Part 9

"I don't know what you mean," said Farrell, like a man scenting something beyond him.

"No," said Apache Kid. "I understand that. You will require some other method used upon you. I don't know if it was, as you suggested, the gentleman's religion that was to blame for it, but he suffered from the fear of man. That was why he went away. Now you, Farrell, I don't think you fear man, God----"

"No! Nor devil!" cried Farrell.

"Nor no more do I!" said Dan, turning on Apache Kid. "Nor no more do I. And if the loss o' the hosses don't cut any figure to you, it don't no more to us, for we 're goin' through with you right to the end."

But I thought that a something about his underlip, as I saw it in the shadows of the fire, belied his strong statement. Apache Kid was of my opinion, for he looked keenly in Dan's face and remarked: "A very good bluff, Daniel."

"Don't you Daniel me!" cried the man. "You 're gettin' too derned fresh and frisky and gettin' to fancy yourself."

"That's right. A bluff should be sustained," said Apache Kid, insolently, and then dropping the conversation, as though it were of absolutely no moment, he rolled himself again in his blanket. And this he had no sooner done--unconcerned, untroubled, heedless of any possible villainy of these two men--than Pinkerton's voice spoke behind me:

"He 's a good man spoiled, is that Apache Kid. I could ha' been doin' with a son like that."

"I think you 're kind o' a soft mark, right enough," sneered Farrell to the now recumbent form of Apache Kid. "I think you 're too soft to scare me."

Apache Kid was up in a moment.

"Soft!" he cried, "soft!"

And on his face was the look that he gave the Italian livery-stable keeper at Camp Kettle, only, as the saying is, _more_ so.

I heard Donoghue gasp, you would have thought more in fear than in exultation: "Say! When he gets this ways you want to be back out of his way."

"Look at me!" said Apache, standing up. "You see I 've got on no belt; my gun's lying there with the belt. I 've got no knife--nothing. Will you stand up, sir, and let me show you if I 'm soft, seeing that I have given you my word--not to kill you?" You should have heard the way these last words came from him. "Will you stand up and let me just hammer you within an inch of your end?"

Farrell did not quail; I will do him that justice. But he sat considering, and then he jerked his head and jerked it again doggedly, and, "No," he said, "no, I reckon not."

The fire of anger had leapt quick enough to life in Apache Kid, and it seemed to ebb as suddenly.

"All right," he said. "All right. Perhaps it is better so. It would dirty my hands to touch you. And indeed," he was moving back to his place now, "lead is too clean for you as well."

He turned as he reached where his blankets lay.

"Farrell," he said, "it is at the end of a rope that you will die."

*CHAPTER XV*

_*In Which the Tables Are turned--at Some Cost*_

After that peace came, and I dozed again.

It was a shot, followed by a scream, that awoke me; and those kind gods who guard us in our sleep and in our waking caused me even at that moment not to obey the sudden impulse to leap up. Instead, I flung my hand to my revolver and lay flat--and in doing so saved my life.

Beside me, with the first quick opening of my eyes, I saw Donoghue kick in his blankets, like a cat in a sack, and then lie still, and the second shot rang in my ears, fired by the man Dan from across the fire and aimed at me. But truly, it was fated that Dan should go first of these two who remained with us of his side, as Farrell had called it, and it was I who was fated to do the deed. Let me put it in that way, I beg of you. Let me say "fated" in this instance, if in no other, for it is a terrible thing to slay a man. And then I saw what had befallen, after my shot had gone home and Dan lay on his face where he had fallen--dead, with the light of morning, of a new day, just quivering up the eastern sky, and making the thing more ghastly.

Farrell and he must have quietly whispered over their plan where they lay--to make a sudden joint attack upon us. Dan's part had evidently been to put an end to Larry and to me, while Farrell attended to Apache Kid; for there was Farrell now with a revolver in each hand, and both were held to Apache Kid's head.

