Part 13

"This," he said, "seems to have fallen out your press-cuttin' book. I see in a paper the other day where they supply press-cuttin's to piano wallopers and barn-stormers and what not. You should try one o' them. I disremember the fee; but it was n't nothing very deadly."

Then I knew what the cutting was that had come into his possession. It was the cutting Larry Donoghue had shown me in his childish, ignorant pride, the account of the "hold-up" by "the two-some gang." I must have thrust it absently into my pocket, hardly knowing what I was doing, when Canlan's shot interrupted the unusual conversation of that terrible camp.

The sheriff hummed over it.

"Kind o' lurid, this," he said; and at that comment Apache Kid's face became radiant in a flash.

"Sir," he said, "I am charmed to know you. You are a man of taste. I always object to the way these things are recounted."

The sheriff rolled his bright eye on Apache, misunderstanding his pleasure which, though it sounded something exaggerated, was assuredly genuine enough.

"I guess the way it's told don't alter the fact that in the main it's true. It would mean a term of years, you know."

For the first time in my knowledge of him Apache Kid's face showed that he had been hit. He gave a frown, and said:

"Yes, that's the ugly side of it; that's the reality. It must be an adventurous sort of life, the life portrayed in that cutting. I fancy that it is the adventuring, and not the money-getting, that lures anyone into it, and a man who loves adventure would naturally resent a prison cell."

The sheriff, with lowered head and blank eyes, gazed from under his brows on Apache Kid.

"I guess it's sheer laziness, sir," said he, "and the man who likes that ways of living, and follows it up, is liable to stretch hemp!"

"That would be better, I should fancy, than the prison cell," said Apache Kid. "The fellows told about there would prefer that, I should think."

The sheriff made no answer, but turned to the door and bade his men unharness the pintos and come in.

"You there, Slim," said he to one of the two; "you take possession o' them firearms laying there. But you can let the gentlemen have their belts."

Apache Kid was already kindling the fire. The rain had taken off a little, and before sunset there was light, a watery light on the wet wilderness. So the hatch was flung off and supper was cooked for all. The sheriff and these two men of his--one an Indian tracker, the other ("Slim") a long-nosed fellow with steely glints in his eyes and jaws working on a quid of tobacco when they were not chewing the flapjack--made themselves at home at once. And it astounded me, after the first few words were over, to find how the talk arose on all manner of subjects,--horses, brands, trails, the relative uses and value of rifles, bears and their moody, uncertain habits, wildcats and their ways. Even the Paris Exposition, somehow or other, was mentioned, I remember, and the long-nosed, sheriff's man looked at Apache Kid.

"I think I seen you there," said he.

"Likely enough," said Apache Kid, unconcernedly.

"What was you _blowing in_ that trip?" asked the long-nosed fellow, with what to me seemed distinctly admiration in his manner.

Apache looked from him to the sheriff. They seemed all to understand one another very well, and a cynical and half-kindly smile went round. The Indian, too, I noticed,--though he very probably had only a hazy idea of the talk,--looked long and frequently at Apache Kid, with something of the gaze that a very intelligent dog bestows on a venerated master, his intuition serving him where his knowledge of English and of white men's affairs were lacking.

They talked, also, about the ore that had gathered us all together there, and Apache Kid showed the sheriff a sample of it, and listened to his opinion, which ratified his own.

On the sheriff handing back the sample to Apache Kid the latter held it out to the assistant with the bow and inclination that you see in drawing-rooms at home when a photograph or some curio is being examined.

There was a quiet courtesy among these men that reminded me of what Apache Kid had said regarding Carlyle's remark on the manners of the backwoods. And it was very droll to note it: Apache in his shirt and belt, and the long-nose--I never heard him called but by his sobriquet of "Slim"--opposite him, cross-legged, with his hat on the back of his head and his chin in the palm of his hand, the elbow in his lap, at the side of which stuck out the butt of his Colt, the holster-flap hanging open.

"I know nothing about mineral," said Slim, in his drawl. "I 'm from the plains."

