Brand, Max - Silvertip 06

by The Fighting Four

  When he had finished cursing the wolf, he turned his attention to Silver, and cursed him in turn for being away from the camp. Silver had promised him ten days of protection on Iron Mountain; at least, Silver had permitted him to stay at the camp during that interval, and it would go hard, Lovell felt, if he could not induce that famous man to take the trail of Wayland and recover the lost treasure.

  But there was no sign of Silver for a long time. For hours, Lovell had nothing to do but roam around the camp, groaning, trying to chafe through the rope that confined his wrists, and it was late in the afternoon before Silver appeared.

  As usual, there was no sign of his approach. At one moment there was not a trace of him near the camp, except that Frosty sat up suddenly and yawned his red mouth open, and showed Lovell the pearly whiteness of his teeth. And a moment after that Silver was standing inside the circle of the trees, with Parade a little behind.

  The silence of those comings and goings of Silver always annoyed Lovell. He knew that there were no idle tricks in Silver, and that the man acted merely as nature bade him; his secrecy of movement was a necessity, when there were so many rascals in the world eager to put a knife between his ribs, or a bullet through his brain. Nevertheless, Lovell hated all his ways, and his quiet stealth above all things. He could not look at Silver without feeling that the big man was an example of human nature as God intended it to be. In the gentle and fearless face of Silver he was able to see his own wretched meanness of soul. The more obligations were piled upon him, the more he detested his benefactor.

  When at last Silver came into the camp with his noiseless step, and Parade like a great, brilliant, drifting ghost behind him, Lovell was sitting on a fallen log, his hands still bound behind his back, and his head bowed. He gave Silver no greeting, and waited for an exclamation, for an expression of concern. His heart swelled with rage when Silver spoke not a word, but, stepping behind him, drew a knife and cut the rope that had Lovell helpless.

  Silver slipped the hunting knife back into its sheath, leaned against a tree, and made a cigarette.

  That was all. He permitted no questions to escape his lips.

  Frosty glided to him, looked up into his face, and then disappeared among the trees.

  The anger and grief in the heart of Lovell swelled higher than ever. There seemd to be a silent language by which the man and the wolf communicated with one another, shutting him out, making him a futile eavesdropper in that camp. No doubt Frosty had asked permission to go off hunting on his own, and his master, with some imperceptible gesture, had let him go.

  "Well," said Lovell, "you don't care. I might 'a' known you wouldn't!"

  Silver said nothing at all. His calm eyes considered Lovell with favor or distaste. There seemed to be no passion in Silver. He was like a rock that could not be budged. At least, Lovell never had been able to move him —and yet he knew that this was the man who had raged like a storm on the trail of Barry Christian and other great criminals.

  Silver took off his hat and dropped it on top of a small shrub. He put back his head and let the wind go ruffling through his hair. The content of the wilderness and the free life was in his eyes.

  "I'm the fool of the world!" groaned Lovell suddenly. "Here I been trusting everything to you—and I've been robbed! Robbed right here under the nose of the great Jim Silver! I've been hawked at right under the nose of the eagle, and he sits on his perch and blinks and doesn't care!"

  "I'm sorry," said Silver calmly.

  "No," declared Lovell, "you ain't sorry. If you were sorry, you'd do something about it. If I was Taxi, or one of your friends, you'd be raging along on the trail of the thug that grabbed me. You'd be right after him this minute. But you don't care. What's a promise to you?"

  "Promise?" said Silver, startled.

  "Aye, you promised that you'd keep me safe for ten days on Iron Mountain."

  "I don't remember that."

  "Sure you don't. Nobody remembers what they want to forget!"

  "I told you that you were welcome to stay with me as long as I was on Iron Mountain. That was all."

  "You think that was all, but I remember different," lied Lovell. "You told me that I'd be safe here with you. That's what you said. For ten days I wouldn't have to worry. Well, that's the way it turns out, too. Before the ten days are over, I'm not worrying. No! Because I've got nothing left to worry about."

  "Did I promise that I'd take care of you?" asked Silver.

