His success thus far gave him renewed courage.
“What one person has done another can do,” was his thought. “Fred and I agreed that there is a good deal of risk in this, but if I had a little more light nothing could be easier. These rocks seem to be placed at the right intervals, and so long as I can locate them I’ll go ahead.”
The belief of Jack was that somewhere in the side of the canyon was a cave in which his comrade was held captive. The sight that the two boys had obtained of Hank Hazletine, when he disappeared so suddenly from sight, lent strength to the theory. If the youth was right, the time of his attempt to ascend the gorge, with the exception of the darkness, could not have been more favorable, for Motoza was absent, and it was hardly to be supposed that his place had been taken by Tozer or anyone else. What a happy meeting it would be if the elder could find the younger!
The natural reasoning was that, if one boy was able to ascend the canyon to where the other was imprisoned, the latter ought to be able to leave his prison when the gaoler was absent. Jack’s explanation was probably the right one—either that Fred did not know how readily the thing could be done, or Jack was soon to find himself unable to complete his journey.
Spurred on by the hope of doing so much for the one he loved, Jack paused only long enough to locate the next rock, when he again leaped with the easy strength and grace that were natural to him. His success did not render him careless. He was almost in utter darkness, and was surprised that the way proved so easy. By leaning forward and peering into the gloom he could generally distinguish the most shadowy outlines of the nearest part of the support, which, had it been slightly further removed, would have been altogether beyond his reach.
It was unreasonable to expect the favorable conditions to continue, and they did not. The time came very soon when, after one of his leaps, the youth paused to collect himself, and was unable to distinguish the next rock projecting above the roaring current. The canyon just there was wider than usual, and he stooped over and gazed to the right and left in turn, hoping to discover the indispensable support.
“It must be somewhere near,” he reflected, “else Hank and the rest of them could have ascended no further; perhaps they did not do so.”
He gazed up the walls of darkness, but saw nothing that could help solve the question. If there was a cave near at hand its presence was betrayed by no friendly light. Although the tumult of the current was almost deafening, he shouted the name of Fred and listened for the response which came not.
It was not difficult for Jack Dudley to form the explanation of why he failed to discern the next support. Hitherto his leaps had been comparatively trifling. It would have been no trouble to make them several feet longer. This was a spot where such a jump was necessary, and therefore he could not discern the rock which would have been visible with the help of the sun or moon.
What should he do? Turn back or keep on? It was a most serious question, and he debated it a long time before forming a conclusion.
It is remarkable how readily, at times, we can convince ourselves of the truth of that which we wish to believe. By and by Jack Dudley was sure he made out the dim outlines of the lower point of a huge rock, just where it ought to have been.
“I can’t be mistaken, so here goes!”
And go he did, with a vengeance. It was the finest leap yet made, but, unfortunately, the support upon which he so confidently counted had no existence. Instead of landing on solid stone, he dropped into the raging torrent and went spinning down stream like a cork in a whirlpool.
He kept his presence of mind, and did not exhaust his strength by trying to stem the current. His great peril was in being hurled against some of the rocks and killed or having a limb broken. Throwing out his arms just in time he averted this calamity, and feeling himself scraping swiftly past one of the masses of stone that had served him as a support, he desperately gripped it and drew himself out of the water.
He was uninjured, but became immediately conscious of a great misfortune. In the flurry his Winchester had become displaced and was irrecoverably gone. It was with an exclamation of relief that he found his revolver in place at his hip.
“This expedition of mine, considered strictly as an expedition, is a failure,” he grimly muttered, thankful for his own escape, and still convinced that it was not as bad as it might have been with his friend. “It won’t do to try it again, and it remains for me to get out of the canyon altogether.”
He had landed upon the extreme upper end of the most immense rock of all that had been used to help in the ascent. He remembered it well. The upper portion was depressed and sloping, being three or four feet above the current. Thus it happened that the point to which he was clinging allowed him to be deluged with spray, and he strove to climb to the higher part.
He was thus engaged, conscious of a number of severe bruises, when an object whisked past his shoulder, taking a direction up the gorge. He felt it graze his face, and detected something that can only be described as a deepening of the dense gloom as it shot over his head. It came and vanished like the flitting of a bird’s wing.
The youth for the moment was amazed beyond expression, and was at a loss to explain what it could be. Then the truth flashed upon him. Some one else was also going up the canyon, and had leaped from the rock to which Jack was clinging, on his way to the next one. He strove to pierce the darkness, but the effort was useless.
“I would give a good deal to know who he was; I couldn’t make out whether it was a white man or an Indian. It may have been Motoza, Tozer, Hank, or a stranger; but whoever he was, he has no use for me.”
Half suspecting a third party might put in an appearance, Jack waited on the rock for some minutes, but nothing of the kind occurred, and he prepared to continue his retreat.
The water was almost icy cold, the temperature being perceptibly lower between the walls of the canyon and the clear air outside. With his saturated garments, the youth was chilled and anxious to reach a point where he could start a fire and obtain warmth for his body. He had given over the expectation of seeing any more persons in the gorge and wished to look after his own comfort.