Apache Kid handed the ore over to the Indian, who took it dumbly, and turned it over, but with heedless eyes; and he presently laid it down beside him, and then sat quiet again, looking on and listening. Never a word he said except when, each time he finished a cigarette and threw the end into the fire, the sheriff with a glance would throw him his pouch and cigarette papers. The dusky fingers would roll the cigarette, the thin lips would gingerly wet it, and then the pouch was handed back with the papers sticking in it, the sheriff holding out a hand, without looking, to receive it And on each of these occasions--about a dozen in the course of an hour--the Indian opened his lips and grunted, "Thank."

Then the conversation dwindled, and the sheriff voiced a desire "to see down that there hole myself."

The Indian had risen and gone out a little before this, and just as the sheriff rose he appeared at the door again, and looking in he remarked:

"Bad night come along down," and he pointed to the sky.

"Oh!" said the sheriff, "bad night?"

"Es, a bad mountain dis," said the Indian. "No good come here."

"You would n't come here yourself, eh?" said the sheriff, smiling, but you could see he was not the man to ignore any word he heard. He was wont to listen to everything and weigh all that he heard in his mind, and take what he thought fit from what he heard, like one winnowing a harvest.

"No, no!" said the Indian, emphatically. "I think--a no good stop over here. Only a darn fool white man. White man no care. A heap a bad mountain," he ended solemnly.

"Devils?" inquired the sheriff. "Bad spirits, may be?" and he looked as serious as though he believed in all manner of evil spirits himself.

The Indian seemed almost bashful now.

"O! I dono devil," he said, and then after thinking he decided to acknowledge his belief. "Ees," he said, and he looked more shy than ever, "maybe bad spirit you laugh. Bad mountain, all same, devil o' no devil."

"And what's like wrong with the mountain?"

"He go away some day."

"Mud-slide, eh?" asked Apache Kid.

The Indian nodded,

"O! Heap big mud-slide," he said. "You come a look."

We all trooped on his heels, and then he led us to the gable of the shanty and pointed up to the summit.

"Good preserve us," said Slim.

"Alle same crack," said the Indian. "Too much dry. Gumbo[#] all right; vely bad for stick when rain come; he hold together in dry; keep wet long time--all same chewing gum," he added with brilliancy.

[#] A sticky soil common in these parts.

"But this ain't like chewin' gum, heh?" said the sheriff, following the drift of the Indian's pidgin English.

"Nosiree," said the Indian, "no hold together, come away plop, thick."

"It's a durned fine picture he's drawin'," said Slim. "I can kind o' see it, though. 'Plop,' he says. I can kind o' hear that plop."

Along the hill above us, sure enough, we could see a long gash running a great part of the hill near the summit, in the black frontage of it.

"Well," said the sheriff, "I should n't like to be under a mud-slide. But you 'd think that them two ribs here would hold the face o' this hill together, would n't you?"

He looked up at the sky; sunset seemed a thought quicker than usual, and there were great, heavy clouds crawling up again, as last night, from behind the mountains.

Apache Kid had said not a word so far, but now he spoke.

"I 've seen a few mud-slides in my time, Sheriff," he said: "but this one would be a colossal affair. Might I ask you a question before I offer advice?"

"Sure," said the sheriff, wonderingly.

"Is it only the charge of murdering Mr. Pinkerton that you want me for, or would you try to make a further name for your smartness by using that clew you got about the two-some gang--not to put too fine a point upon it?"

You would have thought the sheriff had a real liking for Apache Kid the way he looked at him then.

He took the cutting from his sleeve, and tore it up and trampled it into the wet earth.

"I guess the hangin' will do you, without anything else," said he; from which, of course, one could not exactly gauge his inmost thoughts. But sheriffs study that art. They learn to be ever genial, without ever permitting the familiarity that breeds contempt--genial and stern.

"In that case," said Apache Kid, "I would suggest leaving this cabin right away. I want to clear myself of that charge; and if that crack widened during the night, I might never be able to do that."

