Book: The Freebooters of the Wilderness

A >> Agnes C. Laut >> The Freebooters of the Wilderness




"It's only a marmot." The Ranger pointed over his shoulder to the
little gray beast sitting on the face of the rock. "Curious place,
this Pass! There is an echo here--if it were not that we don't want to
announce ourselves, I'd let you hear it. If you yell or sing, you can
hear the thing dancing along that opposite wall--Kind of uncanny, the
echo voice, in the mist here sometimes."

But the whistle of the marmot had also startled the horses. The tired
pack mule gave a hobbling jump and came to a stand. A stone no larger
than a horse-shoe kicked loose, tottered on the edge, and went bounding
over. It struck the tier of rock below with clattering echo, displaced
another stone twice its size, then bounced--bounced--and a slither of
slaty rock the size of a house wrenched out--shot into mid-air with
crash and sharp clappering echoes--Then the Pass was filled with the
thundering roll. They saw it sink--sink--sink and fade, while the echo
still rocketted amid the rock tops--sink--sink--sink--no larger than a
spool in the purple shadows, till with a plunge it disappeared.

"Whew, it _would_ be going if one went over." The old man mowed the
sweat from his forehead and drew a breath.

On the instant, the hollow chasm of the canyon split to the crash of a
rifle shot that rocketted and quaked and repeated in splintering
echoes; and a bullet pinged at Wayland's feet.

"That's splitting the air for you--Wayland."

"Drop down, Sir," urged the Ranger, pulling the old frontiersman to
shelter of the upper rocks. "They have come out above. They have
heard that cursed stone. That's only a chance shot to learn where we
are. They can't come behind. They have got to go down ahead--"

"And the fat's in the fire; for my rifle's gone with the horse,"
deplored the old man woefully; for mule and bronchos had galloped along
the trail with the clatter of a cavalcade through the canyon. Wayland
handed the old man his own rifle and took the six shooter from his belt
beneath the leather coat.

"They won't understand this pursuit at all," explained Wayland.
"Sheriff Flood is the guarantee of safety for any criminal in the
country side. They'll think it a citizens' posse. Where this trail
comes down at the end of the precipice is a crag. Will you hide behind
that, sir? I'll go above and head them down. I'm not asking you to
risk your life. They'll not see you till they gallop down."

"But you are risking your own life if you go up?"

"So does the fellow who has slipped on a banana peel," said Wayland.




CHAPTER XIII

THE MAN ON THE JOB

The two men proceeded along the precipice trail of the Pass. The
shouting river below boisterous from the full flood of noon-day thaw
began to hush. By the shadows, the Ranger knew that the afternoon was
waning. The echoes from the shot still rocked in sharp crepitating
knocks as of stone against stone, fainter and fading. Then a quiver of
wind met their faces. The chasm opened to the fore like a gate, or a
notch in the serrated ridge of the sky-line; and the precipice trail
dropped over the edge of the crag to the scooped hollow of a slope
where rock slide or avalanche had plowed a groove in the bevelled
masonry of the precipice.

"This is the place," indicated Wayland.

From the shoulder of the higher slope came a little narrow indurated
trail scarcely a hand's width, marked by the cleft foot-prints of a
mountain goat. Where the path came down to the main trail of the Pass,
jutted a huge rock left high and dry on its slide to the bottom of the
gorge.

"Keep behind the other side of that, sir! They can't possibly see you."

"How do you know that trail comes from the Ridge gully? Looks to me
like a goat track."

"Because I built it! You can see the N. F. trail sign--one notch and
one blaze on that scrub juniper. Up on the Mesas, we were _off_ the
Forests. Here, we are back on them. You may not know it, sir; but
this canyon is part of the region Moyese wants withdrawn for
homesteads. You could homestead a reservoir for Smelter City here--pay
a German or a Swede three-hundred to sit on this site--then sell for a
couple of million to the Smelter City gang. They would get the suckers
in the East to buy the bonds to pay for it. A fellow in the Sierras
located a hundred water power sites that way."

The old Britisher was not following the Ranger's reasoning in the least.

"Then, if we are really on the National Forests, that is your
territory, and we have the legal right to make an arrest?"

Wayland laughed outright. If you don't see why, then you do not know
the stickling of a Briton's sense of law and a Scotchman's conscience.
Matthews took up his station behind the rock that abutted on the trail.


He saw the Ranger hasten back along the face of the precipice, stop
where the rock offered foothold and begin slowly climbing almost
vertically. At first, it was going up the tiers of a broken stone
stair. Then, the weathered ledge gave place to slant shale. He saw
Wayland dig his heels for grip, grasp a sharp edge overhead, and hoist
himself to the overhanging branch of a recumbent pine; then, scramble
along the fallen trunk to a ledge barely wide enough for footing.
Along this, he cautiously worked, face in, hand over hand from rock
block to rock block, sticking fingers among the mossed crevices,
fumbling the pebbles from the slate edges, and so round out of sight
behind a flying buttress of masonry and back in view again a tier
higher.

