by Brand, Max
“It looks like a cooked job. What’s the good of wasting our lives? Besides, there may be trouble — ”
He let his voice die away, because the sharp glance of Christian had checked him.
Truman, shrugging his shoulders, remarked that he would take a walk through the woods before he turned in, and added that he would start back to his ranch in the morning.
As soon as the rancher was gone, Thurston declared: “You fellows have scared Truman off the trail. That’s all right. I don’t care if everybody’s scared off the trail. I stick to it. What’s the trouble that Gregor is afraid of?”
“Gregor believes in luck; he thinks that we’ve got bad luck permanently on our trail now,” put in Christian, before Gregor could speak.
Thurston laughed, and the sound was like the snarling of one of his dogs.
“I know another kind of trouble that you fellows don’t want any part of,” he said. “Big Jim Silver and a fellow named Gary are still drifting around through the mountains, trying to cut into this game. And you don’t want him to sight you. Is that it?”
Christian was rubbing his hands slowly together, nodding, but what he said was:
“Doesn’t it occur to you, Thurston, that I may be able to make something out of this wolf hunt that will settle the score between me and Jim Silver? I know that Silver’s in this part of the world, but he probably doesn’t know that I’m around. Thurston, Truman, and a couple of strangers. That’s all he’s prepared for. But we’ll never bag Jim Silver the way we’re going about things now.”
Thurston turned his head and waited, his expression poisonously cold.
“Go on, chief,” urged Gregor, softening his voice as though he feared to break the current of the thoughts of Christian.
But the great outlaw continued to stare into the distance where the mountains sprang up out of the night and pierced the last color in the sky.
At last he said: “There’s a way of doing the thing, I think. We can get Frosty. We can get Jim Silver, too. But not by tackling either of them directly.”
Duff Gregor looked with a quick, small smile toward Thurston, as though he wanted to call Thurston’s attention and bid him be ready for an idea that would be worth hearing.
Then Barry Christian said: “Silver trails the wolf, and the wolf trails its mate. We can’t catch Frosty by fair means, so we’ll catch him by foul. We’ll get the she-wolf alive and keep her, then Frosty will have to come to us. Silver will have to come to us, too. We’ll have to try to be ready.”
He turned his face from the mountains and smiled at the fire, and his eyes glowed. Thurston had jumped up from his place. He glared at Christian for a moment. Then he began to walk up and down with short, quick steps.
“I wish you’d thought of it before,” he said. “I’d be in a thousand dollars’ worth of dogs, by this time — and maybe we’d have both the wolves drying by the fire.”
“It’s no easy job to get the she-wolf. She never appears any more,” suggested Duff Gregor.
“She’ll sure appear to-morrow, though,” said Thurston through his teeth.
As a matter of fact, she did appear on the morrow. Thurston found an old set of her tracks and worked the dogs down the line to a dugout which was rank with the smell of the wolves. Out of that dugout the pack got the scent of the she-wolf, and though it was crossed and recrossed by the sign of Frosty, it seemed as though the dogs were glad to forget all about that destroyer. The pack hung closely to the traces of Frosty’s mate and, late in the afternoon, suddenly she ran out of cover a mile ahead of the pointers.
Big Frosty was there beside her, but only for a moment; then he disappeared into brush, heading off to the right, while his mate kept straight ahead.
Joe Thurston cursed with hearty amazement, for Frosty’s intention of pulling the pack after him while the she-wolf ran free was perfectly apparent.
But on this day, Frosty’s luck was out. He had read human minds very well, indeed, but he could not guess the device which Barry Christian had brought into the game.
Right past the sign of Frosty’s diverging trail ran the pack, with the greyhound shooting out into the lead toward the point where the other wolf had disappeared.
There were two burning miles, then the riders brought their foaming horses in view of a big rock under which Frosty’s mate had taken her stand, at bay. She had not the foot to distance the greyhounds, of course, and she had not the shiftiness to dodge them, as Frosty would have done.
She had laid one of them writhing on the ground; the others, in a close semicircle, edged in gradually on the raving, green-eyed beauty.
Barry Christian rode right through the dogs and landed the noose of his lariat over her neck just as she whirled to make a break for liberty.
Thurston kept the dogs off. Duff Gregor landed another rope on the big she-wolf. In thirty seconds she was choked to a stagger, muzzled, hobbled, and ready to be dragged wherever her captors wished.
Through the swirl of dust, Thurston looked down at their prize.
“There’s the difference between hunting an ordinary wolf and tackling Frosty,” he said. “We’ve got her in one day. We wouldn’t get him in one year. Not with an army.”
There was a peculiar answer to that speech, for from the opposite side of the valley, unseen among the woods, a wolf gave voice to a great, deep-throated lament; and the three men looked down at the ground with a sudden qualm of shame. They knew it was Frosty mourning for his mate.
CHAPTER XVII
The Hunters’ Camp
JIM SILVER lay out on the edge of a bluff with a field glass pressed to his eyes. He studied the opposite slope for a time, then he sat up and passed the glass to Alec Gary.
“Take your turn,” he said. “I think it’s Frosty’s mate. She’s chained there. I could see the glitter of the chain.”
