High on the left bank itself, worming his way like a snake from point to point of concealment through the scanty brush of the mountainside, crawled Wickwire, commanding the pockets in the right bank. Closer to the river on the right and following the trail itself over shale and rock and between scattered bowlders, Whispering Smith, low on his horse"s neck, rode slowly.
It was almost too dark to catch the slight discolorations where pebbles had been disturbed on a flat surface or the calk of a horseshoe had slipped on the uneven face of a ledge, and he had halted under an uplift to wait for Wickwire on the distant left to advance, when, half a mile below him, a horseman crossing the river rode slowly past a gap in the rocks and disappeared below the next bend. He was followed in a moment by a second rider and a third. Whispering Smith knew he had not been seen. He had flushed the game, and, wheeling his horse, rode straight up the river-bank to high ground, where he could circle around widely below them. They had slipped between his line and Wickwire"s, and were doubling back, following the dry bed of the stream. It was impossible to recall Kennedy and Scott without giving an alarm, but by a quick _detour_ he could at least hold the quarry back for twenty minutes with his rifle, and in that time Kennedy and Scott could come up.
Less than half an hour of daylight remained. If the outlaws could slip down the wash and out into the Crawling Stone Valley they had every chance of getting away in the night; and if the third man should be Barney Rebstock, Whispering Smith knew that Sinclair thought only of escape. Smith alone, of their pursuers, could now intercept them, but a second hope remained: on the left, Wickwire was high enough to command every turn in the bed of the river. He might see them and could force them to cover with his rifle even at long range. Casting up the chances, Whispering Smith, riding faster over the uneven ground than anything but sheer recklessness would have prompted, hastened across the waste. His rifle lay in his hand, and he had pushed his horse to a run. A single fearful instinct crowded now upon the long strain of the week. A savage fascination burned like a fever in his veins, and he meant that they should not get away. Taking chances that would have shamed him in cooler moments, he forced his horse at the end of the long ride to within a hundred paces of the river, threw his lines, slipped like a lizard from the saddle, and, darting with incredible swiftness from rock to rock, gained the water"s edge.
From up the long shadows of the wash there came the wail of an owl.
From it he knew that Wickwire had seen them and was warning him, but he had antic.i.p.ated the warning and stood below where the hunted men must ride. He strained his eyes over the waste of rock above. For one half-hour of daylight he would have sold, in that moment, ten years of his life. What could he do if they should be able to secrete themselves until dark between him and Wickwire? Gliding under cover of huge rocks up the dry watercourse, he reached a spot where the floods had scooped a long, hollow curve out of a soft ledge in the bank, leaving a stretch of smooth sand on the bed of the stream. At the upper point great bowlders pushed out in the river. He could not inspect the curve from the spot he had gained without reckless exposure, but he must force the little daylight left to him. Climbing completely over the lower point, he advanced cautiously, and from behind a sheltering spur stepped out upon an overhanging table of rock and looked across the river-bottom. Three men had halted on the sand within the curve. Two lay on their rifles under the upper point, a hundred and twenty paces from Whispering Smith. The third man, Seagrue, less than fifty yards away, had got off his horse and was laying down his rifle, when the hoot-owl screeched again and he looked uneasily back. They had chosen for their halt a spot easily defended, and needed only darkness to make them safe, when Smith, stepping out into plain sight, threw forward his hand.
They heard his sharp call to pitch up, and the men under the point jumped. Seagrue had not yet taken his hand from his rifle. He threw it to his shoulder. As closely together as two fingers of the right hand can be struck twice in the palm of the left, two rifle-shots cracked across the wash. Two bullets pa.s.sed so close in flight they might have struck. One cut the dusty hair from Smith"s temple and slit the brim of his hat above his ear; the other struck Seagrue under the left eye, ploughed through the roof of his mouth, and, coming out below his ear, splintered the rock at his back.
The shock alone would have staggered a bullock, but Seagrue, laughing, came forward pumping his gun. Sinclair, at a hundred and twenty yards, cut instantly into the fight, and the ball from his rifle creased the alkali that crusted Whispering Smith"s unshaven cheek. As he fired he sprang to cover.
