Mountain Storms (11 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

T
HEMIS'S
P
ARTY

Only a rich man could have provided for such a summer. Only a genius could have selected so skillfully those who were to ride with him. In the entire range of the mountains, Themis could not have found five men better fitted to follow a long trail, an arduous trail, a trail that might come to a dangerous ending. In the first place, he made sure that every man was known for hardihood and skill as a mountaineer, familiar with the Turnbull valley and all the mountains of the region surrounding the valley, an expert trailer, and, above all, capable of using rifle or revolver with deadly effect. Not only that, but he made sure that all his men had shot before at human targets. There hardly existed unhung a blacker crew of rascals than the five he weeded out of many applicants—for the wages were large and the food would be good, and, given those conditions to prevail, he could pick who he would.

Every man of the five had a record, although some of them had not been in a penitentiary. There was Si Bartlett, a little, smiling, inoffensive man very fond of talk, with great, mild, brown eyes. Of his forty-five years no less than fifteen had been spent in prison in two terms, both for manslaughter; in each instance he had been pardoned before his term was up for the simple reason that no warden could believe that a man with such a face, such a voice, such a pair of eyes, such gentle manners, could be a murderer except by accident. But those who knew declared him to be a matchless and malignant fighter, one of those who love danger for its own sake, and bloodshed for the same reason. Yet he was appointed second in command by Themis. Character had nothing to do with his selections. Results were what he wanted.

Next came Red Norton, save that Red could hardly be put second to any man. He, also, had felt the shadow of a prison close over him. But with nine lives, men freely declared outside of courtrooms, he could not have paid for all his victims. He was a contrast to Si Bartlett, although just as dangerous. What made him less terrible was that his appearance advertised his true nature in advance. His huge body, the rank growth of red hair, which bristled on his face and head, his bold, staring blue eyes, his blunt manner—all announced the professional warrior.

The third of that noble crew was Dick Walker. Dick was the boy of the party. He was apparently just a big, laughing, good-natured child of twenty. But, when the pinch came, Dick was cold as ice and cutting as a steel edge. Older men who were apt to know predicted a long career and a black one for Dick. He had not seen the inside of a prison for the simple reason that no jury could pronounce a man with such a face and such ability to laugh guilty of murder. For the rest, he was a genius on the trail, as all men admitted, and he possessed an uncanny dexterity of hand that made him equally at home with a cowpuncher's rope or a cowpuncher's gun.

Dude Wesson was the cook. His nickname described him. He was a tall, lean man, with a starved face. His apparel ever showed signs of consummate care. Polish was never missing from his kit, and his boots were shined morning and even at noon to the amazement of those who did not know him. He was none of those who allow the face to become covered with a bristle of hairs that is shaved only every third day. It was said that he would rather have water for shaving than for drinking, even on a desert. His clothes, also, were never allowed to fall into disrepair, and a spot upon the trousers meant half an hour's work to this fastidious gentleman.

Naturally such a man was self-indulgent in the matter of food. His fleshless face belied an appetite that was omnivorous. He began early at the table, he ate with terrible velocity, and he kept at it long after the others were through. Yet, no signs of that voracious gourmandizing appeared in his starved body. No one could cook to suit him. Therefore, he cooked for himself and for the rest. He was self-appointed to the task, and he was forgiven his other faults for the sake of his skill over a campfire and his genius with venison and coffee. Those faults were taciturnity, a temper as uneasy as a hair trigger, and a sullen dislike of everyone. He, too, had escaped the prison for the reason that he always forced the other man to make the first move, trusting to his superior speed of hand, his superior steadiness in aiming, to kill his victim at the last instant. In all his fights he had accumulated not a scar. Such was Dude Wesson.

The fifth and last of the party was no other than Hank Jeffries. He was the least famous of the lot, but he was taken along partly because he knew the mountains better than the student knows his book, and partly because he was inspired by a prodigious hatred for the Indian. He had never forgiven the theft of the stallion. It mattered not that he had been on the verge of killing the animal. It was only more of a rankling wound in his malevolent soul that another should have been able to use that which he himself had not been able to master. Day and night, he dreamed of the battle that must at last take place between himself and the Indian.