Gary studied the picture in turn. The powerful glasses picked up the farther mountainside and brought it suddenly closer. It expanded the clearing. He saw the white-headed stump where a tree had been newly felled. He saw the glistening of an ax. And in the middle of a patch of sunset that sloped from the west over the heads of the pines, he made out the big wolf that stalked restlessly up and down. A snaky streak of light coiled and recoiled and followed the captive. That was the chain, of course.
“Looks tall,” said Gary. “But I couldn’t spot it as Frosty’s mate.”
“I think so,” said Jim Silver. “Dark above and pale below. She sat down while I was watching her, and the breast was almost white. Those are the markings of Frosty’s mate. Listen!”
There was a sudden clamor of the voices of dogs. The noise fell away on one yelping sound as though a whip had been used.
“And that’s the pack!” suggested Alec Gary.
He lowered the field glasses and shaded his eyes with his hand as though in that manner it would be easier to see the truth. All his lean, dark, handsome face showed the strain.
“That’s the pack,” he went on. “It’s the same lot of people who have been hunting Frosty with the dogs.”
“The same lot,” said Silver. “Who are they?”
Gary glanced at him and waited. He was always waiting on Silver, as upon the knowledge of a superior being. It was not merely that deference that had caused Silver to feel an affection for him. All during the ardors of that hunt, above timber line and below, through all sorts of weather, the patience and the endurance of Gary had been all that a man could ask for. There seemed to be in him none of the brute that had appeared in his uncle, Bill Gary. In Alec Gary the blood stream had run pure and clear. In every way the work had been difficult, and a dozen times, as they toiled and moiled to make out the trail, they had heard the clamor of the dog pack sweep by in the distance, hurrying miles away, and driving out of their den, once more, the great wolf for whom they hunted. But Gary had never complained.
“I don’t know who they might be,” said Gary. “Except what I’ve guessed before — that it’s Thurston’s pack
.”
“Tell me,” said Silver. “Do you know Thurston?”
“I’ve seen him. That’s about all.”
“What sort of reputation?”
“Mean — but straight.”
“Really straight? Too straight, say, to throw in with a pair of crooks?”
“What sort of crooks?” asked Alec Gary.
“A crook like Barry Christian, for instance?”
Slowly Gary shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Thurston comes of decent people. I’ve seen his daughter. She’s the right stuff. No, I don’t think that he’d throw in with Christian. I’m sure he wouldn’t. No decent man would, because everybody knows what Christian is and how he’s deviled you.”
“Somewhere,” mused Jim Silver, “Barry Christian and Gregor are in the mountains on the trail of Frosty. They are unless I’m entirely wrong. Christian knows what’s inside that Red Cross collar. And he isn’t the sort of a fellow to give up the job until he’s put his hands on the treasure.”
“Suppose he knew that you were after Frosty, too. Would he still keep at the job?” asked Gary.
“He’d keep at the job. He’s not afraid of me, if that’s what you mean,” answered Silver.
“No? Then why does he run away from you?”
“Because he’s like a beast of prey. Doesn’t fight until he’s pretty sure of winning. He wants an advantage before he throws his hat into the ring. But if you think that Thurston wouldn’t throw in with Christian — why, then it would be safe enough for you to go over there and find out just who owns that dog pack. Because, Alec, whoever it is will probably have Frosty by the leg before many days.”
“You mean,” answered Gary, “that they’ll cover the ground with traps and that Frosty will walk over those traps to get to his mate?”
“That’s what I mean. Has Frosty ever failed to stand by her, so far?”
“No,” agreed Alec Gary. “He’s a regular lion when it comes to standing up for her.”
“He’ll keep away for a while, perhaps. And when he comes in, first of all, he’ll smell the traps and clear off. But finally he’ll close his eyes and take a chance. It will be the last chance that he ever takes.”
Gary nodded.
“And that,” said Silver, “will be the end of the trail. The people who catch the wolf will be sure to examine the collar he’s wearing. They’ll open the little compartment. They’ll find the message about the mine. They’ll get the fortune that ought to be yours, Alec, and you’ll have all of this work for nothing.”
Gary squinted at the distance, a way that all mountain men have when they are in earnest thought.
“Not for nothing,” he answered. “I’ve learned to know you, Jim. That’s enough for me.”
Silver smiled at him. “Ride down there and take a look at the camp, will you?” he asked. “You can be back here before the twilight’s very deep. You haven’t pulled the saddle off your horse yet, and Parade has started grazing already.”
The stallion, hearing his name, tossed up his head and looked anxiously toward his master, scented the wind, made sure that all was well on all sides, and resumed his grazing.
“I’ll have the camp made and the fire started,” said Silver. “I’ll have the meat cooked before you get back.”
“I’ll be here again before dark,” agreed Gary. “And we ought to know who those people are. Jim, you really think that they’ll get Frosty?”
“They will,” said Silver. “We’re as good as beaten now. They had the brains to tackle the problem on its easier side. I never thought of doing that.”
Gary sighed. But without making the least complaint, he swung into the saddle and rode off down the hillside.
