The cabin door was open. In addition toCollier, Sunday and the three Apaches, he counted five other men.Three of these he recognized as having participated in the streetbrawl outside the general store. The other two were cast from thesame mould. Hardcases. Bad medicine.
His heart leapt as he followed the movementsof the bogus miners and the three braves. Rifles were being totedout of that cabin and, even at this distance, they looked to bebrand new. Sunday was loading them, giving the braves ademonstration. He triggered a couple of bullets skyward, handed oneof the weapons to Mochita and pantomimed for him to test it—andLarry had seen enough.
How had the search party failed to locatethe missing rifles inside that cabin? Well, the answer to thatquery would have to wait. His immediate concern was to get as closeas possible to the cabin—to get inside it, in fact.
There was, on both side of this bend, aconsiderable growth of brush. It extended almost to the shelf. Onthe opposite side of the bend, he could see rock aplenty, amplehiding places. He scratched a match, touched the flame to thebushes at his right. Then, bent double, he hustled across the trailto the side nearest the cliff face. Here, he lit and droppedanother match. The brush flared, while he climbed twelve feet upthe cliff face to huddle within a cleft. He was now slightly closerto the shelf—between the shelf and the bend. If the hijackersreacted as he hoped they would ...
Collier was first to become conscious of thesmoke. He whirled, staring back along the trail. His shout alertedSunday, who, after a quick glance, observed,
“The brush has caught fire. Well—thathappens. Maybe one of us threw a cigar butt, or ...”
“Never mind how it happened,” growledCollier. “That fire could spread along the track—all the way to thecabin!”
“Hey!” yelled Ellis. “All thatammunition ...!”
“Fetch blankets and come with me,” orderedCollier. “Arnie and Jimmy—you stay with Mochita.”
The Apaches, Larry observed, showed littleinterest in the fire, barely deigning to glance toward the bend.They were absorbed in the gleaming weapon now being examined by theelated Mochita. While Larry watched, the three redmen moved over bythe corral. Ellis and his swarthy sidekick, the half-breed JimmyRed Cloud, stood by the near comer of the cabin, calling advice toCollier and the others, who were hustling along the track,unrolling blankets with which to attack the flamingbrush.
Smoke was rising now, enough of it toshield Larry’s movements. From the cleft, he sidled along the cliffface toward the shelf, while Collier, Sunday and the other fourpassed directly beneath him, never glancing upward. Quickly, theyapplied themselves to the task of smothering the flames, slappingat the burning brush with the blankets. With six of them working atit, the fire would soon be extinguished. Realizing this, Larrytried to move faster.
Along the cliff face, he found footholdsall the way to the center of the shelf, thus bringing himselfdirectly above the roof of the cabin. He darted a glance toward theApaches. Their backs were turned. He couldn’t see Ellis and theother man, so could only hope they were still watching theircohorts down by the bend. It had to be now. He couldn’t wait anylonger.
When he dropped, he landed on all fours onthe flat roof. Rising up fast, he hurried to its outer edge andleapt over. The thud of his fall alerted the two men standing atthe corner of the building. They whirled, gasping oaths, reachingto their holsters. He drew, cocked and fired, all in one flashingmovement, and Ellis stumbled backward with his right shoulderbloody. The ’breed promptly darted out of sight around thecorner,
From the corral, the Apaches were advancingon him. He flicked a glance over his shoulder and found that he hadlanded only a few feet from the cabin’s open doorway. One backwardleap carried him across the threshold. He swung the door shut,raised the bar, then dropped it into position. Almost immediately,Mochita’s head and shoulders, plus the gleaming barrel of therepeater, appeared in the window to the left of the door. Larryheld his gun-arm across his chest, aimed for the rifle’s muzzle andsqueezed trigger. With the report of the report, he was rewarded bya startled yelp from the son of Gayatero. The window was suddenlyvacated.
Two windows, he noted. The one at the sideand another in the front wall, some five feet from the door. He haddowned one of them, but that left nine, if he included the threeApaches.
The climbing, jumping and jolting hadaffected his wound. His dented rib ached considerably, but heignored the pain. He was reacting instinctively, by back-steppingtoward the cabin’s rear wall, and only then did it occur to him tothrow a glance over his shoulder. An oath escaped him.
That rear wall was constructed of planksnailed in the upright position. There was a sizeable opening at itscenter, oblong-shaped. From this aperture, a whole section ofboards had been removed. But it wasn’t the opening that won Larry’sattention. What mattered was piled neatly in the area beyond.Obviously, the cabin had been built against a shaft entrance, andfor just one purpose—to provide an effective hiding place for arich prize. There they were—the crates hijacked from theLowell-Taft wagons—some of them containing the all-importantrepeaters, masterpieces of the gunsmith’s craft—some of themcontaining the ammunition for those repeaters, 44.40 caliber. Onecrate had been opened. The rifles were in plain sight.
“Get him out of there!” It was Collier’svoice, edged with fury.
Larry had never felt happier, never somuch in command of an invidious situation. He was actuallywhistling a Texas ditty, as he overturned the table, laid it acrossthe tunnel entrance and settled himself behind it. The dusky visageof the half-breed appeared at the front window, behind the muzzleof a leveled Colt. The weapon roared and the slug came too closefor Larry’s comfort, fanning his face. He hammered back andreturned lire, his six-gun’s barrel steadied on the edge of thetable. The half-breed unleashed a cry of anguish, dropping his gunand clasping his hands to his face. Blood was trickling through hisfingers, as he slowly
