Brand, Max - Silvertip 06

by The Fighting Four

  Being a logical fellow and having a swift mind, he knew very exactly what he would do at the time he turned away from the wounded man, Wayland, the horse, and the wolf. He walked straight down the ravine and came to the outer valley.

  Being broader, and running more to east and west, it took a fuller flood of the moonlight. So he picked out a rock in the center of the valley and sat down there and made a cigarette.

  What he thought about at that time was the face of Joe Mantry most of all.

  Of course, all of the others hated him most heartily, but neither of the other two had the possibilities of hate developed to such a degree as Joe. Joe Mantry, when he saw the traitor, would go almost mad with the desire to Idll. The other two would have to restrain him, because they would know that Lovell was not appearing before their eyes for fun. That would be the making of the comedy which Lovell would enjoy.

  Afterward he would exact the faith of the three according to fearful oaths. And when he had done that, he would lead them to their prey. Now that he thought over all the elements of this comedy, it seemed to Lovell the most delightful thing that he had ever conceived.

  He did exactly as he had planned. Sitting on the stone, he lighted his cigarette, and remained there even when he heard the rattling of hoofs coming toward him.

  Then a single rider came into view—a big man with square-set shoulders. That would be Bray, and Bray was the man he most wanted to see.

  It was Bray. He charged straight at the solitary figure which sat so moveless upon the stone, and when he was close to Lovell he uttered a shout of surprise.

  Two more riders were in view by this time, but that didn't matter. Bray was not essentially a man of blood. He would not act until he knew why Lovell had dared to show himself. And he would keep the other two in hand. Rash and head-long as Joe Mantry was, Lovell knew that he dreaded death far less than he dreaded the strong nature of Bray.

  So Lovell remained seated, carefully smoking his cigarette and blowing the smoke over his head into the moonlight, while Bray dismounted before him and covered him with a gun.

  "Well, Lovell," said Bray, "I've been wanting to meet you for a long time."

  "I decided that I'd give you boys a break," was Lovell's answer.

  He was proud of that answer. He was so proud that he began to smile, and he was still smiling when Dave Lister and Mantry came up. That smile of his was what held their hands. They could not believe what they saw.

  "All right," said Bray. "We're not here for our health. What have you got to say?"

  "What do you want to hear?" asked Lovell, lookmg squarely at Bray.

  "I want to hear where I can pick up half a million in ready cash," said Bray quietly.

  "I could tell you that," said Lovell.

  "We're listening," said Bray.

  "We make some terms first," said LoveU.

  "Terms?" shouted Joe Mantry. "Terms with you, you rat?"

  "You take an oath, all of you. That's what I mean," said Lovell. "Beginning with Joe Mantry, you take an oath."

  "I'll see you " began Mantry.

  "You'll take an oath," repeated Lovell.

  "I don't care what happens," said Mantry. "I've got you here. And I know what to do with you. You others turn your backs for a minute."

  "Listen," said Bray. "Don't be a fool, Joe. You don't think he's out here unless he has something to sell, do you?"

  The thing was too obvious. Mantry groaned and turned his back.

  "I'll show you the half million," said Lovell. "But first we all shake hands. We shake hands that the past is forgotten, that nobody ever damns me for anything I've ever done, that nobody ever throws it up to me, that the three of you stand by me like a pal, and that I get a one-fourth cut in the loot."

  Mantry cried out in exquisite pain at the thought.

  "Beginning with Joe, we shake hands," said Lovell, grinning.

  He had decided, on deliberations, that nothing would be as good as a handshake. If those fellows could drive themselves to shaking hands with him, the future would be safe for Lovell.

  Mantry whirled about and said:

  "I'll see you "

  "Steady!" said Bray. "You see how things are, Joe. What's the use of cutting your own throat for the sake of Jimmy, here? What's the use of throwing a hundred thousand plus out the window? Can't you use a bit of chicken feed like that?"

