The B. M. Bower Megapack

by B. M. Bower

  “Come on over to the fire,” he said. “I’ll learn yuh a trick or two about camp cooking. If I’m goin’ to keep yuh with me, you might just as well learn how to cook. We’ll be on the trail the biggest part of our time, I expect.”

  He took her by the arm, just as any man might have done, and led her to the fire that was beginning to crackle cheerfully. He set her down on the side where the smoke would be least likely to blow her way and proceeded to dress the grouse, stripping off skin and feathers together. He unrolled the slicker and laid out a piece of bacon, a package of coffee, a small coffeepot, bannock and salt. The coffeepot and the grouse he took in one hand—his left, Lorraine observed—and started toward the spring which she could hear gurgling in the shadows amongst the trees.

  Lorraine watched him sidelong. He seemed to take it for granted now that she would stay where she was. The woods were dark, the firelight and the warmth enticed her. The sight of the supper preparations made her hungrier than she had ever been in her life before. When one has breakfasted on one cup of coffee at dawn and has ridden all day with nothing to eat, running away from food, even though that food is in the hands of one’s captor, requires courage. Lorraine was terribly tempted to stay, at least until she had eaten. But Al might not give her another chance like this. She crept on her knees to the slicker and seized one piece of bannock, crawled out of the firelight stealthily, then sprang to her feet and began running straight across the meadow toward Skinner.

  Twenty yards she covered when a bullet sang over her head. Lorraine ducked, stumbled and fell headfirst over a hummock, not quite sure that she had not been shot.

  “Thought maybe I could trust yuh to play square,” Al said disgustedly, pulling her to her feet, the gun still smoking in his hands. “You little fool, what do you think you’d do in these hills alone? You sure enough belittle me, if you think you’d have a chance in a million of getting away from me!”

  She fought him, then, with a great, inner relief that the situation was at last swinging around to a normal kidnapping. Still, Al Woodruff seemed unable to play his part realistically. He failed to fill her with fear and repulsion. She had to think back, to remember that he had killed men, in order to realize her own danger. Now, for instance, he merely forced her back to the campfire, pulled the saddle strings from his pocket and tied her feet together, using a complicated knot which he told her she might work on all she darn pleased, for all he cared. Then he went calmly to work cooking their supper.

  This was simple. He divided the grouse so that one part had the meaty breast and legs, and the other the back and wings. The meaty part he larded neatly with strips of bacon, using his hunting knife,—which Lorraine watched fascinatedly, wondering if it had ever taken the life of a man. He skewered the meat on a green, forked stick and gave it to her to broil for herself over the hottest coals of the fire, while he made the coffee and prepared his own portion of the grouse.

  Lorraine was hungry. She broiled the grouse carefully and ate it, with the exception of one leg, which she surprised herself by offering to Al, who was picking the bones of his own share down to the last shred of meat. She drank a cup of coffee, black, and returned the cup to the killer, who unconcernedly drank from it without any previous rinsing. She ate bannock with her meat and secretly thought what an adventure it would be if only it were not real,—if only she were not threatened with a forced marriage to this man. The primitive camp appealed to her; she who had prided herself upon being an outdoor girl saw how she had always played at being primitive. This was real. She would have loved it if only the man opposite were Lone, or Swan, or some one else whom she knew and trusted.

  She watched the firelight dancing on Al’s somber face, softening its hardness, making it almost wistful when he gazed thoughtfully into the coals. She thrilled when she saw how watchful he was, how he lifted his head and listened to every little night sound. She was afraid of him as she feared the lightning; she feared his pitiless attitude toward human life. She would find some way to outwit him when it came to the point of marrying him, she thought. She would escape him if she could without too great a risk of being shot. She felt absolutely certain that he would shoot her with as little compunction as he would marry her by force,—and it seemed to Lorraine that he would not greatly care which he did.

  “I guess you’re tired,” Al said suddenly, rousing himself from deep study and looking at her imperturbably. “I’ll fix yuh so you can sleep—and that’s about all yuh can do.”

