Front matter (continued 2)

I think she herself had a sense of humour, for I caught a twinkle in her eye as she journeyed to and fro. That she did so without affectation spoke a deal for her power over her pride. A woman in such a place, I should imagine, must constantly find it advisable to remind herself that there are very few of the gentler sex in the land and a vast number of men, and tell herself that it is not her captivating ways alone that are responsible for the extreme of respect that is lavished upon her. She chatted to all easily and pleasantly, with a sparkle in her wide-set eyes.

"I think I remember of you on the way up to Baker City," she said: "about two months ago, wasn't it?"

And when I had informed her that it was even so she asked me how I had fared there. I told her I thought I might have fared better had I been in a ranching country.

"Can you ride?" she asked.

I told her no—at least, not in the sense of the word here. I could keep a seat on some horses, but the horses I had seen here were such as made me consider myself hardly a "rider" at all.

She thought it "great," she said, to get on horseback and gallop "to the horizon and back," as she put it.

"It makes you feel so free and glad all over."

I would soon learn, she said, but "the boys" would have their fun with me to start.

All this was a broken talk, between her attending on the tables; and as she kept up a conversation at each table as she visited it I could not help considering that her mind must be particularly alert. Perhaps it was these rides "to the horizon and back" that kept her mind so agile and her form and face so pure. It was when she was bringing me my last course, a dish of apricots, that a man with a rolling gait, heavy brows, and red, pluffy hands, a big, unwieldy man in a dark, dusty suit, came in and sat down at my table casting his arm over the back of the chair.

This fellow "my deared" her instead of following the fashion of the rest, and surveyed me, with his great head flung back and his bulgy eyes travelling over me in an insolent fashion. When she returned with his first order he put up his hand and chucked her under the chin, as it is called.

"Sir," said she, with a pucker in her brows, "I have told you before that I did n't like that:" and she turned away.

My vis-à-vis at that turned to his soup, first glancing at me and winking, and then bending over his plate he supped with great noise,—something more than "audible" this,—and perennial suckings of his moustache.

When the maid came again at his rather peremptory rattle on the plate, "Angry?" he asks, and then "Tuts! should n't be angry," and he made as though to embrace her waist, but she stepped back.

He turned to me, and, wagging his head toward her, remarked:

"She does n't cotton to me."

I make no reply, looking blankly in his face as though I would say: "I don't want anything to do with you"—just like that.

"Ho!" he said, and blew through his nose at me, thrusting out his wet moustache. "Are you deaf or saucy?"

I looked at him then alert, and rapped out sharply: "I had rather not speak to you at all, sir. But as to your remark, I am not astonished that the young lady does not cotton to you."

With the tail of my eye, as the phrase is, I knew that there was a turning of faces toward me then, and my lady drew herself more erect.

"Ho!" cried the bully. "Here's a fane how-de-do about nothing! You want to learn manners, young man. I reckon you have n't travelled much, else you would know that gentlemen setting down together at table are not supposed to be so mighty high-toned as to want nothin' to do with each other."

I heard him to an end, and, laying down my spoon, "With gentlemen—yes," I said, "there can be no objection to talk, even though your remark is an evasion of the matter at present. But seeing you have gone out of your way to blame my manners, I will make bold to say I don't like yours."

The girl stepped forward a pace and, "Sir, sir," she began to me and the bully was glaring on me and crying out, "Gentlemen! 'between gentlemen' you say, and what you insinuate with that?"

But I waved aside the girl and to him I began:

"I have been in this country some time, sir, and I may tell you that I find you at the top of one list in my mental notes. Up to to-night I have never seen a woman insulted in the West——" and then, as is a way I have and I suppose shall have a tendency to till the end of my days, though I ever strive to master it (and indeed find the periods between the loss of that mastery constantly lengthening), I suddenly "flared up."

To say more in a calm voice was beyond me and I cried out: "But I want no more talk from you, sir; understand that."

"Ho!" he began. "You——"

But I interrupted him with: "No more, sir; understand!"

And then in a tone which I dare say savoured very much as though I thought myself quite a little ruler of men, I said: "I have told you twice now not to say more to me. I only tell you once more."

"Good Lord!" he cried. "Do you think you can scare me?"

"That's the third time," said I, mastering the quaver of excitement in my voice, lest he should take it for a quaver of fear. "Next time I don't speak at all."

"Maybe neither do I," said he, and he lifted the water carafe as though to throw the contents on me, but he never did so; for I leant quickly across the table and with the flat of my hand slapped him soundly on the cheek, as I might have slapped a side of bacon, and, "That," said I, "is for insulting the lady."

It was "clear decks for action" then, for he flung back his chair and, spinning around the end of the table, aimed a blow at me; but I had scarce time to guard, so quick was he for all his size. I took the simplest guard of all—held my left arm out rigidly, the fist clenched, and when he lunged forward to deliver the blow I ducked my shoulder but kept my fist still firm.

It was a fierce blow that he aimed, but it slipped over my shoulder and then there was an unpleasant sound—a soft, sloppy sound—for his nose and my rigid fist had met. Then the blood came, quite a fountain. But this only heated him and he dealt another blow which I received with the "cross-guard," one of the best guards in the "straight on" system of boxing, a system generally belittled, but very useful to know.

I think he had never seen the guard in his life, there was so astonished a look on his face; but before he recovered I had him down with a jar on the floor so that the floor and windows rattled,—and his brains, too, I should imagine.

He sat up glaring but something dazed and shaken. God forgive me that I have so feeble a control of my passions once they are roused and such a horrible spirit of exultation! These have their punishment, of course, for a man who exults over such a deed, instead of leaving it to the onlookers to congratulate, falls in their estimation.

However, to give over moralising, I cried out, as he sat up there on the floor with the blood on his face and chin and trickling on his thick neck: "Come on! Sit up! If you lie malingering, I 'll kick you to your feet! I 'm only beginning on you."

I think the onlookers must have smiled to hear me, for, though so far I had got the better, the match was an absurd one. But my foe was a man of a bad spirit; without rising he flung his hand round to his hip.

I had a quick glimpse of the girl clasping her hands and heard the gasp of her breath and her voice: "Stop that now—none of that!"

But another voice, very complacent and with a mocking, boyish ring, broke in:

"Throw up your hands, you son of a dog!" And then I ceased to be the centre of interest and my brain cleared, for Apache Kid was sitting at his table, his chair pushed back a little way, his legs wide apart as he leant forward, his left hand on the left knee, his right forearm lying negligently on the right leg—and loosely in his hand was a revolver pointed at the gentleman on the floor.

The other two were looking on from under their brows, the stage-driver sitting beaming on the scene. The girl swung round on Apache with an infinite relief discernible in her face and gesture. The cook who had come from the rear of the room, having seen the business through the wicket window from his pantry, I suppose, cried out: "Make him take out his gun and hand it over, sir."

Apache did not turn at the voice, but, "You hear that piece of advice?" said he. "Well, I 'm not going to take it. You can keep your little toy in your hip-pocket. Do you know why? Because you can do no harm here with it. Before you could get your hand an inch to it my Colt's bullet would have let all the wind sighing out of your contemptible carcass."

Then he gave a laugh, a chuckling, quiet, hearty laugh in his throat, hardly opening his lips and added: "In the language of the country, sir, I would advise you to shake a leg—to get up and get—hike—before I plug you."

And up rose the man, a commercial traveller (as the girl told me afterwards when trying to thank me—for what I cannot say, as I told her at the time), or a "drummer," as the name is, who had been there since yesterday's Baker-bound stage arrived, drinking at the bar and making himself disagreeable in the dining-room.

He looked a sorry figure as he shuffled from the chamber.

I turned to Apache Kid and began: "You saved my life, A——" but his frown reminded me that we were strangers;—"sir," I ended, "and I have to thank you."

"That's all right, sir; that's all right, sir. Don't mention it," said Apache Kid, throwing his revolver back into its holster.

That was the end of the drummer; we saw him no more that night, and when we came down in the morning we were told he had gone on to Baker City with the stage which went west earlier by an hour than the one toward the railway, the one we were to continue in—part of its journey.

But when we came to settle our bill the proprietor drew his hand under his long beard and put his head on the side—reminding me of a portrait of Morris I had seen—and remarked, looking from Apache to me and back again: "Well, gentlemen, I 'd consider it a kind of honour to be allowed to remember that I did n't ask nothing for putting you up. I should n't like to remember about you, any time, and to think to myself that I had charged you up. I 'd be kind of honoured if you 'd let me remember I did n't take nothing from you."

We did not speak, but Apache's bow was something to see, and with a hearty shake of the hand we mounted the stage.

"Look up tew the window, my lad," said the driver, gathering up his reins. "Look up tew the window and get what's comin' to you; a smile to warm the cockles of your heart for the rest o' the trip."