  Those words had their own weight. Mantry groaned again, but suddenly he gave a tug to the brim of his hat, stepped up, and held out his hand.

  "I hate your dirty heart, and you know it," he said. "Nothing will ever stop me from hating it. But here's my hand, and I'll stand by what I do with it."

  Lovell took that hand with a nameless relief in his heart. Lister gave his next, silently. Bray said, as he shook hands:

  "I never expected to do this. But you're a bright fellow, Jimmy."

  "Sure I am," said Jimmy Lovell confidently.

  Then he made another cigarette and lighted it.

  "They're in there," he said. "Wayland's in there, and the half million in the saddlebag. And Jim Silver!"

  There was a quick, subdued chorus of exclamations.

  "Silver!"

  The three looked at one another, and Lovell enjoyed their dismay for a moment. The half million that had seemed to be in their hands was now jerked off to a distance, as it were.

  Then Mantry said: "We gave our hands on condition that the half million should be handed over. There was no talk of any Jim Silver then."

  Lovell laughed.

  "The horse and the wolf and the man—they're all in there," he said. "But maybe you boys will be glad to know that after Silver stole Wayland away from you— what a lot of dumb birds you are to let him snake a man right out of the lot of you!—after he'd done that, a slug of lead happened to rap him. It tore right through him. He's lying now on his back, pretty nearly dead. He can just about open his eyes, and that's all. I thought that maybe you'd be glad to know about that!"

  He looked at them and relished the sighs of relief.

  "We can go right in, boys," said Jimmy Lovell. "Ill lead the way. They'll be down there at the head of the valley. They're laid up under a big rock—a cut-back at the bottom of a cliff. You can find 'em by yourselves, but I'll show you the way. Bray, lend me a gun."

  He got a gun. Not a revolver. He wanted no nonsense like that in this sort of light for shooting. What he wanted was a rifle, and he got it.

  "Now," said Jimmy Lovell, "I want you saps to understand that that fool of a Wayland is in there with Jim Silver. Fool is the right word. And he's ready to die for his partner, Silver. I tell you, fellows, you'd better shoot straight at him. He's the one that matters. Silver don’t count. We can blot him out of the picture any time, as soon as Wayland is out of the way. And when we've blotted out Jim Silver, will we have something to talk about the rest of our lives? Yes, we will. And a plenty lot, too!"

  He laughed again as he said that. To blot out Jim Silver! Why, it would make heroes of them all. It hardly mattered that Jim Silver had been wounded and made helpless. It really mattered not at all. Nobody would ever know about that. All that other people would know would be that the great Jim Silver had been blotted out finally by Lovell and his three companions. In such a killing there was more than enough glory to serve them all around. Every crook in the West would heave a long, long breath of relief. No matter how the actual fight went, there would surely be enough talk afloat to make it into an epic battle. People would point out Jimmy Lovell hereafter. They would whisper to one another: "There goes the man who killed Jim Silver!"

  An ecstasy came over Lovell. He was half blinded with joy. Tears came into his eyes. For the moment he had in him the stuff that heroes are made of, and he led the way right down through the darkness of tlie narrow ravine.

  XXV—THE ATTACK

  There was not much of the bloody instinct for battle in Wayland, but he had plenty of brains, notwithstanding. He was the sort of a fellow who could read in books
and papers about the heroism of other men and shudder to think of their greatness and his own lack of the divine fire. But he had a good head on his shoulders, and as he sat by Silver, pondering the disappearance of Jimmy Lovell and what it was likely to mean, he saw that there was only one answer to the problem.

  There were several ways in which the ravine might be attacked if—as he suspected—Lovell had gone out to make peace with the others and to lead them into the place where Jim Silver lay helpless and wounded. The best and the safest way would be to send at least one man up to the top of the height and let him command the whole battle arena with a rifle after he had posted himself among the rocks above.

  Then the remainder could work their way down through the ravine and come to action with Wayland and his pitiful single rifle.