To that end, he kept himself in constant fettle. He had begun a soberer life, because he did not wish to be taken unawares if the opportunity came. Day by day he practiced with his guns to make sure that he could make the best of the first opening. He had invested the last money he could borrow on his ruined ranch to buy two fast horses that should be ready for the pursuit. When he learned of the purpose for which John Hampton Themis was organizing the posse, he had come to the great man and begged with tears in his eyes to be granted the privilege of accompanying the party. At least, he could make himself useful on account of his skill in the handling of dogs.

Themis took him for the last reason as well as the others that have been mentioned. Even if Jeffries was not cast according to the heroic mold of the others, he was a man of talent, and the party could not get on without his skill. He had “learned” dogs in his childhood, and he had never forgotten the lessons. Not that he particularly loved them, but he knew their ways, and he could handle them in the field.

This was the more important to Themis because not the least important part of his posse consisted of the dogs. He had even sent to a distance and waited a week to secure a set of bloodhounds, and four of these long, low-geared, soft-eyed beasts were finally brought to him. Their noses were to be the first agency through which the trail would be unwound and the riddle solved.

But they were not the major portion of the dog pack. In addition, there were half a dozen mongrels of all sizes, shapes, and colors, but all valuable dogs on a bear trail where intelligence is needed. And it is an old tale that the nameless cur is the one with the peerless set of brains. Furthermore, the dog pack had its fighting, swift-running portion, consisting of eight big hounds with a strong strain of greyhound mixed with heavier and more powerful breeds. Two of them could pull down a timber wolf, for they were trained to fighting tactics. Four of them could worry a bear to death if they caught it in open country, and the eight could destroy any animal that walked if given a fair opportunity. Their noses were not altogether trustworthy, but, when the trail was hot, they could follow it well enough, and, the moment they had sight of the quarry and could get their heads up, they were off like eight streaks of murder bent on business.

There was another purpose for which those dogs could be used. While the bloodhounds were dawdling along the trail, untangling it slowly, but with the surety of death, these swift hounds would kill enough food for the entire pack. So long as there were rabbits in the mountains through which they trailed, there would be no need of worrying about the food of the pack.

Such was the outfit with which Themis stood prepared to start on his journey. As for horses, there were two of the finest sort for each man. Hank Jeffries had his own mounts, and each of the other four had a fast horse. Their auxiliary mounts alone had to be furnished by Themis, and he bought them regardless of expense. Altogether, he had invested a pretty penny in that expedition before the news came that started it on the trail.

That news came suddenly by night. Into the very town of Turnbull itself the marauder had come, opened the store, and taken out a new and fine saddle. On this occasion, he left no payment of furs. It might be that he had run short in his supply. It might be that he had decided that it was nonsense to pay for what he would take without making an exchange. The probability was that, before the year was out, he would bring down something in payment. The storekeeper was willing to wait. He had already done profitable business with this strangely generous being. But the community was not willing to wait. These dips out of the mountains by the Indian, so often repeated, had made the town a laughingstock. The next morning three distinct parties started on the trail.

The sheriff and his posse made up one. There was another, consisting of independent, irate citizens who had nothing better to do. The third party was that of Themis himself. On the floor of the store was found a crudely made pair of moccasins that had been discarded in favor of a shop-made brand. Those discarded moccasins were given to the dogs to establish the scent, and straightway the bloodhounds raised their mellow call and started away. They wound around behind the village where the prints showed that the marauder had walked leisurely. They came to the open, where he had begun to run with an amazingly long and regular stride. From that point he had darted across to the hills behind the Jeffries place. In the trees they found the spot where he had left his horse. Through the steep hills the three parties worked in unison, these grim and silent men. But presently the fugitive had descended into the more open and rolling country and had fled north.