*CHAPTER XXII*

_*The Mud-Slide*_

From our scrutiny of the mountain above us the sheriff turned aside.

"If we have to leave here, I reckon I just have a look at that hole o' theirs and see what like it is to my mind," said he, "with all due respect to your judgment, sir," (this to Apache Kid) "and out of a kind o' curiosity."

He bade the Indian go with him to tend the windlass and Apache Kid and I returned to the cabin, Slim following ostentatiously at our heels, and remaining at the door watching the sheriff.

I plucked my friend by the sleeve. This was the first opportunity we had had for private speech since the sheriff's arrival.

"Apache," I said, "what is the meaning of this arrest? Is it the half-breed that came with Mr. Pinkerton who has garbled the tale of his death for some reason?"

He shook his head.

"No," said he, "not the half-breed. I 'll wager it is some of Farrell's gang that are at the bottom of it."

"But they," I began, "they were all----" and I stopped on the word.

"Wiped out?" he said. "True; but you forget Pete, the timid villain."

"But he," I said, "he was away long before that affair of poor Mr. Pinkerton."

"Yes, but doubtless the Indian made up on him, and whether they talked or not Pete could draw his conclusions. And a man like Pete, one of your coyote order of bad men, would just sit down and plot and plan----"

"But even then," I said, "they can't prove a thing that never occurred; they can't prove that you did what you never did."

He looked at me with lenient, sidewise eyes, not turning his head, and then pursed his lips and gazed before him again at the door, where Slim's long back loomed against the storm-darkened sky.

"All this," said he, "is guesswork, of course; for the sheriff is reticent and so am I. But as for _proving_, I dare say Pete could get a crony or two together to swear they saw me. O! But let this drop," he broke out. "If there's anything that makes me sick now, it's building up fabrications. Let us look on the bright side. Gather together your belongings and thank Providence for sending us the convoy of the sheriff to see us safely back to civilisation with our loot."

"You 're a brave man," I said. But he did not seem to hear.

"What vexes me," said he, "is to think that Miss Pinkerton may have heard this yarn and placed credence in it."

The entrance of the sheriff, with a serious face, put an end to the conversation then.

"Well," said Apache Kid, "what do you think?"

"I think this is a derned peculiar mountain," said the sheriff, "and I reckon you boys had better pack your truck. That hole 's full."

"Water?" said Apache Kid.

"No," said the sheriff: "full of mountain. You can see the upward side of it jest sliding down bodily in the hole, props and all. They must ha' had some difeeculty in it, the way they had it wedged. You noticed?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's just closed up now, plumb. Went together with a suck, like this yere," and he imitated it with his mouth. "Reckon we better get ready to pull out, if needs be. What in thunder----" he broke off.

Apache Kid, Slim, and the sheriff looked at each other. You should have heard the sound. It was like the sound of one tearing through a web of cloth--a giant tearing a giants web and it of silk.

"The horses!" the sheriff cried; but the Indian had already gone. "How about yours, young feller?"

I made for the door to follow the Indian and catch the horses, out onto the hillside--and saw only half the valley. The other half was hid behind the wall of rain that bore down on us.

The Indian was ahead of me, scudding along to where the lone pine stood; but the terrified horses saw us coming and ran to meet us, quivering and sweating.

Then the rain smote us and knocked the breath clean out of me. I had heard of such onslaughts but had hardly credited those who told of them. I might have asked pardon then for my unbelief. I was sent flying on the hillside and was like a cloth drawn through water before I could get to my feet again. The Indian was scarcely visible, nor his three horses. I saw him prone one moment, and again I saw him trying to hold them together as he--how shall I describe it?--_lay_ aslant upon the gale. I succeeded in quieting my beast, and then turned and signed to him that I would lead one of his beasts also, for when I opened my mouth to speak, he being windward of me, the gust of the gale blew clean into my lungs so that I had to whirl about and with lowered head gasp out the breath and steady myself. But he signed to me to go, and nodded his head in reassurance; though what he cried to me went past my ear in an incomprehensible yell.

