployed as soon as they were in the open space near the end of
the dam.
Even though they had had the protection of the fog up to that point,
they knew their attack could not be made wholly a surprise; they were
depending on their resoluteness and on being able to beat their way to a
control of the gates.
Two men appeared to them in the fog.
"Now just a moment before you start something for which you'll be
sorry," said one of the men. "I'm from the shire town and I'm attorney
for the Comas corporation." He pointed to a man at his side, who pulled
aside his coat lapel and exhibited a badge. "This is a deputy sheriff.
The courts are protecting this property by an injunction."
"We've got only your word for that," stated the old man.
"You have been warned in law. That's all I'm here for. Now unless you
keep off this property you must take the consequences."
The lawyer and the officer marched away and were effaced by the fog.
"It's too bad it ain't a clear day," remarked the spokesman to the crew.
"We'd prob'ly be able to see the injunction that's guarding this dam.
But I ain't going to let a lawyer tell me about anything I can't see."
"But there's a thing I can see," called one of the men who had gone
skirmishing in the direction which the attorney and sheriff had taken.
"Here's a Comas crowd strung along the wings o' the dam. I can see what
they're lugging! Come on, men! It's a cant-dog, pick-pole fight."
The attackers went into the fray with a yell.
The defenders of the dam were on higher ground; some of them thrust with
the ugly weapons, others swung the strong staves and fenced. There was
the smash of wood against wood, the clatter of iron. Men fell and rolled
and came up! They who were bleeding did not seem to mind.
"They're backing up," yelled one of the Flagg crew. "Damn 'em, they're
getting ready to run, as usual!"
There did seem to be some sort of concerted action of retreat on the
part of the defenders.
"Look out for tricks," counseled Vittum, getting over the guard of an
antagonist and felling him.
A few moments later the line of the defense melted; the Comas men dodged
somewhere into the fog. The assailants had won to the higher level of
the dam's wing.
And then that level melted, too!
It was a well-contrived trap--boards covered with earth--a surface
supported by props which had been pulled away by ropes. More than half
the Flagg men tumbled into deep and muddy water and threshed helplessly
in a struggling mass until the others laid down their weapons and
pulled the drowning men out.
The attacking army retired for repairs and grouped on the solid shore.
Except for the roar of the sluiceway and the gasping of the men who were
getting breath there was something like calm after the uproar of the
battle.
Out of the fog sounded the voice of Director Craig.
"We have given you your chance to show how you respect the law. What you
have done after a legal warning is chalked up against you. Now that you
have proclaimed yourselves as outlaws I have something of my own to
proclaim to you. I am up here----"
A stentorian voice slashed in sharply, and Craig's speech was cut off.
The voice came from one who was veiled in the fog, but they all knew it
for Ward Latisan's. "Yes, Craig, you're here--here about five hours
ahead of me because you had the cash to hire a special train. However, I
know the short cuts for a man on horseback. I'm here, too!"
His men got a dim view of him in the mists; he loomed like a statue of
heroic size on the horse. Then he flung himself off and came running
down the shore.
He went straight to Lida and faced her manfully; but his eyes were
humbly beseeching and his features worked with contrite apology. "I know
now who you are, Miss Kennard. I don't mean to presume, in the case of
either you or your men. But will you allow me to speak to them?"
"Yes," she assented, trying to hold her poise, helped by his manner.
He turned quickly from her eyes as if her gaze tortured him.
"I have been a coward, men. I ran away from my job. I'm ashamed of
myself. I can't square myself, but let me do my bit to-day."
"I don't know what you can do--with that gang o' sneaks--after real men
have had to quit," growled Vittum, unimpressed.
"Maybe I'm sneak enough these days to know how to deal with 'em,"
confessed Latisan, bitterly. "I stayed back there just now while the
fight was on, but I knew a man fight wouldn't get us anything from
them."
The men of the crew made no demonstration; they were awkwardly silent.
The arrival of the deserter who confessed that he had been a coward did
not encourage them at a time when they had failed ridiculously in their
first sortie. He had ceased to be a captain who could inspire. He was
one man more in a half-whipped crew, that was all.
They who had been dumped over the dam dragged slimy mud from their faces
and surveyed him with sullen rebuke, remembering sharply that he had run
away from the girl whose cause they had taken up.
The others, their faces marked with welts from blows, gazed and sniffed
disparagingly.
