Tired as I was, my thoughts kept returning to the mountain trail, and I wanted to go back. I wanted to walk there again, to stand on that shelf again looking out over the mountains and sky.
The feeling stayed with me that there was something I had not found.
'Where's Nell Trelawney?' I asked suddenly. 'I haven't seen her.'
'You will,' Orrin chuckled as he said it. 'She's been around every day wanting us to go up the canyon and find you. She was sure you were in trouble.'
He grinned. 'I told her you'd been in trouble all your born days.'
'Any more of those Three Eight hands around?'
'Boley McCaire--the young one who was so itchy. He rode into town, but he's been holed up somewhere down the creek. I've a hunch that Baston made some kind of a deal with them.'
Something kept worrying me at the back of my mind, and it was not only those tracks along the way. I did not like things left hanging. Nobody went up that mountain trail in the rain without reason. The folks at Shalako had seen nobody pass, and the road was right yonder. Nobody could pass along without being seen, so if somebody had gone up the creek he had taken pains not to be seen.
Who? And why? And what was he doing now?
Judas came in, and then the Tinker. The Tinker sat down near a window where he could watch the street and the trail to the mountains.
'Judas,' I said suddenly, 'have you known the Bastons long?'
He hesitated and seemed to be considering. 'Fifty years,' he said quietly.
'Possibly even longer.'
'Would Andre have followed Pierre and stabbed him?'
Judas thought for a moment. 'Of course. But I do not believe he did. It was someone else.'
'Who?'
He shrugged, and then he said, 'Andre would not have dared let Pierre live, not after attacking him. The very idea would have been frightening. Had Andre any thought that Pierre lived after he shot him, he'd have killed him or fled--to Africa or South America.'
'Why, in God's name?'
'Andre was afraid. He was a brave man, although a murderer, but he feared one man. He was afraid of Philip.'
'Afraid of him?'
Judas looked at me, then at the rest of us. 'Yes, you see Philip was the worst of them, by far the worst.'
Chapter XXVI
We looked at him, wondering if he was joking, but he was very serious.
'I knew him, you see, and he was good to us. I mean to his slaves, but we had no choice but to obey him, and, being wise, we did obey.
'He liked Pierre Bontemps. He was also amused by him. Pierre was a romantic, an adventurer. Both men had been buccaneers, and this was known of Pierre, but not of Philip.
'Philip surrounded himself with calm, dignity, and reserve. He liked me because I had some education and because he knew I did not talk of what I knew or had seen.
'He was not a vindictive man, not a hater. He was simply a man without scruple.
He had contempt for others, whom he considered less than himself. He did nothing to exhibit himself except in that quiet, dignified manner.
'He removed anyone who got in his way. Had you not killed Andre, he would have had it done, or done it himself, for Andre had become notorious.
'Each of us has in his mind an image of what he believes himself to be, and Philip Baston saw himself as a prince of the old school. He had read Machiavelli, studied the careers of Orsini, Sforza, and Sigismondo Malatesta, and in his small way he lived accordingly.
'The Bastons had money, and, from time to time, power, but not enough of either to please any of them. Philip served briefly at sea in a French ship, then became a pirate.
'Lafitte was notorious. Baston was more cunning. He slipped into New Orleans and bought property, always small pieces, nothing to attract attention. He bought land in other parts of Louisiana, and when it became no longer safe to carry on as a pirate he simply came ashore, moved into the old Baston home and carried on as if he had never been gone. It wasn't realized for several years that he was enormously wealthy.
'He aspired to be governor. He lived in the grand manner, and anyone who got in his way was removed. Now he thinks of his family, his name. At first he looked on Andre's duels with favor. They had a certain style, and it was good to be feared. There came a time however when it became obvious that Andre killed. He was not content to win. This was looked upon with distaste, and I believe that for some time Philip has intended to be rid of Andre.'
'But you said Andre was afraid of him. Is Philip such a fighter?'
'He is a superb swordsman and a dead shot, but Philip would not have done it himself unless forced into the position. He would have made other arrangements.'
It was interesting, but nothing that meant much to us now. Philip Baston was in New Orleans. What interested me more was the identity of the unknown man who left the footprints on the trail.
If he had a horse, where had it been?
Orrin got up. 'You better get some rest. I am going to ride over and see Flagan.'
The Swede had a back room with a spare bunk in it, and he showed me to the place. I shucked my boots, hat, and gun belt and stretched out on that bunk with a deep sigh. I'd no recollection of ever feeling so tired before.
I'd been on the trail for a long while, and a man tires faster when his nerves are on edge. When you're hunting and being hunted, every fiber of your being is poised and ready.
I felt the tenseness go out of me slow, and I dozed off. I woke briefly and watched the aspens beyond the window. It was fifty or sixty feet to the edge of the woods. The curtain stirred in the breeze, and I watched it lazily, then drifted off into a sound sleep.
Under the aspens the man waited. He had a shotgun in his hands, and he knew what he wanted to do. Inside the room near the opposite wall was a chair. Over the back of the chair hung a gun belt.
He heard the boots hit the floor and thought he heard a creak of a bed when the man lay down. Just a few minutes now ... a few minutes.
The big, good-looking brother had ridden off on his horse. The Negro was in the barn, working on some of their saddlegear. The Tinker had taken a pole and headed for the La Plata, and Swede Berglund was tending that garden he was trying. So William Tell Sackett was there alone, and soon he would be asleep.
The hunter had patience. He had seen the young Sackett with another daybook in his hands, but the daybook could not have been with the body. He had gone over it thoroughly those twenty years ago.
Was it with the gold? No ... for gold hadn't been brought off the mountain today.
The book would certainly tell where old man Sackett had hidden the gold. They had all been so sure Sackett was dead, and Pierre, too. Well, Pierre was dead now, that was sure, and so was Sackett.
The trouble was Sackett had gone back and gotten the gold after they were all gone. Not all the gold on Treasure Mountain, but a good lot of it, anyway.
This William Tell Sackett worried him. The man was a tracker, and a good one. He could read sign like an Apache, and there was no safety with him about. Sackett had killed Andre. The man had not seen it but he heard the girl and the others talking of it. That must have taken some doing, for Andre was dangerous, good with a gun, and ready to use it.
So much the better. With Andre gone, the rest of them were nothing. Paul was a weakling. That girl was murderous enough, but she was a woman, and she was too impulsive.
Well inside the curtain of aspens, crouched low among the tall grass, wild flowers, and oak brush, he was well hidden. He would give Sackett plenty of time to get to sleep, really to sleep.
Crouched in the bushes, the man waited. The shotgun had two barrels, and he wore a long-barreled six- shooter for insurance and had a rifle on his horse. As he waited he once more studied the ground. He knew just where each foot would touch ground, where he would go into the trees, where he would turn after entering the
