Bransford of Rainbow Range Part 19

CHAPTER XII

THE SIEGE OF DOUBLE MOUNTAIN

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."

--_The Dictionary._

"Ho-o-e-ee! h.e.l.lo-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.

"h.e.l.lo-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 s.m.u.t 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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 a.s.siduously 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 a.s.sumed, 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.

"h.e.l.lo! 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,"

a.s.serted 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 _n.o.blesse oblige_ in its delicate application by this politeness, was easier for its pract.i.tioner 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 circ.u.mstances 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, d.a.m.nable, 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 antic.i.p.atory 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 circ.u.mstances with skilful care. "Besides, why did he run away? Gee! You ought to have seen that escape! It was splendid!"