On that section of the trail the better horses of the Themis party quickly told the tale of their worth. All day they raced north, and long before nightfall, as the trail veered sharply to the left and entered the mountains again, the sheriff's posse and the group of townsmen were left far out of sight to the rear.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

F
IRST
C
AMP

At the first steep hillside they noticed a peculiarity. The man had dismounted from the horse and had struggled up the ascent on foot. Among those ragged rocks, he had evidently figured that he could climb far better than his horse, and he took the burden of his weight out of the saddle. Themis gave his order instantly, and his men came grumbling out of the saddle. They were fellows who lived in the stirrups, every one of them. But, when they had struggled to the top of the incline, they appreciated the value of that order, for their horses were in good condition, not half so winded as if they had been under the pull of the reins with a weight in the saddle during the labor.

It was a comparatively freshened lot of horses that now took up the journey across a rough, broken, upper plateau. But here another trail joined that of the horse. Hitherto, the bloodhounds had run steadily in the lead. But now the entire pack surged into the lead and left the bloodhounds far behind.

“Bear!” cried Hank Jeffries. “They've picked up a bear trail.”

Sure enough, as they crossed a damp place near a natural spring that welled out of the ground, they saw the huge prints of a grizzly, the largest prints that Themis had ever seen. His heart leaped. All the story rushed back upon his brain, and here was the proof of it. Horse tracks and bear tracks went side-by-side. But now the twilight was beginning, and he ordered a halt. It might well be that with a single drive tomorrow they could run down the fugitive, but for that purpose it was far better that they should be rested, man and beast. So they camped beside a brook.

Hank Jeffries took the hounds, hardly touched with fatigue by the day's work, to run down what he could in the hills nearby. For the rest of the men, Dude Wesson took command and began giving orders sharply as soon as their horses had been hobbled and turned out to graze. With brief, sharp words he ordered one to arrange stones for the fire, he commissioned two to cut wood, and another was directed to help with the preparation of the food. All obeyed without a murmur, for who does not stand in terror of the cook?

Themis himself made a point of taking up his share of the work, although it was long since he had spent such a day in the saddle, and he was thoroughly fagged. In a few moments, the fire was blazing, and food began to steam. Suddenly Dude Wesson straightened beside the fire and pointed a stiff arm down the slope, then turned to his work again without a word. Themis, looking in the designated direction, saw Gloria come riding toward them.

He was mute with wonder and anger. On she came! Where the upward pitch began, she dismounted, just as he had made his men dismount. Up the slope she climbed as briskly as any youth could have done. On the edge of the plateau she mounted and came to them at a swinging canter. She dismounted at a little distance, unstrapped a pack behind her saddle, and unsaddled and hobbled her horse and turned it to graze with the rest. Then she came in, carrying the pack slung over her shoulder, the heavy saddle on the other arm.

“Glory!” cried her father, finding his tongue at last. “What on earth has come into your head? Have you gone mad?”

“Never used better headwork,” said Gloria mildly. “If I'd started out with you from town, you'd have sent me back by force, so I simply trailed you at a distance. It was very easy and perfectly safe. Not one of your entire gang looked behind during the trip. If the Indian had wanted to, he could have come in behind you and traveled along in perfect safety. I was in plain view twenty times. And now that I'm this far away from civilization, Dad, you certainly can't send me back through mountains infested with wild men.”

Themis groaned as the truth of what she had said came home to him.

“Glory,” he said bitterly, “I've spoiled you all your life. And this is the reward of my labor. But . . . don't you see? I hired these fellows for a

man trail. Do you think they can be bothered taking care of a woman in the midst of their other work?”

She jerked up her chin. “Have I asked to be cared for?” she said hotly. “Not by any means. I've made up my own pack. I haven't taken a thousand pounds of tinned stuff along, as you've done, to kill your horses. I've cut myself down to essentials. I have a rifle and matches and salt and flour. I'll kill my own meat.” As she spoke, she threw down a newly killed and cleaned rabbit. “I'll make my own living and I'll carry my own burdens. And if Mary Anne can't hold up her end with my weight on her back, I'll walk home.” She turned and whistled to Mary Anne. The dainty-footed chestnut tossed up her head and whinnied a soft response.