Thus, staggering and swaying, we won back to the rib beside the cabin, but this we could scarcely mount. So the Indian, coming level with me, stretched his hand and signed that he would hold my pack-horse with his own. I saw the sheriff battling with the gale and the dim forms of Apache Kid and Slim a little ahead of him, Slim and Apache Kid weighted greatly down. How we ever succeeded in getting the saddles on the horses seemed a mystery. But the beasts themselves were in a state of collapse with terror. I dare say they would have stampeded had there been any place to stampede to; but there was no place. For a good five minutes you might have thought we were hauling on saddles and drawing up straps and cinches on the bed of a lake that had a terrible undercurrent in it. Then the first onslaught passed and we saw the hill clear for a moment, but still lashed with hail, so that our hands were stiff and numb. The sheriff and Apache Kid were floundering back to the cabin, and it was then that the catastrophe that the Indian had feared took place. Mercifully, it was not so sudden as an avalanche of snow; for, at the united yell of the three of us who cowered there with the beasts, the sheriff and Apache Kid looked up at the toppling mountain. Aye, toppling is the word for it. The lower rim of the chasm I told you of was falling over and spreading down the surface of the hill. It was a slow enough progress to begin with, and the two men seemed to waver and consider the possibility of again reaching the cabin. Then they saw what we beheld also--the whole face of the mountain below the chasm sagged forward. It looked as though there was a steadfast rib along the top; but barely had they gained the rocky part where we stood, than that apparent backbone collapsed upon the lower part, and, I suppose with the shock of the impact on the rest, completed the mischief. The sound of it was scarce louder than the hiss of the rain, a multitude of soft bubblings and squelchings. But if there was with this fall no sound as when a rock falls, it was none the less awful to behold.

We saw the mountain slide bodily forward, and the one thought must have flashed into all our minds at once, "If this rock on which we stand is not a rib of the hill, but is simply imbedded in that mud mountain, we are lost."

That of course could scarcely be, but nevertheless we all turned and fled along the ridge, horses and men, and, as we looked over our shoulders, there was the farther spur of rock, which had attracted the three prospectors, slipping forward and down, whelmed in the slide. The rest was too sudden to describe rightly. A great crashing of trees and a rumbling, now of rocks, came up from the lower valley, and the mountain absolutely subsided in the centre and went slithering down. We posted along the face of the hill here to the south, I think each of us expecting any moment to feel the ground fail under him. But at last we gained the hard, rocky summit of a ridge that ran edgewise into that black mountain. There we paused and looked back.

There was now a dip in the ridge, where before had been an eminence; and farther along, where a new precipice had been made by this fall, we saw (where the rain drove) huge pieces of earth loosen and fall, one after the other, upon the blackness below. But these droppings were just as the last shots after a battle, and might keep on a long while, sometimes greater, sometimes less, but never anything to compare with the first fall.

But we could not remain there. A fresh bending over of the tree-tops, like fishing-rods when the trout runs, a fresh flurry of wind, and a sudden assault of hail sent us from that storm-fronting height to seek shelter below.

One would have thought that there could be no dry inch of ground in all the world; the hills were spouting foaming torrents, and in our flight, as we passed the place up which Canlan and I had come, I saw the watercourse no longer dry, but a turbulent rush of waters.

It was farther along the hill, so anxious were we to pass beyond the possibility of any further crumbling, that we made a descent. Our faces were bruised with the hail and we were stiff with cold, when at last we came to what you might call an islet in the storm.

The hill itself, quite apart from its watercourses, was all a-trickle and a-whisper with water, but here was a little rise where the water went draining around on either side, and in the centre of the rise a monster fir-tree, the lowest branches about a dozen feet from the ground which all around the tree was dust-dry, so thick were the branches overhead.

Under this natural roof we sheltered; here we built our fire, dried ourselves, and cooked and ate the meal of which we stood so greatly in need; and after that we sat and hearkened, with a subdued gladness and a kind of peaceful excitement in our breasts, to the voices of the storm--the trailing of the rain, the cry of the wind, and the falling of trees.

