Part 17 (1/2)
Stanley looked at the dead man as they laid him out on the platform: ”And hastening their own day of reckoning,” he said. ”There shall be no more of this if we have to drive every man of the gang out of the country. Who do you think was with Perry, Bob?” he demanded, questioning Scott.
”There is nothing to show that till we get them--and we ought to be after them now,” returned the scout. ”But,” he added softly as he hitched his trousers, ”I think one of the two might be young John Rebstock.”
”You need lose no time, Bob. Here are ten men with fresh horses at your orders.” Stanley pointed to the troopers who were unloading their mounts.
”Give Dave and me three of the best of these men,” said Scott. ”I will follow the west trail. Put a sergeant with the others on the trail east to make sure they haven't doubled back on us--but I don't think they have.”
”Why?”
”They must have stolen that team and wagon, that is certain. More than likely they murdered the man they took it from. The trail is probably alive with men looking for them. These fellows were trying to get to Cas.e.m.e.nt's camp for gambling, and probably they are heading that way fast now. We will pick those fellows up, colonel, somewhere between here and Bridger's Gap.”
The three troopers that Scott selected were told off and, after a few rapid arrangements for sending back information, the five men of the west-trail party, headed by Scott and Dave Hawk, rode down Bitter Creek and, scattering in a wide skirmish line wherever the formation of the country permitted, scanned the ground for signs of the fugitives.
”We shan't find anything till we get to where they were when the rain stopped,” Scott told the trooper near whom he was riding. It was, in fact, nearly ten miles from Point of Rocks before they picked up the footprints of two men travelling apart from each other, but headed north and west. These they followed on a long detour away from the regular wagon road until the two trails turned and entered, from the southwest, a camp made the night before by a big trading outfit on the regular overland trail.
Here, of course, all trace of the men disappeared. It was now drawing toward evening. Scott resolved to follow the trading outfit, but the party still rode slowly to make sure the men they wanted did not sneak away from the wagons of their new-found friends. The pursuers rode steadily on, and as the sun went down they perceived in a small canyon ahead of them the wagons of the outfit they were trailing, parked in a camp for the night.
Scott gave the troopers directions as to where to post themselves, at some distance east and west of the canyon, to provide against a sortie of the fugitives and, riding with Hawk directly into the camp, asked for the boss. He appeared after some delay and proved to be a French trader with supplies for Salt Lake.
Hawk, whose long visage and keen eyes gave him a particularly stern air--and David Hawk was never very communicative or very warm-mannered--asked the questions. The Frenchman was civil, but denied having any men with him except those he had brought from the Missouri River. However, he offered to line up his men for the railroad party to look over. To this Hawk agreed, and, when the word had been pa.s.sed, the entire force of the trader were a.s.sembled in front of the head wagon.
Scott rode slowly up the line scrutinizing each face, and, turning again, rode down the line. Once he stopped and questioned a suspicious-looking teamster wearing a hat that answered Bucks's description, but the man's answers were satisfactory.
When Scott had finished his inspection the men started to disband.
Hawk stopped them. ”Stay where you are,” he called out curtly. Turning to the Frenchman, he added: ”We will have to search your wagons.”
Again the trader made no objection, though some of his men did.
The three troopers were signalled in, and posted so there could be no dodging from one wagon to another, and Hawk gave them orders, loud enough for all to hear, to shoot on sight any one leaving the wagons.
And while he himself kept command of the whole situation, Scott dismounted and accompanied by the trader began the search. The hunt was tedious and the teamsters murmured at the delay to their camp work. But the search went forward unrelentingly. Not a corner capable of concealing a dog was overlooked by the painstaking Indian and not until he had reached the last wagon was his hope exhausted.
This wagon stood at the extreme end of a wash-out in the side of the canyon itself. It was filled with bales of coa.r.s.e red blankets, but no man was to be found among them.
Scott did find something, however, in a sort of a nest fas.h.i.+oned among the bales near the middle of the wagon. What would have escaped an eye less trained to look for trifles attracted his at once. It was a dingy metal tag. Scott picked it up. It bore the name of a Medicine Bend saloon and the heads of three horses, from the design of which the saloon itself took a widely known and ill name. He laid his hand on the blanket from which he had picked the tag. The wool was still warm.
Scott only smiled to himself. Both ends of the little canyon were guarded. From where he was searching the scout peered carefully out at the canyon walls. There were hiding-places, but they were hardly large enough to conceal a man. It was somewhere in the rocks close at hand that the fugitives had found a temporary refuge; but they could not now escape--nor could they be far from the wagon.
Without losing sight of the surroundings, Scott, disclosing nothing of his discovery to the trader, announced that he was satisfied and that the men he wanted did not appear to be there. He added, however, that if the Frenchman had no objection his party would pitch camp close by and ride with him in the morning. The Frenchman maintained his courtesy by inviting the party to take supper with him, and Scott, agreeing to return, rode away with Hawk and the three troopers.
They had not ridden far, when Bob dismounted the party and leaving the horses with one trooper set two as pickets and posted himself in hiding on one side the canyon, with Hawk on the other, to watch the camp. What he saw or whether his patience was in any degree rewarded no one could have told from his inscrutable face as he walked into the camp at dusk and sat down with the trader to supper. The moon was just rising and down at the creek, a little way from where Scott sat, some belated teamsters were was.h.i.+ng their hands and faces and preparing their own supper. Scott ate slowly and with his back to the fire kept his eye on the group of men down at the creek. When he had finished, he walked down to the stream himself. A large man in the group fitted, in his hat and dress, Bucks's exact description. Scott had already spotted him an hour before, and stepped up to him now to arrest young John Rebstock.
He laid his hand on the man's shoulder and the man turned. But to Scott's surprise he was not the man wanted at all. He wore Rebstock's clothes and fitted Rebstock's description, but he was not Rebstock.
The scout understood instantly how he had been tricked, but gave no sign.
Within the preceding thirty minutes the real Rebstock, whom Scott had already marked from his hiding-place in the canyon, had traded clothes with this man and, no doubt, made good his escape.
If Bob was chagrined, he made no sign.
”You must have made a good trade,” he said, smiling at the teamster.
”These clothes are a little big, but you will grow to them. How much boot did you get?”