Читать книгу The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Страница 55

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Just beyond the rodeo field Jim Chaffee reined in. "Wait a minute, Mack. We can't go and leave the boys all bound up with trouble. Let's—"

But Mack had fought too hard to see his victory dissipated. "Hey, cut that out. Don't get no fool ideas this late at night. Yore an escaped prisoner, an' they's a bounty on yore scalp. If yuh go back there now somebody'll knock yuh down. Never mind the boys."

"I know that," muttered Chaffee, "but it don't seem right. What's the use of tradin' my scalp for some other Stirrup S man? Locklear's just the lad to take out his grudge on whoever he can."

"No chance," Mack reassured him. "We got it all figured. The whole outfit is scattered by now. And Luis is too busy lookin' for you to monkey with anybody else. Hey, they're comin' thisaway. Let's travel."

A sizeable party galloped eastward along the street, gathering recruits and speed as it traveled. Still a little reluctant, Jim Chaffe wheeled beside his partner and the two of them raced across the undulating expanse of the dark desert. "I guess—" began Chaffee, and was cut short by Mack.

"Hush, Mister Chaffee. This is my party, ain't it? You lemme do the figurin' for the next few minutes. Now spill the scandal. What happened to you last night?"

Chaffee told him in clipped sentences. Mack never said a word until Chaffee related the stampede of the herd into the canyon. At that Mack Moran began to swear passionately. "They'll pay the bill, Jim! They'll pay it if we got to start snipin' from bush to bush! Damn their measly hearts!" Then he fell grimly silent and did not speak again for a full five minutes. "Well, that shows us they's just one thing to do. Yuh got to depart the country for a spell, Jim."

"I've been arguin' that point with myself," said Chaffee. "It goes against the grain. If I do, I'm out of the fight altogether. I'm useless. I'm runnin' away. I'm a licked dog. It don't sound good. I figure I could pick up some grub along the way and hide out over in the lava country. That's close enough to the ranch to keep connections. I could duck around and lay an ear to the ground."

"Won't work," contradicted Mack. "If it was an ordinary case o' holin' up it might do. But yore on the official records as an escaped killer. Locklear will be on yore trail from now till somethin' drops. He's got plenty of men to do it. He's got somebody's money behind him. And they'll be a few homesteaders to squawk when they ketch sight of yuh. What'll happen? They'll get yuh cornered in the lava like some mis'able Modoc. Either they starves yuh down or they run yuh into a pocket—and yore gone. No, sir. It's over the hill for Jim Chaffee."

"How long?" asked Chaffee, knowing that Mack's logic was sound. It tallied with his own belief, but he hated to admit it.

Mack was indefinite. "Oh, till things blow over."

"That don't mean anything."

"Means a whole skin," retorted the small partner. "You've had yore fun for the time bein'. Things can't get no worse. Stay awhile till the excitement dies down and folks have a chance to see what kind of a deal the county's gettin'. Locklear'll lose his support. Then come back."

They rode two or three miles in silence. "All right," agreed Chaffee with evident reluctance.

"Fine. We'll curve toward the canyon and cross above or below. Leave that to you."

"Cross below at Linderman's," decided Chaffee. "I don't trust Lee very far."

They had outrun the pursuing posse, lost themselves deep in the thickening night. Gradually they swung around and laid a true course toward Linderman's ferry on the lower reaches of Roaring Horse canyon. Such a route brought them nearer the main road between town and Stirrup S. The bridge at Chickman's creek lay in front of them and to the left. So they went, abating the speed to save the ponies. The hours ran along smoothly, the night air turned intensely cold to the east wind whipping down from the peaks.

"It's snowin' up on Thirty-four Pass right now," reflected Chaffee. "Early winter ahead of us."

The twin pines guarding the Chickman creek bridge stood faintly against the immediate shadows. They approached at a slow walk.

"Gang was to meet here. Mebbe have met and gone home."

"Hold it, Mack!"

There was a confused, staccato murmuring down the road in the direction of town. The partners pulled up. A group of horsemen came along at a fast gait, wavered abreast the partners about a hundred yards distant, and pounded over the bridge. "Too many for Stirrup S," grumbled Mack. "Them's the bloodhounds goin' hell- bent for the ranch."