And sure enough we had a smile and a wave of a strong and graceful hand from the upper window and raised our hats and bowed and were granted another wave and another also from the proprietor—and a wave from the cook at the gable of the house. And looking round again, as we rolled off, there was the fresh white girl standing at the door now.

She raised her hand to her lips and I felt a little sorry in my heart. I did not like to think she was going to "blow a kiss:" it would be a cheapening of herself methought. Then I felt a little regretful, for she did not blow a kiss, but kept her hand to her mouth as long as she remained there.

We went on in silence and then I heard Apache Kid murmur: "Did she mean it or did she not?"

"Mean what?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" said he, alert suddenly. "Oh! I was talking to myself:" and then he said in a louder tone: "Excuse me, sir, for asking, but do you not carry a gun?"

"No," said I, with a smile part at this revival of his old caution and part at something else.

"Can you shoot?"

I shook my head.

"Well," said he, "this period of the history of the West is a transition period. The old order changeth, giving place to new. Fists are settling trouble that was formerly settled with the gun. But the trouble of the transition period is that you can never be sure whether it's to be a gun or the fists. Men like that drummer, too, carry a gun—but they carry it out of sight and you don't know it's there for certain. I advocate the gun carried openly; and I think you should begin right away learning its use. I must look up that remark of Carlyle's, first time I can, about the backwoods being the place where manners flourish. I want to see from the context if he did n't really mean it. Most people think it was sarcasm, but if it was, it should n't have been. Manners do flourish in all backwoods, until the police come in and the gun goes out, and it's the presence of the gun that keeps everybody mannerly. The gun does it. Now see—you hold a revolver like this," and he exemplified as he spoke. "The usual method of grasping a revolver is with the forefinger pressing the trigger, and even many experts follow this method; but, with all due respect to the advocates of that method, it is not the best. The best way to hold a revolver is with the second finger pressing the trigger, the forefinger extending along the side of the barrel like this, you see. That is the great desideratum in endeavouring to make a shot with a revolver—keeping the thing steady. It kicks under the muscular action required to pull the trigger with the forefinger, and unless one is thoroughly practised the bullet will fly above the mark aimed at. Remember, too, to grip tight, or with these heavy guns you may get your thumb knocked out. Then you throw your hand up and bring it down and just point at what you want to kill—like that!"

"Biff!" went the revolver, and I saw the top leaves on a sage-brush fly in the air.

The horses snorted and leapt forward and the driver flung a look over his shoulder, a gleeful look, and, gathering the reins again, cried out, "My gosh, boys! Keep it up, and we 'll make speed into Camp Kettle. Say, this is like old days!" he cried again, when Apache Kid snapped a second time and we went rocking onward.

So we "kept it up," Apache indicating objects for me to aim at, watching my manner of aiming, and coaching me as we went. It seemed to be infectious, for the traveller who had before kept to himself whipped out a "gun" from some part of his clothing and potted away at the one side while we potted at the other. The other two, the one who had suppered on cheese, pickles, and whisky, and breakfasted on the same, like enough, and the man with whom he had struck up an acquaintanceship, wheeled about and potted backwards; and at that the driver grew absolutely hilarious, got out his whip and cracked it loud as the revolver shots, crying out now and again: "Say, this is the old times back again!" and so we volleyed along the uneven road till dusk fell on the mountains to north and the bronze yellow plain to south and sunset crimsoned the western sky. And lights were just beginning to be lit when, in a flutter of dust and banging of the leathern side-blinds and screaming of the gritty wheels, we came rocking down the hillside into Camp Kettle.

But at sight of that Apache Kid turned to me, and with the look of a man suddenly recollecting, he said, in a tone of one ashamed: "Well, well! Here we are advertising ourselves for all we 're worth, when our plan should have been one of silence and self-effacement."

"Well," said I, "we can creep quietly up to bed when we reach the hotel here, and let no one see us, if that is what you are anxious about."

"You 'll have no more bed now, Francis," he said quietly. "No more bed under a roof, no more hotel now until——" and here for the first time he acknowledged in actual, direct speech the goal of our journey, "until we lie down to sleep with our guns in our hands and our boots on——" he put his mouth to my ear and whispered, "in the Lost Cabin."

CHAPTER IX

First Blood

t would hardly astonish me, and certainly not offend me, to know that you found a difficulty in believing possible such a sight as Camp Kettle presented on our arrival. It made me shudder to see it, and the picture is one that I never remember without melancholy.

"They seem to be celebrating here," said he of the red eyes as a hideous din of shrieking and curses came up to us.

And "celebrating" they were, that day being, as Apache Kid now recollected, the anniversary of the first discovery of mineral in that place. Of such a kind was this celebration that the stage-driver had to dismount and drag no fewer than three drunken men from the road, which irritated him considerably, spoiling as it did his final dash up to the hotel door. But it served our turn better; for here, before entering Camp Kettle, we alighted.

Camp Kettle is built in the very midst of the woods, the old veterans of the forest standing between the houses which stretch on either side of the waggon road, looking across the road on each other from between the firs, so that a traveller coming to the place by road is fairly upon it before he is well aware. But on that day—or night—there were strips of bunting hanging across the waggon road, not from the houses, for they were all mere log huts, but from the trees on either side; and the forest rang with shouting and drunken laughter. Just where we alighted were several great, hewn stones by the roadside, with marks of much trampling around them.

"There 's been a rock-drilling contest here," said Apache Kid, pointing to the holes in the centre of these rocks, as we struck into the bush and came into Kettle from behind.

Here and there, backward from the front huts, were others dotted about in cleared spaces, and all were lit up, and doors standing open and men coming and going, lurching among the wandering tree-roots and falling over stumps still left there. And the whole bush round about you might have thought the scene of a recent battle, what with the drunken men lying here and there in all manner of attitudes, with twisted bodies and sprawled legs.

Some few fellows in their coming and going spoke to us, crying on us to "come and have a drink," but it was only necessary for us to move on heedlessly so as to evade them—so dazed and puzzled were they all and seemed to lose sight of us at once, wheeling about and crying out to the twilit woods. At some of the cabins horses stood hitched, snorting and quivering ever and again, their ears falling back and pricking forward in terror.

"For once," said Apache Kid to me, "I have to be grateful for the presence of the despised Dago and the Chinee. The Dago may be a little fuddled, but not too much to attend to our wants in the way of horses, and he is not likely to talk afterwards. The Chinee will be perfectly calm among all this, and he, for a certainty, will not speak. Here's the Chinee joint. Come along."

He thrust open the door of a long, low house and we entered into a babel of talk, that ceased on the instant, and closed the door behind us.

We had a glimpse of a back room with a group of Chinamen who looked up on us with eyes a trifle agitated, but, I suppose on seeing that we were not the worse of liquor, they bent again over their tables, and we heard the rattle of dominoes again and their quick, voluble, pattering talk.

A very staid, calm-faced Chinaman, his high forehead lit up by a lamp which hung over a desk by which he stood, turned to us, and, looking on us through large horn spectacles, bowed with great dignity.

"Good evening," said Apache Kid.

"Good evening," said he.

"We want three mats of rice," said Apache Kid, and this placid gentleman called out a word or two to one of his assistants, and the rice was hauled down from the shelf. Then we bought three small bags of flour and two sides of bacon, and all this was tied up for us and set by the door to await our return; and off we went out of that place with the smell of strange Eastern spices in our nostrils.

"Not so long ago," said Apache Kid, "these fellows would not have been tolerated here at all. Then they were allowed an entrance and tolerated; but they only sold rice to begin with, and nothing more, except, perhaps, cranberries, to the hotel, which they gathered on the foothills. Now, as you see, they run a regular store. But on such nights as this it behooves them to keep indoors lest the white populace regret having allowed them within their gates. But John Chinaman is very wise. He keeps out of sight when it is advisable. Here's the livery stable."

The stout Italian who stood at the door of the stable, toying with a cigarette, frowned on us through the darkness, and seemed a trifle astonished, I thought, at our request for horses. But he bade us follow him, and by the aid of two swinging lamps Apache Kid selected three horses, two for riding and one pack-horse.

"But you ain't pull out to-night, heh?" said the Italian in his broken English.

"Yes," said Apache.

"You going down to Placer Camp or up to mountains?"

Apache Kid was drawing the cinch tight on the pony I was to ride (the Italian was saddling the other), and he merely turned and shot the questioner such a look as made me feel—well, that I should not like to be the Italian.

I thought then that, for all his slim build, this partner of mine, so quiet, so deliberate, must have seen and done strange things in his day, and been in peculiar corners to learn a glance like that. If ever a look on a man's face could cow another, it was such a look as Apache Kid flung to the Italian then.

Back to the Chinese store we went, leading our steeds, and there roped on our pack.