But when he spoke out to the girl and her crew they listened with
increasing respect because a quick shift to manly resolution impressed
them.
His tone was tensely low and the noise of the tumbling water shielded
his voice from eavesdroppers on the dam. "I stood back there in the fog
and I heard what was said about an injunction. It's bad business,
running against the courts, men. That injunction hangs over the crew of
Echford Flagg. I am not one of that crew. What I may do is on my own
account, and I'll stand the blame of it. All I ask is that you step
aside and let me alone."
"That ain't the way we want to play this game," declared Vittum.
"It isn't a square game, men, and that's why you mustn't play it. It
isn't a riverman fight to-day. I came north from New York on the train
with Craig. He brought a gang of gunmen with him. They're hidden there
in the fog. He means to go the limit, hoping to get by with it because
you made the first attack. It's up to me from now on."
"What in the name of the horn-headed Sancho do you think you can do all
alone against guns?" demanded Vittum, scornfully.
"Think?" repeated Latisan. "I've had plenty of time for thinking on my
way up here. Let me alone, I say!"
Lida went to him and put her hand on his arm, and he trembled; it seemed
almost like a caress. But by no tenderness in his eyes or his expression
was he indicating that he considered himself back on his former footing
with her.
"Miss Kennard, don't keep me from trying to square myself with the Flagg
crew, if I can. I'm not hoping that anything can square me with you;
it's past hope."
He moved away, but she clung to him. "I must know what you intend to
do. I'll not accept a reckless sacrifice--no, I'll not."
"One evening in Adonia you gave me a lecture on duty and self-respect,
Miss Kennard. I wish I'd taken your advice then. But that advice has
never left my thoughts. I'm taking it now. I entreat you, don't let me
shame myself again. This is before men," he warned her, in low tones.
"Give me my fighting chance to make good with them--I beg you!"
He set back his shoulders, turned from her, and shouted Craig's name
till the Comas director replied.
"Craig, yon in the fog! Do you hear?"
"I hear you, Latisan!"
"Do our logs go through Skulltree by your decent word to us?"
"I'll never give that word, my man!"
"Then take your warning! The fight is on--and this time I'm in it."
"I'm glad to be informed. I have an announcement of my own to make.
Listen!" He gave a command. Instantly, startlingly, in the fog-shrouded
spaces of the valley rang out a salvo of gun fire. Many rifles spat. The
sound rolled in long echoes along the gorge and was banged back by the
mountain sides.
"Latisan, those bullets went into the air. If you and your men come onto
this dam----"
"There's only one kind of a fight up here among honest men--and you
won't stand for it, eh?"
"We've got your number! You're declared outlaws. These men will shoot to
kill."
In the chorus from the Flagg crew there were howls and groans.
"And argument won't bring to you any sense of reason and decency, will
it?" demanded the drive master.
"We shall shoot to kill!" insisted the magnate of the Comas corporation.
"All right! If those are your damnable principles, I'll go according to
'em."
The girl caught his hands when he started away. "You must not! No matter
what you are--no matter what you know I am, now. He'll understand when
we tell him--down there! There's more to life than logs!"
"I have my plans," he assured her, quietly. "You must realize how much
this thing means to me now."
The unnatural silence in the ranks of the Flagg crew, after Latisan's
declaration had been voiced, provoked Craig to venture an apprehensive
inquiry. "You don't intend to come ramming against these guns, do you?"
"Hold your guns off us! I'm going away. And these men are going with
me."
"That's good judgment."
"But I'm coming back! I won't sneak up on you. That isn't my style of
fighting. You'll hear me on the way. I'll be coming down almighty hard
on my heels. Remember that, Craig!"
Lida was at his side when he marched away up the shore toward the Flagg
camp at the deadwater, and his men trailed him, mumbling their comments
on the situation and wondering by what sort of miracle he would be able
to prevail over armed gangsters who were paid to kill.
"I'm going to ask you all to excuse me for playing a lone hand from now
on, boys," said the drive master, standing in front of them when they
were gathered at the camping place. "If they weren't working a dirty
trick with their guns, I'd have you along with me just as I intended in
the past. But you have had your fun while I've been making a fool of
myself! Give me my chance now!"
He bowed to Lida and walked up the shore alone. No one stayed him. The
girl locked together her trembling fingers, straining her eyes till he
disappeared.
