successful--had they but known it--in straining the vituperative powers of the bearded man to the utmost.
The scenery on all sides was wild and awe-inspiring. Dense masses of pine which defied the sun, thickets of thorny scrub, clumps of bright-flowering bushes, and, from time to time, enormous chunks of rock weighing thousands of tons, 'fragments' which had broken away from the mother mass towering in the distance. The slope was slight but definite, and sometimes they advanced across wide, almost level benches of grass and cactus. They skirted deep, wedge-shaped gorges where the side of the mountain appeared to have split open, treading narrow ledges where a slip would have spelt destruction.
Game seemed to be plentiful, quail, squirrels, rabbits, and once they came upon a small herd of deer feeding in a patch of lush grass. For a few seconds the dainty beasts stared in amaze at the unwonted intrusion of their domain, and then, in a flash, were gone. Yorky, fingers itching for his rifle, looked longingly after them.
'Lots o' time for that,' Sudden consoled. 'Business first, an' there ain't no sense in advertisin' our. whereabouts.'
The boy sighed. 'I wouldn't know where to aim, anyways.'
'Just behind the left shoulder--the heart's there,' the puncher told him.
As the climb continued, the trees became smaller and less numerous, a sign that a higher altitude was being reached. Then, when the westering sun was rimming the mountain tops with gold they came to a spot entirely at variance with all they had seen.
It was a shallow basin, perhaps a hundred feet deep at the centre, and less than half a mile in diameter. The sides sloped gently up to the encircling lips of ragged rock. The surface was a grey, powdery sand, and the only vegetation, scattered greasewood and cactus. On all four points of the compass, V-shaped breaks provided openings to the basin. Hunch got down, stepped to Dover's side, and gestured with one hand.
'Is this where you came with Dad?' the young man asked, and getting a nod of assent, went on, 'Well, boys, this appears to be the scene of operations.'
Right ahead, seeming to loom over them, although many miles distant, was Old Cloudy. Sudden, studying the mountain, saw that the round knobbed top, and wide sloping flanks might well suggest the head, shoulders, and dropping arms of a sitting man, and that viewed from where he stood the basin might--with no great stretch of imagination--be described as a bowl on the knees of this Gargantuan figure behind which the sky was now turning to a blood-red.'What d'you think of it, Jim?' Dover asked.
'Seems to fit. What's the next move?'
'We gotta settle which way to go--this is no place to camp.' He tilted his hat back and scratched his head reflectively. 'West is north,' he repeated. 'Well, that gap in front of us is west.'
'We gotta reckon it as north,' Sudden said. 'An' north is noon, that is, twelve o'clock. We were told on reaching here, to watch out. Now that might be a warnin', but I figure it's a pointer.' His gaze swept round the almost perfect circle of the basin. 'S'pose we're lookin' at a mammoth watch-face, with that western break as twelve. Then the one we came in by must be the half after the hour which would be too soon. That means our way is by the opening on the left, which would be three-quarters past.'
'Holy cats! I believe you've hit on it, Jim,' the rancher cried. 'Can we stop 'em followin' us, in case they get so far?'
'I'll 'tend to that. Yu take the boys an' ride in single file till yo're clear o' the basin.'
Starting from where the trampled sand plainly showed that a group of horses had paused there, he galloped straight for the gap to the right. Reaching it, he found it to be a little pass with a stony surface which would show no tracks. Returning to the basin, he backed his mount along the line by which he had approached. Repeating this operation twice resulted in a trail apparently made by six riders, the hoof-marks all pointing in the same direction. He then followed his companions, dragging a rolled blanket attached to his rope, and thus obliterated the traces of them all.
Passing out of the basin, he found himself in another narrow gorge, the floor of which consisted of rock detritus, with frequent patches of cactus and coarse grass. The wall on the right was much higher than that on the left, and along the foot of both were bushes; above these, they were bare and inhospitable. Half a mile from the basin, under an overhanging shelf of cliff, camp was being established. There was sufficient feed for the animals, and a few yards away, a rock pool, fed by a trickle from the height above.