At hearing my shot, for a moment Farrell glanced round, and, seeing that Dan had failed in his attempt, he cried out: "If you move, I kill Apache Kid here, right off. Mind now! I kill him--and let the Lost Cabin Mine slide. We 'll see who 's boss o' this round up!"

And then it suddenly struck me as strange that they had not reckoned on the other two who were with us,--Mr. Pinkerton and the half-breed. Even as I was then considering their daring, there came a moan from beside me. I flung round at the sound, and there lay Pinkerton with his hand to his breast. Yes; I understood now. That sound that woke me was not of one shot; it was two,--Dan's first shot at Larry, and Farrell's at Mr. Pinkerton. But what of the half-breed? I bent to Mr. Pinkerton and, with my hand under his neck, said: "O, Mr. Pinkerton! Mr. Pinkerton! O, Mr. Pinkerton! can I do anything for you?"

He looked upon me with his kind eyes, full of the last haze now, and gasped: "My girl! My girl! You will----" and he leant heavy in my arms.

"I will see to her," said I. "O, sir! this you have got for us. It is through us that this has happened. I will see that she never wants."

These or some words such as these I spoke,--for I never could rightly recall the exact speech in looking back on that sad affair.

"You--you are all right, my son," he said, "but if Apache Kid gets out o' this--he 's--he's more fit like for----"

I saw his hand fumble again on his breast, and thought it was in an attempt to open his shirt; but then I caught the agony in his eye, such as you may have seen on a dumb man trying to make himself understood and failing in the attempt. Something of that look, but more woeful, more piteous to see, was on his face. He was trying to hold his hand to me; when I took it, he smiled and said:

"You or Apache--Meg." And that was the last of this kindly and likeable man who had done so much for us.

But what of the half-breed? Was he, too, slain? Not so; but he was of a more cunning race than I am sprung of. When I laid back Mr. Pinkerton's head and again looked around, the half-breed was gone from the place where he had lain.

There, on his belly almost, he was creeping upon Farrell from the rear. To me it seemed the maddest and most forlorn undertaking.

There was Farrell with the two revolvers held to Apache Kid's head, talking softly, too quietly for me to hear, and Apache Kid replying in a low tone without any attempt at rising. And Farrell cried out: "Nobody try to fire on me! At a shot I fire too! My fingers is jest ready. I 'm a desperate man."

I crouched low, my breath held in dread, my heart pounding in my side, at long intervals, so that I thought it must needs burst. I did not even dare look again at that crawling savage, lest Farrell might perhaps cast another such quick glance as he had already bestowed on me and, seeing the direction of my gaze, realise his danger.

The result of such a discovery I dared not imagine. There was enough horror already, without addition. It was just then that Donoghue gave a queer little wheezing moan and his eyes opened; but even as I turned to him, "crash!" went a shot and I spun round, a cry on my lips; and there lay Apache Kid, as I had seen him before Donoghue's voice called me away from observing him. But now he had clutched Farrell's right wrist in what must have been a mighty sudden movement, and was pushing it from him. He had leapt sidewise a little way, but without attempting to rise.

There, thrusting away, in a firm grasp, the hand that held the smoking weapon, he still looked up in Farrell's eye, the other revolver before him so that he must have looked fairly into it.

"You durn fool!" said Farrell. "You think I did n't mean what I said? Well, let me tell you that I run no more chances. Oh! you need n't grasp this arm so fierce. I don't have to use it. But, Apache Kid, I 'm goin' to kill you now. I reckon that that there Lost Cabin ain't for any of us,--not for you, for sure. Are you ready?"

"Quite ready," I heard Apache Kid say, his voice as loud as Farrell's now, but more exultant still. It horrified me to hear his voice so callous as he looked on death. I wondered if now I should not risk a shot as a last hope to save him.

"There, then!" cried Farrell.

But there followed only the metallic tap of the hammer,--no report, only that steely click; and before one could well know what had happened, Apache Kid was the man on top, shoving Farrell's head down in the sand, but still clutching Farrell's right wrist and turning aside that hand that held the weapon which, on his first sudden movement, had sent its bullet into the sand beside Apache.