  He went over to his saddle, took the blanket and unfolded it until Lorraine saw that it was a full-size bed blanket of heavy gray wool. The man’s ingenuity seemed endless. Without seeming to have any extra luggage, he had nevertheless carried a very efficient camp outfit with him. He took his hunting knife, went to the spruce grove and cut many small, green branches, returning with all he could hold in his arms. She watched him lay them tips up for a mattress, and was secretly glad that she knew this much at least of camp comfort. He spread the blanket over them and then, without a word, came over to her and untied her feet.

  “Go and lay down on the blanket,” he commanded.

  “I’ll do nothing of the kind!” Lorraine set her mouth stubbornly.

  “Well, then I’ll have to lay you down,” said Al, lifting her to her feet. “If you get balky, I’m liable to get rough.”

  Lorraine drew away from him as far as she could and looked at him for a full minute. Al stared back into her eyes. “Oh, I could kill you!” cried Lorraine for the second time that day and threw herself down on the bed, sobbing like an angry child.

  Al said nothing. The man’s capacity for keeping still was amazing. He knelt beside her, folded the blanket over her from the two sides, and tied the corners around her neck snugly, the knot at the back. In the same way he tied her ankles. Lorraine found herself in a sleeping bag from which she had small hope of extricating herself. He took his coat, folded it compactly and pushed it under her head for a pillow; then he brought her own saddle blanket and spread it over her for extra warmth.

  “Now stop your bawling and go to sleep,” he advised her calmly. “You ain’t hurt, and you ain’t going to be as long as you gentle down and behave yourself.”

  She saw him draw the slicker over his shoulders and move back where the shadows were deep and she could not see him. She heard some animal squall in the woods behind them. She looked up at the stars,—millions of them, and brighter than she had ever seen them before. Insensibly she quieted, watching the stars, listening to the night noises, catching now and then a whiff of smoke from Al Woodruff’s cigarette. Before she knew that she was sleepy, she slept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “YACK, I LICK YOU GOOD IF YOU BARK”

  Swan cooked himself a hasty meal while he studied the various possibilities of the case and waited for further word from headquarters. He wanted to be sure that help had started and to be able to estimate within an hour or two the probable time of its arrival, before he left the wireless. Jack he fed and left on watch outside the cabin, so that he could without risk keep open the door to the dugout.

  His instrument was not a large one, and the dugout door was thick,—as a precaution against discovery if he should be called when some visitor chanced to be in the cabin. Not often did a man ride that way, though occasionally some one stopped for a meal if he knew that the cabin was there and had ever tasted Swan’s sour-dough biscuits. His aerial was cleverly camouflaged between the two pine trees, and he had no fear of discovery there; Jack was a faithful guardian and would give warning if any one approached the place. Swan could therefore give his whole attention to the business at hand.

  He was not yet supplied with evidence enough to warrant arresting Warfield and Hawkins, but he hoped to get it when the real crisis came. They could not have known of Al Woodruff’s intentions toward Lorraine, else they would have kept themselves in the background and would not have risked the failure of their own plan.

  On the other hand, Al must have
been wholly ignorant of Warfield’s scheme to try and prove Lorraine crazy. It looked to Swan very much like a muddling of the Sawtooth affairs through over-anxiety to avoid trouble. They were afraid of what Lorraine knew. They wanted to eliminate her, and they had made the blunder of working independently to that end.

  Lone’s anxiety he did not even consider. He believed that Lone would be equal to any immediate emergency and would do whatever the circumstances seemed to require of him. Warfield counted him a Sawtooth man. Al Woodruff, if the four men met unexpectedly, would also take it for granted that he was one of them. They would probably talk to Lone without reserve,—Swan counted on that. Whereas, if he were present, they would be on their guard, at least.

  Swan’s plan was to wait at the cabin until he knew that deputies were headed toward the Pass. Then, with Jack, it would be a simple matter to follow Warfield to where he overtook Al,—supposing he did overtake him. If he did not, then Swan meant to be present when the meeting occurred. The dog would trail Al anywhere, since the scent would be less than twenty-four hours old. Swan would locate Warfield and lead him straight to Al Woodruff, and then make his arrests. But he wanted to have the deputies there.