"Listen—they're leaving the road." The clatter died almost instantly, and by that Chaffee knew the party had veered from the packed dirt and taken to the loose sand.

"What's it mean?"

"Looks to me as if they had this figured out about as cute as we have," replied Chaffee. "They're takin' a short cut to Linderman's. Mack, I've got a hunch we'd better draw away and strike for Lee's. We don't want to bust into that outfit. They'll be strung all over the landscape. I don't like Lee—he's treacherous, but it seems the best way."

"Come on, then. We shore have lost a lot of time."

Once more they changed course. And since the pursuers were off at another end of the country they forbore pressing the horses. Midnight came and passed. The angling route brought them within a mile of the canyon's rim, and this they paralleled until Chaffee's former homestead broke faintly into sight. Chaffee tarried a moment. "Seems like sixty years since I lived there," he murmured. "I'll never find a better place, or one half as good, Mack."

"Let's bust."

"I hate to pull out. It don't seem right. Almost got a notion to go back to Stirrup S and fort up."

"Expected yuh'd come to that point. Now just use sense. What would happen? Locklear'd get word damn' quick yuh was in the country. It'd give him a fine chance to bust Stirrup S wide open. No, sir, yuh'd only draw fire down on Miz Satterlee's head."

"That's right. We travel."

They proceeded and within a half mile were warned again. A murmuring rose up from the foreground and trembled back along the earth—an illusive shuffling, tapping sound that defied location. Either men were crawling slowly through the darkness close by or they were galloping rapidly in the distance. The partners fell into a deep gully—that same gully which William Wells Woolfridge meant to use for his main ditch— and stopped.

"Can't be them buzzards has got around us," said Mack Moran. "Wish I could smoke."

"Think it's another party."

"Great snakes, how many parties is out on the warpath? . . . Blockin' both ferries against yuh. Hell . . ."

The murmuring sprang to a definite rhythm of scudding hoofs. Bridle chains jingled, and the partners, warned nearly too late, pulled out of the gully. Riders went by, leaving a backwash of talk.

"A little further ..."

"Naw, this is foolish . . . Go back to the ferry."

Mack waited a safe interval. "Don't sound like nobody I ever heard. Now, what?"

"They're strikin' all around us. We wait awhile."

Time dragged. It might have been a quarter hour or it might have been a half hour before they picked up the signal of that scout party again. It had left the gully and split into sections. One ranged over nearer the canyon. The other seemed to be wandering piecemeal southward. Once this latter section came so close that Jim Chaffee thought he and Mack were about to be run down. Then that exploring fragment drew up and retreated, making a sudden flurry elsewhere.

"Must smell somethin'," grumbled Mack. "Else they wouldn't be so nervous. What to do?"

"Wait it out. If we go ahead we'll maybe bust right into some wandering galoot."

The search party gathered itself eastward, between the partners and the trail to Lee's ferry. It moved away and seemed to leave the neighborhood entirely. Yet there was a queer drop- off to the sound of their retreat that left Chaffee unsatisfied. Mack was restless, muttering dire things under his breath. The shadows fell more thickly about the land, but as they waited with patience ever shortening they saw the promise of light soon to break across the peaks.

"Got to tackle it," whispered Mack. "Can't delay no longer."

"Swing wide—don't go straight ahead."

They veered, the soft abrasion of the ponies' progress running ahead and sinking into silence. They lost a mile in that detour and much good time from the slack pace. In that interval the eastern sky broke to the coming day's first thin and cheerless wedge of light. The peaks stood dim and cold. Without speaking the partners increased their speed, and in the pale dawn they came to the rim at a point where a road dived downward into the misty depths and stopped short at Lee's ferry. They saw a light glimmering through the fog. The ferry itself was just visible, resting on the far bank. A lantern sparkled over there, too. Behind them the desert broke its vigil, pale and frosty.

"Ferry's acrost. That's bad. Make us wait twenty minutes. Meanwhile we're plumb in a trap. Jim, supposin' some o' them suckers is below waitin' for us?"