"You goat!" cried Apache Kid. "When you intend to use two guns, see that they both are loaded, or else don't hold the one that you 've fired the last from right in front of----" He broke off and flung up his head, like a wolf baying, and laughed.

He was a weird sight then, his face blackened from the shot he had evaded. But by this time, I need hardly tell you, I was by his side, helping to hold down the writhing Farrell--and the half-breed brought us the lariat from his horse and we trussed Farrell up, hands and feet, and then stood up. And as we turned from him there was Donoghue sitting up with a foolish look on his face and the blood trickling on his brow; and, pointing a hand at us, he cried out, "Come here, some o' you sons o' guns, and tie up my head a bit so as I kin git up and see his hangin' afore I die."

Farrell writhed afresh in his bonds as he heard Donoghue's cry, and in a voice in which there seemed nothing human, he roared, "What! is that feller Donoghue not killed?"

"No, sir!" Donoghue replied, his head falling and his chin on his breast, but eyes looking up, with the blood running into them from under his ragged eyebrows: "No, sir,--after you!" he cried, and he let out that hideous oath that I had heard him use once before, but cannot permit myself to write or any man to read.

*CHAPTER XVI*

_*Sounds in the Forest*_

We hanged Farrell in the morning, for he had broken the compact and he was a murderer. And we laid Pinkerton to his rest in the midst of the plain, with a cairn of stones to mark the spot.

Let that suffice. As for these two things you may readily understand I have no heart to write. And indeed, it would be a depraved taste that would desire to read of them in detail. I know you are not of those who will blame me for this reticence.

When I told Apache Kid of Mr. Pinkerton's last words he was greatly moved, as I could see, though he kept a calm front, and he told the half-breed, who left us then, to convey to Miss Pinkerton our united sympathy with a promise that we would visit her immediately on our return from our expedition.

Then we set out again, a melancholy company, as you will understand, Apache Kid and I carrying all the provisions that he thought fit to take along with us; for Donoghue was too light-headed to be burdened with any load, and lurched along beside us as we made toward the hills that closed in the plain to north, lurched along with the red handkerchief around his head and singing snatches of song now and again. The bullet had ploughed a furrow along the side of his head, and though the bleeding had stopped he was evidently mentally affected by the wound.

It was drawing near nightfall again when we came to the end of this seeming cul-de-sac of a valley, and the hills on either side drew closer to us.

Before us now as we mounted, breathing heavily, up the incline we saw the woods, all the trees standing motionless, and already we could look well into the hazy blue deep of that place.

"I have been here before," said Apache, "but not much farther. We thought we might have to push clear through this place and try what luck there was in getting a shelter beyond. They pushed us very close that time," he said meditatively. But so absently did he speak this that, though I could not make any guess as to who it was that was "pushing" him "close" and who was with him on that perilous occasion, I forbore to question.

You have seen men in that mood yourself, I am sure, speaking more to the air than to you.

He turned about at the entering into the wood and we looked down on the plain stretching below us. A long while he gazed with eyelids puckered, scanning the shelving and stretching expanse.

"Two parties have followed us," he said in a whisper almost. "God grant there be no more, else when we get the wealth that lies in store for us we shall hardly be able to enjoy it for thinking of all it has cost us. It has been the death of one good man already," he added. "Ah, well! There is no sign of any mortal there. We must push on through this wilderness before us."

He stopped again and considered, Donoghue rocking impotent and dazed beside us.

"I wonder where Canlan is to-night," he said, and then we plunged into the woods.

If the silence of the plain had been intense, we were now to know a silence more august. I think it was our environment then that made Apache Kid speak in that whisper. There was something in this deep wood before us that hushed our voices. I think it was the utter lack of even the faintest twitter of any bird, where it seemed fitting that birds should be, that influenced us then almost unconsciously. Our very tread fell echoless in the dust of ages there, the fallen needles and cones of many and many an undisturbed year. It was with a thrill that I found that we had suddenly come upon what looked like a path of some kind. Apache Kid was walking first, Donoghue following, the knotted ends of the handkerchief sticking out comically at the back of his head under his hat.