  That was the logical way of going about things, but men who have great odds of numbers in their favor are not so apt to do things in the most intelligent way. Like strong bulls, they are apt to close their eyes and to rush straight forward. That was what the four crooks would do. Way-land was convinced. For they all knew that he was not a great fighter, and that he was probably a clumsy hand with weapons.

  That was what convinced him that the best thing he could do was to leave his place of last retreat and to attack the enemy on the march if he could. Fight fire with fire. That was the way.

  When he had made up his mind, he pulled the rifle out of the saddle scabbard on the big stallion. It was loaded, and in perfect condition, as every weapon in the possession of Silver was sure to be.

  Now he stood up and looked wistfully down at the face of the wounded man. The moonlight sloped into the cutback. It did not reach Silver with its direct Ught, but it threw glittering reflections from the face of the quartzite rocks all around. Those reflections showed Silver like an image of cut stone. It showed him faintly smiling, the master of his pain even when he lay half senseless with the recently inflicted wound.

  Now the eyes of the wounded man opened.

  "Are you going, Wayland?" he asked in his quiet way.

  The thought that he might be suspected of leaving his post tore the heart of Wayland. He dropped down on one knee and took the head of Silver.

  "Not for long," he said. "I'm coming back—as soon as I can."

  "All right," said Silver. "Good luck, old son."

  Wayland turned away and walked rapidly from the end of the ravine until he came to the narrow throat of the little canyon, dodging the brush that half filled the place as he went along.

  He picked out a spot where there was a small boulder —a small rock, but one that would cover him well enough. He lay down behind this and began to study the shadows before him.

  The light was terribly treacherous. It seemed almost safer to try to shoot by starlight than by the partial glances which the moon threw into this gorge. Here it glimmered, and there it was gone. Here it painted the face of a rock with its blackest shadow, and there it gave out a glimmering from the crystals of the stone.

  As he waited, he felt that this straining of his eyes at one object after another was accomplishing no good except to strain the optic nerve and bewilder his brain entirely. Yet he kept on pointing his rifle at one dim target after another, calculating his aim, and steadying his nerves always for the trial that he was sure would come.

  Something whiispered over his head. It was the shadowy flight of an owl, cleaving the air with wings of an enormous size. Apollyon approached sometimes in the form of a night bird, the old books said. What is it that men see before their death? Only a few have had sufiicient breath to gasp out a few words of revelation before their eyes are finally closed and their throats sealed.

  It seemed to him that he had seen death actually in the air above him.

  He recovered from his thoughts, and, staring down the ravine, suddenly he was aware of a man stepping out from a blackness of tall shrubbery. A man, and another, and another, and another. Not in single file, but in a soft-stepping group.

  His heart raced. His eyes went black for an instant.

  Then he leveled the rifle carefully. He took the leading form. His hands were shakmg terribly. Then he fired.

  The leader did not fall, but leaped instead high into the air, and landed running. The other three were already scattering to either side. As he pumped lead at them rapidly, poor Wayland knew that he was missing with every shot.

  But now they were out of sight. He heard voices cursing. It was his name that was being cursed. Then a silence followed. He strained eyes and ears from this side of the rock and then from the other. Every moment he expected to see four forms grow up out of the ground and charge at him to beat him down with a single powerful rush.

  He had failed; he had failed! Would any other one of the lot of them have failed, given similar chances? He knew that they would not. They would not have had the dreadful shuddering of nerves and muscles as they leveled their weapons at human lives. Rather, they would have rejoiced.

  Every moment now the gorge was beginning to be a place of greater danger, for as the moon mounted higher, it threw an increasing multitude of small and glinting lights into the interior.

  Then something struck the sand beside him and threw the stuff in a shower over him, into his face, half blinding him. The report of gun barked sharply in his ears.

  It came from high up on the left-hand side of the ravine. He heard the triumphant yell of the marksman. Another bullet flattened on the rock before him. Another whirred through the air over his head, and a chorus of shouts broke out from the three men who remained in hiding in down the valley.