  "Did you? Of course you did! Why else would I 'a' been hanging around here? To admire the wolf, maybe, or listen to the silence?"

  He saw the mouth of Silver pinch a little in profound distaste. But Lovell did not care. He wanted to spur the big man into action, and he did not care how deep he roweled the hero, if only he could start him moving.

  "A saddlebag was taken away from you," said Silver finally.

  "Hey! Did you see the whole thing?" exclaimed Lovell.

  "No," said Silver. "I see the saddlebag is missing. That's all."

  "You see everything," said Lovell gloomily, "even when I think that you're seeing nothing."

  That unwilling compliment Silver passed over in silence. But he said afterward: "What was in the saddlebag?"

  "That don't make any difference," said Lovell. "There was things in it that I couldn't afford to lose—and it was stolen right here on your own mountain, right here under your nose!"

  "Was there money in that bag?" asked Silver calmly.

  "No matter what there was—it was mine!" exclaimed Jimmy Lovell. "What difference does it make—what there was in that bag?"

  "It makes a little difference," said Silver. "I need to know. Was there money in the bag?"

  "Yeah, and what if there was?" asked Lovell, goose flesh prickling on his body as he felt himself approaching dangerous ground.

  "Stolen money?" went on Silver.

  "Damn!" cried Lovell. "You ain't going to help me. You don't want to help. You only want to ask questions!"

  "I'm going to help you," said Silver. "That is, I'll help except in one case. But I want to know a little of the truth first. Was it stolen money?"

  "I've been robbed!" cried Lovell woefully, "and you sit around and ask questions, is all you do!"

  "You're a thief yourself, Lovell," said Jim Silver.

  "Me?" shouted Lovell, and then he was silent, staring. At last he burst out: "What makes you think that "

  "Everything about you," said Jim Silver. "Your ways with your hands and your eyes. And besides, people who hate the world always have done harm in it. You hate the world, Lovell. I've never heard good words from you for any one. You're as bitter as poison about every one."

  "I got my reasons," said Lovell gloomily.

  "I'm asking you again, was there stolen money in that bag?"

  "Yes," said Lovell suddenly. He made a gesture of surrender. "You wanta know—and there you have it. The money was stole! But," he went on, shouting out the words in a fury, "it was taken away from me while I was with you—after you'd promised to watch out for me. I ask you, is that what a man has got a right to expect from Jim Silver?"

  Silver raised his hand, and the other was silent.

  "Who was the man that took the stuff away from you? Did he own it?"

  "No," cried Lovell. "He didn't have no more right to it than… "

  "Than you have?"

  "I went through hell to get it! I'm in hell now!" groaned Lovell. "And all you do is ask questions."

  "One man got at you. What sort of a man?"

  "How d'you know it was only one man?" demanded Lovell, curiosity getting the better of him for an instant.

  "You wouldn't resist more than one man," answered Silver calmly. "And to-day you did resist."

  "I wish I'd split his wishbone for him," snarled Lovell. "I had the chance, too, and my gun stuck in the holster."

  "You ought to file the sights off your gun," suggested Silver, smiling a little.

  "I can't file a gun. I can't shoot by insti
nct," said Lovell. "You know that. I ain't like you! And my gun stuck. Even then, I got right in at him."

  "He had a hard set of knuckles, eh?" suggested Silver.

  "You know him? You met him?" asked Lovell. "You just been stringing me along all this while?"

  "No," answered Silver. "But I can see the knuckle marks on your temple."

  Lovell writhed his lips, but said nothing.

  "You've come up here with stolen money. Another thief took the loot from you. You think I ought to get it back for you," said Silver, slowly summarizing the case. "And, as a matter of fact, I don't know what I ought to do."

  He fell into a moment of musing, and a thousand words rushed up in the throat of Loveil. For the first time he had real hope that he might be able to persuade the big man to help him. The trail, as far as Loveil was concerned, was lost long before; but Silver, with his uncanny eyes and sense of things, helped by the hair-trigger sense of smell with which Frosty was armed, might unravel older and harder trail problems than this one.