"You see, we're on to a trail now," said Apache Kid, as he trudged along. "You never strike a trail just at the entrance into a place like this. Travellers who have passed here at various times, you see, come into the wood at all sorts of angles, where the trees are thin. But after one gets into the wood a bit and the trees get thicker, in feeling about for a passage you find where someone has been before you and you take the same way. A week, or a month, or a year later someone else comes along and he follows you. This trail here, for all that you can see the print of a horse's hoof here and there on it, may not have been passed over this year by any living soul. There may not have been anyone here since I was here last myself, three years ago--yes, that print there may be the print of my own horse's hoof, for I remember how the rain drenched that day, charging through the pass here and dripping from the pines and trickling through all the woods."

"It is a pass, then?" said I.

"Oh, yes," he explained. "It is what is called, in the language of the country, a buck's trail. That does not mean, as I used to think, an Indian trail. It is the slang word for a priest. You find these bucks' trails all over the country. They were made by the priests who came up from old Mexico to evangelise and convert the red heathen of the land. I think these old priests must have been regular wander-fever men to do it. Think of it, man, cutting a way through these woods. Aha! See, there's a blaze on a tree there. You can scarcely make it out, though; it's been rained upon and snowed upon and blown upon so long, year in, year out. Turn about, now that we are past it, and you see the blaze on this side. Perhaps the old buck made that himself, standing back from the tree and swinging his axe and saying to himself: 'If this leads me nowhere, I shall at least be able to find my way back plain enough.' Well! It's near here somewhere that I stopped that time, three years ago. Do you make out the sound of any water trickling?"

We stood listening; but there was no sound save that of our breathing, and then suddenly a "tap, tap, tap" broke out loud in the forest, so that it startled me at the moment, though next moment I knew it was the sound of a busy woodpecker.

We moved on a little farther, and then Apache Kid cried out in joy:

"Aha! Here we are! See the clear bit down there where the trees thin out?"

We pushed our way forward to where, through the growing dusk of the woods, there glowed between the boles a soft green, seeming very bright after the dark, rusty green of these motionless trees.

"There is n't much elbow room round about us here to keep off the wildcats," said Apache Kid, looking round into the forest as we stepped forth into this oasis and found there a tiny spring with a teacupful of water in its hollow. The little trickle that went from it seemed just to spread out and lose itself almost immediately in the earth; but it served our purpose, and here we camped.

Donoghue had been like a dazed man since morning, but now, after the strong tea, he was greatly refreshed and had his wits collected sufficiently to suggest that we should keep watch that night, lest another party were following us up. He also washed the wound in his forehead, and, finding it bleeding afresh after that, pricked what he called the "pimples" from a fir-tree, and with the sap exuding therefrom staunched the bleeding again, and I suppose used one of the best possible healers in so doing.

That there were wildcats in the woods there was no doubt. They screamed half the night, with a sound like weeping infants, very dolorous to hear. Apache Kid took the first watch, Donoghue the second, and I the third. I was to waken them at sunrise, and after Donoghue shook me up and I sat by the glowing fire, I remember the start with which I saw, after a space, as I sat musing of many things, as one will muse in such surroundings, two gleaming eyes looking into mine out of the woods--just the eyes, upright ovals with a green light, turning suddenly into horizontal ovals and changing colour to red as I became aware of them.

We were generally careful to make our fire of such wood as would flame, or glow, without shedding out sparks that might burn our blankets; but some such fuel had been put on the fire that night, and it suddenly crackled up then and sent forth a shower of sparks. And at that the eyes disappeared. I flicked the sparks off my sleeping comrades and then sat musing again, looking up on the stars and alternately into the darkness of the woods and into the glow of the fire, and suddenly I saw all along the forest a red line of light spring to life, and my attention was riveted thereon.