"I'm thinkin' about that item," replied Chaffee.

"Doggone, it's cold. What to do? It looks spooky to me."

"I guess we'd better brace it," decided Chaffee. "Can't turn back now." The horses, single file, walked stiff-legged down the grade as the barren wall threw its shadow over them. Halfway, they halted and studied the house, the yard, and the surrounding buildings. Nothing but the light indicated people up and about. If any of the pursuing men were below they could only be hiding in the flimsy barn.

"It's doggone ticklish," averred Mack. "Why don't that ferry start back?"

They finally came out upon the narrow beach—the only foothold of any kind for fifteen miles along the river—and advanced to the door, still in the saddle. The door came open and a woman, old and suspicious, peered out. "What you want?"

"Ferry across."

"Ferry was stoved again' the far bank yestiday," said the woman. "Old man's over tryin' to cork up the hole now. You'll have to wait till noon, mebbe more."

This was disaster. Mack's weary face settled. Chaffee never had seen his partner take any piece of news so hard. As for himself, he was very tired, and the swift shuttling of fortune and misfortune during the last forty-eight hours left him somewhat hardened to a bad break such as this.

"Well, you've got a rowboat, haven't you?"

"Can't take horses over in a rowboat, mister," said the woman. She looked closely at the pair. "You must want to git away powerful bad. We've had lots of 'em like that. What's your name?"

"Look up!" cried Mack.

Chaffee tilted his chin. A line of horsemen tipped over the rim and started downward, headlong and reckless. A shot broke the cold air and rocketed between the towering banks, sounding strange above the unchanging surge of the river. Mack drew his gun and at sight of it the woman screamed and slammed the door. Both partners were out of the saddle and racing toward the rowboat drawn half from the water. "Boost that brute!" snapped Mack. "We'll get acrost, which is plumb more'n they'll do!"

The rowboat slid into the stream, both men scrambling aboard. Chaffee seated the oars in the rowlocks and pushed the skiff away from the shallow gravel. The swift current gripped the boat in a vise and shot it downward; Chaffee threw his weight full against the oars; they quartered across the grass-green surface.

The posse was almost down; guns began to wake the echoes. Across on the ferry side old man Lee straightened and ran momentarily out of sight. When he reappeared there was a short barreled shotgun in his fists. He peered through the thin fog, raising the gun uncertainly, not knowing what to expect. Mack Moran yelled at him, but the sound of the water only blurred Mack's meaning. The posse raced to the river's edge and laid a line of fire against the boat, all shots falling short. The woman screamed again and it may have been that Xavier Francois Lonestar Lee heard that scream, though the noise of the canyon might have absorbed so shrill a sound before it reached the man's ears. But at any rate he saw the posse through the fog and he heard them shooting; and he obeyed a natural, primitive impulse. Raising the shotgun he fired point-blank at the nearing boat. The fine shot sang and snapped in the water. Mack yelled again and ducked. "Let 'er go! The crazy loon's reachin' for more shells!"

The second blast came sleeting across the interval, indescribably vicious as it sheered and spat in the current and whined against the boat's side. Jim Chaffee felt a thin, sharp pain slicing into his shoulder; turning, he saw that Lee was making ready for another aim, and he understood then how impossible the situation had of a sudden become. Buckshot was deadly; he dared not attempt to bluff through it. So he reversed the impulse of the oars and the boat, urged onward by the added force, raced into the dim, droning depths of the canyon.

Mack Moran's immediate reaction was one of absurd, hilarious satisfaction. "Doggone that Lee person. He'll never get this boat back again. Serves him right." Then he noticed Chaffee's wrist muscles snapping hard against the oars and at that point the full realization of the approaching ordeal smote him squarely in the middle of his shoulder blades. His leathery cheeks tightened; through the gray gloom his face seemed to pucker owlishly, and there appeared to be a withdrawal of blood from his compressed lips. "Man, let's you and me hit for the shore sudden."

"What shore?"