He knew the resources and methods of the drive. Soon he came upon a
bateau pulled high on the river bank. There were boxes in the bateau,
covered by a tarpaulin whose stripings of red signaled danger. He found
a sack in the craft. He pried open one of the boxes and out of the
sawdust in which they were packed he drew brown cylinders and tucked
them carefully into the sack. The cylinders were sticks of dynamite. The
sack was capacious and he stuffed it full. The bag sagged heavily with
the weight of the load when he swung it over his shoulder and started up
the bank, away from the river.
When Latisan walked away from Lida the mist again had lent its illusion,
and he seemed to become of heroic size before the gray screen hid him
from her sight.
Vittum tried pathetically to relieve the stress of the silence.
"The last peek at him made him look big enough to do 'most anything he
sets out to do."
"Yes! But how can he fight them all single-handed?" She was pale and
trembling.
"If I'm any judge, by the direction he took just now he has gone up and
tapped our stock of canned thunder, miss. And if I ain't mistook about
his notions, he is going to sound just about as big as he looked when we
got that last peek!"
The rivermen did not lounge on the ground, as they usually did when they
were resting. They stood, tensely waiting for what Latisan's manner of
resolution had promised.
Lida asked no more questions; she was unable to control her tones. She
had been given a hint of Ward's intentions by what the old man had said
about the "canned thunder." She did not dare to be informed as to the
probable details of those intentions; to know fully the nature of the
risk he was running would have made the agony of her apprehensiveness
unendurable.
It seemed to them, waiting there, that what Latisan had undertaken was
never going to happen. They were not checking off the time in minutes;
for them time was standing still. The far grumble of waters in the gorge
merely accentuated the hush--did not break upon the profound silence.
When a chickadee lilted near at hand the men started nervously and the
girl uttered a low cry; even a bird's note had power to trip their
nervous tension.
The sound for which they were waiting came to them at last.
It was a sound with a thud in it!
Listeners who possessed an imagination would have found a suggestion of
the crash of the hammer of Thor upon the mountain top.
"He looked big enough for that when he left us!" muttered the old man.
He had never heard of the pagan divinity whom men called Thor. His mind
was on the river gladiator who had declared that he would come down
heavy on his heels when he started.
The brooding opacity which wrapped the scene made the location of the
sound uncertain; but it was up somewhere among the hills. The echoes
battered to and fro between the cliffs.
Before those echoes died the sound was repeated.
"He's coming slow, but he's come sure!" Vittum voiced their thoughts.
"Them's the footsteps of Latisan!"
On they came! And as they thrust their force upon the upper ledges there
was a little jump of the earth under the feet of those who stood and
waited.
There was something indescribably grim and bodeful in those isochronal
batterings of the solid ground. The echoes distracted the thoughts--made
the ominous center of the sounds a matter of doubt. That uncertainty
intensified the threat of what was approaching the dam of Skulltree.
There were other sounds, after a few moments. Rifles were cracking
persistently; but it was manifestly random firing.
The old man stepped to Lida and grasped her hand and held it. "Don't be
'feared for him, miss. They're only guessing! He'll be knowing the
ledges--every lift of 'em that's betwixt him and them. They'll never get
him with their popguns. But he'll get _them_!" he declared, with venom.
"I wonder what Craig is thinking now, with his old bug eyes poking into
that fog and doing him as much good as if he was stabbing a mill pond
with his finger!"
The rifle fire died away, after a desultory patter of shots.
"They're running!" said one of the crew. "They must be on the run!"
"You bet they're running," agreed the old man. "The Three C's hasn't got
money enough to hire men, to stand up in front of what's tromping down
toward Skulltree! Heavier and heavier on his heels!"
Measuredly slow, inexorably persistent, progressed the footsteps of the
giant blasts.
Latisan's men needed no eye-proof in order to understand the method.
The drive master was hurling the dynamite sticks far in advance of
himself and to right and to left, making his own location a puzzling
matter. The men had seen him bomb incipient jams in that fashion,
lighting short fuses and heaving the explosive to a safe distance.
The blasts were nearer and still nearer, and more frequent; the ground
quaked under their feet; in the intervening silences they heard the
whine and the rustle of upthrown litter in the air, the patterings and
plops of debris raining into the spaces of the deadwater.
Behind the attack was the menace of the bodefully unseen--the
lawlessness of the fantastically unprecedented.
"I don't blame the fellers with the guns, if they have quit," commented
Vittum. "They might as well try to lick the lightning in a
thundercloud."