I saw it climb the stems of trees far through the wood and run up to the branches. A forest fire, thought I to myself, and wondered if our danger was great in that place. I snuffed the air. There was certainly the odour of burning wood, but that might have been from our camp-fire alone, and there was also the rich, unforgettable odour of the balsam.

But so greatly did the line of fire increase and glow that I stretched forth my hand and touched Donoghue upon the shoulder. He started up, and, following the pointing of my finger, glared a moment through the spaces of the forest. Then he dropped back again.

"It is the dawn," he said, and drew the blankets over his head. "Wake me in another hour."

But I sat broad awake, my heart glowing with a kind of voiceless worship, watching that marvellous dawn. It spread more slowly than I would have imagined possible, taking tree by tree, running left and right, and creeping forward like an advancing army; and then suddenly the sky overhead was full of a quivering, pale light, and in the dim blue pool of the heavens the stars went out. But no birds sang to the new day, only I heard again the tap-tap of a woodpecker echoing about through the woods.

So I filled the can with water, which was a slow process at that very tiny spring, and mixed the flour ready for the flapjacks and then woke my comrades.

I must not weary you, however, recounting hour by hour as it came. I have other things to tell you of than these,--matters regarding hasty, hot-blooded man in place of a chronicle of slow, benignant nature.

On the journey of this day we came very soon to what seemed to be the "height of land" in that part, and descending on the other side came into a place of swamp where the mosquitos assaulted us in clouds. So terribly did they pester us that on the mid-day camp, while Apache Kid made ready our tea (for eatables we did with a cold flapjack apiece, having made an extra supply at breakfast, so as to save time at noon), I employed myself in switching him about the head with a leafy branch in one hand, while with the other I drove off another cloud of these pests that made war upon me.

No sooner had we the tea ready than we put clods and wet leaves upon the fire, raising a thick smoke, a "smudge," as it is called, and sitting in the midst of that protecting haze we partook of our meal, coughing and spluttering, it is true; but the smoke in the eyes and throat was a mere nothing to the mosquito nuisance.

I think that for the time being the mosquitos spurred us forward as much as did our fear of being forestalled in out quest. Mounting higher on our left where a cold wind blew, instead of dipping down into the next wooded valley, we found peace at last. As we tramped along on this crest, where our view was no longer cramped, where at last we could see more than the next knoll before us or the next abyss of woods, I noticed Apache constantly scanning the country as though he were trying to take his bearings.

Donoghue, who was now more like his rational, or irrational self, soon seemed to waken up to his surroundings, and fell to the same employ.

It was to the valley westward, now that we were upon the ridge, that they directed their attention. Donoghue, his loose jaw hanging, his teeth biting on his lips, posted on ahead of us and suddenly he stopped, stood revealed against the blue peak of the mountain on whose ridge we now travelled, in an attitude that bespoke some discovery. He was on a little eminence of the mountain's shoulder, a treeless mound where boulders of granite stood about in gigantic ruin, with other granite outposts dotted down the hill into the midst of the trees, which stood there small and regular, just as you see them in a new plantation at home. He shaded his eyes from the light, looked finally satisfied, and then sat down to await our coming.

Apache stepped forward more briskly; quick and eager we trotted up the rise where Donoghue merely pointed into the valley that had now for over an hour been so eagerly scanned. There, far off, in the green forest bottom, the leaden grey glint of a lake showed among the wearisome woods.

"Ah! We'll have a smoke up," said Apache, with an air of relief. So we sat down on our blanket-rolls in the sunlight. There was a gleam in my companions' eyes, a look of expectation on their faces, and after that "smoke up" Apache spoke with a determined voice, dropping his cigarette end and tramping it with his heel.

"We camp at that lake to-night," said he.

"To-night?" said I, in astonishment, for it seemed to me a monstrous length to go before nightfall; but he merely nodded his head vehemently, and said again: "To-night," and then after a pause: "We lose time," said he, "there may be others:" and we rose to our feet.

"We could n't camp up here, anyhow," said Donoghue, looking round.