"Fellow coming back from the house already," he presently added.
"Got the wrong address again. They"ll be happening on the right one pretty soon."
"Soon as they"re amply satisfied we ain"t under the beds, or hid between the covers of some of them magazines. Blamed if they ain"t lit a lamp."
Gordon gave a sudden exclamation of dismay. A Mexican had appeared at the back door of the cottage with a tin box in his hand.
"I"m the blamedest idiot out of an asylum," he cried bitterly. "All the proofs of my claim are in that box. You know I brought it back from Santa Fe with me."
"Ain"t that too bad?"
Gordon rose, the lines of his mouth set fast and hard.
"I"m going down after it. If I lose those papers, the whole game"s spoilt for me. I"ve got to have them, and I"m going to."
"Don"t be a goat. How can you take it from a whole company of them?"
"I"ll watch my chance. It may be the fellow will hide it somewhere till he wants it again."
"I"m going, too, then."
"See here, Steve. Be sensible. If we both go down, it"s a sure thing they will stumble on us."
"Too late, anyhow. They"re coming up after us."
"So much the better. We"ll cut across to the left, slip down, and take them in the rear. Likely as not we"ll find it there."
"All right. Whatever you say, d.i.c.k."
They slipped away into the semi-darkness, taking advantage of every bit of cover they could find. Not until they were a long stone"s throw from the trail did the young miner begin the descent.
Occasionally they could hear voices over to the right as they silently slipped down. It was no easy thing to negotiate that stiff mountainside in the darkness, where a slip would have sent one of them rolling down into the sharp rock-slide beneath. Presently they came to a rockrim, a sheer descent of twenty-five feet down the perpendicular face of a cliff.
They followed the ledge to the left, hoping to find a trough through which they might discover a way down. But in this they were disappointed.
"We"ll have to go back. There"s a place we pa.s.sed where perhaps it may be done. We"ve got to try it, anyhow," said Gordon, in desperation.
Retracing their steps, they came to the point d.i.c.k had meant. It looked bad enough, in all conscience, but from the rocks there jutted halfway down a dwarf oak that had found rooting in a narrow cleft.
The young man worked his body over the edge, secured a foothold in some tiny scarp that broke the smoothness of the face, and groped, with one hand and then the other, for some hold that would do to brace his weight. He found one, lowered himself gingerly, and tested another foothold in a little bunch of dry moss.
"All right. My rifle, Steve."
It was handed down. At that precise moment there came to them the sound of approaching voices.
"Your gun, Steve! Quick. Now, then, over you come. That"s right--no, the other hand--your foot goes there--easy, now."
They stood together on a three-inch ledge, their heels projecting over s.p.a.ce. Nor had they reached this precarious safety any too soon, for already their pursuers were pa.s.sing along the rim above.
One of them stopped on the edge, scarce eight feet above them.
"They must have come this way," he said to a companion. "But I expect they"re hitting the trail about a mile from here."
"_Si, Pablo_. Can you feed me a cigareet?" the other asked.
The men below, scarce daring to breathe, waited, while the matches glimmered and the cigarettes puffed to a glow. Every instant they antic.i.p.ated discovery; and they were in such a position that, if it came, neither of them could use his weapons. For they were cramped against the wall with their rifles by their sides, so bound by the situation that to have lifted them to aim would have been impossible.
"The American--he has escaped us this time," one of them said as they moved off.
"_Maldito_, the devil has given him wings to fly away," replied Pablo.
After the sound of their footsteps had died, Gordon resumed his descent.
He reached the stunted oak in safety, and was again joined by his friend.
"Looks like we"re caught here, Steve. There ain"t a sign of a foothold below," the younger man whispered.
"Mebbe the branches of that tree will bend over."
"We"ll have to try it, anyhow. If it breaks with me, I"ll get to the bottom, just the same. Here goes."
Catching hold of the branches, he swung down and groped with his feet for a resting-place.
"Nothing doing, Steve."
"What blamed luck!"
"Hold on! Here"s a cleft, away over to the right. Let me get a hold on that gun to steady me. That"s all right. The rest"s easy. I"ll give you a hand across--that"s right. Now we"re there."
At the very foot of the cliff an unexplainable accident occurred. d.i.c.k"s rifle went off with noise enough to wake the seven sleepers.
"Come on, Steve. We got to get out of here," he called to his partner, and began to run down the hill toward their cabin.
He covered ground so fast that the other could not keep up with him.
From above there came the crack of a rifle, then another and another, as the men on the ridge sighted their prey. A spatter of bullets threw up the dirt around them. d.i.c.k felt a red-hot flame sting his leg, but, though he had been hit, to his surprise he was not checked.
Topping the brow of a little rise, he caught sight of the cabin, and, to his consternation, saw that smoke was pouring from the door and that within it was alight with flames.
"The beggars have set fire to it," he cried aloud.
So far as he could see, four men had been left below. They did not at first catch sight of him as he dodged forward in the shadows of the alders at the foot of the hill. Nor did they see him even when he stopped among the rocks at the rear, for their eyes were on Davis and their attention focused upon him.
He had come puffing to the brow of the hillock Gordon had already pa.s.sed, when a shout from the ridge apprised those below of his presence. Cut off above and below, there was nothing left for Steve but a retreat down the road. He could not possibly advance in the face of four rifles, and he knew, too, that the best aid he could offer his friend was to deflect the attention of the watchers from him.
He fell back promptly, running from boulder to boulder in his retreat, pursued cautiously by the enemy. His ruse would have succeeded admirably, so far as d.i.c.k was concerned, except for that young man himself. He could not sit quiet and see his friend the focus of the fire.
Wherefore, it happened that the attackers of Davis were halted momentarily by a disconcerting fusillade from the rear. The "American devil" had come out into the open, and was dropping lead among them.
At this juncture a rider galloped into view from the river gorge along which wound the road. He pulled his jaded horse to a halt beside the old miner and leaped to the ground.