"Do you sell rifles?" asked Apache Kid.

"Yes, sir, vely good line," and so Apache added a Winchester, which was thrust atop of the load, and two of the small boxes of cartridges.

This was just finished when a voice broke in: "Goin' prospectin'?"

We wheeled about to see a foolish-faced man, with shifty eyes and slavering mouth, standing by, with firm enough legs, to be sure, but his body swaying left and right from the hips as though it were set there on a swivel.

"Yes," said Apache.

"Going prospectin' without a pick or a hammer or a shu-huvel," said the man, and hiccoughed and dribbled again at the mouth, and then he sat down on a tree-stump and broke out in a horrible drunken weeping, the most distressful kind of intoxicated fool I ever saw, and moaned to himself: "Goin' prospectin' without a—with on'y a gun at the belt and a Winchester," and he put his hand to his forehead and, bending forward, wept copiously. I looked on the Chinaman who stood by, placid and expressionless, and I was ashamed of my race.

"For the love of God," said Apache, "let us get out of this pitiful hell— Good-bye, John," to the Chinaman, who raised his lean hand and waved in farewell in a gesture of the utmost suavity and respect, and then we struck south (the Chinaman entering his store), and left that pitiable creature slobbering upon the tree-stump, left the din and outcrying and hideousness behind us, my very stomach turning at the sounds, and Apache, too, I think, affected unpleasantly. We went directly to the south upon the track that led to the Placer Camp on Kettle River.

On either side of us the forest thinned out there, but the place was full of a wavering light, for the tree-stumps to left and right of the track were all smouldering with little, flickering blue flames, and sending up a white smoke, for this is the manner of clearing the forest after the trees are felled.

Through this place of flickering lights and waving shadows we still progressed, leading our horses. Here Apache Kid looked round sharply, and at the moment I heard a sound as of a twig snapping, but from what quarter the sound came I could not tell. We were both then looking back, half expecting to see some one issue forth behind us into the light of that space where the tree-stumps spluttered and flared and smoked.

"Perhaps it was just one of these stumps crackling," said I.

"It did n't sound just like that; however, I suppose that was all," Apache Kid replied. "Well this is our route now." And we struck west through the timber, back in the direction that Baker City lay, keeping in a line parallel to the waggon road. And ever and again as we went Apache emitted a low, long whistle and hearkened and whistled again, and hearkened and seemed annoyed at the silence alone replying.

Then, coming to the end of the place of smouldering stumps, we struck back as though to come out on the waggon road before its entering into Camp Kettle. "Where in thunder is Donoghue?" snapped Apache Kid, and suddenly the horse I was leading swung back with a flinging up of its head. Apache Kid was leading the other two and they also began a great dancing and snorting.

"We have you covered!" cried a harsh voice. "No tricks now! Just you keep holt of them reins. If you let 'em drop, your name is Dennis! That 'll be something to occupy your hands."

I think the voice quieted the horses, if it perturbed us, for they became tractable on the instant and ceased their trembling and waltzing. And there, risen out of a bush before us, stood two men, one with a Winchester at the ready and the other with his left hand raised, the open palm facing us, and a revolver looking at me over that, his "gun hand" being steadied on the left wrist.

I had seen Apache Kid in a somewhat similar predicament before, but his coolness again amazed me. And, if I may be permitted to say so, I astonished myself likewise, for after the first leap of the heart I stood quite easy, holding my horse—more like an onlooker than a participant in this unchancy occurrence.

"I think you have made a mistake, gentlemen," said Apache Kid.

"Oh, no mistake at all," said he with the Winchester. "I 've just come out to make you an offer, Apache Kid."

"You have my name," said Apache Kid, "but I have n't the pleasure of yours."

"Why," said I, "I 've seen that man at the Laughlin House;" and at the same moment Apache Kid recognised the other in a sudden flickering up of one of the nighest stumps.

"Why, it's my old inquisitive friend—the hog," said he, looking on him. "Where did you learn that theatrical style of holding up a gun to a man? Won't you introduce your friend?"

"That's all right," said the other. "I want you to listen to me. Here's what we are offering you. You can either come right along with us to Camp Kettle and draw out a sketch plan of where the Lost Cabin Mine lies, or else——" he raised his Winchester.

Apache Kid whistled softly.

"How would it suit you," said he, after what seemed a pause for considering the situation into which we had fallen, "if I drew up the sketch after you plugged me with the Winchester?"

"O!" cried the man. "The loss of a fortune's on the one hand. The loss o' your life's on the other. We give you the choice."

"It seems to me," said Apache Kid, "that your hand is the weaker in this game; for on your side is the loss of a fortune or the taking of a life."

"I 'd call that the stronger hand, I guess," said the man.

"Well, all a matter of the point of view," murmured Apache Kid, with an appearance of great ease. "But presuming that I am aware of the location of that place, what assurance could I have that once you had the sketch in your hands you would n't slip my wind—in the language of the country?"

He with the revolver, I noticed, glanced a moment at his partner at that, but quickly turned his attention to us again. "Besides, I might draw up a fake map and send you off on a wild goose chase," said Apache Kid, as though with a sudden inspiration.

"We've thought of that," said he with the Winchester, "and you 'd just wait with a friend of ours while we went to make sure o' the genewinness o' your plan."

"Oh! That's what I'd do?" said Apache Kid, and stood cheeping with his lips a little space and staring before him. Then turning to me, "I 'm up against it now," he said, "in the language of the country. The terms are all being made for me and at this rate——" he swung round again to these two—"you really mean that you are so bent on this that if I did n't speak up, did n't give you the information you wanted, you'd—eh—kill me—kill the goose with the golden eggs?"

I marked a change in the tone of Apache's voice, and looking at him noticed that there was a glitter in his eye and his breath was coming through his nostrils in fierce gusts, and under his breath he muttered: "The damned fools! I could keep them blithering here till morning!"

"We might find other means to get the right of it out of you," said the man with the Winchester. "I 've seen a bit of the Indians from whom you take your name, and I reckon some of their tricks would bring you to reason."

"What!" cried Apache Kid. "You'd threaten that, would you? You'd insult me—coming out with a hog like that to hold me up, too," and he pointed at the man with the revolver.

"Come! Come!" cried he of the Winchester, "easy wi' that hand. If you don't come to a decision before I count three, you 're a dead man. I 'll run chances on finding the Lost Cabin Mine myself. Come now, what are you going to do? One——"

"Excuse me interrupting," said Apache Kid, "but are you aware that the gentleman you have brought with you there is an incompetent?"

"Haow?" said the Winchester man. "What you mean?"

"That!" said Apache Kid, and, leaping back and wheeling his horse between the Winchester and himself, he had plucked forth his revolver and— But another crack—the crack of a rifle—rang out in the forest. I am not certain which was first, but there, before my eyes, the two men, who had a moment earlier stood exulting over us, sank to the earth, he with the revolver falling second, so that as he sagged down I heard the breath of life, one might have thought, belch out of him. It was really the gasp, I suppose, when the bullet struck him, but it was the most helpless sound I ever heard in my life—something like the quack of a duck. Sorry am I that ever I heard that sound, for it, I believe, more than the occurrence of that night itself, seemed to sadden me, give me a drearier outlook on life. I wonder if I express myself clearly? I wonder if you understand what I felt in my heart at that sound? Had he died with a scream, I think I should have been less haunted by his end.

If our horses shied at the smell of men whom they could not see, they were evidently well enough accustomed to the snap of firearms, for beyond a quick snort they paid no heed. As for me, I found then that I had been a deal more upset by this meeting than I had permitted myself to believe; and my nerves must have been terribly strung, for no sooner had they fallen than I shuddered throughout my body, so that I must have looked like one suffering from St. Vitus dance.

Apache Kid looked at me with a queer, pained expression on his face, scrutinising me keenly and quickly and then looking away. And into the wavering light of the burning stumps came Donoghue, with his rifle lying in the crook of his arm, right up to us and began speaking. No, I cannot call it speaking. There was no word intelligible. His eyes were the eyes of a sober man, but when he spoke to us not a word could we distinguish, and he seemed aware of that himself, spluttering painfully and putting his hand to his mouth now and again, as with a sort of anger at himself and his condition. Then suddenly, as though remembering something, away he went through the timber the way he had come.

"Fancy being killed by that!" said Apache Kid, wetting his lips with his tongue, and a sick look on his face.

"What's wrong with him?" said I.

"Drunk," said he, and never a word more. But he followed Donoghue, to where stood a horse, the reins hitched to a tree.

"That's a tough looking mount he's got," said Apache Kid, and then, like an afterthought: "Try to forget about those two fellows lying there," he added to me.

I looked at him in something of an emotion very nigh horror.

"Have they to lie there till—till they are found?"