For Seagrue and Smith there was no cover: for one or both it was death in the open and Seagrue, with his rifle at his cheek, walked straight into it. Taking for a moment the fire of the three guns, Whispering Smith stood, a perfect target, outlined against the sky. They whipped the dust from his coat, tore the sleeve from his wrist, and ripped the blouse collar from his neck; but he felt no bullet shock. He saw before him only the buckle of Seagrue"s belt forty paces away, and sent bullet after bullet at the gleam of bra.s.s between the sights.
Both men were using high-pressure guns, and the deadly shock of the slugs made Seagrue twitch and stagger. The man was dying as he walked.
Smith"s hand was racing with the lever, and had a cartridge jammed, the steel would have snapped like a match.
It was beyond human endurance to support the leaden death. The little square of bra.s.s between the sights wavered. Seagrue stumbled, doubled on his knees, and staggering plunged loosely forward on the sand.
Whispering Smith threw his fire toward the bowlder behind which Sinclair and Barney Rebstock had disappeared.
Suddenly he realized that the bullets from the point were not coming his way. He was aware of a second rifle-duel above the bend. Wickwire, worming his way down the stream, had uncovered Sinclair and young Rebstock from behind. A yell between the shots rang across the wash, and the cringing figure of a man ran out toward Whispering Smith with his hands high in the air, and pitched headlong on the ground. It was the skulker, Barney Rebstock, driven out by Wickwire"s fire.
The, shooting ceased. Silence fell upon the gloom of the dusk. Then came a calling between Smith and Wickwire, and a signalling of pistol-shots for their companions. Kennedy and Bob Scott dashed down toward the river-bed on their horses. Seagrue lay on his face. Young Rebstock sat with his hands around his knees on the sand. Above him at some distance, Wickwire and Smith stood before a man who leaned against the sharp cheek of the bowlder at the point. In his hands his rifle was held across his lap just as he had dropped on his knee to fire. He had never moved after he was struck. His head, drooping a little, rested against the rock, and his hat lay on the sand; his heavy beard had sunk into his chest and he kneeled in the shadow, asleep. Scott and Kennedy knew him. In the mountains there was no double for Murray Sinclair.
When he jumped behind the point to pick Whispering Smith off the ledge he had laid himself directly under Wickwire"s fire across the wash.
The first shot of the cowboy at two hundred yards had pa.s.sed, as he knelt, through both temples.
They laid him at Seagrue"s side. The camp was made beside the dead men in the wash. "You had better not take him to Medicine Bend," said Whispering Smith, sitting late with Kennedy before the dying fire. "It would only mean that much more unpleasant talk and notoriety for her.
The inquest can be held on the Frenchman. Take him to his own ranch and telegraph the folks in Wisconsin--G.o.d knows whether they will want to hear. But his mother is there yet. But if half what Barney has told to-night is true it would be better if no one ever heard."
CHAPTER XLV
BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS
In the cottage in Boney Street, one year later, two women were waiting. It was ten o"clock at night.
"Isn"t it a shame to be disappointed like this?" complained d.i.c.ksie, pushing her hair impatiently back. "Really, poor George is worked to death. He was to be in at six o"clock, Mr. Lee said, and here it is ten, and all your beautiful dinner spoiled. Marion, are you keeping something from me? Look me in the eye. Have you heard from Gordon Smith?"
"No, d.i.c.ksie."
"Not since he left the mountains a year ago?"
"Not since he left the mountains a year ago."
d.i.c.ksie, sitting forward in her chair, bent her eyes upon the fire.
"It is so strange. I wonder where he is to-night. How he loves you, Marion! He told me everything when he said good-by. He made me promise not to tell then; but I didn"t promise to keep it forever."
Marion smiled. "A year isn"t forever, d.i.c.ksie."
