Chapter 30

Casey and Sheriff Dove did not start the next afternoon. A telegram had detained the sheriff, and he did not reach Chakchak till night. He spent the evening with them, taking a great fancy to Clyde. He even blossomed out as a story teller, spinning yarns without embellishment and with great clearness. He told of cattle wars, of outlaws, of Indian fighters, of strange occurrences, of strange men, primitive of mind and of action, who had played their parts in the history of the West. It was information at first-hand, rare nowadays, and the listeners found the evening too short.

"Blanket time," said the sheriff, looking at his watch. "I ain't a young nighthawk no more. If we're to git a good start----"

"We'd like to hear more, sheriff," said Clyde.

"Sho!" said Sheriff Dove, well pleased. "I could keep yarnin' half the night to a pretty girl. I ain't too old for that. Maybe when we get back we'll have another session."

Outside on the veranda she slipped her arm in his. "Take good care of Casey for me, sheriff, please."

"I sure will, little girl," he replied. "Don't you go to worryin', now. There's no call to. If it was easier travellin' you might come along, for all the trouble there'll be." He smiled down at her in fatherly fashion, his great, sinewy arm pressing hers, and the pressure reassured her.

"Thank you, sheriff. You--you're a _dear_!"

"Do I git a bid to the weddin'?"

"Of course you do." Clyde blushed and laughed. "Only I don't know just when it will be."

"Make it soon," he advised. "Life's short, little girl. Take all the happiness you can git. Good night."

They rode westward in the morning before the sun had risen, and camped that night in the foothills, having seen nobody. They entered the pass, and immediately came upon the trail of horses.

"Looks like there's been some travel," said the sheriff. "This here pass used much?"

"Not at this time of year. The Indians use it in the fall. They hunt across the range."

"These horses is shod," the sheriff remarked. "I sh'd say there's been half a dozen of 'em. Not less. Maybe more. I've knowed men that could tell exact."

"Not many of them left now."

"That's so. There ain't much need for trailin' these days. Too many telegraph wires."

They held to the pass, as did the hoofprints, eventually dropping down into the valley of the Klimminchuck, where they camped for the night beside the ford, cooked supper, unrolled their blankets, and lay by the fire, smoking.

"This bunch of hosses," the sheriff observed, "seems to have split up here. Two or three of 'em crossed over, but the most went down the valley. What's down there?"

"Just valley. It's partly open and part heavy timber. There was a pack trail cut through once, but it's mostly grown up."

"Nobody lives down there?"

"Not a soul. Now and then somebody traps in winter."

"Um." The sheriff was thoughtful for some moments. "Does McHale know the country hereabouts?"

"Fairly well. Better than I do. And McCrae knows it better than he does."

"Um." The sheriff became silent again. "When a man goes to hidin' out," he observed after a long pause, "he 'most always hits for the country he knows. Seems like it's human nature. I'd do it myself, and so'd you. Seems like a man that's wanted is suspicious of strange ground. He don't know what's in it, and he's afraid of gettin' cornered. He don't know what he's goin' to run up against any mile. It's a mean feelin', that. It keeps a man on edge every minute. So he naturally makes for the district he's at home in. It's a mistake, but they all make it. They figure they can dodge around where they know the trails and cut-offs. Consequently it's just a matter of time till they're caught. It's like an old buck that won't leave his range. Any man can git him that wants to spend a week at it."

"That's so," Casey agreed.

"So when I want a man and don't know where he's gone, I find out what place he thinks he knows best," the sheriff continued. "The system wins nine times out of ten. Now you say McHale's only out temporary. He's got a clear self-defence case, or thinks he has, and he's merely side-steppin' trouble. In that case he won't go as far as another man might. My _tumtum_ is that he's somewheres down along this valley."

"Good reasoning," Casey admitted.

"The way to see a man down in a hole is to look over the edge," said the sheriff; "and the way to find a man in a valley is to get up on a hill. They ain't no such thing as a smokeless campfire invented yet, though, if a man rustles dry sticks and does his cookin' at noon of a bright day, he don't make much smoke. A feller fooled me once that way. He didn't take a chance on noon, but done his cookin' at night, down in a hole. Only way I got him, the fire burned in under a rock into some old roots, and sorter smudged along one mornin' when he was asleep."

Casey glanced up at the bulk of the ranges outlined in blackness against the sky. "If you say so, sheriff, we'll climb."

"I hate to," the sheriff admitted. "Couldn't you make a good guess?"

"No. I don't know any more than you do."

"Well," said the sheriff thoughtfully, "we'll try the valley first. We may come on some sign. It's bound to take time, anyway. There's a whole heap of country here if it was smoothed out and stretched level."