"Yes," said he, "by the wolves to-night—if the light of the stumps doesn't keep them off. Failing that, to-morrow—by the buzzards."

I looked round then, scarcely aware of the movement, and there, between the trees, I saw the clearing with the smouldering, twinkling stumps.

The leader of these two lay with his back and his heels and the broad soles of his feet toward me; but the other, "the hog from Ontario," lay looking after us, with his dead eyes and his face lighting and shadowing, lighting up and shadowing pitifully in that ghastly glow.

I turned round no more. I breathed in relief when we came clear of the forest into the open, sandy ground; but when I saw the stars thick in the sky, Orion, Cassiopeia, and Ursa Major, the tears welled in my eyes; they seemed so far from the terrors of that place.

"I 'll wait till you mount," said Apache Kid, holding my horse's head while I gathered the reins.

When I raised my foot to the stirrup the beast swerved; but at the third try I got in my foot, and with a spring gained the high saddle.

Donoghue's mount was walking sedately enough, but all the lean body of it had an evil look. Apache stood to watch his partner mount to the saddle. Donoghue flung the reins over the horse's neck and came to its left. He seemed to remember its nature, despite his condition then, for he ran his hand over the saddle and gave a tug to the cloth to see that it was firm. Then with a quick jerk, before the horse was well aware, he had yanked the cinch up another hole or two. At this, taken by surprise, the beast put its ears back and hung its head and its tail between its legs. Donoghue pulled his hat down on his head, caught the check-rein with his left and clapped his right hand to the high, round pommel. There was a moment's pause; he cast a quick glance to the horse's head; thrust his foot into the huge stirrup, and with a grunt and a mighty swing was into the saddle. And then the beast gathered itself together and with an angry squeal leapt from the ground. Half a dozen times it went up and down, as you have perhaps seen a cat or a ferret do—with stiff legs and humped back. But Donoghue seemed part of the heavy, creaking saddle, and after these lurchings and another half-dozen wheelings the brute calmed. Apache Kid swung himself up to his horse and we struck on to the stage road in the light of the stars.

And just then there came a clinking of horse's hoofs to our ears and there, on the road coming up from Camp Kettle, and bound toward Baker City, was an old, grey-bearded man leading a pack-horse and spluttering and coughing as he trudged ahead in the dust.

"It's a good night, gentlemen," he said, stopping and eyeing us—Donoghue across the road, in the lead, and already a few paces up the hillside, Apache Kid with the led horse, I blocking his passage way.

"Yes; it's a fair night," said Apache Kid, civilly enough, but I thought him vexed at this encounter.

"It's a cough I take at times," said the old man, wheezing again. "I 'm getting up in years. Yes, you 're better to camp out in the hills instead of going into Camp Kettle to-night. I 've seen some camps in my day—I 'm gettin' an old man. No; I could n't stop in that place to-night."

His pack-horse stood meekly behind him, laden up with blankets, pans, picks, and the inevitable Winchester.

"Yes, siree, you 're better in the hills, a fine starry night o' summer, instead of down there. It's a cough I have," he wheezed. "I 'm gettin' an old man. Any startling news to relate?"

"Nothing startling," said Apache Kid.

"What you think o' the rush to Spokane way? Anything in it, think you?" said the old man in his slow, weary voice.

"O, I think——" began Apache Kid, but the old man seemed to forget he had put a question.

"What you think o' this part o' the country?" he asked, and then abruptly, without evidently desiring an answer: "Well, well, I 'll give you good night. I 'll keep goin' on, till I get a good camp place—maybe all night I don't like Camp Kettle to-night," and grumbling something about being an old man now, he plodded on, his pack-horse waking up at the jerk on the rein and following behind.

"Aye," sighed Apache Kid to me, "no wonder they say 'as crazy as a prospector.' It's the hills that do it. The hills and the loneliness and all that," he said with a wave of his hand in the starshine. Then suddenly he spurred forward his horse upon Donoghue and in a low, vehement voice: "Stop that, Donoghue!" he said. "What on earth are you wanting to do?"

For Donoghue was glaring after the weary old prospector and dragging his Winchester from the sling at his saddle. He managed to splutter out the word "blab" as he pointed after the man and then pulled again at the Winchester which he found difficult to get free. But Apache Kid smote Donoghue's horse upon the flank and pressed him forward and so we left the road and began breasting the hill with the stars, brilliant and seeming larger to me than ever they seemed seen through the atmosphere of the old country, shining down on us out of a cloudless sky.

Perhaps it had been better had Donoghue got his rifle free, callous though it may seem to say so. For other lives might have been spared and these mountains, into the foothills of which we now plunged, have not been assoiled with the blood of many had that one solitary old prospector ceased his weary seekings and his journeyings there, as Donoghue intended.

CHAPTER X

In the Enemy's Camp

n a little fold of the hills we made our camp, somewhere about two in the morning, I should think.

Donoghue rolled off his horse at a word from Apache Kid, and stood yawning and grunting, but Apache Kid had his partner's blankets undone in a twinkling and bade him lie down and go to sleep. Then he hobbled the horses and, sitting down on his own blanket-roll, which he had not undone:

"Could you eat anything?" said he.

"Eat!" I ejaculated.

"Well, sleep, then?" he said.

"Aye, I could sleep," said I. "I should like to sleep never to awaken."

"As bad as that?" said he.

"Look here," said I. "I 've just been thinking that I——" and I stopped.

Something was creeping stealthily along the ridge of the cup in which we sat, and the horses were all snorting, drowning the sound of Donoghue's deep breathing.

"It's only a coyote," said Apache Kid, looking up in the direction of my gaze. "You look tired, my boy," he added in a kindlier voice. "Well, if these fellows are going to sit round us, I suppose I 'd better make a fire; but I did n't want to. We 'll make a small one. You know what the Indians say: 'Indian make small fire and lie close; white man make big fire and lie heap way off. White man dam fool!' And there is some sense in it. We don't want to light a beacon to-night, anyway."

So saying, he rose and cried "Shoo!" to the skulking brutes that went round and round our hollow, showing lean and long against the sky.

I watched him going dim and shadowy along the hill-front, where contorted bushes waved their arms now and then in the night wind. He took a small axe with him, from the pouch of his saddle, and I heard the clear "ping" of it now and then after he himself was one with the bushes. And there I sat with my weary thoughts beside the snoring man and the horses huddling close behind me, as though for my company, and the prowl, prowl of the coyotes round and round me. Then suddenly these latter scattered again and Apache Kid returned, like a walking tree beside the pale sky, and made up a fire and besought me to lie down, which I had no sooner done than I fell asleep, for I was very weary.

Now and then I woke and heard far-off cries,—of wildcats, I suppose,—and saw the stars twinkling in the heavens and the little parcel of fire flickering at my feet; but the glow of Apache Kid's cigarette reassured me each time, and though once I thought of asking him if he himself did not want to sleep, so heavy with sleep was I that I sank again into oblivion ere the thought was fairly formed.

So it was morning at last, when I came again broad awake, and Apache Kid was sitting over the fire with the frying-pan in hand. Indeed, the first thing I saw on waking was the flip he gave to the pan that sent the pancake—or flapjack, as it is called—twirling in the air. And as he caught it neatly on the undone side and put the pan again on the blaze (that the morning sunlight made a feeble yellow) I gathered that he was catechising Donoghue, who sat opposite him staring at him very hard across the fire.

"No," Larry was saying, "I got a horse all right, and gave out at the stable that I was going to the Placer Camp, and struck south right enough and went into the bit where we were to meet and sat there waiting you, and not a soul came nigh hand all the derned time."

"How do you know, when you acknowledge you were as drunk as drunk?"

"How do I know?" said Donoghue. "Why, drunk or sober, I never lose anything more than my speech."

"True," said Apache. "But you 're a disgusting sight when you are trying to talk and——"

"Well, well; let that drop," said Donoghue. "I was sober enough to let the wind out of that fellow that held up you two."

"Thanks to you," said Apache Kid. "Which reminds me that there may be others on the track of us; though how these fellows followed so quick I——"

"O, pshaw!" said Donoghue. "You must have come away careless from Baker City. I saw the stage comin' in from where I was layin', and I saw them two fellows comin' up half an hour after."

"O!" said Apache Kid, paying no heed to the charge of a careless departure. "And anybody else suspicious-looking?"

Donoghue shook his head. But the meal was now ready, and I do not know when I enjoyed a meal as I did that flapjack and the bacon and the big canful of tea made with water from a creek half a mile along the hill, as Apache Kid told me, so that I knew he had been busy before I awoke. I felt a little easier at the heart now than on the night before, and less inclined to renounce my agreement and return. But suddenly, as we were saddling up again, the thought of those dead men came into my head; and though of a certainty they had been evil men, yet the thought that these two with me had taken human lives gave me a "grew," as the Scots say.