  And then inspiration descended upon Lovell. He was choking with desire to appeal, but he gripped his teeth hard together and spoke not a word. He could see that something in the mind of Silver was working, however obscurely, on his behalf, and he was inspired to let that inward spirit react upon Silver instead of trying to push his own case.

  Jim Silver began to stride up and down.

  Then, pausing at the edge of the camp, he tipped back his head and sent a long whistle screeching through the woods. The sound was not great in volume to one close at hand, but along his nerves Loveil could feel the knifelike penetrating of the vibrations. The whistle ended, and the thin echoes presently were still.

  Silver had called in the wolf, and that could only mean one thing.

  Loveil stood up, stiff and trembling with hope and with fear.

  Silver said to him: "This is the rottenest business that I've ever been mixed up in. I don't know that I'm doing right. But if I promised to take care of you while you were with me on Iron Mountain—mind you, don't remember having made that promise—then I've got to keep my word. I'm going to trace down that money and give it back to you, and then I hope you'll get out of my sight and never make me rest eyes on you again."

  XVIII—DEATH IN THE AIR

  When Wayland had gained the shelter of the rocks, he waited for a few moments, convinced that the riders would presently be at him. Phil Bray was off to the left, riding one horse. The other animal had to carry both Mantry and tall Dave Lister, but it had seemed able to keep up with the mustang which had but a single burden. And those three savage men would surely be at Wayland in another moment.

  A full minute passed, while Wayland lay gasping, before he realized that he was being given the grace of a little intermission from danger. He ventured to look up above the rocks that were sheltering him, and he saw one horse in full view, another out of sight on the other side of the hill of rocks, perhaps. But of the three men he could see nothing.

  Perhaps they had decided that his gunfire was a thing they did not wish to face, no matter how contemptuous they were of his ability to shoot straight.

  Then hope, which had been dead, sprang up into a giddy and instant life in him. He wormed his way rapidly back among the rocks until he had gained the crest of the little heap. And the first thing that he saw beneath him was a hat floating among the boulders, as though it rested on water!

  He tried a snap shot hastily at that sombrero, and it disappeared at once.

  A moment later a heavy slug beat against the forehead of a rock at Wayland's side. A stingmg spray of lead whipped into his shoulder.

  It merely grazed the skin, but the sting was as of hornets.

  He withdrew to a little natural fortress at the top of the heap of rocks. Big boulders encircled him. He could sit at ease and peer out through the gaps. But he saw nothing, he heard nothing. He had to look up to see a sign of life, where a pair of buzzards were circling high up. He wondered, with a cold thrill of awe, what information their devilish instincts had given to them, and how near a death might be. Not so very far away, the carcass of a horse was stretched for their feasting, but perhaps this pair preferred meat of a rarer sort.

  After a while he began to grow very thirsty.

  Thirst in dry Western air progresses rapidly from a dryness of the throat to a fever of the brain. He hardly had noticed that he wanted a drink before he began to find it hard to swallow.

  And the sun was still high up in the sky. But he controlled himself when the panic reached his mind. A man ought to be able to go two days without water, no matter what the heat. The prime necessity was to keep the nerves in hand.

  That was easily said, not so easily done. As he sat there, broiling, he felt that the only thing that saved his stability was sight of a light green lizard with yellow markings along the back, that slid out on the surface of a rock and paused there, with its body still curved for the next whiplike movement and its head raised. It was so close that he could see the dim red flicker of the tongue now and then, and the glittering of the little eyes. The rock was hot enough to singe ordinary flesh, but that lizard was a true salamander. There was no hurry about it. If a day or two passed for it between insects—if a month or two intervened between drinks—what difference did it make?

  Wayland began to smile and to forget about his own troubles.

  That was how the afternoon sloped off into twilight. For all his spying, he had sight of nothing of interest except the two saddle horses, now grazing busily far up the floor of the canyon.

  He made up his mind by this time. He would wait not only until it was dark, but until the night had worn along for several hours. Then he would try to slip down among the boulders and get away. There would be no moon for some time to come.