During the meal, the puncher explained what he had done. 'It may keep 'em outa here fora spell, but I guess they'll try all the outlets in turn, an' we don't have to waste time.'
'How about playin' their game--lettin' 'em find the stuff, an' takin' it away from 'em?' Tiny suggested.
'That would mean a fight, an' I'd ruttier avoid that, if possible,' Dover replied. 'But the money is mine, an' I intend to have it, one way or another.'
'We've no actual evidence that anyone is dogging us,' the doctor pointed out.
'Shore, but I know Trenton,' Dan said grimly. 'Dad's death, the searchin' o' the Circle Dot, an' the attempt to scotch our drive to the Bend happened for a purpose. Zeb is comin', an' he'll have some o' the Wagon-wheel scum along.'
Therefore they kept watch, and in the early morning, Sudden--relieving the doctor--caught him in the act of re-corking a bottle, which he had been holding near his lips.
'Cure for headache, Doc?' he asked superciliously.
Malachi looked rather shame-faced, and with an effort at bravado, replied, 'More often the cause of one, Jim.' And then, 'God! what weak creatures we are--some of us.'
He opened his hand, disclosing a small medicine phial, quite full, as the puncher guessed, of whisky. 'You know why I came here,' he went on bitterly. 'Well, it seemed to me that I was running away from temptation, so I brought temptation with me. I fancied myself strong enough to have the odour of it in my nostrils and resist. I was wrong--it makes me mad for the taste.'
'Is that all yu fetched?'
'Yes, and had you not come, it would have gone, and at dawn I should have been sneaking off for Rainbow-- to get more.'
'No, to lose yoreself an' die in despair,' Sudden told him. 'Yu never could make it; yu gotta stay.'
'You don't realize what it means,' Malachi cried. 'Have you ever had to combat a craving which, like a devouring flame, possessed your body and mind so utterly that all else in life became of no importance?'
Sudden laughed harshly. 'Listen,' he said. 'Once I was left, tied hand an' foot, in the middle of a desert, by a Mexican guerilla chief, the most inhuman devil I ever met. After usin' nearly all my strength to free myself, I set out to walk endless miles of sand in search o' water. My tongue was swollen-Icouldn't close my mouth, I was near blind with the glare, my body was dried an' scorched till it felt like a red-hot coal, an' if ever a man suffered like a tormented soul in hell, I did. My limbs were lead, an' every movement--agony. What I had to beat, Malachi, warn't thirst, but the desire to lie down, an' die.' That's yore case, man; yu have to fight, not the want o' liquor, but the urge to give in. Now, drop that bottle an' put yore foot on it.'
'I can't, Jim; don't ask me,' the doctor pleaded.
'Then drink an' be damned,' the puncher said roughly, and turned away.
The brutal contemptuous tone had its effect; he had moved. but a yard when there was the tinkle of glass on stone, and the grind of a heel. The doctor had won a victory.
In the early morning, the search of the gorge was begun, any feature which might suggest a hiding-place being carefully examined. The only discovery of any value was a cave, and as it was dry, and large enough to conceal the horses if necessary, they moved the camp there. It proved to be more spacious than they had imagined, with a high vaulted roof from which hung hundreds of stalactites, flashing like spearheads in the leaping flames of the logs. Seated round the fire after a tiring and fruitless day, the adventurers looked about them with some misgiving; in the darkness, the cavern appeared to have no limits.
'If this is Red Rufe's bank he's shore given us a job to tie into,' Tiny informed the company, and thereby expressed the thoughts of all.
'We'll give the outside another look-over before we tackle this,' Dan replied.
'Looks a likely spot, till yu get inside, an' then it don't,' was Sudden's contribution.
Malachi took no part in the conversation and ate almost nothing. He seemed to be ill and depressed, evidently suffering from the lack of his customary stimulant. There had been no sign of other visitors in the vicinity.
'Either they ain't come or you've fooled 'em, Jim,' the big cowboy decided.