I turned about and looked at my companions.

"Would you be annoyed if I suggested turning back?" I asked, coming right to the point.

It was Donoghue who answered.

"Guess we would n't be annoyed; but you would n't get leave, you dirty turncoat."

But Apache turned wrathfully on him.

"Turncoat?" he cried. "Do you think he wants to go down and give us away? If you do, you 're off the scent entirely. It 's the thought of those dead men that has sickened him of coming."

"O, pshaw!" cried Donoghue, grinning. "Sorry I spoke, Francis. There 's my fist; shake. Never mind the dead men."

We "shook," but I have to say that I did not relish the feel of that hand, somehow. He was a man, this, who lived in a different world from mine.

"Why, sure you can go back, if you like," said he. And then suddenly he caught himself up and said: "No, no, for the love of God don't do that! Apache Kid and me don't do with being alone in the mountains."

On one point at least this man felt deeply, it would appear.

"Well," said Apache Kid to me. "That's a better tone of Donoghue's. To beseech a favour is always better than to threaten or to attempt coercion and I must add my voice to his and ask you to come on with us. Though personally," he added, "had I once made a compact with anyone, I would carry it through to the bitter end."

"I should never have suggested this," said I, feeling reproved. "I will not mention it again."

This was the end of my uncertainty, and we rode on through the June day till we came to the north part of the Kettle River, gurgling and bubbling and moving in itself with sucking, oily whirlpools, and travelled beside it a little way and then left it at the bend where it seethed black and turbid with a sound like a herd bellowing.

The creek we came to at noon was kindlier, with a song in place of a cry; swift flowing it was, so that it nearly took our horses from their feet as we crossed it, or the nigher half of it, rather (for we camped on an islet in the midst of it and the second crossing was shallower and easy), but, though swift as the Kettle, it made one lightsome instead of despondent to see. The sun shone down into its tessellated bed, all the pebbles gleaming. The rippling surface sparkled and near the islet was dappled over with the thin shadows of the birches that stood there balancing and swaying. And scarcely had we begun our meal when we heard a clatter midst the pebbles and a splashing in the water, and there came an old Indian woman on a tall horse, with a white star on its forehead, and pots and kettles hanging on either side of it. It came up with dripping belly out of the creek and went slapping past us in the sand and the old dame's slit of a mouth widened and her eyes brightened on us under the glorious kerchief she wore about her head.

"How do," said my companion, and she nodded to us, passed on, and the babe slung on her back stared at us with wide eyes.

For an hour after that they came in twos and threes, men and women, the young folk laughing and chatting among themselves, giving the lie again to all tales of an Indian never smiling. It was a great sight to me and I can never forget that islet in the Kettle River. Not one of the people stopped to talk. The men and the old women gave us "How do" and drew themselves up erect in their saddles. The younger women smiled, showing white teeth to us in a quick flash and then looking away.

Apache Kid was radiant. "They're a fine people, these," said he.

"Yes," said Donoghue, "when you 've got a gun and keep them at a distance."

"Nonsense," cried Apache Kid. "I 've lived among them and I know."

"Yes, lived among 'em to buy 'em whisky, I guess, so as they could get round about the law."

"No," said Apache Kid, "never bought them a single bottle all the time I was with them."

I could see that Donoghue believed his partner, but I could see too that he could not comprehend this story of living with the Indians for no obvious reason. He looked at Apache Kid as men look on one they cannot understand, but spoke no further word.

After we left that camp, as we struck away across the valley toward the far-off range, we saw these folk still on the other mountainside and caught the occasional flash of the sunlight on a disk, maybe, or on a mirror, or the polished heel of a rifle swinging by the saddle; and then we lost sight of them among the farther woods.

That picturesque sight did a deal to lighten my heart. Apache Kid, too, was mightily refreshed the rest of the afternoon, and spun many an Indian yarn which Donoghue heard without any suggestion of disbelief. But it was no picnic excursion we were out upon. We had come into the hollow of the hills. We were indeed at the end of the foothills, and across the valley before us the mountains rose sheer, as though shutting us into this vale. To right, the east, was a wooded hill, parallel with which we now rode; and to left cliffs climbed upwards with shelving places here and there on their front, very rugged and savage.

Donoghue nodded in the direction of a knoll ahead of us, and said: "Shall we camp at the old spot? It's gettin' nigh sundown; anyway, I guess we've done our forty to fifty mile already."

"Yes," said Apache Kid. "It's a good spot."

"You've been here before?" I inquired.

My two companions looked in each other's eyes with a meaning glance.

"Yes, we 've been here before," said Donoghue, and I had the idea that there was something behind this. So there was; but I was not to hear it—then.

Suddenly we all three turned about at the one instant for a far-off "Yah-ah-ah-ah!" came to us.

There, behind us, we saw two riders, and they were posting along in our track at great speed.

We reined up and watched them, Apache Kid drawing his Winchester across his saddle pommel, and Donoghue following suit, I, for my part, slackening my revolver in the holster.

Nearer they came, bending forward their heads to the wind of their passage and the dust drifting behind them in two spiral clouds. Then I saw that one was a white man with a great, fluttering beard; the other an Indian, or half-breed. And just at the moment that I recognised the bearded man Apache Kid cried out: "Why! It's the proprietor of the Half-Way-to-Kettle House."

"What in hell do he want up here?" said Donoghue. "Lead?"

They came down on us in the approved western fashion, with a swirl and a rush, stopping short with a jerk and the horses' sides going like bellows.

"Good day, gentlemen," said the man of the beard. "Are you gentlemen aware that there's no less than seven gentlemen followin' you up, thirstin' for your money or your life-blood or something?"

"Well, sir," said Apache Kid, "it does not surprise me to hear of it."

"So," said the shaggy-bearded, whose name, by the way, was J. D. Pinkerton, for all who passed by to read above his hostel—"Half-Way-Rest Hotel—Prop.: J. D. Pinkerton," so ran the legend there.

"So," he repeated again, and again and took the tangle from his beard. "Well, I reckon from what I saw of two of you gentlemen already that you don't jest need to be spoon-fed and put in your little cot at by-by time, but—well, you see my daughter—she has a way o' scarin' me when she puts it on. And she says: 'Dad,' she says, 'if you don't go and warn them, their blood will be on your head should anything happen to them.' Now, I don't want no blood on my head, gentlemen. And then she says: 'Well, if you don't go, I 'll jest have to go myself with Charlie—this is Charlie—Charlie, gentlemen—a smart boy, a good boy, great hand at tracking stolen stock and the like employ. An old prospector had seen you, and by good luck he stopped us, and by better luck I was polite for once and listened to his chin-chin, and so we heard where you had got off the waggon road. After that it was all child's play to Charlie here."

"We owe you our thanks, sir," said Apache, and then the moodiness went from his face, and he said in a cheerful tone: "But they may never find out what way we 've gone. You see it was a mere chance, your meeting that prospector and being told of the point at which we left the road."

"That's so," said Mr. Pinkerton: "but still there's chances, you know."

"Oh, yes," said Apache Kid, and again: "We owe you our thanks," said he.

"Not you, not you!" said Mr. Pinkerton.

"But what sort of outfit is this that you have come to post us up about?"

"Why, just as dirty a set of greazers as ever stole stock, and they must sit there talkin' away about you in the dining-room after they had told my daughter they was through with their dinner; and my cook heard 'em from his pantry—told my lass—she told me—I'm tellin' you—there you have the whole thing,—how they 're to dog you up and wait till you get to your Lost Cabin. And now we 're here. But I want to let you know—for I 'm a proud man and would n't like any suspicions, though they might be nat'ral enough for you to harbour—want just to let you know that as for what you 're after—this yere Lost Cabin,—I don't give that for it," and he snapped his fingers. "I 've got all a rational man wants. But we 'll chip in with you, if you think of waiting on a bit to see if you 're followed."

"Sir," said Apache Kid, "I have to thank you again. I have to thank you, and your daughter through you, and your cook; but I must beg of you to get back."

"Pshaw!" cried Pinkerton. "What's that for?"

"Well—this may be a bloody business, sir, if we are followed, and it would be the saddest thing imaginable——" he broke off and asked abruptly:

"Pardon the question, sir, but is Mrs. Pinkerton alive?"

"My good wife is in her resting grave in Old Kentucky," said Pinkerton in a new voice.

"That settles it, sir," said Apache Kid. "It would be a sad thing to think of that fine girl down at the Half-Way House as an orphan."

Pinkerton frowned.

"When you put it that way," said he, "you take all the fight out of J.D."

"Then I must even beg you to be gone, sir, before there is any chance of pursuit by these men," said Apache Kid. "If we come back alive, we may all call and thank you again, and Miss Pinkerton too. I beg of you to go and take care of meeting them on the way."