  In the meantime, the sky turned dim. A thin white cloud rolled into the west, the fires caught it, it blazed up and gave a false promise of a returning day. Then all went darker than ever. Suddenly the night was only a step away.

  Wayland stood up to stretch himself. He stuck his arms up above his head, strained every muscle and tendon to the full, and heard the deep voice of Phil Bray saying, from behind:

  "Keep 'em there!"

  Wayland "kept them there."

  As he stood with his hands high, suddenly it seemed to him that he had been the biggest fool in the world. He should have known in the beginning that one Wayland, with a burro, had no chance to escape from three accomplished desperadoes, well armed and mounted.

  He heard Bray say: "All right, boys. I've got him here. Come up and get him for me. Wayland, don't stir none. Don't budge."

  There were noises among the rocks. Then the lean, handsome face of Joe Mantry appeared. He stared at Wayland, full in the eyes, and remarked:

  "Tag him out, chief. What's the use of weighing ourselves down with him?"

  "I dunno," said Bray. "I don't care much. How do you vote, Dave?"

  Dave Lister got to the spot, breathing hard in his turn. He rested a sharp elbow against the side of a boulder as he murmured:

  "Well, I dunno. We'll see what part of the loot he's got, first."

  Bray said: "Open that saddlebag, Joe. Wayland, put your hands down behind your back. Put them down both at once, and keep still. I'd plug you for a nickel and a half."

  Wayland beheved him devoutly, and moved the hands with exceeding care until they were in the small of his back, where they were grabbed and tied together by Bray. His gun was taken from him, too.

  In the meantime, the other pair had opened the saddlebag and spilled out the contents. Joe Mantry was careful to a degree, counting. Dave Lister seemed able to note the contents with a glance.

  He said suddenly: "Chief, it looks to me like we're not two hundred dollars short. And that's a fact!"

  Bray sat on a rock, smoking a cigarette.

  "It's getting pretty dark," he declared. "We'd better move on. What about our friend before we start?"

  "Plug him," urged Mantry.

>   "There's a little reason in what you say," answered Bray. "This hombre seems to have a brain and a pair of hands about him. Listen, Wayland," he added. "How did you get this stuff?"

  "I met your fourth man," answered Wayland. "I stuck him up with a gun. He got at me and started to work with his knife as I went down. He was slippery, but I managed to tap him on the right spot, and he went out. That's how I got hold of the money."

  "What were you doing with it?" asked Bray.

  "Well, I was heading back toward Elkdale."

  "Elkdale? Why?"

  "That's where the bank is, of course. I wanted to get it back into the safe."

  "Hello!" murmured Bray. And he began to chuckle. "You would 'a' passed the wad all back to Old Man William Rucker, would you?"

  "Sure he would. He's a nut, but he's no fool," observed Joe Mantry. "He had brains enough to get that slippery little devil of a Jimmy Lovell; he may have brains enough to stick to our trail, after we get the stuff, and keep up long enough to give us away to a sheriff's posse."

  "He may have the brains," commented Bray. "Boys, I don't care much. Only, we got the whole wad of the money back through this hombre. I say that it's too bad to look a gift horse in the face."

  Dave Lister began to laugh softly. He picked up several of the thick wads of greenbacks and held them out to the faint evening light.

  "There's enough to put the lot of us on Easy Street for a long time," he said. "Sure, chief. Get this hombre, this Wayland, out of the way. You know how it is. A crook is as weak as the weakest link in the chain, but an honest man is as strong as the strongest part of the chain."

  Lister paused and laughed again to indicate that the words were not a belief with him. They were simply something that he had heard, and, therefore, that he was willing to repeat. People of his sort never really trust folklore or folk sayings, but they are always unwilling to close their ears to proverbial wisdom.

  "Look," said Joe Mantry eagerly. "This fellow had the brains to snag Lovell. The rest of us couldn't wrangle that. He had the nerve to go and freeze himself to death above timber line, hunting for Lovell. And at last he got him. Make up your mind. You want him on our trail?"