Just once, the watcher felt a tremor for the rash climber. Wayland's
head was on a level with the crest of another ledge, his face to the
rock, his left hand gripping a shoot of mountain laurel, his right
groping the upper rocks. The old man saw the shrub jerk loose, moss,
roots and all--he held his breath for the coming crash--it was all
over. Wayland's left arm flung out to ward off the spatter of small
stones; then, the right arm had clutched the spindly bole of a creeping
juniper--his body lurched out, hung, swayed, lifted; and the Ranger
disappeared among the shrubbery of the upper trail.

The old man took a deep breath.

"And this is the Man on the Job," he said. He drew behind his shelter
and waited. "The same breed o' men after all, in different harness."

He had not noticed before, but there, ahead, where the black chasm of
the Pass opened portals to the sunny blue of another valley, lay a
lake, the Lake Behind the Peak, spangled with light, marbled like onyx
or malachite, with the sheen of a jewel. Almost at his feet below, the
near end of it lay. He could have tossed a pebble into it,
seven-thousand feet below, where the white foaming river came ramping
through a great pile of moraine that dammed up this end of the Pass to
the width of a bridle trail. The outlaws would have to cross the lake
to escape from the Pass; and almost, he thought, he saw the old punt at
the far end, which Wayland had said hunters sometimes used.

The white butterflies flitted past his hiding place out to the light of
the sun. The eagle was soaring strong-winged, swerving and lifting and
falling in an insolence of languid power. The silent Pass quivered to
the throb of waters. But what was doing with the Ranger? Not a sound
came from the upper trail but the tinkle of hidden springs down the
rocks. He knew if he uttered a shout, the echo would take up his call.
An hour passed: two hours. Ghost shadows came creeping into the
canyon. The butterflies had fluttered out to the blue portal where the
rocks opened doors to the sun. The rampant roar of the river was
quieting to the hollow hush. The old man rose, walked along the
precipice, came back to his shelter, sat, stood up, examined the rifle,
looked ahead where the horses had wandered on, fidgeted, and bemoaned
the years that prevented pursuit up the rock face. He knew by the
light and the hush that it must be almost five o 'clock.


And at five o'clock in the ranch house back in the Valley, Eleanor was
lying in her room with her face buried in Wayland's note, praying as
only the young pray, with the worst and the best of their nature in the
prayer; for where such love comes, all goes into the incense of the
fire that goes up from the altar--the best and the worst of the inmost
heart: an apotheosis of "give-me" and an utter abandonment of
"let-me-give." By and by, when we grow older, we leave both the "give
me" and the "let-me-give" to God.

The old man knew it must be almost six o'clock; for the light came
aslant the gap and the chill of the upper snow crept down from the
mountain. A pretty business this, it seemed to him: twenty miles back
of beyond; horses sent on at random ahead; a gang of murderers in
hiding above--Matthews walked boldly along the precipice trail, saw the
eagle below circling, still circling; heard a hawk skirr and scold from
a dead branch--Then, he deliberately pointed his voice to the rock wall
of the echo across the gorge and let out a yell that split the
welkin--A thousand--ten thousand--multitudinous eldritch laughing
echoes came jibbering and mumbling and giggling and shrilling back from
the rock, filling the Pass with chattering, knocking sounds that
skipped from stone to stone.

Instantly, a shot, a shout, a bang, the rocking crash of echoes--mixed
with ear-splitting, rocketting shots--a crunch of feet--the old man
dashed to the hiding of his crag. A spurt of gravel mid showers of
dust and snorting of horses--Not on the trail at all but almost over
his back, slithered and slid and bunched horses and men, pell mell, the
white horse leading the way braced back on its haunches, the fellow in
the yellow slicker rumbling a volcano of lurid curses--The outlaws had
not followed the goat track at all but jumped sheer from the higher
slope to the Pass trail.


Shouting "Stop!--Stop!--I command you in the name of the State to
stop--!" the old man sprang to the middle of the trail flourishing the
rifle above his head.

"State be damned," yelled the fellow in the oil-skin slicker. Never
pausing, turning only to shoot at wild random, the outlaws had
tumbled--stumbled--slid down the slatey slope for the lake.

There was the pound--pound--the huffing of saddle leather--and a horse
came spurring along the Pass trail at reckless gallop. The old man
flung himself athwart--a rider in sheep-skin leggings, hat far back,
came round the rock at break neck pace looking over his shoulder as if
pursued--One jump--the old frontiersman had the horse's bridle! The
shock threw the beast's hind legs clear over the edge jarring the rider
almost to the animal's neck. Next--the old man was looking down the
barrel of the outlaw's big repeater--With a mighty swing, Matthews
clubbed his rifle on the other's wrist. He might have scruples as to
law and conscience; but he knew how and when and where to hit, did the
Briton with the Scotch-Canadian blood. Also he knew when to let
go--There was a flash--the rock splintering crash of echo, the
whinnying scream and leap of the horse shot by the falling
weapon--Rider and beast hurtled backwards, the man's foot caught to one
stirrup--There was the crackling of slate and shale--the gash and rasp
and wrench of loosening rock masses sliding--down--down--down and yet
down, with knocking echoes; with laughter of terrified scream from the
echo rock across the gorge--pound and plunge from ledge to ledge--the
horse's body turning twice as it struck and bounced out--a cloud of
dust--the shout, the blasphemy, the cry of rage, then the shrill scream
of death terror that echoed and echoed--The old man looked down! There
was a pounding of the stones--a faint far rebound and the darkness
below swallowed over a fading swirl at the bottom of the canyon. He
heard, he thought, he heard the engulfing gurgle of the waters, while
the shrill scream still jibbered and faded along the echo ledge.