"Huh?" Mack looked around, startled. The lower end of that gravel strip upon which Lee's house precariously perched was sliding past them, narrowing swiftly to nothing more than a ledge. Even as he looked that ledge fell away into the river and was absorbed by the sheer face of the canyon wall and there was nothing left but a stubborn, black expanse of pitted rock rising and vanishing beyond the curling mists. The booming fury of water struggling through the farther recesses grew perceptibly louder. Chaffee threw his weight against the oars and the skiff, traveling stern foremost, shot along like a thing alive. Mack protested. "Say, we're goin' thirty miles an hour, or I'm an Australian boomerang thrower. What's the need of all this hustle? Let's slow down some and consider the matter in detail. Me, I don't like to rush."

"Ain't going as fast as we seem," said Chaffee. "But we might just as well get this over with. It don't do any good to think about Devil's Boil too long. Wonder if that posse is racin' along the rim to reach Linderman's ahead of us?"

Sight of Lee's ferry long ago had been shut off by the fog wreath. "Last I saw," said Mack, "they was all lined up on the shore, gawpin' at us. Didn't seem to be in no hurry."

"Reasonable for them to look at it that way," was Chaffee's grim observation. "Better take off your boots and shirt."

"No, sir, I hate to get my feet wet."

"Well, here's where we start. Lay down on the bottom, Mack, so I can see the rocks comin' up."

Mack obeyed. The boat began to pitch, stern rising and slapping into the rollers. Up from the throat of the gorge came the sound as of a high wind beating through a forest, of water pouring mightily over a cliff. Chaffee lifted his oars and let the craft drift of its own momentum. Ahead, the river seemed to slant at an increased angle—another piece of deception moving water holds up to man—and from wall to wall there was nothing but white spearheads flashing dully in the half light. The boat leaped onward and began to turn. Chaffee dipped an oar, almost losing it. He dug in, pulled the boat square with the current, and rested again. The black jaws of a rock yawned beside him, spray lashed out and spattered the prone Mack.

"Sunk?" yelled Mack, half rising.

The boat rose and dropped with a force that knocked the puncher flat on his face. They were gripped by warring eddies, pulled and battered and rocked. Chaffee lowered both oars and braked the boat's speed, body weaving, muscles and joints crackling with the immense pressure. Mack lifted his head again and found himsellf canted against one side, staring into a hollow that appeared to be carved from green glass. The boat sprang back; all this was behind them, smooth water lapped against the boards. Chaffee sagged and wiped sweat and spray from his face.

Mack crawled to the stern seat and rolled a cigarette, trying to speak casually. "Well, guess that was the worst of it, uh?"

"You know better. We ain't been nowhere yet."

"Our sunny, light-hearted friend speakin'. Never thought I'd ever get seasick out in the middle of the desert. But I shore squirmed back yonder. Say—look—there's a place we could step ashore. See that shelf?"

"Yeah. And see what's back of it. A wall, straight up. Would it buy us anything to land? Can't fly out of this hole. And nobody's goin' to row down after us."

"If I ever get ashore once—" muttered Mack.

"Do you hear somethin'?"

The canyon trembled with it—a faint, pulsating snore that sounded like the guttering of some primeval monster; yet the tempo remained constant, never varying, never dying out. The farther they floated the deeper and more thunderous was the reverberation thrown across the towering walls. And somehow, for all the advancing light of day, the gorge was plunged in a more profound twilight. It began to narrow, and Chaffee discovered a point jutting out in front of them. The smoothness of the stream face was broken into warning ridges. White water beckoned. Around that approaching point began the Long Slide, terminating in the Devil's Boil. Of the four men who had started from Lee's in the past thirty years, three had lost their lives in the Boil; and to that mad, tortured area with its great vaults battered by dynamic hydraulic attacks and its tempestuous suction Mack Moran and Jim Chaffee were now rapidly approaching.

"Yuh, I hear it," grumbled Mack. He looked longingly to the faint strip of shelving on the south side. "I bet a man could cut some sort of a stone ladder up there. Jim."

"What with?"

"There yuh go again. Well, call me for breakfast, Mister Chaffee. If I hear a trumpet or a harp I'll know it won't be beans and bacon. Go to it, kid."