He knocked out his pipe and pulled his blanket around him, for down in that deep, watered valley the nights were cold. Casey followed his example. In two minutes both men were asleep, with the rush of the water and the crunch-crunch of the horses' teeth cropping the grasses in their ears.

They breakfasted in the dawn, saddled, and took a course downstream, The trail petered out; the hoof marks vanished. They rode with care through thick brush, and more easily in open, parklike glades. Grouse rose almost under their horses' hoofs, to sit bright-eyed on adjacent limbs, watching the travellers. Occasionally deer by twos and threes bounded springily away, white flags waving. Once the horses snorted and showed a disinclination to proceed, sniffing the air nervously.

"Bear," said Casey.

"Down among them berry bushes, I reckon," said the sheriff.

As he spoke, a black, furry head, short ears, and sharp muzzle rose above the tangled bushes. A narrow, red tongue licked out. Cunning little eyes regarded them with indignant suspicion.

"Woof!" said the bear. The sound was something between the snort of a hog and the first interrogative note of a watchdog, which hears a noise that requires explanation.

"Well, sport," said the sheriff, "berryin' good this mornin'?"

But at the sound of the human voice the black head disappeared beneath the surface of foliage. There was a momentary swaying of bushes in one spot, like the swirl of disturbed water after a fish; but there was nothing to mark the line of the beast's flight. For all his bulk he melted through the tangle as soundlessly as a spirit.

"Bears is learnin' manners nowadays," the sheriff commented. "Course, these here black ones never was much different from pigs. But take grizzlies. When I come West with my old people, a little shaver just able to set a pony, they was plumb sassy. I never did see such biggotty-actin' critters. Britch-loaders hadn't been in so durn long, and men didn't go huntin' grizzlies with the little old pea rifle just for fun. They was range bosses, and they knowed it. Now it's only once in a while you'll find one that wants all the trail."

In the afternoon they came to an abandoned cabin, and dismounted to investigate. Casey shook his head at the filthy litter. "Nobody's been here," said he.

The sheriff peered narrowly about. "No?" he said. "Well, how about that?" He pointed to the ground. "Moccasin track, or part of one. Who wears moccasins?"

"McCrae does, most of the time."

"Then he's been here. He couldn't pass without lookin' in."

"Why not?"

"Because four men out of five can't go by an old shack without takin' a peep inside. I can't, myself. I judge you can't, either. Do you remember ever doin' it?"

"Why, no," Casey admitted, "now you speak of it, I don't. And I do remember rubbering into dozens of old wikiups one place and another."

"Sure," said the sheriff. "Human nature again. Anything that's made by a man and left behind will draw another man like molasses will a fly. I never knew a man yet that wouldn't nose around an old camping spot. Not that he expects to find anything, or wants to. He just can't help it. McCrae didn't stop here. Where did he go? We might as well look around a little."

In the process of looking around, they came on an abandoned camp. By the quantity of ashes a number of fires had been burned. There were the poles of a lean-to and a bough bed beneath it, and at a little distance were other beds of boughs. The ground was trampled, and the grass beaten down in the vicinity.

The sheriff nosed among the signs, lifting the boughs of the beds, trying the ashes with his finger for heat, making an examination of the ground, and wandering off in a circle around the camp, where horses had been picketed. Finally he came back to the fireplace, filled his pipe, and lay down. Casey, meanwhile, had been forming his own conclusions.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well," said the sheriff, "I reckon you been usin' your eyes, too. Let's hear about it."

"It's your hunt."

"So it is. McCrae's met up with McHale. This here is their camp."

"How do you know?"

"You askin' because you don't know yourself, or because you want me to tell you?"

"I think you're right, but I'd like to know how you get at it."

"Well, I ain't no Old Sleuth nor Sherlock Holmes," said the sheriff, "but I've lived some years out of doors. I ain't workin' out no chain of reasonin'; I'm just usin' my eyes and a bit of savvy. This is how she works out:

"McHale and McCrae is both foot-loose, and both know this part of the country. They leave about the same time, and chances is they make for it. Then they meet. That's easy. Then we find the moccasin track. That fits McCrae. Next we find a lean-to with a two-man bough bed. There's the hollows where two men lay. That helps prove our first guess. It shows that some one was with McCrae, and the only other man hidin' out is McHale."

"But there are other bough beds. How do you know they weren't all made by one outfit?"

"There's only one lean-to."

"Two men may have been more particular than the others."

"The boughs of them other beds were cut later than this lean-to one."

"But the boughs are all green."