  At dusk he got his call. He learned that four picked men had started for the Pass, and that they would reach the divide by daybreak. Others were on their way to intercept Al Woodruff if he crossed before then.

  It was all that Swan could have hoped for,—more than he had dared to expect on such short notice. He notified the operator that he would not be there to receive anything else, until he returned to report that he had got his men.

  “Don’t count your chickens till they’re hatched,” came facetiously out of the blue.

  “By golly, I can hear them holler in the shell,” Swan sent back, grinning to himself as he rattled the key. “That irrigation graft is killed now. You tell the boss Swan says so. He’s right. The way to catch a fox is to watch his den.”

  He switched off the current, closed the case and went out, making sure that the cupboard-camouflaged door looked perfectly innocent on the outside. With a bannock stuffed into one pocket, a chunk of bacon in the other, he left the cabin and swung off again in that long, tireless stride of his, Jack following contentedly at his heels.

  At the farther end of Skyline Meadow he stopped, took a tough leather leash from his pocket and fastened it to Jack’s collar.

  “We don’t go running to paw nobody’s stomach and say, ‘Wow-wow! Here we are back again!’” he told the dog, pulling its ears affectionately. “Maybe we get shot or something like that. We trail, and we keep our mouth still, Yack. One bark, and I lick you good!”

  Jack flashed out a pink tongue and licked his master’s chin to show how little he was worried over the threat, and went racing along at the end of the leash, taking Swan’s trail and his own back to where they had climbed out of the canyon.

  At the bottom Swan spoke to the dog in an undertone, and Jack obediently started up the canyon on the trail of the five horses who had passed that way since noon. It was starlight now, and Swan did not hurry. He was taking it for granted that Warfield and Hawkins would stop when it became too dark to follow the hoofprints, and without Jack to show them the way they would perforce remain where they were until daybreak.

  They would do that, he reasoned, if they were sincere in wanting to overtake Lorraine and in their ignorance that they were also following Al Woodruff. And try as he would, he could not see the object of so foolish a plan as this abduction carried out in collusion with two men of unknown sentiments in the party. They had shown no suspicion of Al’s part in the affair, and Swan grinned when he thought of the mutual surprise when they met.

  He was not disappointed. They reached timber line, following the seldom used trail that wound over the divide to Bear Top Pass and so, by a difficult route which he did not believe Al would attempt after dark, to the country beyond the mountain. Where dark overtook them, they stopped in a sheltered nook to wait, just as Swan had expected they would. They were close to the trail, where no one could pass without their knowledge.

  In the belief that it was only Lorraine they were following, and that she would be frightened and would come to the cheer of a campfire, they had a fine, inviting blaze. Swan made his way as close as he dared, without being discovered, and sat down to wait. He could see nothing of the men until Lone appeared and fed the flames more wood, and sat down where the light shone on his face. Swan grinned again. Warfield had probably decided that Lorraine would be less afraid of Lone than of them and had ordered him into the firelight as a sort of decoy. And Lone, knowing that Al Woodruff might be within shooting distance, was probably much more uncomfortable than he looked.

  He sat with his legs crossed in true range fashion and stared into the fire while he smoked. He was a fair mark for an enemy who might be lurking out there in the dark, but he gave no sign that he realized the danger of his position. Neither did he wear any air of expectancy. Warfield and Hawkins might wait and listen and hope that Lorraine, wide-eyed and weary, would steal up to the warmth of the fire; but not Lone.

  Swan, sitting on a rotting log, became uneasy at the fine target which Lone made by the fire, and drew Al Woodruff’s blue bandanna from his pocket. He held it to Jack’s nose and whispered, “You find him, Yack—and I lick you good if you bark.” Jack sniffed, dropped his nose to the ground and began tugging at the leash. Swan got up and, moving stealthily, followed the dog.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “I COULDA LOVED THIS LITTLE GIRL”

  A chill wind that hurried over Bear Top ahead of the dawn brought Swan and Jack clattering up the trail that dipped into Spirit Canyon. Warfield rose stiffly from the one-sided warmth of the fire and walked a few paces to meet him, shrugging his wide shoulders at the cold and rubbing his thigh muscles that protested against movement. Much riding upon upholstered cushions had not helped Senator Warfield to retain the tough muscles of hard-riding Bill Warfield. The senator was saddle-sore as well as hungry, and his temper showed in his blood-shot eyes. He would have quarreled with his best-beloved woman that morning, and he began on Swan.