Silver watched him for a short time. The way led steeply down into the valley and then up through a thickness of pines toward the clearing. Already the clearing was lost in thick shadows as the sun dropped lower in the west.
It was the moment of the day which Silver liked best of all, next to the pure, still colors of the dawn. If he had been alone, he would have stood motionless, watching the day end and the fires of it soak out into the dim vapors of the night, but Gary was not accustomed to living like a wild Indian, and needed at least two good meals a day, with three preferred.
So Silver, with a sigh, turned to the cookery.
He could not help wishing to find, one day, a man like himself, capable of enjoying life even if there were only one meal a day — yes, or once in two days, if necessary — a man with all of his appetites perfectly under control, except that passionate and urgent appetite for the wilderness. He had never found a man of that sort. He was reasonably sure that he never would find one. In the whole course of his life he had found one living creature that he felt was like himself — and that was the great stallion, Parade. He did not own Parade. He had simply formed a partnership with the horse. Of men, there was of course Taxi — but Taxi was not a blood brother. Whatever the affection between them might be, they were total opposites.
These were the rather gloomy thoughts of Jim Silver as he broke up some wood for the camp fire, and cut a number of small twigs to serve as spits for the rabbit meat. Young Alec Gary, with an accurate rifle, had picked off two jack rabbits that afternoon. They had been partially dressed, immediately after the killing, of course. Now Silver finished the cutting up of the meat and arranged it on the spits around the handful of flame.
That, and salt and cold water, would be their fare. And perhaps a few bits of hard-tack. Ample for Silver, but starvation diet for Gary, as Silver well knew.
Parade posted himself to windward of the fire and close in toward it.
At a greater distance he would find far better grazing, free from the brush, but Parade always chose the strategic position rather than the one where he could fill his stomach most easily. Now, as he grazed, whether his head was down or up, he would be continually on guard. And even when he lay down to sleep, his senses would not be totally closed. His nostrils would still be drinking the wind and sifting the messages that were borne on it to his subconscious brain. His keen ears would be listening for the sound of feet or of distant voices. And, at the first token of peril, he would be up and snort and stamp beside his master until Jim Silver wakened.
He made a better sentinel than a dozen trained men, and Silver trusted the horse more in dangerous country. Though, for that matter, all country was dangerous where Jim Silver rode. His friends made much noise, but they were always at a distance. His enemies were apt to be on his trail.
He was thinking of these things, more gloomily than ever, when he was aware that the twilight had ended. The meat he had been turning on the spits was now browned and ready for eating. He wrapped that meat in some clean leaves, stood up, and cast one guilty glance toward the stars. He felt that he had been asleep at his post, indulging in useless reflections.
For well before this, his friend should have returned.
He went to the brow of the hill overlooking the deep valley, and stared in the direction of the clearing. It was invisible now. The trees seemed to march in unbroken ranks up the opposite steep slope. Only on the ridge they bristled against the dim background of the starlight.
There Silver waited, watching, listening.
The fact that there was no firelight from the opposite clearing was suspicious enough, for people were still there. At least, the dogs were there. Even now Silver heard a short, eager yelping that floated faintly to him on the thin mountain air.
Danger was in that air, and he knew that he would have to go straight on to investigate the source of it. He saddled Parade and rode at once into the deeper night of the valley.
CHAPTER XVIII
Bait for Silver
THE day is always two or three hours shorter under a heavy growth of pine trees. The morning light needs time to soak down through the branches, as it were; and in the evening the night seems to rise up out of the ground.
So it seemed to young Alec Gary as he rode his m
ustang up the mountainside toward the clearing. It was already twilight in those woods. But there was still a dull rosy golden light in the air when he came out into the open.
Before him he saw the big she-wolf. At his coming she had slunk to the other end of her chain and cowered against the ground, her bright eyes flashing from side to side as she vainly searched for some means of escape.
On the far side of the clearing there was a straight face of rock some twenty-five or thirty feet high. He had not been able to see it from across the valley, no doubt because of the way the shadows from the trees fell across the polished face of it. Off to the side, half lost among the trees, he could see the shadowy forms of the leashed dogs. But more interesting than anything else, to the eye of Alec Gary, was the slender figure of Joe Thurston standing facing him with a loaded rifle.
“Hello, Thurston,” he said. “You don’t have to shoot. I’m a friend.”
He laughed a little, as he said this.
“You’re a friend, are you?” said Thurston. “And what makes you think that I expect to see any enemies around here?”
“The point is that I don’t think it,” answered Alec Gary. “But you seem to be ready for anything.”
“That’s a good way to seem,” answered Thurston.
His thin lips kept twisting a little, and his eyes were always focusing and narrowing as though he were picking out the part of Gary’s body into which he intended to put a slug of lead.
He added: “What brought you up here, and who are you?”
“Alec Gary. I’m up here with a friend of mine.”
“Alec Gary? I don’t remember that name. Ever see me before?”
“Yes. I remember you, all right. But I’m not important enough to be looked at twice.”
This modest remark brought no smile from Thurston.
“It’s a funny time to be breaking in on a camp, seems to me,” he said. “If you’ve got a friend with you, where is he?”