"The ends where they were cut are different. There's more gum on these than the others. That shows they were cut before. Then there's more needles broken off and sifted through to the ground beneath this bed. That shows it's been slept on more. Where would a man get his boughs? The nearest trees, of course. Well, there's more gum where the limbs were cut on the nearest trees than on them farther away. Then there's been a bunch of horses staked out. Why didn't they bell 'em and let 'em range? Either because they didn't have no bells, or didn't want to use 'em. McHale and McCrae would keep their hosses on a rope so's they could make a quick get-away if they had to. They wouldn't take a chance on their strayin'. Now the grass that's been eaten down by the hosses is beginnin' to sprout again in some places, and not in others. Maybe that's because the pickets were shifted, but it's more likely that some hosses was here before the rest. That's about all. She works out all right, don't she?"

"Down to the hock card," Casey admitted. "I saw some of the signs, but not all. You filled in the gaps."

"It's a pity if I wouldn't savvy a few things about my own business," said the sheriff. "Some of it's guesswork, but the main features ain't. Now, when we go farther, we got to do straight guessin'. Who was this bunch that come in here where the two men was already camped? My guess is that it was this here Dade and his outfit. But they don't find the two here when they come, or there'd sure be sign of it. It looks to me like them two boys got to know that somebody was on their back trail, and moved camp sudden. But not so durn sudden they had to leave anything behind. Question is, where have they went to--the whole b'ilin' of 'em?"

"Down the valley. Otherwise we'd have seen some sign."

"I reckon that's so. If Dade works out things the way I have, he knows he's close on to McHale. Say he's got four or five men with him. He can comb the valley pretty clean. But here's another thing: How long will them two boys let themselves be chased?"

"Not very long. It's not safe to crowd either of them."

"If it was me," said the sheriff reflectively, "and a feud party was out on my trail, I'd be apt as not to bushwhack 'em some. You bet I wouldn't stand on ceremony with such hostiles. If I knowed the country I'd cache myself alongside some good open spot, wait till they got into the middle of it, and then slam loose. With two men that savvy their guns any one that got away would sure have a pull with Providence and be workin' it awful hard."

"Sandy would do that in a minute; but I think Tom doesn't want any more trouble if he can help it."

"He may get it shoved onto him. Well, seein' we're here, we may as well eat. Then we'll move on."

When their meal was over they followed the valley. Sunset found them at the edge of thick timber.

"How far does this run?" asked the sheriff.

"I don't know. I was never here before."

"Then we'll camp," said Dove, "and tackle her by daylight."

It was almost dark when Casey, sitting by the fire, suddenly held up his hand. "Somebody coming."

The sheriff listened for a moment. "Two horses," he announced. "May be Jack Pugh." Nevertheless, the old frontiersman shifted his position so that his gun lay ready to his hand.

A moment later two shadowy horsemen appeared, resolving themselves, as they approached, into Farwell and old Simon.

"Hello, the camp!" cried the former. "That you, Dunne?"

"Yes. What on earth are you doing here?"

"Same thing as yourself. This old Siwash missed you somehow. He found McHale and young McCrae, and, on the way out, he ran into Dade, Lewis, and the rest--six in all. When he got to the ranch you were gone, and nobody could tell him where. He came over to Talapus to tell them he'd seen Sandy. That's where I ran into him. And so, knowing that Sandy was with McHale, I got the old man to come back with me. I wanted to be in it if help was needed. We picked up your trail--or he did--and here we are."

"Well, it's blamed decent of you, Farwell," said Casey. "I didn't know that you and Sandy were such friends."

"We're not. The kid doesn't like me. I told you he pulled a gun on me once. All the same, it was up to me this time. I'm going to marry Sheila."

"The devil you are!" Casey exclaimed.

"You're blamed flattering," said Farwell. "You bet I'm going to marry her."

"You're getting one of the finest girls on earth."

"I know that as well as you do," said Farwell. "Then you see how it was up to me----"

He broke off suddenly. Rolling softly along the hills, flung back and forth across the valley from rock wall to rock wall, repeated and magnified a hundred times, came an echo. So distant was it that the original sound itself was not heard; merely the reverberations of it struck the ear. But unmistakably it was made by a far-off gun. Before the echoes had died away others followed, until their resonance resembled continuous thunder.

"_Hiyu_ shootum!" said Simon.

"You bet," the sheriff agreed. "I reckon the boys has got tired bein' moved on. Or else they been jumped sudden. That shootin's all of six miles off. Maybe more. It'll be plumb dark in no time. If there's no more shootin' it's settled by now. If there is it's a stand-off. Either way we have to wait till it gets light."