Chapter XIX · —BEYOND DAVE MORGAN’S TRAIL

Hashknife had little trouble in following Morgan, although Morgan seemed to be traveling more by guess than following a trail. It was so steep that a horse was obliged to sit on its rump and to keep angling from one side to another to keep from going headlong into the cañon.

About halfway down the side of the cañon, Hashknife’s gray horse shoved loose a boulder of considerable size, which went bounding down the steep slope, crashing through the brush and splitting itself on the boulders at the bottom.

Hashknife realized that Dave Morgan would have to be deaf not to hear it; but there was no turning back now. He was riding the rump of the gray, his feet drawn back as far as possible to escape the brush.

Slipping and sliding, careening from side to side, the tall gray took him safely to the bottom of the cañon, where he dismounted. He had lost Morgan’s trail, and there did not seem to be any way of recovering it. The bottom of the cañon at this point was a jumble of broken sandstone, boulders and brush, which seemed an impassable barrier to man and beast; but Hashknife knew there must be a way out.

The cañon was about six miles in length, and Hashknife had entered it at about a mile below the north end. After waiting a while, trying to figure out where Morgan had gone, Hashknife picked up his reins and started to pick out a route down the cañon.

It was slow traveling. Time after time he was obliged to retrace his steps and select a new route. For over a mile he managed to find his way. His overall legs were flapping rags, and the knees of the tall gray were torn and bleeding.

“Tough goin’, Ghost,” grinned Hashknife. “If we ever go the length of this cañon, we deserve a medal.”

At last he came to a place where he could not find a way through. The cañon narrowed to a boxlike affair, not over sixty feet in width, with perpendicular sides, a hundred feet high.

Back went Hashknife and the gray horse to a point about three hundred yards away, where they began climbing the west side of the cañon. It was slow work, but they managed to get above the perpendicular sides of the box cañon.

And it was here that Hashknife was rewarded for his labor. Cut deeply in the side of the hill were the tracks of a horse, which had come down the side of the cañon at this point. Hashknife studied the situation, and from his point of view, Dave Morgan had cut back to the top of the cañon again, and had tried the descent at another place.

But this time Hashknife was careful to follow the tracks, which kept to the side of the hill, until reaching the sheer cliffs, less than a mile from where Nan and Rex had found the cave. Hashknife stopped near the cliffs and scanned the country. Far above him and across the cañon, he could see the tiny scars, which indicated graded curves on the wagon road. Far down the cañon he could see a few buzzards, spiraling upward from the cañon bed.

That was where he wanted to go—down where the buzzards were. It meant another hard slide down the cañon, but he made it in safety. For some distance the trail led down the bottom of the cañon, where the tracks in the sand made it easy to follow the spoor of the other horse.

The buzzards were getting closer all the time. Again the trail led from the bottom, and Hashknife was obliged to dismount to follow, leading his horse. The last few hundred yards required nearly an hour to negotiate, and he suddenly broke through the brush on the very spot where the buzzards had been feeding on the roan horse from the 6X6, across the cañon bottom from the cave.

Hashknife watched the big birds leave their meal and then he examined the carcass. He found the strip of skin, which carried the 6X6 brand, and he sat down to ponder over it. There was no question in his mind that this horse had slid down from the grades, as the bones of the legs were broken, and as far as he was able to determine, the neck had also been broken. The saddle bore no name, and had been badly damaged.

Hashknife left the carcass and tied his horse to a snag. Sliding down into the bottom of the cañon, he discovered Nan’s tracks, which were very plain. This proved to him that Nan had reached the bottom alive, and he heaved a sigh of satisfaction. Fifty feet farther down the cañon he found the empty revolver where the masked man had thrown it. From the way it had skidded in the sand, he knew it had been thrown from the west side of the cañon.

Hashknife felt sure that neither Nan nor Rex had been armed when they left the ranch; and this gun, with six empty shells in the cylinder, proved that someone had been doing some shooting in the cañon.

He climbed the west bank and came out almost under the overhang of the cave. After a careful survey of the surrounding country he climbed up over the shelves of sandstone to the entrance of the cave.

Here was an odor of wood smoke, although the fire had long since died out. Cautiously he advanced into the shallow cave, gun in hand. It was light enough for him to see the outstretched form of Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs near the pile of ashes.