"Well, boys, luck to you all, then," and round he wheeled and away with a swirl of leather while the half-breed laid the quirt, that swung at his wrist, to his lean pony's flanks and, with a nod to us, shot after Mr. Pinkerton.

We watched them till they had almost crested the rise and there suddenly they stopped, wheeled, and next moment had dismounted.

"What's wrong?" said Donoghue. "Something wrong there."

"It looks as if the chance Pinkerton spoke of was against us after all," said Apache Kid, quietly.

We were not left long in doubt, for a puff of smoke rose near the backbone of the rise and a flash of a rifle and then seven mounted men swept down on these two.

We saw the half-breed tug at his horse's head; saw the brute sink down to its knees, saw the half-breed fling himself on his belly behind it, and then his rifle flashed.

The seven riders spread out as they charged down on the two and at the flash of the rifle we saw one of them fall from the saddle and his horse rear and wheel, then spin round and dash madly across the valley, dragging the fallen rider by a stirrup for quite a way, with a hideous bumping and rebounding.

But it was on the two dismounted men on the hill-front that my attention was concentrated, and round them the remaining six of their assailants were now circling.

"Come on!" cried Apache Kid.

He dropped the reins of our pack-horse to the ground and remarked: "She 'll not go far with the rein like that and the pack on her."

Next moment we three were tituping along the valley in the direction of the two held-up men.

Apache Kid was a little ahead of me, Donoghue a length behind, but Donoghue's mount would not suffer us to go in that order long. With a snort it bore Donoghue abreast of me and I clapped my heels to the flanks of my beast. Next moment we were all in line, with the wind whistling in our ears. The six men who seemed to be parleying with Pinkerton and the half-breed, suddenly catching sight of us in our charge, I suppose, wheeled about and went at a wild gallop, with dirt flying from their horses' hoofs, slanting across the hill.

And then I had an exhibition of Donoghue's madness.

He cried out an oath, the most terrible I ever heard, and, "Come on, boys," he shouted to us.

"Yes, let's settle it to-day," came Apache's voice.

"Right now!" cried Donoghue, and away we went after the fugitives.

I saw the reason for this action at once; for to put an end to these men now would be the only sure way to make certain of an undisputed tenancy of the Lost Cabin. Indeed, their very flight in itself was enough to suggest not so much that they were afraid of us (for Pinkerton had given them the name of fearless scoundrels) as that they did not want an encounter yet—that their time had not yet come. But for Pinkerton, they might have followed up quietly the whole way to our goal. Thanks to him, we knew of them following. This, though not their time to fight, was our time.

Suddenly I saw Donoghue, who was ahead, rear his horse clean back on to its haunches and next moment he was down on a knee beside it, and, just as I came level with him, his rifle spoke and in a voice scarcely human he cried, "Got 'im! Got 'im! The son of a dog!"

And sure enough, there was a riderless horse among the six and a man all asprawl in the sunshine before us.

But at that the flying men wheeled together and all five of them were on their feet before Apache Kid and I could draw rein. I heard a rifle snap again behind me, whether Apache Kid's or Donoghue's I did not know, and then, thought I, "If I stop here, I 'm done for; I 've got to keep going."

The same thought must have been in Apache Kid's mind for I heard the quick patter of his pony as it came level with me. He passed me and he and I—I now a length behind him—came level with the five men clustered there behind their horses and the horse of the fallen man, Apache crying to me:

"Try a flying shot at them."

He fired at that, and a yell rose in the group and I saw one man fall and then I up with my revolver and let fly at one of the fellows who was looking at me along his gun-barrel.

And just at that moment it struck me, in the midst of all the fluttering excitement, that they let Apache Kid go by without a shot. But right on my shot my horse went down—his foot in a badger hole—and though afterwards I found that I had slain the horse that the fellow who was aiming at me was using as a bastion, I knew nothing of that then—for I smashed forward on my head.

The last thing I heard was the snort of pain that my horse gave, and the first thing, when I awakened, that I was aware of was that I was lying on my back looking up at the glaring sky, a great throbbing going on in my head.

My hands were tied together behind my back and my ankles also trussed up in a similar manner.

I was in the wrong camp. I had fallen somehow into the hands of our enemies.

CHAPTER XI

How It Was Dark in the Sunlight

ou will hear persons speak of one who has been in a trance or swoon as "returning to consciousness." I remember once of hearing someone objecting to the phrase, saying that a person was either conscious or unconscious, and to speak of one returning to consciousness as though there was a middle state, he argued, was erroneous; but I discovered for myself, that day, the full meaning of the phrase; for first it was a sound that I heard, a sound as of rustling wings, and this presently changed and became the sound of whispering as of a whole chamber full of furtive, stealthy persons talking under the breath. Then I was aware of the sunlight in my face and at the same moment the number of voices dwindled and the power of them increased. I opened my eyes and found myself lying in a mighty uncomfortable and strained position upon a slab of rock, so hot with the sun that my hands, which were behind my back and under me as I lay, were absolutely scorched. I made to withdraw them and then found they were fast tied together.

As for the voices I heard, they were only two in number, I think.

"He's all right; I see his eyes flickerin'," said one, and there, bending over me, was a face as full of evil as ever I desired to see.

I have seen a cast of an eye that almost seemed to give a certain quaint charm to a face; but the cast in these eyes that scrutinised me now was of the most diabolic.

My head was beating and thumping like a shipyard with all its riveters, and the pain between my eyes was well-nigh unbearable.

With puckering eyebrows I scrutinised my captor, and as I did so he cried out: "Here you are now, Farrell."

"Right!" came a voice from behind, and the man called Farrell shuffled down on us, a big-boned, heavy-browed man with a three days' stubble on his face which was of a blue colour around the upper lip and on the jaws—and over his right cheek-bone there was an ugly scar of a dirty white showing there amidst the sun-tan.

I thought at first it was a whip he carried in his hand, but suddenly what I took for the thong of the whip wriggled as of its own accord, and addressing himself to it, he said: "None o' your wrigglin', Mr. Rattler, or I 'll give you one flick that 'll crack your backbone."

Then I saw that what he carried was a stick, with a short string at the end of it and in the end of that string was a noose, taut around a rattlesnake's tail, just above the knob of the rattle.

"See what I've bin fishin' for you?" he said, and laughed in an ugly way.

He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the shoulders and drew me to a sitting posture, so that I saw where we were—on a rock-strewn ledge of some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had seen on our left from the valley. But owing to the rise of the ledge toward the front I could not see the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs, blue and white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top. And lying on their bellies at the verge of the shelf on which we were, I then saw two other men, with their rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing down intently on the valley.

I had no thought then as to how we came there, where my friends were, nor for any other matter save my own present peril. For before I was well aware, and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too dazed to make any protest, I was flung down upon my face in the sand, and then, "Give me a hand here, you two," said Farrell, and the scouts turned and rose, and, one of them clutching me by the back of the neck and thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt a weight gradually crushing upon my back and legs.

"That's him!" said one, and then my neck was freed.

The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing else than a great, flat slab of rock. I thought, though it had been lowered gently enough on me, that the heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush my bones. Certainly to move below the waist was quite out of the question.

All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away fashion, my head hammering and my tongue parched in my mouth like a piece of dry wood. But when these four laughed brutally among themselves and began a series of remarks such as: "See and don't give it an inch too short," or, "See that the string's taut or we 'll not get what we want," I came more to my senses and wondered what was to befall me. Then, for the first time, I was addressed directly by Farrell.

"Well, kid," he said, "you 're in a tight corner—you hear me?

"I hear you," said I, speaking with difficulty, so dry was my throat.

"Well," said he, "you can get out of this fix right off by telling us where the Lost Cabin Mine lies. And that's business right off, with no delay."

"I can never do that," said I, "for I don't know myself."

There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and then: "All right," snapped the voice. "Fact is, we have n't much inclination to loiter here. You 've taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it is—shove it in," he broke off.

But the last words were not for me.

One of the others stepped before me, his foot grazing my head, and I heard him say, "There?"

"No," said another. "That's over close—yes, there. That's the spot."

And then they all stepped back from me, and I, lying with my chin in the dust, saw what the man had been about; for directly before me was the point of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake noosed by the tail to it.

No sooner had the man who fixed it in leaped back (and he did so very smartly, while the others laughed at him and caused him to rip out a hideous oath) than the reptile coiled fiercely up the stick; but the hand was gone from the end of it, and down it slithered again.

Then it saw me with its beady eyes, rattled fiercely, again coiled, and—I closed my eyes and drew in my head to the shoulders and wriggled as far to the side as I could.

