Brand, Max - Silvertip 06

by The Fighting Four

  Lovell gradually let his mustang drift in pursuit. And after a moment, Silver and the wolf came in sight, once more, rounding the side of the hummock. Silver mounted Parade; Frosty turned off to the side.

  "More than on trail goes away from here," said Silver. "Only one trail came up to it, so far as we know. Now watch Frosty go through the night!"

  The wolf, in fact, no longer held to any settled direction, but repeatedly shifted to this side and to that, eventually settling down on one trail, as it appeared.

  When the pursuers came to a place where the grass was thin and the groimd soft, Silver dismounted again, and lighted more matches. His survey was quickly made.

  He said, as he remounted: "The line that Frosty is following is that of a man on foot. There are two men on foot, in fact. And there are two horse trails through the grass. Three men, and they've got Wayland. Three men that he ran away from, I suppose."

  "Three?" cried Lovell, in an agony of excitement and of fear.

  "That's the way I make it. Is three the right number?"

  "They've got him," groaned Lovell. "They'll slit his gullet and take the coin. Listen to me, Jim Silver. You're the fellow that's famous for doing right by innocent men. Well, here's a good chance for you. Here's Wayland. He's innocent, all right. He's never done any harm—except to me—and now three of the worst thugs in the world have him. They've cut his throat by this time—if they have half the brains that they used to own. He's a dead man. There's my money to get back, and there's the blood of an honest man on this trail. You hear, Silver? Does that make you cock your ears?"

  Silver said nothing at all, for a moment. Then he asked:

  "Are the three of them cronies of yours? Old cronies that you've broken with?"

  "They're a flock of jailbirds," said Lovell savagely.

  "Well," said Silver, "you've been in prison yourself, I’ve seen."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "There's a down twist to the mouth and a way of whispering that men learn only from a few years of the lock step," said Silver.

  "I don't talk like that," exclaimed Lovell.

  "No, you don't talk like that. But when you're thinking a thing out, you whisper to yourself that way."

  A bubbling sound arose in the throat of Lovell. He thanked his stars that Jim Silver had not reached out a hand for him, no matter from what distance. All possibilities of conversation were dried up in the throat of Lovell. He could merely gasp out:

  "I tell you, Silver, even if you can see in the dark, the way some people say that you can, you'll certainly have your hands full with the three of 'em."

  "Ay, but there's you, Lovell," said Silver dryly. "You'll be up there in the thick of the fight, I suppose."

  "Me?" snarled Lovell. "I'll put a tooth in 'em if I get a good chance—but my way might not be your way. You've got to remember that."

  "True," said Silver. "We may have different ways of going about things."

  He led on, following Frosty, for the wolf had now disappeared in the trees and was traveling up the mountainside. Presently Frosty led them in a small detour, and they found him, half faded into the shadows, erect, with head thrown high.

  "He's lost the scent!" groaned Lovell. "The fool has brought us all this way and lost the scent for us!"

  "He's taking it out of the wind instead of off the ground," answered Silver softly. "Dismount, and walk on your toes. Don't rustle as much as a blade of grass. We're close to whatever trouble we're gomg to have. Tether that mustang, unless it can move the way Parade does."

  But what other horse could move as Parade moved in a time of danger? What other by years of a wild, free life, and then by long training with such a master, had learned to drift through a forest as silently as the great moose that goes in and out of the northern woods like a strange image of the mind?

  Lovell tied the mustang and followed on foot, until he saw before him, through the trees, the vague shudder and tremor and lifting of shadows around a small camp fire. He knew then that he was coming close to the great moment.

  XXI—IN THE BANDITS' CAMP

  There on the verge of the trees the two of them paused. The whole scene was decipherable, though the tone of it was very dull and low. The waver of the flame of the camp fire cast as much confusion as light. But they could see the three seated near the fire, one with his hands bound behind him, and they could mark the figure that walked back and forth on guard.

