Fitzpatrick pulled himself down from the rage heights and made shift to answer as a man.
"There"s a bridle trail down the canyon to Jack"s Cabin; and from that on you hit the railroad."
"And the distance to Jack"s Cabin?"
"Twenty-five miles, good and strong, by the canyon crookings; but only about half of it is bad going."
"Is there anybody in your camp who knows the trail?"
"Yes. d.i.c.k Carson, the water-boy."
"Good. We"ll go back with you, and you"ll let me have the boy and two of your freshest horses."
"You"ll not be riding that trail in the dark, Mr. Ballard! It"s a fright, even in daylight."
"That"s my affair," said the engineer, curtly. "If your boy can find the trail, I"ll ride it."
That settled it for the moment, and the scouting party made its way up to the headquarters to carry the news of the land-slide. Bigelow walked in silence beside his temporary host, saying nothing until after they had reached camp, and Fitzpatrick had gone to a.s.semble the horses and the guide. Then he said, quite as if it were a matter of course:
"I"m going with you, Mr. Ballard, if you don"t object."
Ballard did object, pointedly and emphatically, making the most of the night ride and the hazardous trail. When these failed to discourage the young man from Washington, the greater objection came out baldly.
"You owe it to your earlier host to ride back to Castle "Cadia from here, Mr. Bigelow. I"m going to declare war, and you can"t afford to identify yourself with me," was the way Ballard put it; but Bigelow only smiled and shook his head.
"I"m not to be shunted quite so easily," he said. "Unless you"ll say outright that I"ll be a b.u.t.t-in, I"m going with you."
"All right; if it"s the thing you want to do," Ballard yielded. "Of course, I shall be delighted to have you along." And when Fitzpatrick came with two horses he sent him back to the corral for a third.
The preparations for the night ride were soon made, and it was not until Ballard and Bigelow were making ready to mount at the door of the commissary that Fitzpatrick reappeared with the guide, a grave-faced lad who looked as if he might be years older than any guess his diminutive stature warranted. Ballard"s glance was an eye-sweep of shrewd appraisal.
"You"re not much bigger than a pint of cider, d.i.c.kie boy," he commented.
"Why don"t you take a start and grow some?"
"I"m layin" off to; when I get time. Pap allows I got to"r he won"t own to me," said the boy soberly.
"Who is your father?" The query was a mere fill-in, bridging the momentary pause while Ballard was inspecting the saddle cinchings of the horse he was to ride; and evidently the boy so regarded it.
"He"s a man," he answered briefly, adding nothing to the supposable fact.
Bigelow was up, and Ballard was putting a leg over his wiry little mount when Fitzpatrick emerged from the dimly lighted interior of the commissary bearing arms--a pair of short-barrelled repeating rifles in saddle-holsters.
"Better be slinging these under the stirrup-leathers--you and your friend, Mr. Ballard," he suggested. "All sorts of things are liable to get up in the tall hills when a man hasn"t got a gun."
This was so patently said for the benefit of the little circle of onlooking workmen that Ballard bent to the saddle-horn while Fitzpatrick was buckling the rifle-holster in place.
"What is it, Bourke?" he asked quietly.
"More of the same," returned the contractor, matching the low tone of the inquiry. "Craigmiles has got his spies in every camp, and you"re probably spotted, same as old man Macpherson used to be when he rode the work. If that cussed Mexican foreman does be getting wind of this, and shy a guess at why you"re heading for Jack"s Cabin and the railroad in the dead o" night----"
Ballard"s exclamation was impatient.
"This thing has got on your digestion, Bourke," he said, rallying the big contractor. "Up at the Elbow Canyon camp it"s a hoodoo bogey, and down here it"s the Craigmiles cow-boys. Keep your shirt on, and we"ll stop it--stop it short." Then, lowering his voice again: "Is the boy trustworthy?"
Fitzpatrick"s shrug was more French than Irish.
"He can show you the trail; and he hates the Craigmiles outfit as the devil hates holy water. His father was a "rustler," and the colonel got him sent over the road for cattle-stealing. d.i.c.k comes of pretty tough stock, but I guess he"ll do you right."
Ballard nodded, found his seat in the saddle, and gave the word.
"Pitch out, d.i.c.k," he commanded; and the small cavalcade of three skirted the circle of tents and shacks to take the westward trail in single file, the water-boy riding in advance and the Forestry man bringing up the rear.
In this order the three pa.s.sed the scene of the a.s.sisted land-slide, where the acrid fumes of the dynamite were still hanging in the air, and came upon ground new to Bigelow and practically so to Ballard. For a mile or more the ca.n.a.l line hugged the shoulders of the foothills, doubling and reversing until only the steadily rising sky-line of the Elks gave evidence of its progress westward.
As in its earlier half, the night was still and cloudless, and the stars burned with the white l.u.s.tre of the high alt.i.tudes, swinging slowly to the winding course in their huge inverted bowl of velvety blackness.
From camp to camp on the ca.n.a.l grade there was desertion absolute; and even Bigelow, with ears attuned to the alarm sounds of the wilds, had heard nothing when the cavalcade came abruptly upon Riley"s camp, the outpost of the ditch-diggers.
At Riley"s they found only the horse-watchers awake. From these they learned that the distant booming of the explosions had aroused only a few of the lightest sleepers. Ballard made inquiry pointing to the Craigmiles riders. Had any of them been seen in the vicinity of the outpost camp?
"Not since sundown," was the horse-watcher"s answer. "About an hour before candle-lightin", two of "em went ridin" along up-river, drivin" a little bunch o" cattle."
The engineer gathered rein and was about to pull his horse once more into the westward trail, when the boy guide put in his word.
"Somebody"s taggin" us, all right, if that"s what you"re aimin" to find out," he said, quite coolly.
Ballard started. "What"s that?" he demanded. "How do you know?"
"Been listenin"--when you-all didn"t make so much noise that I couldn"t," was the calm rejoinder. "There"s two of "em, and they struck in just after we pa.s.sed the dynamite heave-down."
Ballard bent his head and listened. "I don"t hear anything," he objected.
"Nach.e.l.ly," said the boy. "They-all ain"t sech tenderfoots as to keep on comin" when we"ve stopped. Want to dodge "em?"
"There"s no question about that," was the mandatory reply.
The sober-faced lad took a leaf out of the book of the past--his own or his cattle-stealing father"s.
"We got to stampede your stock a few lines, Pete," he said, shortly, to the horse-watcher who had answered Ballard"s inquiry. "Get up and pull your picket-pins."
"Is that right, Mr. Ballard?" asked the man.
"It is if d.i.c.k says so. I"ll back his orders."
The boy gave the orders tersely after the horse-guard had risen and kicked his two companions awake. The night herdsmen were to pick and saddle their own mounts, and to pull the picket-pins for the grazing mule drove. While this was doing, the small plotter vouchsafed the necessary word of explanation to Ballard and Bigelow.
"We ride into the bunch and stampede it, headin" it along the trail the way we"re goin". After we"ve done made noise enough and tracks enough, and gone far enough to make them fellers lose the sound of us that they"ve been follerin", we cut out of the crowd and make our little _pasear_ down canyon, and the herd-riders can chase out and round up their stock again: see?"
Ballard made the sign of acquiescence; and presently the thing was done substantially as the boy had planned. The grazing mules, startled by the sudden dash of the three mounted broncos among them, and helped along by a few judicious quirt blows, broke and ran in frightened panic, carrying the three riders in the thick of the rout.