  Well, they had him, all right, and he knew it. He stared at the winking fire flashes of the gun up the side of the ravine, and did not even try to answer the bullets. There was no use. The fellow was sure to have perfect cover. Wayland's rock was no longer a protection to him, but if he dared to get up and bolt to the rear, that would be the very thing that the three men down the valley were waiting for. And they would riddle him with bullets as he ran.

  Had they already come behind him? Something certainly moved among the brush behind him and to the left.

  He stared with dread in that direction, and then he made out the nodding head of a horse. Next he saw a strange sight indeed through a gap in the brush where the moonlight fell sheer down.

  He saw Parade walking slowly forward. He saw a body dragging from one stirrup. And then he made out that it was Jim Silver who was being so oddly transported. There had not been strength enough in him to wali, but, like a good soldier, when he heard the noise of guns, he I had to go toward it. Therefore he had perhaps ordered I the stallion to kneel beside him, and, getting a grip with his teeth on the bottom of the stirrup leather, he had managed to order the horse to rise again and to go forward.

  For that was what was happening, and Parade was marching into the battle, dragging his master at his feet. Wayland could see the gleaming of the naked revolver which dragged, also, in the hand of Silver. And at the side of the man skulked the great wolf, looking a great deal like a form of the moonlight when it struck on his pale-gray fur.

  Yes, that was the miracle that appeared for a few seconds through the gap in the brush and was lost to view again.

  Then another bullet from the marksman up the slope snatched the hat from the head of Wayland. The very next shot of all would scatter his brains, no doubt. He worked a bit to one side. Down the valley the men were laughing. He could hear their voices. He could distinguish the high, whining mirth of Lovell.

  Once more the marksman up the side of the ravine fired, and something like a hot knife slashed through the surface flesh of Wayland's side.

  He gathered himself. It was better to charge straight in to the face of danger than to lie still and be shot to pieces. He would charge—and Jim Silver would see him die!

  Then, out of the brush to his left, a gun spoke.

  It was not aimed at Wayland. There was no sound of whirring lead. But high up the side of the ravine there was an answering sc
ream of agony.

  A figure leaped up from among the rocks and tottered into the full light of the moon—Joe Mantry, walking with his arms flung out and his head back, like one who feels his way in the dark. A warning chorus yelled at Mantry from down the ravine. But he walked straight on, step out into space, and then pitched forward.

  A frightful moment elapsed. The shadow covered the falling body. But Wayland distinctly heard the loose shock and jar as it met the ground.

  Joe Mantry was dead.

  And Wayland knew that Jim Silver had managed to strike one blow at the enemy. Ah, if only a tenth part of his real strength were in him, how he would scatter the three men who were left down the valley!

  "He's shifted over to the left!" some one called.

  Was that not Lovell? Yes, it must be Lovell, yelling

  "Charge in here on the right, boys. Come on in. We'll cut him off. We'll tear him to pieces!"

  "Look out! There's two of 'em!" called the heavy voice of Bray.

  "Aw, Silver's as good as dead!" cried Lovell. "Come on, you cowards, and I'll show you the way to do it."

  He came right out through the shadows, bending over, running low, with his rifle swinging back and forth as he raced. Right at Wayland's rock he charged, while two other forms leaped out from the brush and pursued him in the effort.

  Wayland took a good aim—and the hammer of the gun dropped with a dull click! Something had gone wrong with the mechanism. He might have known better than to leave it open to the flying sprays of sand, perhaps!

  But again the revolver of Jim Silver spoke from the side.

  Lovell stopped running, spun around, and, while he was still spinning, a second shot found him in the shadows and dropped him in a moveless heap to the ground.

  Again that terrible gunman to the left of Wayland fired, and this time the tall body of Dave Lister leaped up and jackknifed in the air. He fell to the ground and lay there perfectly still.

  Silver's gun was still flaming, and its last bullet found the heart of big Phil Bray. He slumped down, his lifeless body sprawling over a small boulder.