Briggs had been tied securely with a length of lariat rope, with the loop drawn tightly around his neck. Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs was as dead as a man might be, and Hashknife could see that he had died from strangulation, although he had been badly battered.

Hashknife loosened the ropes. In spite of the battered face, Hashknife was able to recognize the old 6X6 cook. On the left side of his head was a furrow, which seemed to have been made by a bullet, but with so many cuts and bruises it was difficult to say which were the worse wounds.

The old man’s coat had been almost torn from his body, but in the inside pocket Hashknife found several folded papers, which he took to the cave entrance to examine.

For perhaps five minutes he sat on a sandstone ledge, pondering deeply over them, while the shadows of the buzzards drifted back and forth across the slope below him.

Finally he pocketed the papers and went back in the cave, where he dragged the old man’s body farther away from the entrance.

“Mebbe you’ll be a mummy by the time you get out of here, old-timer,” he said. “I’d take you out, if I could; but I can’t. So long.”

Hashknife went back down the slope, where he found the track of a horse, going down the cañon. It went down past the old waterfall, where the tracks were plainly outlined in the sand.

“Must be a way out the lower end,” he decided. “If I can get Ghost down into this danged place, I’ll try my luck. It can’t be any worse than the way I came in—and it must be shorter.”

He managed to pick out a possible place to get down, and went back for the gray horse.

The shadows from the mesquite clumps were growing long on the mesa below the mouth of Coyote Cañon. Farther to the south was the blue haze over the flat land toward Cañonville. Blue quail were calling to one another from the brushy slopes, their plaintive ca Cuckoo, ca Cuckoo being the only sound to break the silence.

A lean coyote, like a gray shadow, came limping along past a mesquite, where he stopped in the shade, his ears cocked toward the sound of feeding quail. A brush rabbit rustled in the mesquite, and the coyote shifted his head quickly. Suddenly he lifted his nose. Down the wind came a scent, which he quickly associated with men who carried guns and lariat ropes. More like a shadow than before, the coyote seemed to fade out of sight through a convenient cover, while from a spot upwind came the soft crackling of brush.

First came the masked man, leading the bay horse, with Nan in the saddle. Behind them—quite a way behind them—came Rex Morgan, staggering along, looking like a rag man, or rather a man of rags.

The masked man stopped the horse and allowed Rex to join them.

“Devil of a trip, huh?” grunted the man. “Well, here’s where I leave you.”

He pointed up the slope.

“About half a mile up thataway you strike the road. Turn left for Mesa City.”

Nan dismounted and stood beside Rex, while the masked man mounted his horse.

“I’d like to thank you,” she said.

“You don’t need to. Your sweetheart shore looks fagged, don’t he? You ain’t a very good picker, ma’am. Them shoes he’s wearin’ wasn’t built f’r Coyote Cañon. Good luck to you. I don’t sabe women—not a-tall. So long.”

He spurred his horse to a gallop and soon disappeared, traveling south. Nan and Rex looked foolishly at each other. Rex’s shoes were ready to fall off his feet, which were bleeding. Nan was a little better off, because she had ridden the horse, but her face was drawn from suffering and lack of food.

“We’ve got to walk home,” she said.

Rex nodded, shifting his feet painfully, and they started toward the road.

Rex was game. Every step was torture, but he gritted his teeth and kept going. They were both staggering before they reached the road, and Rex was laughing foolishly, as they sat down to gain a little strength before attempting the steep grades.

“I haven’t any feeling,” said Rex weakly. “My legs and arms belong to someone else, I think.”

“And your feet are all blood, Rex.”

“I know. But we are out of that terrible cañon. Everything will be all right now, Nan. I want to sing, but I can’t think of a single song. It is like waking up from an awful dream. I wonder who that man is, Nan. What was he doing in that cañon, and why did he want to leave me there, all tied up in that rope? It all seems so ridiculous—now. I have never harmed any one in my life, except the clothing clerk in Northport, Spike Cahill and the crazy man. And they couldn’t really hold any grudge for that, because it was in self-defense. Queer country out here. Somebody always trying to kill somebody else. But I like it, Nan.”

She did not reply. After a few moments he turned his head and looked at her. She was leaning against a rock, sound asleep, her hands folded in her lap. He sighed and shifted to a more comfortable position.

