Chapter 17

VAN HORN TRAILS HAWK

A bomb exploding in the smoking remnants could hardly have caused more consternation among the man hunters than the Snipe's naming of Abe Hawk. But however Doubleday's jaw set at the unwelcome surprise he was not the one to swerve in the face of any personal danger, and those with him were not men to bolt whatever adventure they embarked in. However, it was remarked by the Snipe that those least acquainted with Abe were least disturbed by the news of his almost certain presence in the cabin the day and night before and his escape after the fight.

Common prudence made it necessary to cross the small divide with care and to get word of the unpleasant discovery as soon as possible to Van Horn in order that he and his companions might not be picked off by the wounded man from ambush. The Snipe was assigned to Hawk's trail and two men were sent to the wings to scout for him among the rocks. Bradley rode to warn Van Horn; but the old man did not sweat his horse in the effort.

The trackers soon made it plain to those behind that the escaping man had ridden a pretty straight course himself, and had picked his way in the night like one thoroughly at home in the hills of the Turkey. And though losing the trail at times, the Snipe had no serious trouble in picking it again from the grass or the rocks.

The country lying north of the forks of the Turkey is rougher than to the south and pretty well covered with pine. On the Northern slope, Hawk's trail led down a long and winding break mile after mile and in the end pointed straight for his shack on the creek.

Moving as nearly as possible in the order in which they had started, the party emerged from the hills half a mile from the creek, and not much farther from Hawk's, when they encountered Bradley and Van Horn with one of his men. Doubleday hoarsely asked for the news.

Van Horn rode up close before he answered, and, though his tone was confident, his manner showed his annoyance at the way things had turned: "Robinson's shack was empty," he said. "Whether he got wind of yesterday I don't know; anyway, he's skipped--there's nothing left on his place."

"What's there to this talk of Barney's about Abe Hawk?" demanded Doubleday.

"From what Bradley says, it looks as if he might be right," said Van Horn. "The horse Hawk took is eating grass in front of his cabin; we saw him when we got here and waited for Hawk to show himself."

"He didn't do it," interrupted Doubleday huskily and baring his teeth as he spoke.

"Stone's watching the place."

"Is Abe there?" demanded Doubleday.

"You tell," responded Van Horn. "He may or may not be. That horse may be a stall. We've got to close in somehow on the shack and find out."

A cowboy clattered up from the creek and pulled his horse to its haunches between Doubleday and Van Horn: "He's just closed the door," declared the cowboy. "The door was open when we got here--wasn't it, Harry?" He pointed his finger at Van Horn in his excited appeal.

Van Horn scowled and waved his head from side to side in irritation: "The door was open, yes; the door is shut, yes." Then he swore at the alarmist: "You blamed monkey," he pointed to the cottonwood. "Don't you see how the wind is blowing? That door has been swinging half an hour. The shack is empty."

But nobody could be found with confidence enough in Van Horn's belief to close in and demonstrate its truth. After a litany of hard words in which everybody took more or less part, Van Horn declared he would demonstrate. Whatever his faults, he was dead game, a formidable antagonist in an encounter. He was risking his life on his belief that either Hawk was disabled, or the cabin was empty. Stripping himself to shirt and trousers, turning his effects over to a cowboy, bare-headed and with only a six-shooter in hand, he shook out his long, brown hair, hooked up his belt and started to crawl up a little wash breaking into the creek not far from the cabin.

There was no point from which he could be seen and his companions, secreted where they could watch, bent their eyes along the course of the wash up which their hidden leader was making his way.

Fortunately for the slippery undertaking, Van Horn, by a little digging as he made his way carefully ahead, was able to crawl to within fifty feet of the door without exposing himself to fire. Reaching the nearest spot he could attain with safety, he called in stentorian tones to the cabin:

"You're surrounded, Abe. You can't get away. If you want to surrender, I'll guarantee your life. Come out unarmed and I'll meet you unarmed. If not, it's what Gorman and Dutch Henry got, for you, Abe."

The cabin gave no answer back. But Van Horn would not be baffled. Knowing it would be suicide to venture closer he patiently sought his answer on the ground he now began to cover on his way back to the creek. And on the ground he found it.

"He's slipped us," Van Horn called out when Doubleday arrived, "but I've got his trail."

"Two hundred and fifty dollars to the man that gets him!" shouted Doubleday, huskily. Some of the boys gave a whoop and began to look around, but they did not scatter much.

Van Horn, losing no time, led Doubleday part way up the break along which he had crawled. Telltale traces of blood at irregular intervals, sometimes imprinted as if by a hand on the flat face of rock that bedded the wash; sometimes smeared on a starving bunch of grass, where it clung desperately to a crevice in the scant soil--all so slight and so well concealed that only the mere chance of Van Horn's crawling up the very break chosen by Hawk for his escape to the creek had revealed it to his pursuers. The tracker took the slender trail, followed the wounded rustler to the creek bottom and thence down the creek to its junction with the North Fork. There they lost the trail in a pool of water, nor could they pick it up again.

A mile below the fork of the Turkey stood Jim Laramie's cabin. The raiders had already entered on his land; his cattle and some of his horses were, in fact, grazing in and about the creek fork. The following of Hawk's trail had been a nerve-racking job. Hawk, his enemies knew, might be waiting at any turn in it and that meant, in all probability, death for someone. In consequence, the pioneering fell chiefly on Van Horn; even Stone showed little stomach for the job. But the trail was completely lost.

"There's a bunch of horses grazing at the fork," reported Van Horn, as Doubleday reached the front, "Laramie's, I guess--anyway, the trail's gone."

A council was held. Doubleday, long-headed and crafty, listened to all that was said. Van Horn finally asked for his opinion.

"I don't know no more than the rest of you; but a blind man can figure a few things out. He's hit, ain't he?" Barb put the question as one not to be gainsaid and found none to say him nay. "He's looking for help, that's more'n likely, ain't it? He's a mile from Jim Laramie's cabin, not more; he's three miles from anybody else's--what?" he exclaimed, as Bill Bradley interrupted to suggest that it was less than two miles over to Ben Simeral's. "All right," shouted Barb, "Hawk's here, ain't he? He's close to Laramie. Laramie's his friend. Where would he go--what?"

Chopping his ideas out as with an ax, Doubleday showed his companions what they should have thought of without being told. "The thing to do," he added, "is to go down to Laramie's cabin and see what we can see--and find out what we can find out."

It was precisely what Bradley had feared would happen, but there was no escape from Doubleday's logic and no help for what others as well as Bradley feared might follow.