Part 29 (2/2)

Laramie was, in fact, nearing the place--by the least pa.s.sable of all approaches--where he had hidden Hawk. Yet he did not hesitate either to stop or to listen or to double on his trail more than once.

Maneuvering in this manner for a long time he emerged on a small opening, turned almost squarely about and rode half a mile.

Dismounting at this point and lifting his rifle from its scabbard he slung his bag over his shoulder and walked rapidly forward.

The hiding place had been well chosen. On a high plateau of the Falling Wall country, so broken as to forbid all chance travel and to be secure from accidental intrusion--a breeding place for grizzlies and mountain lions--there had once been opened a considerable silver mining camp. Substantial sums had been spent in development and from an old Turkey Creek trail a road had been blasted and dug across the open country divided by the canyon of the Falling Wall river. In its escape from the mountains the river at this point cuts a deep gash through a rock barrier and from this striking formation, known as the canyon of the Falling Wall, the river takes its name.

Where the old mine road crosses the plateau an ambitious bridge, as Laramie once told Kate, had been projected across the river. It was designed to replace a ferry at the bottom of the canyon but with the ruinous decline in the value of silver the mines had been abandoned; a weather-beaten abutment at the top of the south canyon wall alone remained to recall the story. The earth and rock fill behind this abutment had been washed out by storms leaving the framing timbers above it intact, and below these there remained a cave-like s.p.a.ce which the slowly decaying supports served to roof.

Laramie on a hunting trip had once discovered this retreat and had at times used it as a shelter when caught over night in its vicinity.

During subsequent visits he found an overhang in the rock behind the original fill that made a second smaller chamber and in this he had as a boy cached his mink and rat traps and the discard of his hunting equipment.

To the later people coming into the Falling Wall country with cattle the existence of all this was practically unknown. Nothing visible betrayed the retreat and to men who rarely left the saddle and had little occasion to cross the bad lands, there was slight chance to stumble on it. It was here, a few miles west of his own home, that Laramie had carried Hawk.

Making his way in the darkness toward the dugout, Laramie whistled low and clearly, and planting his feet with care on a foothold of old masonry swung down to where a fissure opening in the rock afforded entrance into the irregular room.

A single word came in a low tone from the darkness: ”Jim?”

Laramie, answering, struck a match and, after a little groping, lighted a candle and set it in a niche near where Hawk lay. The rustler was stretched on a rude bunk. The furnis.h.i.+ngs of the cave-like refuge were the scantiest. Between uprights supporting the old roof, a plank against the wall served as a narrow table; the bunk had been built into the opposite wall out of planking left by the bridge carpenters. For the rest there was little more in the place than the few belongings of a hunter's lodge long deserted. A quilt served for mattress and bedding for Hawk and his sunken eyes above his black beard showed how sorely he needed surgical care. To this, Laramie lost no time in getting. He provided more lights, opened his kit of dressings and with a pail of water went to work.

What would have seemed impossible to a surgeon, Laramie with two hours'

crude work accomplished on Hawk's wounds. But in a country where the air is so pure that major operations may be performed in ordinary cabins, cleanliness and care, even though rude, count for more than they possibly could elsewhere. The most difficult part of the task that night lay in getting water up the almost sheer canyon wall from the river three hundred feet below. It would have been a man's job in daylight; add to this black night and the care necessary to leave no traces of getting down and climbing up.

Leaving Hawk when the night was nearly spent, Laramie returned to his horse, retraced his blind way through the bad lands and got to the road some miles above where he had left it. He started for home but left the road below his place and picking a trail through the hills came out half a mile northwest of his cabin. Here he cached his saddle and bridle, turned loose his horse and going forward with the stealth of an Indian he got close enough to his cabin to satisfy himself, after painstaking observation, that his cabin was neither in the hands of the enemy, nor under close-range surveillance. When he reached the house he disposed of his rifle, slipped inside and struck a light. On the stove he found his frying pan face downward and the coffee pot near it with the lid raised. From this he knew that Simeral in his absence had cared for his stock; and being relieved in his mind on this score he laid his revolver at hand and threw himself on the bed to sleep. Day was just breaking.

CHAPTER XXII

STONE TRIES HIS HAND

In getting home safely, Laramie had not flattered himself that he was not actually under what in mountain phrase is termed the death watch.

In matter of fact, Van Horn and Doubleday had gone home to stay until the excitement should blow over. But they had left Stone and two men charged with intercepting Laramie on his return. The investing lines had not, however, been skilfully drawn and Laramie had slipped through.

He slept undisturbed until the sun was an hour high. Then peering through a corner of the blanket that hung before the window he saw Stone and two companions half a mile from the house, riding slowly as if looking for a trail; particularly, as he readily surmised, for his own trail. As to his horse betraying him, Laramie had no fear, knowing the beast would make straight for the blue stem north of the hills. It was no part of Laramie's plan of defense to begin fighting or to force any situation that favored him--as he believed the present one to do.

Few men that knew his enemies would have agreed with him in this view; they would, indeed, have thought it extremely precarious for Laramie to be caught in any place he could not escape from unseen. But Laramie was temperamentally a gambler with fortune and he put aside the worries that occasionally weighed on his friends. Standing at his one small window--though this was by no means the only peephole in the cabin walls--he watched without undue concern the scouting of the trio, who beyond doubt had been hired to kill him and were only waiting their chance.

After a long inspection of the ground--much of it out of sight of the cabin--broken by frequent colloquies, the three rode from the creek bottom out on the upper field and, halting, surveyed the distant cabin with seeming doubt and suspicion. Two of them reined their horses toward the creek. The third man spurred up the long slope straight for the house.

This put a different aspect on things. Laramie tightened a little as he watched the oncoming rider. If it should prove to be Stone--he hesitated at the thought, deciding on nothing until sure who the man might be. But watching the approach of the unwelcome visitor coldly, Laramie put out his hand for his rifle. He thought of firing a warning shot; but to this he was much averse since it would mean a fight and a siege--neither of which he sought. As the man drew closer it was apparent that it was not Stone and Laramie decided that milder measures might answer. He held his rifle across his arm and waited. But the man, as if conscious of the peril to which he was so coolly exposing himself, galloped rapidly away, rejoined his companions and the trio disappeared.

Laramie at the window watched the departing hors.e.m.e.n. It appeared, from what he had seen, as if the watch had really been set on him. He got out his little bottle of oil and a rag and ramrod to clean his rifle. He made the preparations and sat down to his task in a brown study.

The rifle had not been fired for some time, and it was a very long time since it had been trained on a man. He took it apart slowly, thinking less of what would next appear through the range of the sights than of Kate, as she confronted him the night before in Carpy's office. He realized with a sort of shame that he was trying to forgive her for calling him a thief--which, in point of fact, he argued, she had not actually done. And though she had certainly spoken careless-like, as Bill Bradley might say, she had only credited the tales of his enemies in her own household.

Laramie poked and squinted as he pondered his difficulties. He had refused to give up Hawk to be merely murdered; he could not do less and respect himself. It had made her father more than ever his enemy; still he wanted Kate. Stone would a.s.sa.s.sinate him at any time for a hundred dollars; Van Horn, now that he was aware Laramie liked Kate, would do it for nothing. Laramie, indeed, realized that if he stood in Van Horn's way with a woman he would not figure any more in Harry's calculations than a last year's birds' nest. And back of all loomed rancorous Barb Doubleday.

<script>