CHAPTER XXVII.

THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR.

When Bloody Ike reached the top of the basin, where Price was waiting impatiently, and consumed with curiosity, he was out of breath and unable to express his feelings, but he shook his fists, waved his arms, gasped and choked in impotent rage.

“Did you get any grub?” asked Price.

Ike pulled bread and meat from his pockets.

Price fell to and kept his mouth so full that he could not ask questions until Ike had had opportunity to regain his wind.

Ike’s first words indicating a state of reason, after a broadside of oaths and imprecations hurled in the direction of the lights which could be seen moving about down below, were:

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Can’t we hide among the rocks somewhere until they give up the chase?”

“They’ll never give up the chase--who do you suppose is there?”

“No; who?”

“Buffalo Bill and his pards.”

“The devil!”

“Worse than that; Buffalo Bill is ten devils and a million imps when he is on a man’s trail, curse him. I’ve tried over and over again to blow him to kingdom come, and he defeats me every time. He bears some sort of a charmed life and it’s no use for me to buck up against ’im.”

“What was the blow-up?”

“A can of blasting powder that ought to have lifted the whole bunch of them into next week, but that long-haired representative of Uncle Sam and the hot place jumped out just in time to see the fuse, dig the can out of the rocks and throw it into a chasm before it exploded. Oh! if it only had gone off in his hands, instead of three seconds later!”

“Pretty bold thing to do!”

“Curse him, yes. He isn’t afraid of man or devil, and it is his everlasting readiness to act and take the chances that wins. If I’d been ten seconds later he’d probably pumped me full of lead, into the bargain!”

“He’s a bad man to buck up against; I’ve found that out, Ike.”

“Well, I said we’ve got to get out of this place, and the sooner we go the better--are you ready?”

“Which way shall we go--out across the plain again?”

“Great Scott! no. They’ve got horses and would pick us up as soon as light. We’ve got to stick to the mountains, where a horse can’t go, and keep out of sight--and keep going. I’d rather have old Split-hoof, himself, on my trail than Buffalo Bill.”

“We can’t live in these mountains long--there isn’t so much as a catamount to eat.”

“We’ll have to go hungry, then, for I’m going to keep as far from Cody as possible.”

“You seem to have got a new appreciation of the scout.”

“Well, you’d have, if you had seen him lift that can of blasting powder above his head when he was expecting it to go off every second, and throw it farther than I could throw a ten-pound weight. I tell you a man that’s got nerve and strength like that is too many for Ike.”

“All right, lead the way; I feel better after eating, but I’m so tired and sore I can’t go fast or far. I wish you’d got hold of more grub.”

“I did, and a can of powder, and started with them, but when I saw Cody dig out my blast and throw it away I lost my nerve and dropped everything. I knew then it was no use for me to try to do him, and all I thought of was getting as much space between me and him as possible.”

“You are gone bad, aren’t you?” said Price.

The pair clambered away over the rocks, slipping and sliding in the darkness and muttering bitter anathemas because of their misfortunes.

In their case, as in all others, the way of the transgressor is hard. If the hardships are not physical and apparent to the world, they are mental, and the one who defies the laws of God and man is undergoing torture which he is too great a moral coward to admit. The right way is not only the best way, but the easiest way, and if reward does not come in dollars and cents, it comes in the satisfaction of knowing that one has done his best.

Price still held to his nerve, while Ike’s had been shattered by one incident--the demonstration of a brave man that he has no fear to do right, whatever the consequences.

Price was suffering physical torture and readily admitted it to his partner in crime, but he had not weakened to a degree that would cause him to admit, even to Bloody Ike, that he feared for the future, other than for its physical discomforts.

“Look out!” cried Ike, who was in the lead, suddenly. He clung to a stunted evergreen and saved himself from plunging down a dark chasm, which yawned at his feet.

But his warning came too late for Price, whose tottering condition sent him headlong.

As he felt himself going into the black depths below, the former Indian agent and gambler, who had bled more tenderfeet than any other bad man of Bozeman, uttered a wild cry of despair.

But Price’s last hour had not come. After a fall of not more than ten feet he landed in a deep pool of ice-cold water, and went down, down, till his head seemed bursting before he reached the top again.

Gasping and thrashing about, calling wildly for help, and begging Ike to save him, Price raised a pitiful howl that irritated Ike.