But something smote me on the chin. I felt my heart in my throat, and thought I to myself, "I am a dead man now"; but before I opened my eyes again I heard another rattle, opened my eyes in quick horror, saw the second leap of the snake toward me, and shrivelled backward again.

"Close shave!" cried one of my tormentors; but this time, after the tap on my chin I felt something moist trickle down upon the point of it, and I thought me that I was close enough to get the poison that it spat, but not close enough to allow of its fangs reaching me.

"But if this stuff should reach my eye it might be fatal," thought I, heedless now of headache or weariness, or anything but the terrible present. My mouth, too, I kept tight closed, as you may guess.

"Will you tell us now, kid?" cried Farrell. "Will you spit it out now?"

Thought I to myself: "I must die now for certain. I trust that even if I knew, I would not reveal this that they ask. But assuredly, to reveal it or to keep it secret is not mine to choose. I must even die."

It came into my head that soon the thin string would, at one of these leaps, cut clean through the snake's tail, and then— Then it leapt again.

"I do not know!" cried I. "I cannot tell you!"

"Then you can just lie there!" snapped one of the four, and went back to his place of outlook on the ledge. And the other, who had been watching the valley, came and stood by my shoulder, irritating the snake, by his presence, to fresh efforts.

"You 're a fool," he said. "Your partners have deserted you. They 're off. There ain't hide nor hair to be seen of them. If they 'd leave you in a lurch like this, you 're a fool not to let us know the location. We 'll follow 'em up again and take vengeance on 'em for you—see?"

And just then, as though to refute his remarks as to the heedlessness of my partners, I heard a faint snap of a rifle, and the man with the squint, who had taken his turn on guard at the place this fellow had vacated, turned round and said he: "Boys, O boys, I 'm hit!"

Something in the tone of his voice made me glance at him sharply, but with half an eye for the snake, as you may be sure, and my ears alert for its warning rattle. I was never more alert in my life than then, and, strange though it may seem, the predominating thought in my mind was, "How sad, how very sad to leave this world, never to see the rich, rich blue of that sky again!"

But, as I say, the tone of the man's voice breaking in on my thoughts and terrors was peculiar, and, with my head still as low in my shoulders as I could manage to hold it, I laid my cheek to the hot sand and looked at him. He had turned to the man who had been standing by me, but at sound of the shot had dropped to his knees.

"Does it look bad?" said he, drawing his finger across his forehead, where was a tiny mark, and then holding out his hand and looking on it for traces of blood, raising up his face for inspection by the man beside me at the same time, and a question in his eyes, very much as you have seen a child, "Is my face clean, mother?" Yes, and with a very childish voice, too.

"It don't look bad," was the reply—and neither it did.

But when he turned away again to the other sentry who lay further off, repeating his question to him in that simple voice, I saw the back of his head. And his brains were dribbling out behind upon his neck. A terrible weakness filled my heart. I heard him say, with no oath, as one might have expected, but in a soft voice: "Dear me!" and again, "Dear me! How very dark it is getting!"

Which was an awful word to hear with the sun blazing right in his eyes out of the burnished, palpitating sky. And then he put it as a question and still with the note of astonishment: "Dear me, isn't that strange? Is n't it getting very——" and he sank forward on his face; but what followed I do not know. In the terror of my own position I kept all my faculties alert; but at the sight of that man's back and the bloody wound, and at the childish voice of him, the world seemed to wheel. A sickness came on me and I fainted away.

CHAPTER XII

I Am Held as a Hostage

t must have been more of a momentary squeamishness, that, rather than a fainting fit, I think; for I heard myself moan twice, was conscious of the moaning. There seemed something pressing on my heart and forcing me to gasp for breath and relieve the tension on it. A sweat broke on me then, and after that I felt myself, as it were, swinging through space, and with another gasp and a great gulp of air the world spun back again and there I lay, the cold sweat standing on my brow, and the rattlesnake coiling afresh.

"Why! What's this move now?" I heard one of my captors cry. "What's he doin' with his rifle carried and waggling his hand in the air that ways?"

"Don't you know what that is? That's the peace sign—flat of the hand held up, palm open and pushed forward wi' that there kind o' to-and-fro movement."

"Peace sign be durned! If I was sure we could get the information out of this here kid laying behind us, I'd put a bullet through his skull and let out his brains—front of his face or back of his neck like Cockeye there—all the same to me."

"Reckon you 'd be safer not to do that."

"Think the kid here won't speak, then?"

"No; I don't think he'll speak. I've just been figurin' that neither Apache Kid nor Larry might tell him. He's liable to be givin' you straight goods and no lie when he says he don't know the location."

"Pity we did n't drop Apache Kid's hoss that time they charged down. We could ha' got him, instead, that way. Reckon we need n't have been so scared o' killin' Apache Kid himself without gettin' the news. But say! This won't do. I don't like the looks of this thing. They all are getting a move on 'em and edgin' up this way, the whole three of 'em."

"Three of them," thought I, with my eye on the rattler. "That's one short. I wonder who has been killed or disabled."

"Say! Shout to him to stop. Tell him if he wants to pow-wow with us to come up alone."

"Yes, and leave his rifle down. You do the talkin' now, Farrell."

"Right," said Farrell, and then he shouted, "Well, what do you want?"

"I want to come up and talk this out with you," hailed a voice that I recognised for Apache Kid's.

"He can't come up here," said Farrell. "We don't want 'em to know that we 're only a threesome now, same as 'em."

"I 'll tell you what to do," said one of them, with the voice of a man who has been visited by a sudden inspiration.

"Stop there a minute!" cried Farrell, and then turning to the speaker he said sharply: "Spit it out then, Pete; what's your notion?"

"Loosen the kid there," said Pete, "and set him on the front here and hold your gat to his head while we hear what they 've got to palaver."

"Hum!" mused Farrell. "Kind o' hostage notion? Heh? Well, there's something in that," and he stood upright fearlessly and held his hand aloft, the palm facing away to those in the valley.

"You can come up the length o' that there white rock," he cried, and then to his companions: "See! Lend a hand here."

The snake had coiled again. I cannot guess how often it had sprung at me; I do not know. All that I know is that at every fresh rattle I crouched my head into my shoulders and gasped to myself the one word "God"; for we all, I believe, no matter what manner of lives we have led, at the last moment give a cry to the Unknown, in our hearts, if not with our lips. And every leap of the snake I was prepared to find the one that was to make an end of my acquaintance with the sunlight and with the sweet airs that blow about the world.

But that torment was over now, for with one swift drop of his rifle-butt Farrell cut the head clean from the hideous long body, and then lent the other two men a hand to roll the great stone from off my aching limbs.

"Stand up, you son of a whelp," he said, and spurned me with his boot.

After the terror of the snake there seemed little now that I need heed.

"It's easier said than done!" I cried, angry at his words. "I 'm like a block of stone from my waist down."

"I guess that's right. He must be feeling that way," said one of the others, with a touch of commiseration in his voice.

That was the first sign of any heart that I had discovered in the ruffians.

"Oh, you guess it's right, do you, Dan?" sneered Farrell. "Well, lend a hand and haul him here to the front of this ledge."

Next moment it was as if a thousand red-hot needles were being run into my stiff, trailing legs, for they caught me up by my arms and drew me like a sack to the front of the cliff.

And then I saw the whole plateau below us. Apache Kid was half-way up the rise, among the long wire-grass at the verge of the cliffs; further down, leaning upon a rock, his shoulders and head visible, was Larry Donoghue. The third man that had been spoken of I could not see and searched the hillside in vain for; but when Farrell stood upright beside me and waved his hand I saw the half-breed, Charlie, who had come after us with Mr. Pinkerton, rise behind a flat rock and lounge across it, looking up on us with his broad sombrero pushed back on his head.

Mr. Pinkerton, I supposed, had been prevailed upon to return out of our dispute, lest his life might be the forfeit for his interest in our behalf. But just as that explanation for his non-appearance had satisfied me I saw, half across the plain, something moving slowly—a pack of horses it seemed, and so clear was the air of that late afternoon that I recognised the form of the mounted man who guarded them, could almost, with a lengthy and concentrated survey, descry his great beard like a bib upon his breast.

"Well," said Farrell, "what do you want to pow-wow about? You see who we got here?"

"I see," said Apache Kid, putting a foot upon the white stone. "How are you, Francis?"

"He 's all right," said Farrell. "But he 's a kind o' prisoner o' war just now."

"Oh!" said Apache Kid. "Well, I suppose if we want to get him back we 'll have to buy him back?"

"That's what!" said Farrell, emphatically.

"Well," said Apache Kid, "we are going on,—my friends and I,—and, as we have your horses now as well as our own, we thought we might perhaps be able to trade you them back for the lad."

And here, as you will be wondering how the horses had changed hands, I must tell you what I had afterwards explained to me.