It was nearly dark when something awoke Rex. He lifted his head quickly, trying to understand what it was all about, trying to realize where he was. A great, gray shape loomed over him in the half light, and there sounded the creak of saddle leather, the jingle of spurs.

Then he heard the voice of Hashknife Hartley saying—

“You poor kid, this is Hashknife.”

But Hashknife wasn’t talking to him; he was talking to Nan. And the great, gray shape was Ghost.

Nan was crying and Hashknife was patting her on the shoulder, telling her that everything was all right. Rex staggered around the horse to Hashknife, and the tall cowboy put an arm around his shoulders.

“I trailed you out of the cañon,” said Hashknife. “My Lord, what a trail! You’re all right now, Nan. How ’r’ you comin’, Rex?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Rex weakly. “I’ve got so many sore spots that I am just one big ache. Are you all right, Nan?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied wearily. “I must have gone to sleep, you see.”

“Well, that’s all right,” laughed Hashknife. “I’ll boost you up on Ghost, and we’ll head for home.”

He picked Nan up in his arms and placed her in the saddle.

“I’ll give you a leg up, Rex,” he said. “You ride behind Nan. Ghost is broke to ride double.”

“But you can’t walk all the way,” protested Nan.

“Can’t I? Shucks, I could walk to the moon right now.”

He helped Rex on behind the saddle, and they went on up the winding grades, while Nan told Hashknife the story of what had happened to them from the time someone shot Rex’s horse until they left the masked man on the mesa.

“I thought you’d see the buzzards,” said Rex.

“I seen ’em. Gosh, what an experience you had.”

“I think Rex went crazy for a while,” said Nan, “when he fought with the crazy man.”

“Did you tie him up after the fight?” asked Hashknife.

“We didn’t have anything to tie him with,” said Rex, “but he never tried to get up, you see.”

“Uh-huh.”

The moon was up when they reached the spot where Rex and Nan had dropped into the cañon. It silvered the hills and the cliffs on the opposite side of the cañon.

“Oh, we forgot about the crazy man!” exclaimed Nan. “He’s still down there in the cave, you know, Hashknife.”

“Don’t worry about him, Nan.”

They plodded on around the grades, down around the sharp turns, where the stage had given Rex his wild introduction to the country, and on through the flat land to the forks of the road, where they turned to the Lane ranch.

The ranch-house was dark.

“Queer, isn’t it?” said Rex. “When I was asleep back there, I dreamed about that Navaho rug. It had blood on it—in my dream, Hashknife.”

“Yeah. It ain’t on the fence down there now; somebody took it.”

“Oh, I’ll bet your feet are worn raw,” said Nan. “With those high heel boots on.”

“Feet are all right. Here we are.”

Rex slid down, and Hashknife lifted Nan from the saddle.

The kitchen table was just as Hashknife and Sleepy had left it after the bullet had driven the milk can between Sleepy’s eyes. Both Nan and Rex were still wobbling, and they watched Hashknife build a fire in the kitchen stove. He put on a big kettle of water.

“I can get the meal,” said Nan. “I feel fine again.”

“Start in with some coffee, Nan. There’s half of that pie in the oven. I could drink a pot of coffee myself. Show me where you keep your writin’ paper and ink, will you, Nan?”

They found it in the drawer of the table in the living room, along with an old pen.

“You fix the coffee,” said Hashknife. “I’ve got to write a note.”

He placed a lamp on the table, while Nan went back to the kitchen, where Rex was removing what was left of his shoes. Hashknife took a folded piece of paper from his pocket, propped it up against a book and filled his pen.

He wrote slowly on the cheap sheet of paper, so slowly that it seemed he was copying something. His brow was knitted deeply, almost covering the gray eyes, as the broken pen holder moved slowly in his cramped fingers.

Finally the document was finished to his satisfaction and, after folding it roughly, he placed it in the inside pocket of his vest. The paper he had propped against the book went into a hip pocket, and he got up from the table, a half smile on his thin lips.

Nan was limping around the table in the kitchen, while Rex looked ruefully at his swollen feet.

“I’ll have some hot water for you in a few minutes, dear,” said Nan.

Rex looked up quickly at Hashknife. It was the first time she had ever called Rex by that title. The gray eyes shifted to Nan and back to Rex. Neither of them had told Hashknife just why the masked man had taken them out of the cañon. Perhaps it was a subject that neither of them cared to discuss with a third party.