Part 12 (1/2)

Two hours before s...o...b..rd had left the house, on her long tramp to the ranger station, Dan had started home. He hadn't shot until sunset, as he had planned. The rear guard of the waterfowl--hardy birds who spent most of the winter in the Lake region and which had come south in the great flight that had been completed some weeks before--had pa.s.sed in hundreds over his blind, and he had obtained the limit he had set upon himself--ten drake mallards--by four o'clock in the afternoon. If he had stayed to shoot longer, his birds would have been wasted. So he started back along a certain winding trail that led through the thickets and which would, if followed long enough, carry him to the road that led to the valleys.

He rode one of Lennox's cattle ponies, the only piece of horse-flesh that Bill had not taken to the valleys when he had driven down the livestock. She was a pretty bay, a spirited, high-bred mare that could whip about on her hind legs at the touch of the rein on her neck. She made good time along the trail. And an hour before sunset he pa.s.sed the only human habitation between the marsh and Lennox's house,--the cabin that had been recently occupied by Landy Hildreth.

He glanced at the place as he pa.s.sed and saw that it was deserted. No smell of wood smoke remained in the air. Evidently Landy had gone down to the settlements with his precious testimony in regard to the arson ring. Yet it was curious that no word had been heard of him. As far as Dan knew, neither the courts nor the Forest Service had taken action.

He hurried on, four miles farther. The trail entered the heavy thickets, and he had to ride slowly. It was as wild a section as could be found on the whole Divide. Once a deer leaped from the trail, and once he heard Woof grunting in the thickets. And just as he came to a little cleared s.p.a.ce, three strange, dark birds flung up on wide-spreading wings.

He knew them at once. All mountaineers come to know them before their days are done. They were the buzzards, the followers of the dead. And what they were doing in the thicket just beside the trail, Dan did not dare to think.

Of course they might be feeding on the body of a deer, mortally wounded by some hunter. He resolved to ride by without investigating. He glanced up. The buzzards were hovering in the sky, evidently waiting for him to pa.s.s. Then, mostly to relieve a curious sense of discomfort in his own mind, he stopped his horse and dismounted.

The twilight had started to fall, and already its first grayness had begun to soften the harder lines of forest and hill. And after his first glance at the curious white heap beside the trail, he was extremely glad that it had. But there was no chance to mistake the thing. The elements and much more terrible agents had each wrought their change, yet there was grisly evidence in plenty to show what had occurred. Dan didn't doubt for an instant but that it was the skeleton of Landy Hildreth.

He forced himself to go nearer. The buzzards were almost done, and one white bone from the shoulder gave unmistakable evidence of the pa.s.sage of a bullet. What had happened thereafter, he could only guess.

He got back quickly on his horse. He understood, now, why nothing had been heard of the evidence that Landy Hildreth was to turn over to the courts as to the activities of the arson ring. Some one--probably Bert Cranston himself--had been waiting on the trail. Others had come thereafter. And his lips set in his resolve to let this murder measure in the debt he had to pay Cranston.

The Lennox house seemed very silent when, almost an hour later, he turned his horse into the corral. He had rather hoped that s...o...b..rd would be at the door to meet him. The darkness had just fallen, and all the lamps were lighted. He strode into the living room, warming his hands an instant beside the fireplace. The fire needed fuel. It had evidently been neglected for nearly an hour.

Then he called s...o...b..rd. His voice echoed in the silent room, unanswered. He called again, then went to look for her. At the door of the dining room he found the note that she had left for him.

It told, very simply and plainly, that her father lay injured in his bed, and he was to remain and do what he could for him. She had gone for help to the ranger station.

He leaped through the rooms to Lennox's door, then went in on tiptoe.

And the first thing he saw when he opened the door was the grizzled man's gray face on the pillow.

”You're home early, Dan,” he said. ”How many did you get?”

It was entirely characteristic. s.h.a.ggy old Woof is too proud to howl over the wounds that lay him low, and this gray old bear on the bed had partaken of his spirit.

”Good Lord,” Dan answered. ”How badly are you hurt?”

”Not so bad but that I'm sorry that s...o...b..rd has gone drifting twelve miles over the hills for help. It's dark as pitch.”

And it was. Dan could scarcely make out the outline of the somber ridges against the sky.

They talked on, and their subject was whether Dan should remain to take care of Lennox, or whether he should attempt to overtake s...o...b..rd with the horse. Of course the girl had ordered him to stay. Lennox, on the other hand, said that Dan could not help him in the least, and desired him to follow the girl.

”I'm not often anxious about her,” he said slowly. ”But it is a long walk through the wildest part of the Divide. She's got nothing but a pistol and a lantern that won't s.h.i.+ne. Besides--I've had bad dreams.”

”You don't mean--” Dan's words came hard--”that she's in any danger from the animals--the cougars--or the wolves?”

”Barring accidents, no. But, Dan--I want you to go. I'm resting fairly easily, and there's whisky on the table in case of a pinch. Someway--I can't bar accidents to-night. I don't like to think of her on those mountains alone.”

And remembering what had lain beside the trail, Dan felt the same. He had heard, long ago, that any animal that has once tasted human flesh loses its fear of men and is never to be trusted again. Some wild animal that still hunted the ridges had, in the last month, done just that thing. He left the room and walked softly to the door.

The night lay silent and mysterious over the Divide. He stood listening.

The girl had started only an hour before, and it was unlikely that she could have traversed more than two miles of the steep trail in that time. He could fancy her toiling ever upward, somewhere on the dark ridge that lay beyond. Although the horse ordinarily did not climb a hill more swiftly than a human being, he didn't doubt but that he could overtake her before she went three miles farther. But where lay his duty,--with the injured man in the house or with the daughter on her errand of mercy in the darkness?