“You make more noise than a gang of scared young ones,” said Ike. “If you don’t shut up I won’t bother to pull you out. Buffalo Bill’s gang can hear you all over the mountain.”

Price continued to plead, and, striking a match, Ike was able to see his way down the rocks to where he could reach his struggling companion.

That ended their journey that night, for Price absolutely refused to proceed in the darkness. He was shivering and exhausted, his teeth chattering and his courage ebbing out with his strength.

Ike groped about until he found a gash in the gully they had been pursuing, where a thick growth of stunted spruce and fir had found footing. In a pocket in the rocks he started a fire and Price hovered over it in an attempt to warm his body and dry his clothing.

Ike lay down to sleep, and declared with half-suppressed anger that he didn’t care what happened.

Standing over the fire, until he choked from the smoke of it, and slapping himself to increase the blood flow, Price almost fell over and his knees knocked together from some cause other than cold, when a voice beside him said:

“Indian agent cold now; be hot enough in next world.”

“Wh--who’re you?”

“Me White-man-runs-him, friend of honest palefaces; hate thieves and liars.”

“Do you know Buffalo Bill?”

“Him greatest man in world; him white friend of red men.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Wuh; him in mountains; mebby find white cutthroats, take um back to be hung.”

“For how much money will you take us out of here and show us the way to Laramie?”

“Me not trade with white thief. Buffalo Bill take you Laramie.”

“If I would give you one hundred ponies, wouldn’t you get us out of this place?”

“Much as the red man loves these hills and plains, he would not sell his services for it all, to the white thief who stole the lives of squaws and papooses,” and the stern red man waved his arms to signify all around him.

“Won’t you procure us food for money?”

“If the red chief had the rotten meat you have given his red brother, he would sell it to you.”

“See!” cried Price, attempting to awaken pity in the heart of the Indian, “I shiver and die.”

“If the red chief had the rags you have given his braves for blankets, he would burn them that the sight might rekindle the fires in the paleface robber’s blood.”

Price said no more, but held his trembling hands in the feeble blaze and waited. All his offers were spurned, and he knew that any further appeal would be useless.

“I go, paleface dog,” said the Crow trailer, “but I shall come again, and your paper lies shall hang over the same fire and shrivel, and squirm, and burn with you.”

“Don’t tell Buffalo Bill where I am!” gasped Price feebly.

“Buffalo Bill’s heart too big and soft. Sioux warriors hate the agent with the forked tongue.”

The Indian vanished and Price sank down by his little fire, broken and disheartened. In a short month he had come to this from a position of importance in a respectable community. Then he spent money right and left and lived in luxury, with henchmen to do his bidding; now he was freezing, starving, and men of all races turned their hands against him.

When Bloody Ike awoke at daylight, Price told him of the visit of the Indian.

“Yes, the red sneak has gone after a posse of grunters to capture us. I hope we are taken by a different party than the one which nabbed us before; perhaps then your pretended letter from Sitting Bull would go again,” said Ike.

“No, this White-man-runs-him seems to be awake to the trick, for he said ‘paper lie’ would burn with us.”

“Excuse me! if they are going to talk fire before they take us, I, for one, am not going to be taken easily. The sooner we get out of this part of the country the better. We had better keep to the rocks as much as possible, so the trailers can’t follow us. And another thing we must remember, is to keep well down in the gullies and dark places, where Buffalo Bill’s party can’t see us, if they are on the watch from the heights.”

At mid-forenoon Price was exhausted and unable to stagger any farther. So they descended into a deep cañon where the gloom at that time of day was like evening, and there found a brook and in it sizable grayling.

They had neither hook nor line, but by damming the brook, at a narrow place above, Price and Ike allowed the water to run from a pool below and then picked up a bounteous roast of the little fishes.

The prospects of relief from hunger somewhat cheered these fellows, who were getting a foretaste of torment, even before they had departed the terrestrial sphere.

Both men became quite cheerful as they hastened up the gully in search of material that would acknowledge the influence of fire.

They found some dry-kye and pitchy knots, which promised a fire that would seem friendly and at the same time cook the precious little pile of fishes.

As they made their way back to the spot chosen for a camp ground, and from whence their smoke could not be seen in any direction, they were quite cheerful, and chatted together in low tones, for they had not yet overcome the fear that enemies were lurking near.

But when they came to the opening in the rocks what a surprise and disappointment awaited them.

A large grizzly bear sat munching their fish with apparent approval and satisfaction.