With Hoops of Steel Part 17

"Say, Nick, what do you-all think about Will Whittaker? Do you reckon Emerson killed him?"

Ellhorn shut one eye at the jagged peak which seemed to bore into the blue above them, considered a moment, and replied: "Well, I reckon if he did Will needed killin' almighty bad."

"You bet he did," was Tom's emphatic response.

They trudged on to the head of the canyon and explored most of the smaller ones opening into it. But no trace of human presence, either recent or remote, did they find anywhere. When night came on they returned to their camp somewhat disappointed that they had seen no sign of the two men. Early the next morning they started out again, and searched carefully through the remaining canyons that were tributary to the large one, climbed again to its head, and clambered over the ridge at its source. There they looked down the other side of the mountain, over a barren wilderness of jagged cliffs and yawning chasms, with here and there a little clump of scrub pines or cedars clinging and crawling along the mountain side. They examined the summit of the peak and walked a little way down the eastern slope, looking into the gorges and searching the scrub-dotted slopes until the sinking sun drove them back to their camp. But they found neither water, save some strongly alkaline springs, nor any trace of human beings. As they discussed the day's adventures over their supper, Tom said:

"There must have been some reason why they killed that horse just where they did."

"Yes," said Nick, "if they had moved their camp to some other canyon higher up, or on the other side of the mountain, they might just as well have driven the beast farther up before they killed it."

"If they had wanted the meat down here," added Tom, "they wouldn't have driven it so far away. They must have wanted it right there."

They looked at each other with a sudden flash of intelligence in their puzzled eyes and Nick thwacked his knee resoundingly. Then he spoke the thought that had burst into each mind:

"There must be a trail up the canyon wall!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU'VE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM ME. I'LL BE DEAD IN TEN MINUTES."--_p. 206_]

Early the next morning they were examining more closely than they had done before the walls of the canyon near the carca.s.s. On the right hand side, the same side on which was the canyon where they had their camp, they found a narrow ledge beginning several feet above the boulders which strewed the floor of the canyon at the base of the wall. They found that with care they could walk along it, although in some places it was so narrow that there was scarcely room for Tuttle's big bulk. Nick was in constant fear lest his friend might topple over, and finally insisted that Tom should go back and wait until he reached the top of the wall or the end of the ledge. Tuttle blankly refused to do anything of the sort.

They were then in the narrowest place they had found, and it was only by flattening their bodies against the rock and clinging with all the strength in their fingers to the little k.n.o.bs and crevices which roughened the wall that they could keep their footing. Nick, standing flat against the precipice with a hand stretched out on each side, looked over his shoulder at Tom, who was a few feet in the rear. He also was facing the wall, clinging with both hands and shuffling his feet along sidewise, a few inches at each step. Beyond, the ledge rose in a gradual incline to the top of the cliff, perhaps six hundred feet farther on. Below, the wall dropped abruptly a hundred feet to the boulder covered floor of the canyon.

"Tommy," said Nick, "you-all better go back. It ain't safe for a man of your size."

"Go back! Not much!"

"Well, I shan't go any farther until you do!"

"Then you'll have to hang on by your eyelids till I get past you!"

"Tom, don't be a fool!"

"Don't you, neither."

"Tom, you're the darnedest obstinate cuss I ever saw in my life.

You'll tip over backwards first thing you know."

"Nick, if Emerson was here it would sure be his judgment that we-all can get to the top of this cliff. So you shut up and go on."

"I tell you I won't do it till you go back! Darn your skin, I wouldn't be as pig-headed as you are for a hundred dollars a minute!"

"Well, I wouldn't be as big a fool as you are for a thousand!"

"Tommy, if you-all don't go back, I'll be no friend of yours after this day!"

"Well, if you don't go on and shut up that fool talk I don't want to be friends any longer with any such hen-headed, white-livered--"

"Tom!"

"Well, then, shut up and go on, or I'll call you worse names than that!"

"You obstinate son of a sea-cook, I tell you I won't go on unless you go back!"

"Nick, it will take me just about half a minute to get near enough to push you off. And I'm goin' to do it, too, if you don't hold your jacka.s.s jaw and go on."

There was silence for the s.p.a.ce of full twenty seconds while Ellhorn watched Tuttle edging his way carefully along the narrow shelf. Then he spoke:

"Well, anyway, Tom, don't you try to take a deep breath or that belly of yours will tip the mountain over and make it mash somebody on the other side!" Then he turned his head and shuffled along toward the top of the cliff.