  "They have brains," said Silver. "They know how to choose a camp, and that's the most important knowledge that a man can have—for this sort of a business!"

  "If we take the guns," murmured Lovell, "we could pick 'em off!"

  "We could kill or hurt a pair of 'em," said Silver quietly. "But that's no good. I don't even know that they need killing."

  "You don't know? Ain't I told you that they're all a lot of thugs?" demanded Lovell.

  "You've told me that," answered Silver shortly.

  Lovell was silent. His hatred of Silver waxed a littie greater in the interval of pause.

  "That other one—with his arms tied—is that the fellow who stopped you and took the saddlebags?"

  "I can't make out his face. Yes, that must be Wayland."

  "If we start shooting and the three of them are thugs, they'll slit Wayland's throat for him before they answer our fire. We can't bombard them from a distance."

  "It'd be a lot more polite if we went up and introduced ourselves first and asked them for the saddlebag," said Lovell, with his sneer.

  "Yes," said Silver absently, "that would be more polite."

  Lovell's whisper screamed high against his palate:

  "What are you talking about? Silver, those three are all out of the pen. They're out of the death house. You'd be admired for killing them! Robbery and murder in Elkdale. They've all gotta swing for it."

  "Is that money in the saddlebag," said Silver, "is that part of the Elkdale loot?"

  Lovell was silent, but his breathing could be heard. His distress was more eloquent than words could make it.

  Silver permitted the silence, and at last he said: "There are three thugs, over there—three fellows out of the death house—poor devils! And Wayland. You say that Wayland is a thug, too?"

  "He's got no more right to the money than I have!" said Lovell. "It's mine!"

  "Is Wayland an honest man?" asked Silver.

  "The fool ain't got the sense to be anything else!" snarled the whisper of Lovell.

  He saw Silver turn a little toward him, as though the last words had a peculiar weight in the mind of the big man.

  "Wait here," said Silver. "I'm going to explore."

  He pulled the reins over the head of Parade and let them hang. Then he disappeared among the trees to the left.

  He was gone during one of the longest half hours in the life of Lovell. During that time, the tall man who had been striding back and forth and who must have been Dave Lister, went back beside the fire and lay down. A smaller guard took up the rounds, stepping with a quick and light movement, his head alert and uneasy as he walked. That would be Joe Mantry. Lovell felt that he could tell the step of the man-killer by his silhouette—tell it in an army of others.

  The whole trio by the camp fire had now disappeared by the rocks. Perhaps they were akeady asleep when a shadow stirred near Lovell and he saw a slinking form and the green, phosphorescent light of the eyes of a beast of prey. Another form loomed immediately behind. It was Silver and Frosty, of course. And a shudder that was beginning to be familiar in the body of Lovell, like an accustomed nightmare, ran through his flesh.

  Silver said: "I'm going to try to get at the camp."

  "You might as well try to walk up to a tiger in broad I daylight," said Lovell. "That gent who's walking on guard is a tiger. Lemme tell you something, Silver. You're famous for gun work, but at your best you never were no better than Joe Mantry."

  "I'm going to try to get at the camp," answered Silver calmly. "You go back to where we left your hors
e, and move it over to the creek's bank. Come up the bank slowly, toward the camp. If you hear an outbreak of voices and shooting, you'll know that I've been spotted. If you hear my whisde and the noise of a horse, you'll know that I've gotten to Parade, But this is going to be work, I'm trying to get the stolen money. I'm trying to get Wayland, too."

  "Trying to get Wayland? Silver, don't be a fool I and——"

  "Do what I tell you," said Silver. "And if I get Wayland free, then there will be three against three, and I suppose we may be able to handle them."

  Handle them? Yes, but first how could Jim Silver reach that well-posted, well-guarded camp?

  The very soul of Lovell was consumed with curiosity.

  But Silver, tossing the reins back over the pommel of the stallion's saddle, went off, followed by the horse, preceded by the gliding ghost. Frosty. They faded silently into the woods, and Lovell turned back to get to his own mustang.