  Why hadn’t he come back down the gulch yesterday and helped track the girl, as he was told to do? (The senator had quite unpleasant opinions of Swedes, and crazy women, and dogs that were never around when they were wanted, and he expressed them fluently.)

  Swan explained with a great deal of labor that he had not thought he was wanted, and that he had to sleep on his claim sometimes or the law would take it from him, maybe. Also he virtuously pointed out that he had come with Yack before daylight to the canyon to see if they had found Miss Hunter and gone home, or if they were still hunting for her.

  “If you like to find that jong lady, I put Yack on the trail quick,” he offered placatingly. “I bet you Yack finds her in one-half an hour.”

  With much unnecessary language, Senator Warfield told him to get to work, and the three tightened cinches, mounted their horses and prepared to follow Swan’s lead. Swan watched his chance and gave Lone a chunk of bannock as a substitute for breakfast, and Lone, I may add, dropped behind his companions and ate every crumb of it, in spite of his worry over Lorraine.

  Indeed, Swan eased that worry too, when they were climbing the pine slope where Al had killed the grouse. Lone had forged ahead on John Doe, and Swan stopped suddenly, pointing to the spot where a few bloody feathers and a boot-print showed. The other evidence Jack had eaten in the night.

  “Raine’s all right, Lone. Got men coming. Keep your gun handy,” he murmured and turned away as the others rode up, eager for whatever news Swan had to offer.

  “Something killed a bird,” Swan explained politely, planting one of his own big feet over the track, which did not in the least resemble Lorraine’s. “Yack! you find that jong lady quick!”

  From there on Swan walked carefully, putting his foot wherever a print of Al’s boot was visible. Since he was much bigger than Al, with a correspondingly longer stride,
his gait puzzled Lone until he saw just what Swan was doing. Then his eyes lightened with amused appreciation of the Swede’s cunning.

  “We ought to have some hot drink, or whisky, when we find that girl,” Hawkins muttered unexpectedly, riding up beside Lone as they crossed an open space. “She’ll be half-dead with cold—if we find her alive.”

  Before Lone could answer, Swan looked back at the two and raised his hand for them to stop.

  “Better if you leave the horses here,” he suggested. “From Yack I know we get close pretty quick. That jong lady’s horse maybe smells these horse and makes a noise, and crazy folks run from noise.”

  Without objection the three dismounted and tied their horses securely to trees. Then, with Swan and Jack leading the way, they climbed over the ridge and descended into the hollow by way of the ledge which Skinner had negotiated so carefully the night before. Without the dog they never would have guessed that any one had passed this way, but as it was they made good progress and reached the nearest edge of the spruce thicket just as the sun was making ready to push up over the skyline.

  Jack stopped and looked up at his master inquiringly, lifting his lip at the sides and showing his teeth. But he made no sound; nor did Swan, when he dropped his fingers to the dog’s head and patted him approvingly.

  They heard a horse sneeze, beyond the spruce grove, and Warfield stepped forward authoritatively, waving Swan back. This, his manner said plainly, was first and foremost his affair, and from now on he would take charge of the situation. At his heels went Hawkins, and Swan sent an oblique glance of satisfaction toward Lone, who answered it with his half-smile. Swan himself could not have planned the approach more to his liking.

  The smell of bacon cooking watered their mouths and made Warfield and Hawkins look at one another inquiringly. Crazy young women would hardly be expected to carry a camping outfit. But Swan and Lone were treading close on their heels, and their own curiosity pulled them forward. They went carefully around the thicket, guided by the pungent odor of burning pine wood, and halted so abruptly that Swan and Lone bumped into them from behind. A man had risen up from the campfire and faced them, his hands rising slowly, palms outward.