The rough water took them, the boat shot around the jutting point of the south wall. The incline of the river's bed seemed far greater than at any previous stage of the trip. As they straightened into the Long Slide a vast roar battered either precipice and they were actually dizzied by the impact of a vibrating, stuttering conflict of force against force just beyond sight. In another moment a charging white wall of water broke through the fog; spray covered them. Chaffee, dog tired, pulled in the oars.

"What's the use of dippin' a toothpick in Niagara?" The torrent of sound tore the words out of his mouth. Mack looked backward. Chaffee leaned down. "One man made it! Hang on to your pants! Here we go!"

Mack's face was blurred in the mist, but he winked and clamped both arms around the stern seat. Chaffee jammed his feet between boat bottom and the middle seat. The skiff swayed and lurched into a trough; at that moment Chaffee had a clear view of the Devil's Boil—nothing but cascading fury one side and a slick, uprearing wall of water that seemed to defy the law of gravity on the other. Seeing it, he pushed the oars under him, pulled himself as low as he could, and tightened all muscles.

There is in water a power that nothing else under the blue canopy of heaven possesses. Man may dam it, yet the slowly impounding force laps away at the barrier, constantly making sallies and thrusts and forever threatening to break free; man may ride upon it, but never with a sure sense of safety, for it is a thing alive, ceaseless and destructive. It wears away all before it; it moves onward, nor can anything check its final victory. So, as Chaffee rode into the mists of fury, he resigned himself to death as others had done, even though in the dim recesses of his being the unquenchable flame of life desire still burned. One man had made it, and therefore some alley existed through the wild and charging torrent. Thus, with hope and despair alternating, he saw himself being drawn into the terrific maw of the Boil. The boat was past anyone's power to check, racing along the slide, with a speed that taxed his senses. He felt a suction pulling it lower in the water. Whether or not it was true, he did see that the surface of the stream sliced nearer the gunwales, accompanied by a sound that was something like the frying of bacon in a pan. The mists turned by degrees from a damp blanket to an actual downpour; moment by moment the canyon walls became dimmer and his ears were drummed with an intensity of attack he had never yet experienced. From the heights of the canyon he often had heard the drone of this cataclysmic force; down here, caught in its grip, the sound was more like a mingled screaming and exploding of the elements.

The boat was filling with water. So far the speed or the suction had kept it from pitching much, but as the last sight of the walls obscured and died, and even the bulk of the craft itself was barely visible, the suction appeared to let go; instantly it began a crazy, side for side and end to end careening. The water, gushed around Chaffee's feet. Great cascades drenched him, strangled him; and all the while he was alone, one tiny cell of living life surrounded by destruction. In a moment of clearheadedness he wondered if Mack was still in the boat. He didn't know, couldn't hear his partner even if Mack shouted at the top of his lungs, and couldn't see him. More things were happening in those few seconds than he could grasp. But he did feel a slacking off of the punishment, and then the suction took hold again and the boat began to travel in a vast circle, impelled to a greater speed, thrown higher at each revolution until it seemed certain that in time it would reach some top-heavy angle and turn over. Nothing, he knew, kept the boat from being beaten into fragments but the steady rhythm of the whirlpool they were in. And he lost count entirely of the time.

But it seemed forever. It seemed like days since he and Mack had embarked from Lee's ferry. So much for the illusion of time. The mighty reverberation played tricks with him; seemed first behind him, then in front of him. And actually appeared to sink below. Then—and it was like being released alive from a burial vault—he caught a faint sight of the sky, and, he saw one rim of the canyon perched at some crazy angle. They were traveling upward, no doubt of it. The sensation was too acute to be mistaken; and in another moment he had a small view of Mack, all in a knot. They were traveling again at great speed—and straight ahead. The sky became clearer, and for an interval the drenching sprays diminished; Chaffee even wondered if he might try the oars. It was an idle thought at the moment, for the boat was checked, smashed by some reverse current; and then they fell dizzily, the pit of Chaffee's stomach rising and his feet pushing haroer and harder against the floor boards to avert what must be the fatal crash.