“Heaven help me!” and Themis sighed. “The man was never born who could talk you down.”

“Besides,” said Gloria suddenly, “I don't think the men are so disgusted with me. Are you, Mister Wesson?”

The unexpected appellation of “Mister” was a shock to Dude Wesson. He looked up with a scowl from his cookery. He found Gloria walking straight toward him. He got up and removed his hat—to rub his head. Suddenly the scowl melted from his face. A smile trembled like a frightened stranger on his lips, and he nodded.

“I guess you ain't going to be much in the way,” said Dude graciously, and returned to his work, with a slightly heightened color.

John Hampton Themis simply filled his pipe and sat down to think and to watch. He had become a great deal of a philosopher since Gloria reached young womanhood. He had even referred to her as a “boiled-down education, hard to swallow but good for the insides.” He thought of that now as he watched her go down the slope to join the wood gatherers. There she wasted no time in greetings but picked up a discarded axe and presently was swinging it with a fine and supple strength. Even the abysmal brute, Red Norton, paused to observe her workmanship. He found no fault with her. She was like Si Bartlett. She made up in skill what she lacked in power of body. She could send the axe home within a hair's-breadth of her aim. Red grunted with approval. In fact, in sheer hand magic, there was only one member of the party who excelled her, and that was the smiling and amiable young man-killer, Dick Walker.

A new thought came to Themis as he watched. She might be the influence that would keep the whole party cheerful on the trail, and men who laugh at their work can work three times as well as in a gloom of serious endeavor. Laughter clears the brain. For the rest, she would be as safe among these chosen villains as among men of her own kin.

She insisted on making her own campfire and cooking her own food, and she roasted her single portion and ate it before the others were half finished. Then she came over to join their circle.

It was a most formal crowd. Every man there had been accustomed to lord it over his fellows in whatever society he found himself, but here were four with equally sinister reputations, and a fifth not far behind them.

“If it ain't too much trouble,” terrible Red Norton would say, “I'll have to be bothering you for that salt, Dick.”

“Here you are,” Dick would answer. “Just watch your plate, will you, Si? I'm going to get up, and I don't want no dust to be blowing into your chuck.”

They would forget some of this formality later on, but, in the meantime, it was stilted conversation until Gloria threw in a bomb by asking how long they thought it would be before the Indian was run down. Straightway, each man raised his head with a grim smile. There was not one of the crew who did not feel that he could run any human being to the ground. But, now that five formidable trailers were assembled on fast horses, to say nothing of Themis himself, and with the assistance of that pack of dogs, they regarded their outfit as an irresistible juggernaut. They said so freely, each handing the praise deftly to the others.

“If a gent was to ask me,” said Hank Jeffries, “how long it would take gents like Dude Wesson and Dick Walker to run down their man, I'd say it would be pretty
pronto
. But when you got Red Norton throwed in, and, when you got Si Bartlett on top of all them, I say that that Indian ain't going to keep a whole skin more'n tomorrow about sunset time.”

But Gloria shrugged her shoulders. “I can't help thinking,” she said, “if I could follow you so easily, why can't the Indian get away from you just as easily?”

It was a disagreeable and new phase of the subject, and it was promptly abandoned for more cheerful viewpoints. Half an hour later, the whole party was rolled in blankets.

For every member of the hungry crew, the night passed like a second. Suddenly they heard the deep, bass voice of Dude Wesson grumble: “Turn out, everybody. It's pretty near sunup. Is this a picnic, maybe? Are we going to get started about noon? Hook onto an axe, a couple of you, and gimme some wood. I can't cook with air. Bartlett, are you too proud to peel potatoes? This ain't a hunting party, it's a rest camp!”

Those sullen exhortations began the day with a rush. Gloria saddled Mary Anne and cantered over the crest of the hill to a stream on the farther side. There she made her toilet and gave the men freedom to start the day with the customary groans and curses. By the time she came back, all was cheerful bustle, and the breakfast fire was blazing bright. The east was red with sunrise. The upper mountains were gleaming with light. Paris, for the first time since she left New York, was banished from the mind of Gloria.