  He felt a vague content. Whatever happened, there would be trouble for both Silver and the three. If they slaughtered one another to the last man, it would be perfectly pleasing to Lovell. He would almost give up his hope of the money for the sake of such an ending to his schemes.

  Silver brought the big horse close to the bank of the stream. There, where a thicket of brush grew densely as cover, he left Parade again and posted Frosty, with a whisper, to guard the big horse. Then he returned in a wide semi-circle through the woods to the opposite side of the clearing.

  He had very little time, for the moon was about to rise, he knew. At his side, down a shallow bank, ran the road that he was to follow to the camp. It was the coldly flickering stream of snow water.

  He took off his boots and tied them, together with his guns, about his neck. Those well-oiled guns and the ammunition in them would defy the effect of water for a short time, at least. And whatever he did would have to be consummated rapidly.

  So he entered the water.

  It was so cold that the first touch of it seared his flesh like fire. Yet he lay down in the current. It was rapid and whirling, but so shallow that his hands could touch the bottom most of the way. And that sliding stream bore him now down toward the camp of the three and their fortune in stolen money, and their captured man.

  He let the current bear him until he saw a dull red flicker of light across the surface. Then he pulled himself out until his head and shoulders were free of the stream.

  He was so cold that he knew that he was nearly helpless. A child of ten could have handled him, frozen as he was. And yet he was approaching a threefold danger.

  "Man-killer," Lovell had called Joe Mantry. And the catlike quickness and Ughtness of the steps of Mantry, as he walked back and forth on guard, made Silver confident that Lovell had not misnamed his man.

  He could see Mantry now, moving rapidly, pausing an instant each time he came to the end of his beat. Merely the sound of the water that was running, now, out of the clothes of Silver, seemed sufficient to attract the attention of such an ear.

  But Silver was able to drag himself clear of the water, unheeded, and so like a snake to twist and wriggle himself forward until he was inside the nest of rocks.

  There was still both flame and spreading heat from the camp fire. The heat itself was a blessing to Silver. He had a great, mad impulse to rise to his knees, guns in hand, and murder sleeping men, so that he could safely extend his arms around that fire and be warmed to the core of his heart.

  One man lay on his back, with lean, long face looking as pale as stone. Another lay with his head resting on his saddle and looking very uncomfortable. But he was snoring softly, regularly in his sleep. Silver blessed that noise of snoring. It might cover a thousand other guilty noises of his own making, before long.

  The third man was the prisoner. He was tall, also, and even in sleep, Silver thought that he could see pain and resolution in the face of Wayland.

  With all his heart he was ready to believe what Lovell had said—that this was an honest man.

  He crawled closer until he could whisper in the ear of the prisoner:

  "Wake up but don't move. Wake up but don't move. Wake up but keep still."

  He kept repeating that over and over. And finally there was a little tremor that ran through the body of Wayland. He opened his eyes and heard:

  "Wake up, but don't stir."

  He did not stir. He merely rolled his eyes and saw the body of the man beside him, and wet clothing faintly glim-mering in the starlight, and by the imcertain rays of the flickering fire.

  He raised his head a little and was able to see, at last, that the stranger was shuddering in an ague fit with the intensity of cold. His hands were unsteady. His head strained back on his neck. His wet face was red as blood.

  Yet there was no disguising the features.

  Suddenly the mind of Wayland went back to that other day when he had so calmly nailed up the picture of Jim Silver and Parade on the wall of the bank, to bring home to every man working there the example of a hero, unafraid to stand for the right thing.

  Had not the thought of that same face forced him, perhaps, to take up the uncertainties of his trail, when he dared to match his wits against the bandits? For the sake of what Silver stood for in the world, Wayland had tried to act the part of a hero—and won in exchange the probability of an obscure death the next morning.

  But he had won something else. Jim Silver in person was there to succor him.

  He saw the gleam of Silver's knife. He felt the light pull at the cords as the knife edge sheared through them. And then his hands were free.