The crash never came. It was as if they were hooked to a great cradle, swinging from side to side. Then, in one more flashing interval of time, that was all changed. The boat leaped high, swung around, poised and turned over, with both of them struggling beneath it. Chaffee, trying to keep some order in his head, unlocked his body, pulled himself to the surface and looked around. Mack was perched on the upturned bow, and ahead of them lay the finest sight, the most beautiful stretch of nature Chaffee thought he had ever laid eyes upon—calm water.

The Boil was behind, and somehow the sound of it was no longer sinister. Actually it looked like a pretty fine spectacle. So they went rocking precariously through the lee riffles and struck a sluggish eddy.

"G-got a cigareet?" said Mack in a voice that was but a thin shadow of itself.

"What makes you stutter?" questioned Chaffee, nor could he understand the reedy little noise in his throat.

"Got a bit cold," explained Mack, and then began to swear. "Y'don't look so light hearted yoreself, by—"

Chaffee studied the receding Boil. "Mack, have you got any mortal idea how we squeezed through that cataract? Hell, it's a mile high and forty feet thick."

"No, and I ain't aimin' to go back to find out, either. Man, I died so many times in the last few minutes I got no fear of the grave left. I bet St. Peter is hangin' up a set of wings right now which he was aimin' to try on me."

"Well, it's over. Oars gone, boat leakin', everything ready to fall apart, includin' the contents. Let's try to push this thing ashore and empty it out. Then proceed with due leisure to Linderman's."

Hank Linderman at sunup of that morning was skinning hides on the north side of the river where Roaring Horse made a slack eddy. The bluffs here were sloping and not very tall. His house stood on top of the bluffs, and his ferry swayed against its cable, also on the north shore. The day was young and promised to be fresh and cold, but down in the eddy was a vast stench where the Stirrup S cattle had lodged after being driven over by Theodorik Perrine. And he was skinning hides when something attracted his attention up the river. Rising, he saw a boat floating toward him, oars gone, and two men sprawled against the seats in postures of infinite, mortal weariness. Knowing as much as he did about this river, Linderman was so completely astonished that he dropped his knife and walked three feet into the water.

"Great jumpin' Judas—where yuh been?"

Chaffee shunted the boat inward by sculling with his palms. Mack Moran was smoking a cigarette that had miraculously escaped the deluge, and he didn't seem to hear Linderman. Later, when they were nearer shore, he began talking to himself. "We made history. Yessir, we shore made a lot of history in damn' little time. Them pearly gates opened, and I heard distinct a gent callin' the roll. Got to my name and began lookin' around. 'What, not here?' thunders Peter. 'Nossir,' says a guardeen angel. 'He's late—got hung up down yonder.' 'Put back that pair o' number four wings, then,' yells Peter, 'and let him be deprived of everlastin' joy fer another few years.' Then them doors closed, and I shore did hear the lock click. We made history, you bet."

The boat touched land and both men crawled stiffly out.

"From Lee's?" asked Linderman, knowing it could be from nowhere else, yet still unbelieving.

"Yeah," said Chaffee. "Seen anything of a posse on the south bank lately?"

"And he passes it off like that," mourned Mack Moran, having trouble with his legs.

"So that's it?" grunted Linderman. "That's why they was fellas foolin' acrost the river all night long. I ain't seen none this mornin' yet. Who would it be, Jim?"

"Perrine—et al. Not here recently, huh?" Chaffee looked to Mack. "I guess they didn't think it worth while to ride along the rim."

"Goram my soul," breathed Linderman. "Down the river from Lee's! Just you let me tell this, by the shades! Down the river from Lee's! I will be everlastingly condemned!"

"Got a couple of horses and saddles, Hank?" asked Chaffee. "Trouble over in Roarin' Horse. New deal, and it ain't exactly on the level. I've got to pull freight for a while. Mack's goin' back after he's got his bearings."

"No deal is straight with Perrine in it," reflected Linderman. "Yeah, I got a couple of horses. But, boys, I don't want Perrine on my head. Don't want him to think I willingly helped folks against him. And, still, I wouldn't like to lie about it."

"A light dawns," murmured Moran. He drew his gun and waved it in Linderman's direction. "Fella, you see the business end of a forced request."