To this haste was to be attributed the second accident that overtook the young man. He had no difficulty in locating the place to land, but he put too much vigor in the effort, so that when he struck the slippery rock his momentum carried him forward, and despite his resistance he took another plunge into the raging current before he could check himself.
The place was preferable to the previous one, for it was almost at the mouth of the canyon. He was guiding himself as best he could, and on the alert to grasp something to check his swift progress, when he debouched into the broad, open pool or miniature lake at the break in the banks, where the current became so sluggish that he swam with ease.
“This is growing monotonous,” he muttered, as, after a few strokes, his feet touched bottom and he walked out on dry land. “My rifle is gone, but luckily I have kept my revolver for emergencies—”
He got no further with the remark, for his hand had gone back to his hip with the result of discovering that the smaller weapon had been lost during his last bath. But it was impossible wholly to lose his good spirits.
“Whew! but that puts me in a fine condition to hunt grizzly bears and meet bad Indians; I’m not so anxious to see Motoza as I was.”
His teeth were chattering, and to start his blood in circulation he began climbing the sloping bank, at the top of which, as will be remembered, he had remained hidden with Fred Greenwood when looking down upon the three Indians.
It was a laborious task, and he was panting when he reached the summit, where he paused for a few minutes’ rest. The prudent course was to return as speedily as he could to the cavern by the plateau and start a fire. His blanket had been left there, and would be of great use in his present condition.
“I wonder, now, if somebody has been there and stolen them?” he muttered, resuming his homeward tramp; “this th
ing ought not to stop, and it seems to me Hank takes big chances in leaving the blankets and ponies where some of these Indians can steal them.”
Jack had still to leap the canyon in order to reach his destination, but the task had become an easy one and caused him no anxiety. All was going well, when his first shock of alarm came with the discovery that a wild animal was following him. His first thought was that it was one of the Indians, but a glimpse, on the edge of a slight clearing, showed that it was a quadruped.
Jack paused and looked intently at the creature. He could see it only dimly, but sufficiently so to identify it as a wolf of unusually large size. He suspected it was of the black species, one of those savage brutes to be dreaded tenfold more than the ordinary grey kind.
“I wonder whether he knows I haven’t got a firearm about me? Ah, old fellow, if I had my Winchester it wouldn’t take me long to settle you.”
It was no jesting matter, and Jack kept close watch of him while threading his way to camp, as their headquarters were called. Several times, when he turned quickly, he was startled to observe that the animal had stolen quite close to him, as if to leap upon his shoulders; but he showed his cowardly nature by darting back, only to return the moment the youth turned his face away.
The question with Jack was whether he should stop and kindle a fire, or wait until he reached the cavern. He preferred to do the latter, but it looked unsafe to defer the precaution. The distance, however, was short, and he hurried on until he clambered over to the plateau and was greeted by a whinny from his pony, Dick, who was quick to recognize him. Instead of keeping up the pursuit, or attacking one of the horses, the wolf seemed to conclude it best to turn his attention elsewhere. He slunk off, and was seen no more.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE QUEST OF THE COWMAN.
It was Hank Hazletine, the cowman, who leaped over the head of Jack Dudley when he was crouching on the rock in the canyon, and it happened in this way:
It has been intimated that when the veteran left the boy at the temporary camp on the mountain side his intention was to learn the whereabouts of Motoza, the Sioux, hoping thereby to gain knowledge of the missing Fred Greenwood.
This was a task of extreme difficulty, inasmuch as it was certain the vagrant red man would be on his guard against such strategy. The Indian whom Hank saw with the aid of the spy-glass was not he whom he wished to trace, but, suspecting he was in the vicinity, the cowman made his way thither by a roundabout course. He was on the alert for the fellow, or for his ally, Bill Tozer. Should either or both of them discover Hank, he might well assume that it was an accident. It could hardly be expected of him that he would remain at the cavern for twenty-four hours, awaiting the time for Tozer to meet him. His most natural course would be to engage in hunting with his youthful companion, and he could reasonably claim to be thus engaged if a meeting took place.
Should events prove that the plotters were too watchful to be caught off their guard, then the second phase of the business was to be considered; but it remained to be seen whether such was the fact. The ransom was to be agreed to when it was apparent that no other course could save the lad.
Advancing with the care and stealth of a trained Indian scout, Hazletine remained but a short time near the break in the canyon, for suspecting, as did Jack Dudley, that it was in that neighborhood the key to the situation was to be found, he was exposing himself to discovery. He climbed the same ascent, leaped the canyon, and ensconced himself on the further side. His intention was to peer over the edge into the depths below, instead of taking the course followed later by his young friend.
He was acting on this idea, when he came within a hair of spoiling everything by committing the very blunder against which he had sought with so much pains to guard. At his height above the torrent, as will be remembered, no one was disturbed by the roar of the waters far below. Because of his susceptibility to sounds, he heard an exclamation uttered by some one near him. The point whence it came was a clump of rocks hardly fifty feet distant, and he fancied he recognized the voice as Bill Tozer’s. To his relief he could see no one, and it was safe, therefore, to assume that no one as yet saw him.