"Well, it"s pretty near forever when you are in love," declared d.i.c.ksie energetically. "I know just how he felt," she went on in a quieter tone. "He felt that all the disagreeable excitement and talk we had here then bore heaviest on you. He said if he stayed in Medicine Bend the newspapers never would cease talking and people never would stop annoying you--and you know George did say they were asking to have pa.s.senger trains held here just so people could see Whispering Smith. And, Marion, think of it, he actually doesn"t know yet that George and I are married! How could we notify him without knowing where he was? And he doesn"t know that trains are running up the Crawling Stone Valley. Mercy! a year goes like an hour when you"re in love, doesn"t it? George said he _knew_ we should hear from him within six months--and George has never yet been mistaken excepting when he said I should grow to like the railroad business--and now it is a year and no news from him." d.i.c.ksie sprang from her chair. "I am going to call up Mr. Rooney Lee and just demand my husband! I think Mr. Lee handles trains shockingly every time George tries to get home like this on Sat.u.r.day nights--now don"t you? And pa.s.senger trains ought to get out of the way, anyway, when a division superintendent is trying to get home. What difference does it make to a pa.s.senger, I"d like to know, whether he is a few hours less or longer in getting to California or j.a.pan or Manila or Hongkong or Buzzard"s Gulch, provided he is safe--and you know there has not been an accident on the division for a year, Marion. There"s a step now. I"ll bet that"s George!"
The door opened and it was George.
"Oh, honey!" cried d.i.c.ksie softly, waving her arms as she stood an instant before she ran to him. "But haven"t I been a-waitin" for you!"
"Too bad! and, Marion," he exclaimed, turning without releasing his wife from his arms, "how can I ever make good for all this delay? Oh, yes, I"ve had dinner. Never, for Heaven"s sake, wait dinner for me!
But wait, both of you, till you hear the news!"
d.i.c.ksie kept her hands on his shoulders. "You have heard from Whispering Smith!"
"I have."
"I knew it!"
"Wait till I get it straight. Mr. Bucks is here--I came in with him in his car. He has news of Whispering Smith. One of our freight-traffic men in the Puget Sound country, who has been in a hospital in Victoria, learned by the merest accident that Gordon Smith was lying in the same hospital with typhoid fever."
Marion rose swiftly. "Then the time has come, thank G.o.d, when I can do something for him; and I am going to him to-night!"
"Fine!" cried McCloud. "So am I, and that is why I"m late."
"Then I am going, too," exclaimed d.i.c.ksie solemnly.
"Do you mean it?" asked her husband. "Shall we let her, Marion? Mr.
Bucks says I am to take his car and take Barnhardt, and keep the car there till I can bring Gordon back. Mr. Bucks and his secretary will ride to-night as far as Bear Dance with us, and in the morning they join Mr. Glover there." McCloud looked at his watch. "If you are both going, can you be ready by twelve o"clock for the China Mail?"
"We can be ready in an hour," declared d.i.c.ksie, throwing her arm half around Marion"s neck, "can"t we, Marion?"
"I can be ready in thirty minutes."
"Then, by Heaven--" McCloud studied his watch.
"What is it, George?"
"We won"t wait for the midnight train. We will take an engine, run special to Green River, overhaul the Coast Limited, and save a whole day."
"George, pack your suit-case--quick, dear; and you, too, Marion; suit-cases are all we can take," cried d.i.c.ksie, pushing her husband toward the bedroom. "I"ll telephone Rooney Lee for an engine myself right away. Dear me, it is kind of nice, to be able to order up a train when you want one in a hurry, isn"t it, Marion? Perhaps I _shall_ come to like it if they ever make George a vice-president."
In half an hour they had joined Bucks in his car, and Bill Dancing was piling the baggage into the vestibule. Bucks was sitting down to coffee. Chairs had been provided at the table, and after the greetings, Bucks, seating Marion Sinclair at his right and Barnhardt and McCloud at his left, asked d.i.c.ksie to sit opposite and pour the coffee. "You are a railroad man"s wife now and you must learn to a.s.sume responsibility."
McCloud looked apprehensive. "I am afraid she will be a.s.suming the whole division if you encourage her too much, Mr. Bucks."
"Marrying a railroad man," continued Bucks, pursuing his own thought, "is as bad as marrying into the army; if you have your husband half the time you are lucky. Then, too, in the railroad business your husband may have to be set back when the traffic falls off. It"s a little light at this moment, too. How should you take it if we had to put him on a freight train for a while, Mrs. McCloud?"
"Oh, Mr. Bucks!"
"Or suppose he should be promoted and should have to go to headquarters--some of us are getting old, you know."