Stopping suddenly I crouched close to the trunk of a spruce, under the drooping boughs. In the slight hollow there, I waited. Had I heard something? Or were my senses deceiving me?
A faint stir, and then a low whisper, only a few feet away… a dozen feet?
Possibly less.
“He can’t have come this far. He’s a Boston man, not no woodsman!” “Mebbe, but he surely done vanished into nothin’ yonder, just when we had him.” “I tell you we’ve come too far. He’s back yonder. If we let him get away, Rafe will kill us all. I tell you, that man skeers me!” “So? You’ve et better, lived better, had more’n ever since you been with him. He scares other folks, too, and rightly. He’d kill you soon as look at you.” My knife was in my hand. If there was to be close work, I wanted to be ready for it, and there’s nothing better for close work than a blade. Mine was two-edged, razor-sharp, andwitha weighted haft… a beautiful fighting knife made a thousand years before, in India where they had the finest steel.
I had inherited that knife. Chantrys had owned it for a good spell. It had been given to an ancestor of mine by a Frenchman named Talon who got it privateering in the Indian Ocean, given to him by a girl. A pretty one, I would guess.
My rifle was in my left hand now, the knife in my right. I waited, stifling my breathing. I was even tempted to move out and attack them. I might get one before they realized anyone was near, but the other might shout and then they’d all be upon me.
My feelings at the moment were very unscholarly.
I felt like a savage, as some of my Irish forebears must have felt at such a time.
The night was cool. Now my eyes could see their legs. Their bodies were obscured by the thick, low-hanging boughs.
“We’d better get on with it.” “What happened to the rest of them? That’s what I’d like to know. They worry me. Solomon Talley was in that crowd.” “Talley? The hell you say! Then this’ll be a tougher lot than Rafen thought.
Talley wouldn’t go to the mountains with a lot of tenderfeet.” They moved off, making only small sounds, and I waited, not wanting to lose all by too sudden a movement.
Evidently the others had escaped, or if captured, these two knew nothing of it. Well, where would they go? Down toward the creek I suspected.
Carefully, I eased from my dark shelter, and moving like a wraith along the pine-needled carpet beneath me, I worked my way upslope and along it.
First, to escape. To get clear as the others had done. Then to find them.
A mile I covered. I was sure it was that, for I was skilled at judging distance. Then I found a place where rocks from off the rim had crashed into the trees, pushing some down, causing others to lean. The dark spruce boughs offered a shield and I crept into th place and sat down, suddenly desperately tired.
The tension that had kept me up was easing off, and the sleep I had missed was demanding repayment.
Crawling back into my natural shelter, I carefully made sure I left no signs at the opening, and then with my knife gripped in one hand, my rifle beside me, I slept.
Daylight found an opening in the boughs and touched my eyes. At once I was awake, but for a moment lay perfectly still, trying to remember where I was. The spot where I had taken shelter was one of those accidentally created places of which a number may always be found in the forest. Actually, it could have sheltered our whole party, exclusive of the horses, and the only trouble lay in the fact that while I could see a bit downslope, my view toward the crest of the mountain was completely blocked.
Sitting up, I looked down the slope but could see nothing, my view obstructed by the thick stand of spruce. I took up my Ferguson and carefully wiped it dry, slipped my knife into xs scabbard, and moved to the opening.
There I waited, listening. Meanwhile, my mind searched for a solution to the situation. Lucinda knew, as did the others, that we were in the near vicinity of the treasure’s location, so even if they had moved, I did not believe they would move far.
The difficulty lay in the fact that Rafen Falvey knew this also.
For the moment I was secure and it was a temptation to remain right where I was. After all, what did I owe to any of them? Why go out there and get killed or wounded and left to die when I was not involved?
Yet I was involved. Lucinda Falvey had put her trust in me and in my companions. I did owe them a debt, and surprisingly enough, I did not want to stay out of it.
It irritated me that Rafen Falvey should take me lightly, and there was something in the man that made me bristle. I did not think of myself as good, but I was quite sure he was evil.
On cat feet, I eased through my brief shelter of spruce boughs and looked about.
nothing. Regretfully, I glanced down at my moccasins. I would have to repair or replace them, for this running over the hills was doing them no good, and moccasins had a short life in this kind of country.
Moving from tree to tree, I worked myself along and down the slope. Before me there was another, younger stand of aspen. When I moved toward the trees, I heard water running. The spruce scattered out, and in a slight hollow above where the aspen began I saw a trickle of water, not more than six or eight inches wide. Grass grew along it, and it seemed to have its beginning under the frost-shattered rocks above.
After a long look around, I lay down and drank my fill, then splashed the cold water on my face and in my eyes. Nor did I delay at the water, but stepped quickly over it and went swiftly down the hill to the edge of the aspen.
From there I had a clean sweep on the talus slope that led to the crest of the mountain, and it was bare … empty of life.
No shooting… nothing.
Often as a child in the eastern woods I had played at Indian while hunting for meat, and now I moved much as I had then. Using the best cover, I moved along and down the slope, switching back suddenly to change direction, and then again. There was cover enough.
My view of the bottom was suddenly excellent. A long meadow through which the stream ran, aspens and willow at the stream’s edge, a few cottonwoods, and some low brush I could not make out at the distance, and on the meadow a half dozen marmots were feeding.
It was a pleasure to watch them, for shy as they were, they would scuttle into theirthe holes in the rocks at the slightest movement.
Seated perfectly still, I let my eyes range over the bottom where they were, trying to see any disturbance in the grass to indicate tracks. I found nothing. The trees along the creek were few and scattered, and except for an occasional cottonwood, not large.
Where would my friends be likely to be? And where was Rafen Falvey?
Concentrating on these questions and studying the creek timber below and the scarp opposite, I scarcely noticed the piping whistle of the marmots. It touched my consciousness but made no impression until suddenly the lack of movement did. The marmots were gone!
Both hands gripped my rifle and I rolled into deeper cover and wound up lying prone, propped on my elbows, my rifle in position.
They came quickly, two men riding point, one of whom I’d seen before, and a dozen yards behind them, Rafen Falvey, then the others. It was as tough a lot of men as I’d seen. They rode on by, and then suddenly, Falvey shouted.
Instantly the two files faced in opposite directions and slipped the spurs to their horses, and each file charged into the trees. It was a move calculated to scare anybody in their path, and it worked.
One rider was charging directly toward me, and I shot him through the chest. He threw up his arms and fell, hitting the earth not twenty feet from me, dead before he reached the grass. For a wild, flashing instant I thought of grabbing his loose horse, but then I was running, charging into a thick stand of spruce, vaulting over a deadfall, and ducking among the rocks.
A passage like a hallway opened before me and I ran down it, then ducked right toward the mountainside. Behind me I could hear shots and yells and somebody was racing a horse opposite me, then on past. Behind the rocks and brush, I was unseen, but it would be a minute only until they closed in all around me.