The shelf widened again presently and they found the rest of it comparatively easy traveling. At one place there were some drops of dried blood on the ledge and in another a b.l.o.o.d.y stain on the wall at about the height of a man's shoulders. This confirmed their belief that Haney and Jim had found and climbed this narrow ledge with the meat and camp supplies on their backs. When they reached the top Nick held out his hand and said:

"Say, old man, I reckon we-all didn't mean anything we said back there."

Tom took the proffered hand and held it a moment:

"No, I guess not. I sure reckon Emerson would say we didn't. Nick, what made you get that fool notion in your head that I didn't have sand to get through?"

"I didn't think you didn't have sand, Tommy. I thought--the trail was so narrow, I thought you'd tumble off." A broad grin sent the curling ends of his mustache up toward his eyes and he went on: "Tom, you sure looked plumb ridiculous!"

Shaking hands again, they turned to their work. They stood on the steep, sloping side of the mountain, which was cracked and seamed with a network of chasms and gulches. A ridge ran slantingly down the mountain and the intricate, irregular network of narrow, steep-sided cracks and gulches which filled the slope finally gave, on the right hand, into the deep, gaping canyon which had been their thoroughfare, and on their left into another, apparently similar, some distance to the south. Farther up, toward the backbone of the ridge, there seemed to be a narrow stretch, unbroken by the gulches, which extended to the next canyon. They made their way thither and walked slowly along, stopping now and then to scan the mountain side or to sweep with their eyes the visible portions of the canyons below and behind them. They had covered more than half the distance between the two canyons when Tom, who had been studying one particular spot far down the mountain, exclaimed:

"Nick, there's water down there! See where the top of that pine tree comes up above the rocks, away down there, nearly to the divide?"

"You're sure right," said Nick, looking carefully over the ground which Tom indicated. A moment later he went on: "That's the head of the spring in the canyon where our camp is! You can follow the course of the gulch right along. I reckon that's where we'll find what we're looking for!"

They turned to retrace their steps, their faces eager and alert and their feet quickening beneath them, when through the silence came the dull, far-away thud of a pistol shot. It was behind them and seemed to come from the canyon toward which they had been walking. With one glance at each other they drew their pistols and ran toward its head.

They clambered over the boulders and, with reckless leaps and swings, let themselves down to its floor. Pausing only a moment to reconnoiter, they hurried down the gulch, casting quick glances all about them for the first sign of a living being. After a little they stopped and listened intently, each holding a c.o.c.ked revolver, but not the faintest sound broke the midday stillness.

"Do you reckon it was in this canyon?" said Tom in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Got to be," Nick replied, poking out his lower jaw. "We've been sniffing the trail long enough. We'll give them a bait now."

He raised his revolver to shoot into the air, but even before his finger touched the trigger, a pistol shot resounded from down the canyon and its echoes rolled and rumbled between the walls. An instant later they saw the smoke curling upward and dissolving in the still, clear air, perhaps half way toward the canyon's mouth. But they could see no sign of man, nor of any moving thing in its vicinity. They hurried on, cautiously watching the walls and the canyon in front of them, and now and then turning for a quick backward glance, to guard against attack in the rear. As they neared the point from which the smoke had risen, they saw that one of the narrow, deep chasms in the mountain side opened there, with a wide, gaping mouth, into the canyon. A mound of debris was heaped in front. Stepping softly, they peered around the pile of rocks and saw, lying in the mouth of the chasm, a man with a revolver gripped in his right hand. Blood stained his clothing and ran out over the rocks and sand. He was a tall man with a short, bushy, iron-gray beard covering his face. Tuttle and Ellhorn covered him with their revolvers and walked to his side. He put up a feeble, protesting hand.

"It's all right, strangers. You've nothing to fear from me. I'll be dead in ten minutes."

"Who killed you?"

"Was it the two ornery scrubs we're after?"

"I've put the last shot in myself. If you'd been half an hour earlier I might have had a chance."

"What's the matter? What's happened? Tom, give him a drink out of the flask."

"No, give me water," said the man. "I emptied my canteen this morning."

Nick lifted his head and Tom held their canteen to his lips. He drank deeply, and as he lay down again he looked at Tom curiously.