"That's better," grinned Linderman. "I'm bein' urged at the point of a gun. No lie to that. Now put your hand artillery away and climb up the slope." They followed him along the trail. On the way he spoke about the hides. "You fellows know an awful lot of your cattle went over the rim? I'm skinnin' hides. Your fences must be out of commission."

"Wire cut," was Chaffee's brief reply.

They reached the top of the bluff. Passing the house, Linderman raised his voice. "Mamma, git a snack on the table in a hurry for a couple of outlaws."

Mrs. Linderman peered through the door, smiled, and disappeared. Linderman took the partners to the barn and indicated a pair of ponies. "Both stout. Both a little wild. But they'll do. Bring 'em back in your own good time. Now let's go get that snack."

Ten minutes later Chaffee and Moran were in the saddle.

"Well, kid," said Mack, "be good. Where yuh goin'?"

"Think I'll cross Thirty-four Pass into Miles Valley. Won't be gone long. I hate to run away."

"Nothin' else to do," replied Mack. "We got that all figgered. They got you on a nail, for the time bein'. Best to clear out so's we boys won't be all complicated. That gang ain't got nothin' but a little general hell raisin' against us. Won't dare get too hostile about it. Locklear can't force his hand that strong. But they'll go the limit to get you. So beat it, and don't worry. We're all safe. Stay away till the fire burns down, and Luis stubs his toe."

"It ain't Luis altogether," said Chaffee, wistfully studying the horizons. "It's somebody else. Woolfridge, I'm pretty sure, though I don't get all his ideas. And maybe it won't blow over so soon. Well, I'll drift across the pass and write a letter from Bannock City. You keep me posted. I ain't going to stay away forever. May be back in a week or so. Meanwhile, you watch."

"They ain't got nothin' on me," reassured Mack. "I'm hittin' home. We'll take care of Stirrup S."

"I hate to go," repeated Jim Chaffee.

"Yeah, I know."'

"Well—so long, kid. Take care of yourself."

"So long, Jim. Be good."

Chaffee turned and galloped eastward. Some yards along he turned and Mack raised his hand, shouting: "We shore made history." Then Chaffee was beyond earshot, and Mack swung down the bluff and crossed to the south bank on the ferry. Hank Linderman returned to his hides, still marveling. Sometime later he heard a faint gunshot report come over the south bluff, but he thought nothing about it.

"All the way from Lee's," he muttered. "Goram my soul!"

Chaffee went arrow straight for the bench. The sentinel peaks glittered brightly in the morning light, and snow covered the slopes well below the timber line. Storm caps hovered along the summits. Veering away from the canyon, he reached Gorman's Lodge at a thousand feet above the desert's level early in the afternoon. He bought a couple days' supplies and pushed upward. The trail stiffened, the first trace of snow appeared on the ground, and the wind grew shriller. The pass, he knew, would be deeply banked, but he had made this trip previously as late as Christmas and he never doubted his ability to reach the summit by night and sleep in the cabin there. From the summit it was another day's ride into Bannock City.

The sap was drained out of him. For three days he had been fighting and riding continually; twice in that time he had seen his very existence trembling in the balance. The stampede was bad enough, but the ride through Devils Boil had scattered his nerves beyond belief. So he rode the trail slackly. The snow grew heavier; the wind grew whiter with the thickening flakes. His horse shied at something and Chaffee fought the animal back to the path. Dusk found them a steep and rugged mile short of the cabin, breasting the powdered drifts. And of a sudden, from the distance, there floated a weird call, borne abreast the rising gale. The pony, just recovered from one spell of skittishness, leaped aside. Chaffee was sitting loose and the unexpected maneuver threw him clear of the saddle. He struck half on one arm and half on his heels, the weight of his body checked by a boulder rising above the snow crust. The pony wheeled and galloped down the trail, soon lost in the shadows.

Chaffee's first thought was to rise and follow back. Pushing himself upright, he braced his body by the rock; as the pressure shifted to his feet a stab of pain ran him through. He fell to the ground, realizing one ankle was either broken or so badly twisted that walking was beyond question. The rising wind in that short time had molded fine drifts of snow on his shoulders and in the wrinkles of his coat.