So we spent the night, only an occasional raindrop hissing in our little fire or blistering in the dust. But by morning the itching of the ants had us all early awake. It was in a pause in the breakfast preparations that Slim remarked:

"Well, I guess anybody that wants that there ore now will find it in bits strewed about the valley. It won't need no crushing before it gets smelted."

"Yes," said the sheriff, "there's abundance o' 'floats' lying in among that mud, but, now that I think on it, that was the tail end they were on, them three fellers. In the course o' time yonder chunk was broken off and sagged away into yonder wedge-like place of mud. I bet you the lead is right in this hill to back of us. Suppose you was prospectin' along through the woods up there now and found any of them floats, why, you 'd go up to look for the lead right there. It would n't astonish me one little bit to find that with the mud sliding away there it would jest be a case o' tunnelling straight in."

Apache Kid became so interested in this suggestion that he wanted to go back there and then to see what the storm and the mud-slide had laid bare, but the sheriff broke in on him:

"Sorry, sir; I understand your curiosity, and I 'm right curious myself; but I 'm sheriff first, and interested in mineral after:" and then the hard, callous side of the man peeped through, and yet with that whimsical look on his chubby face: "But after I 've seen you safely kickin' I don't know but what I might come along and have a study of the lay of the land now."

"Well," said Apache Kid, lightly, "to a man in your position it would n't matter so much, though the assay was nothing very great."

"No, sir; that's so," said the sheriff. "So you see that it's advisable for a man to get a position in life. Sheriff Carson of Baker City has expressed in glowin' terms his faith in the near future of the valley," he said, like a man reading.

Apache Kid laughed.

"I suppose Sheriff Carson's expression of faith would soon enough get up a syndicate to work it!"

"I would n't just say no," said the sheriff.

There was more of such banter passed, and suggestions as to where the city--Carson City--would be built; but when Apache Kid suggested the stagecoach route the sheriff scoffed.

"Stage-route nothing!" he said. "Railroad you mean, spur-line clear to Carson City."

"The country is sure opening up and developing to lick creation," said Slim; but at that the sheriff frowned. He might banter with his prisoner, but not with his subordinate.

So we saddled up again, the sheriff looking with interest on the heavy gunny-bags that we stowed carefully away again among the blankets on our pack-horse, but making no comment on them. He must have known pretty well what they contained.

Apache Kid's eyes and his met, and something of the look I have already told you of, that came at times, grew on Apache Kid's face, and a sort of reply to it woke in the sheriff's. But, as I say, no word passed on the matter then. Apache Kid had taken care to bring our treasures from the cabin before thinking of aught else.

That return journey with the sheriff, which had been so suddenly proved impossible, was to bring our firearms which the sheriff had appropriated on his arrival and made Slim set in a corner. The sheriff himself was not in a very happy mood, quite snappy because of that foiled attempt. He had thrown off his cartridge-belt in the cabin, and in the flurry at the end had only been able to secure his rifle in addition to his blankets. How many charges were in its magazine I did not know. He had worn his cartridge-belt apart from the belt to which his revolver hung, and in the latter were no cartridge-holders.

Part of the sheriff's "shortness" when speaking to Slim was due to the fact, I think, that Slim, intent upon getting out the provisions, had come away without a thought for any arms at all. But the Indian had made up for Slim, for he had not unbuckled his arsenal, and in addition to his revolver had, on either side of his tanned and fringed coat, cartridge pockets with four shells on either side. The loss of our weapons (Apache's and mine) mattered little.

But this is all by the way, and was not so carefully considered at the time as these remarks would lead you to think. I mention it here at all simply because of what happened later. We were not seers or prophets to be able at the time to know all that this shortage of ammunition was to mean.

Enough of that matter, then, and as for the journey through the wilderness, which was by Canlan's route now, at an acute angle from our former route, I need not tire you with a description. It was just the old story of plod, plod, plod over again; of trees and open glades and silence, and at nightfall the forest voices that you know of already.