The ground was favorable, and by using the utmost care he secured a position from which he discovered Tozer and Motoza in conversation. The white man was sitting on a boulder, while the Sioux was standing in front of him, gesticulating as if angry over something that had been proposed or said. Tozer was smoking a pipe, and seemed cool and collected, though the exclamation which had betrayed him indicated that it had not been thus from the beginning.
It was an important discovery for Hazletine to make, but it was attended by two exasperating facts: the interview was nearly over, and the words that remained to be spoken were uttered in such moderate tones that he could not hear a syllable. If the couple had been obliging enough to raise their voices, it is probable that the knowledge sought by the eavesdropper would have soon been at his command.
But nothing of that nature took place. Within five minutes after the arrival of the cowman, prepared to act his part as spy, Motoza turned about and walked away in the direction of the canyon, while Tozer took a course which, if continued, would lead him to the plateau.
“I don’t think he’ll go there, fur he’s no reason to look fur me in that place afore to-morrer morning.”
But the white man was not the important factor in the problem. Hank waited for some minutes after he had passed from sight, and then set out to regain sight of Motoza, which task proved more difficult than he expected. The fellow had vanished, and it was impossible to tell whither he had gone. The rocky surface left no trail which even an Apache could follow, and it only remained for the cowman to fall back upon what may be called general principles.
The experience of the cowman was another illustration of how much depends in this world on what is called chance.
Jack Dudley, without any preliminary training in woodcraft, discovered Motoza as he emerged from the canyon, while the veteran of the West, skilled in all the ways of his venturesome life, spent hours in looking for the Sioux without obtaining the first glimpse of him. That he missed him by a margin that could not have been narrower was a fact; but “a miss is as good as a mile,” and the autumn afternoon drew to a close without the first glimmer of success on his part. He had gone so far, even, as to visit a distant camp-fire, whose smoke still faintly showed against the clear sky, but failed to see a living person.
He was on the point of giving over his quest, when the unexpected happened. Within a few hundred yards of the break in the canyon he caught sight of Motoza and Tozer holding another consultation. They had evidently just met, and the configuration of the ground enabled Hazletine to steal near enough to catch some of the words spoken by the couple.
The two were standing face to face, and their actions were peculiar. Motoza was in the act of handing his Winchester rifle to Tozer, who, accepting the weapon, turned it over and examined it with interest. Since he could not speak the Sioux he used the English language, of which, as will be remembered, Motoza possessed a fair knowledge.
“You’re lucky,” he said; “the gun is worth more than yours. So you made a trade with the young man?”
“Yes—me trade,” replied the Sioux, his painted face relaxing with the grin that had become almost chronic.
“I don’t s’pose he made any objection—that is, he gave you his gun without making a kick?”
The Sioux nodded his head and still grinned, Tozer joining him in the last expression of his feelings.
“How about his revolver?”
“He gib me that,” said the scamp, drawing forth the handsome weapon, where Hazletine had not observed it, thrust into the girdle about his waist.
There was no mistaking the meaning of these words and proceedings. All doubt was removed as to the abduction of Fred Greenwood. Motoza was the agent in the outrage, though whether Tozer had taken an active part in the same was yet uncertain. He scanned the smaller firearm,
and then, instead of returning it to the Sioux, deliberately shoved it into his hip-pocket.
“I think I’ll take charge of that, Motoza.”
The buck was about to make angry objection, when the white man explained:
“When I meet Hank tomorrow he’ll want some proof that I can turn over the youngster to him. He won’t believe I can do so till he sees that proof. I’ll show him this revolver, and he’ll know it belongs to the youngster. That will be all the proof he’ll ask. The rest will come easy; and, Motoza, you and I will be rich.”
There was an emphasis in this declaration that was convincing to the dusky partner in crime. He nodded his head and made no further protest. Evidently he was under the influence of his white ally.
At this juncture the couple turned their backs upon the eavesdropper, who had stolen to within a few paces of them. They continued talking, but the change of position prevented his hearing what was said. It was peculiarly exasperating, for, though he had gained considerable information, he still lacked the most important news of all. He had heard no intimation of where the prisoner was held. Could he but learn that, he would have lost no time in attempting his rescue. It must be said, furthermore, that had such knowledge come to him he would not have hesitated to draw bead on the two miscreants in turn, and shoot them down in their tracks. He was thoroughly enraged, and they deserved the fate.
A few minutes after the change of position the couple walked away, side by side, still conversing. Certain discovery would have followed any attempt on the part of the cowman to keep at their heels or nigh enough to overhear their words, so he held his place and saw them pass from sight. He had noted the direction, however, and observed that it led from the canyon and deeper into the mountains.
This was puzzling. It seemed to Hank that one or both would make their way to the prison of the youth, for it was unlikely that he would be left alone through the night. Having no thought of being under surveillance, Motoza and Tozer would take a direct course to the place of confinement, which now seemed to be deeper in the mountains, and at some point of which the cowman had no suspicion.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 55