  They were free, but almost helpless. He moved them toward the saddlebag which still contained every penny of the treasure.

  Bray had said: "Use this for your pillow, Wayland. Maybe it'll give you happy dreams, eh?"

  Bray had grinned, making that sardonic remark, and Wayland had remained awake for a time wondering how they would kill him—knife or gun. Or perhaps savage Joe Mantry would be able to devise some better scheme. He was a man of devices, was Joe Mantry.

  The whisper of Silver said: "Give me the bag. Follow me!"

  Wayland passed the saddlebag over, readily. There was no other man in the world that he would have rendered it to, but he had not an instant's misgiving.

  Then he saw a warning gesture from Silver, and observed the man collapse suddenly along the ground. Wayland did the same. He even had sufficient presence of mind to push his numbed arms behind his back and so he lay with the terrible consciousness that a head and shoulders loomed above the rocks against the stars.

  Joe Mantry had come to look at the group inside the nest of rocks. If he gave a casual glance, all might be well. If he used his wits, he could not fail to make out the bleared outlines of four forms intead of three.

  A shudder of electric fire filled the brain of Wayland— and then he saw the silhouette disappear!

  Silver's whisper reached him at the same instant, saying: "Follow me. Down into the water after me."

  And he saw the body of Silver slide down noiselessly into the stream.

  He followed, as cautiously as he could.

  The cold seized him. The fingers of ice laid hold on his bones. And then the force of the water carried him rapidly forward, while with his hands on the bottom he tried to ease his way.

  A projecting rock struck him heavily on the chest. He gasped. Water entered his throat and half strangled him. Instinctively he rose from the shallow stream and fell forward again into the water with a loud splashing.

  Voices were shouting, instantly, behind him, and a gun began to fire rapidly.

  XXII—FLAMING GUNS

  He dived forward again into the icy stream. Its cold meant nothing to him now. Vaguely, before him, he saw the shadows of the brush. He rose again and stumbled toward it, as though its arms could shield him even from bullets.

  He saw the big body of Silver rise from the water, also, and felt the hand of Silver catch him and drag him into the brush. Looking back, he saw fire spitti
ng from three guns, near the camp. Those points of light winked closer and closer as the three began to run forward. At the same time, he heard the sound of a muffled, heavy blow, and Jim Silver lunged forward and struck the ground.

  Wayland could not realize what had happened. Silver was a fact in the world as indestructible, as permanent as the mountains. Mere powder and lead could not, it seemed, do him harm. And yet now he lay there motionless on the ground!

  The saddlebag with the loot in it had tumbled across the body of the fallen man. And he, Wayland, had been the clumsy fool who had drawn the attention of Joe Mantry to the flight.

  There was one wild impulse in Wayland to snatch up the saddlebag and flee for his life with the treasure. Then he saw the body on the ground stir, and the madness left his brain.

  He caught one of Silver's guns, and standing straight, he opened fire on the three forms that were racing toward him. Over the tips of the bushes he could see them scatter to right and left suddenly, and disappear in the woods.

  At the same time, a thin whistle sounded from the ground. That was Silver giving a call that was answered by a great rushing, and Parade dashed up through the brush with Frosty beside him.

  A gasping voice came from Silver and the stallion slumped to the ground beside him.

  "Get me into the saddle. Parade will carry double. Get me into the saddle, Wayland!" breathed the voice of Silver.

  Wayland, shuddering with dread, laid his hands and all his strength on the wounded man. And still his brain would not admit that this helpless bulk of flesh could be Jim Silver. But Silver it was, and the great horse that had kneeled like an Arab's camel was Parade, and the green-eyed monster that snarled softiy, close to them, was Frosty, the wolf.

  So Wayland worked the burden of Silver's almost inert body onto the back of the horse.

  He heard Bray, calling: "Joe, go back for horses. Dave, come on with me. Cut in toward the bank of the creek. We'll get 'em. Shoot at anything you see. Hell is loose in the air!"