It seems that no sooner did I fall from my horse, at the time it put its foot in the badger hole (Apache Kid having gone past wildly, bringing down one man and one horse with his two running shots), than the four men, seeing my predicament, swung to their horses' backs, opened out, and two of them passing, one on either side of me, swung from their saddles and yanked me up by my arms.

Then full tilt they charged down the centre of the plain, intending evidently to make the rising knoll, of which I spoke, in the valley's centre. And with me lying across Farrell's saddle, they doubtless thought they had the key to the Lost Cabin. But Apache Kid wheeled his horse below, and Donoghue mounted again above, and from the hill-crest the half-breed spurred down, and so these three set after us, converging on each other as they came.

But Farrell's mount was falling behind with the burden of my extra weight, and they wheeled sharp to left and put their horses directly to the cliff-front. These ponies can do marvels in climbing, but they were over-jaded, having been very hard ridden, and right on the slope it was evident that not only the half-breed, but Larry next, and Apache Kid following, were coming within effect range. It was Farrell who proposed their move then, considering that with me in their hands half the battle was won if only they had something in the way of a fort from which to stave off attack. So they flung off there, and, letting their horses go, up they came, dragging me along. But at the foot of the hill the others stopped, seeing how they had all the odds against them then and were so fully exposed. For it had not yet occurred to them, as indeed was very natural it should not, that the last thing these men wanted to do was to fire upon them.

The intention of this little company of cut-throats had been to follow up softly in the rear, as near as possible without being seen by us, until we came to our journey's end. What they had planned for us then it is, perhaps, needless to so much as hint. Little did they think that between them and us was Mr. Pinkerton, carrying the news of their possible pursuit. But when they saw him riding out of that plain, with the half-breed, the whole reason for his presence there was guessed by them, especially when they saw us halted within sight, the whole three of us turned round as though already watching for their approach. It was, undoubtedly, this upsetting of their plans that made them so short-tempered and snappish with one another.

But by now I think even Farrell was convinced that I was useless to them in so far as the giving of information went. And so I was now to be used as a hostage,—a sort of living breastwork before them,—as though they were to say: "See! if you fire, you kill your partner!"

Farrell laughed loud at Apache Kid's suggestion.

"Why," said he, "you talk as if you held the trumps; but you don't. And for why? Why, because we do." And he spat in the sand and put a hand on either hip. "We don't need our horses, my mates and me. We ain't in any hurry, and can set here as long as you like,—aye, or go away when we like, for that matter. What we want is that Lost Cabin Mine, and if you don't tell us where it is, why, then we'll let the wind out of your partner here."

"And where do we come in?" yelled Donoghue, rearing up beside his bush.

"Oh!" said Farrell, insolently, "are you talking, too? Well, you don't come in at all. There you are! That's something for you to consider!"

Donoghue broke out in a roar of laughter.

"Oh," he said, "the lad is nothing to us. You can do what you like with him."

Apache Kid turned upon him with a glance as of astonishment, and then again to Farrell he said:

"I 'll give you the offer we came up with, and you and your two mates can consider it."

"Three mates, you mean," snapped Farrell.

"Na! Na!" cried Donoghue. "When I look along a rifle I never err."

"Oh, it was you did it?" cried Farrell. "Well, what's your offer?"

"This is our offer," said Apache Kid. "You can come along with us. We are three, and so are you, and we can split the Lost Cabin between us."

Farrell turned to his two companions and looked a question at them.

"I guess you 'd better take that," said the man Dan, "for I reckon even if we did suggest killing this kid, it would n't bring the facts out of 'em."

"And anyhow," said the other, him they called Pete, speaking low, but yet I caught the drift of his words, "we can easy enough fix them all when we get there."

"Come on!" said Apache Kid. "How does our offer strike you? Are you aware that every hour we delay there may be others getting closer to the Lost Cabin Mine?"

"Take the offer, man. Take the offer," said Pete and Dan.

"All right," cried Farrell. "But mind, we're bad men, and this will have to be run on the square."

Donoghue laughed, and for a moment, as I looked at him, I saw an evil glitter in his eye. "Oh, yes!" he ejaculated, "we 're all bad men here."

My three captors made no delay; but as for their fallen friend, they paid no heed to him. Only Farrell took the cartridges from his belt and ran his hands through the pockets, which contained a knife, a specimen of ore, two five-dollar bills, and a fifty-cent piece.

For my part, I had the utmost difficulty in getting to my legs, and still more in descending the face of the precipice. I noticed, too, that Farrell kept close by my side, as though he thought still that it was as well to have me between Apache Kid and himself.

Just as we came down the rise, there was Mr. Pinkerton leading the horses along toward us.

"Say!" cried Farrell. "What about him?" And he pointed to Pinkerton.

"O!" said Apache Kid. "He wants nothing to do with this expedition whatever."

Then suddenly Farrell's face lighted with a new thought. "And he goes down to the camps and blabs the whole thing, eh?"

"I believe he won't say a word about it,—neither he nor the half-breed here."

Farrell seemed scarcely convinced, and we went down in silence a little way. Then suddenly he said: "I think you 've got some game on. Say! do you swear you are on the square with us?"

Apache Kid frowned on him and, "I give you my word of honour," said he; and so we came ploughing through the loose soil and sand into the sun-dried grass, and thence on to the level below, where Mr. Pinkerton, now aided by his half-breed follower who had gone on down-hill and mounted his horse, was bunching the horses together. And over all was the sky with the daylight fading in it.

CHAPTER XIII

In Which Apache Kid Behaves in His Wonted Way

hat with the pains upon my forehead, caused by the blow I had come by when my unfortunate horse put his foot in that unchancy burrow and sent me flying; what with that pain and the ache of my legs, and something else that was not a pain, but worse than a pain, I had scarcely the heart, I fear, to give Mr. Pinkerton as kindly a smile of welcome as he had in store for me on seeing me again alive.

That other thing I speak of as worse than a pain was a horrible nervousness with which my hour of torture with the snake had endowed me. Yes, it can only have lasted about an hour, I think, that hideous experience, though then it seemed an eternity. But so had it affected me that when we gathered together on the plateau I paid little heed to the council of my companions,—had lost interest in their affairs. Instead, I kept jerking my head into my shoulders, and caught myself even gasping suddenly and dodging a snake that leaped at me in the air,—a snake that, even as I sought to evade, I knew was not there at all,—a mere creature of my harassed and frayed nerves. Mere fancy I knew it to be, but still I must needs dodge it and blurt out a gasp of terror again and again.

It was while I was still busied on this absurd performance,—still standing in the talking group and heedless of the talking,—that I saw Apache Kid knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in contempt; and that caused me to pull myself together and square myself, as a soldier may do under the eye of an officer. When I did so, I remember that I seemed to go to the other extreme; in my attempt to master this nervousness, I caught myself grinning.

It was then that Mr. Pinkerton, who was holding back a little way, looking on, but not party to our doings, remarked to me, as he caught my eye again:

"I took a long shot at that horse of yours, sir, and put it out of its agony when it got its leg broke; but things have been levelling up since then, and I think men and horses are just on a par again—one horse, one man."

I laughed hilariously at this saying, as though it were something hugely amusing. But between you and me, I do not think that Mr. Pinkerton spoke it from his own kind heart but spoke thus more as some sensitive men wear a cloak of pride or shyness or a false bombast to protect them from other men less finely tuned. It was, I believe, only to show a hard front before these new partners of ours, as villainous a trio as you ever clapped eyes on, that he spoke in this light way of the doings of death; because at my laugh I saw him frown as though he regretted that I could enjoy his bitter jest so fully.

In a dazed way I saw the party mounting; but so great difficulty had I in gaining the saddle of a horse—whose horse I do not know; I think it was the mount of the man called Cockeye—that Donoghue came to my side and held the stirrup and gave me a "leg up" and, "Are you scared, or what?" he said in my ear, low and angry and with something of contempt. "You 've made a hash of to-day for us as it is, with goin' and gettin' that accident. Are you scared o' them fellers?"

"Scared!" said I. "Man! I 've been tortured."

"Been what?" said he, and he got on to that vicious mount of his with such a viciousness himself, in his pull of the rein and lunge of his spurs, that I saw Mr. Pinkerton give him a look as who should say: "He's a devil of a man, that."

But Donoghue crowded his beast to my side and asked me what I meant by my remark of being tortured, and I told him the whole matter of it as we rode across the plateau, all lit now with the thin last glow of day.

He listened with his head to one side and his loose jaw tightening and thrusting out.

"I take back what I said to you," said he. "I take it back right now; and as for hindering our journey—why that could n't be helped. Better that we met these fellows right here, face to face, instead of goin' on unknowing and getting shot by 'em round the fire to-morrow night or plugged through the windows of the Lost Cabin three nights hence."