impatiently as they stowed food in the saddle-bags. Fortunately for her peace of mind, she could not hear their conversation.
'Think we can trust him?' Lake asked.
'No, but I guess we can handle him if he double-crosses us,' the foreman replied. 'An' mebbe we'll catch 'em.'
'Totin' a sick man?' Incredulously.
'I didn't say that.'
Lake digested this. 'Even then they'll have a good start.'
'Oh, yeah,' Bundy grimaced. 'Garstone an' the gal are both from the East. How long afore they lose theirselves?'
'An' our money.'
'We can trail 'em, an' there's going to be on'y two sharin'you an' me, Babe?' Bundy rasped. 'Then the Circle Dot an' the Wagon-wheel can go to hell. I'm for California. With seventy thousand bucks--between us--we don't wanta fool with cattle.'
Lake regarded him through narrowed lids; he had noted the interjected words, and they gave material for thought. But all he said was, 'Sounds good to me.'
When they had gone, Bundy having pointed out, tongue in cheek, the route Garstone should take, the latter returned to his companion. He was in a much more cheerful mood.
'Well, that's that,' he said, 'I'll get a fire started, and I hope you can cook--we'll have to fend for ourselves. This isn't the way I hoped we'd begin housekeeping together, but we'll get along.'
She did not respond to his elephantine playfulness, and his clumsy attempts to help prepare a meal only reminded her, oddly enough, not of the efficient cavalier she had parted from, but of his friend, Dan Dover. Would he be pleased she had not perished, even though she was a Trenton? She stifled the thought resolutely, and busied herself brewing coffee.
Chapter XXII
The bound men in the cave watched the preparations for departure and wondered what was to happen to them. They saw the wounded rancher carried out, and Dan's protest that he was not fit to be moved was ignored. When their weapons and stock of provisions were also taken it began to look grave. A remembrance of Sudden's description of the gulf in the tunnel was not comforting. When all was in readiness, Gar-stone strolled over, and stood, contemplating Dover with malignant contentment.
'You have lost everything, or nearly,' he said. 'Treasure, ranch, and paid gunman; only your life remains. Well, I give you that; violence is not to my liking.'
The suave, insolent voice made the young man indifferent to consequences. 'Yo're tellin' me,' he flung back. 'Even when you rob a train, you pick the safe job--the men on the engine ain't never armed.'
It was a guess, but a good one, and the gibe went home. But Garstone was a winner, and could afford to laugh; he did not.
'Keep clear of Rainbow, if you're wise,' he warned. 'And if you meet Malachi, tell him my promise will be kept.'
'He won't believe me,' Dan replied.
Garstone shrugged away the insult and looked at Yorky. 'And you, get back to your sewer, you rat.'
'Rats has teeth an' can bite,' the boy spat out, and waited for the expected kick.
It did not come and, despite his hardihood, Yorky breathed more easily when the bully had vanished through the exit from the cave. He was silent for a time, wresting with someproblem, and then asked, 'Does the mails from theseyer hick towns ever git lost?'
'I reckon, now an' then,' Dan replied. 'Why?'
'Ain't heard from me uncle in Noo York--'
'Don't you pull that stuff on me, son,' the rancher cut in. 'Hello, who's that?'
A slight figure had slid cautiously into the cave; it was Malachi. 'So the buzzards have flown,' he greeted. 'And how are my patients?'
'Yo're one shy--they took Trenton,' Dan told him. 'Damnation! it will probably finish him,' Malachi exploded, and busied himself with their bonds.
'They've also collared our food, weapons, an' I s'pose, hosses.'
'No, I set them adrift--thought it was a bright idea at the time, but afterwards I wasn't so stuck on it,' the doctor said ruefully. 'I forgot they'd be lost for us, too.'
'you did yore best, Phil, an' there's a chance some will drift back. Grub is goin' to be the worry--we'll have to trap. By the way, Garstone said for me to tell you he would keep his promise. What was it?'
'Oh, nothing of consequence,' Malachi smiled. 'I was to be shot if I made any use of my liberty: Just a bluff.'
He went away to attend to the hurt men, and the rancher's eyes followed him with a new expression. 'A bluff. Huh? But you had the nerve to call it, Phil,' he said softly.
After a while the doctor came back. 'They're both going on well, but I can't understand Hunch,' he reported. 'That crack on his skull isn't serious, but it seems to have destroyed his memory.'
'What, again?'
'Odd, isn't it? But he failed to recognize me, and appears to have no recollection of the Circle Dot, or how he came to be here.'
'Mebbe the big axe would start his rememberin' machinery,' Dan suggested.
'I tried that, but he just stared as though he'd never seen it before. Physically, he's perfectly sound.'
'Well, Tiny'll keep us tied here for a spell,' the rancher said. 'Hi, Yorky, rustle some fodder for the fire; I'm goin' to see if I can knock over a cottontail or two.'
'We'll be awright when Jim comes along--he's got his guns.'
'He'd shorely be a cure for sore eyes,' Dan replied moodily. He could not share the boy's confidence.
'Stranger things have happened,' Malachi said. 'The blackest moment is the turning-point, you know.'
Meanwhile, the man of whom they were speaking was not many miles distant. The gully in which the Wagon-wheel party had surprised him was, he had discovered, considerably east of the one he was making for, but with Old Cloudy in sight again, he had a mark to steer by. He did not fear pursuit; they had the treasure. He wondered where was Trenton. Behind, perhaps, in the charge of Flint. But how were they transporting him? His mind went to his late fellow-traveller. A nice girl, he admitted, but somewhat lacking in savvy.
'Young women is apt to take a fella at face-value,' he mused, and then came the cynical addition, 'Wouldn't take 'em a-tall if they didn't, I s'pose.'
Sudden was no misogynist, but so far the fair sex had not figured largely in his life. He was to meet his fate, but the time was not yet.
He trudged on, crossing ridges, threading arroyos, circling thickets of impassable brush, steadily advancing towards the mountain. The sun was still high in the heavens when, in a strip of sandy soil, he noticed hoof-prints. They pointed eastwards, and a careful scrutiny revealed five different sets. The prints of his own horse, Nigger-- which he could recognize at a glance--were not among them.
'Four riders, one of 'em Garstone,' he deduced, 'an' a pack-hors. Or mebbe they've distributed the baggage an' tied Trenton on the fifth.'
The the tracks were not those of his friends he was quite sure. Exactly what had happened to Malachi and Hunch he did not know, but he had seen Tiny shot down, and it was most improbable that he would be able to sit a saddle so soon.
He set himself to follow the trail, and at the end of an hour's hard work reached what he knew must be the deserted Wagon-wheel camp. Standing in a small grove of trees, and sheltered by a cliff, was a canvas tent; only the presence of awoman could account for such a thing in that place. The ashes of the two fires were cold. Hanging from a branch was most of the carcase of a newly slain deer. He stepped to the opening of the tent and peeped in. A man, swathed in blankets, was lying on the floor. The puncher did not need two guesses--it was Zeb Trenton.
'The murderin' swine,' he muttered. 'They leave him here, helpless, an' to cinch it, hang a bait outside that would fetch any mountain cat gettin' scent of it.' He bent over the rancher. 'Trenton, it's Jim Green.'