"By violence ye lived--by violence ye die--over the precipice ye go as
ye sent the mangled boy to the bloody death!"

Then the Ranger was tumbling down the goat track in a slither of shale.

"Come on--that was well done, sir! Wish we'd sent them all over to the
very bottom of Hell--! I'd stalked that fellow apart from the others
when you signaled--come on--we'll catch the rest at the lake--there's a
fellow wounded--you must have nipped one when you shot this
morning--join me at the lake," and leaving Matthews to follow by the
foot trail, the delirious Ranger went tearing exultant down the stone
slide. Water-muffled shots sounded from the lake. Wayland paused in
his head-long descent. The five outlaws were shoving the punt from the
shore with the bronchos swimming in tow. The stolen wagon horses, lay
shot on the shore. One of the outlaws was being supported by the
others. It was the man in the yellow slicker.


A great wave went over Wayland of something he had never before known.
It pounded at his temples. It set his heart going in a force pump. It
blew his lungs out, and set the whip cord muscles itching to go--to
go--he wanted to shout with joy of power--power that pursued and caught
and crushed--and trembled with overplus of intoxicated strength--He
knew if he could lay his hand on Crime at that moment he could crush
the life out of the thing's throat; and there was a parchedness that
was not thirst, a tingling to clinch that Criminal Thing menacing the
Nation, to clinch and strangle it to a death not honored in the code of
white-corpuscled anaemic study-chair reformers.


"Well," he said, as the other came limping down to the shore, "I didn't
think there could be enough of the savage in me to enjoy a manhunt."

The old Briton looked queerly at the young fellow.

"A'm beginnin'--," he said slowly, "A'm beginnin' to understand y'r
lynch law in this country--an' the _why_."

"What do you make of it?" asked Wayland, too excited to notice the
other's abstraction.

"A'm beginnin' to understand if y' monkey with the law much longer in
this land, the whole Nation will go locoed like you, Wayland--with a
blood thirst for righteousness--a white passion for the square
deal--an' God pity--that day!"

The fugitives had reached the far shore of the lake, landed and were
riding off when a second thought seemed to bring one man back to the
water's edge. He stooped, heaved up a rock, threw it through the
bottom of the old punt.

"You'll have to do better than that to keep me from crossing," said
Wayland.

The fellow was aiming his rifle. Wayland and Matthews jumped behind
the big hemlocks.

"He's fulling a skin bag wi' water."

"Then, they intend to cross the Desert," inferred Wayland; "but they'll
have to go farther to slip me."

One of the riders was scanning back with a field glass.

"Looking for number six--Of all the colossal effrontery--they are
actually going to speak."

The fellow nearest shore lowered his rifle and trumpeted both hands.

"Speak louder--can't hear ye." Matthews had gone to the edge of the
lake. The answer came faint and muffled.

"Where's--our--pardner--?"

"Hold up y'r hands--all five," roared back Matthews.

The arms of all but the hurt man went above heads, hands facing.

"Y'll find y'r man's carcass in the bloody mess where ye sent the
sheep--! d' y'--see yon eagle?--'Tis pickin' his bones--" roared
Matthews through funnelled palms; and both jumped back to the shelter
of the hemlocks. The outlaws drew together to confer.

"They don't believe us," said Wayland. "They'll camp in the timber
over there for the night and wait. All right, my friends! You'll not
have to wait long; no longer than it takes you, sir, to find our pack
mule and the stray bronchs, while I build a raft. We can't cross the
lower end for the moraine; and we can't cross the upper end for the
ice; and it's too cold to risk swimming."


Matthews had headed the horses and pack mule back from an open glade
and hobbled their fore feet. Then Wayland began chopping down small
trees. They saw the figures of the outlaws against the twilight of the
gap ride away from the far margin of the lake. Then only did the
Ranger build a little fire behind the biggest hemlocks, an Indian's
tiny chip fire, not "the big white-man's blaze." On this, they cooked
their supper, lake trout hauled out while they waited, and flap jacks,
with a tin plate for a frying pan.

"Anyway," said the Ranger wiping the smoke tears from his eyes, "the
smoke keeps off the mosquitoes."

"Mosquitoes, pah! That shows y're Yale for all y'r good work this day!
A have no seen one yet."

Wayland's answer was to light his pipe. "It's either bear's grease, or
smoke between bites," he laughed.


They had unsaddled horses and were sitting on a log watching the
animals crop through the deep grasses.

The frontiersman uttered a sigh. "'Tis like a taste of the good old
days, the days well nigh gone for ever; the smell of the bark fire; an'
th' tang of the kinnikinick; an' the cinnamon cedars; and the air like
champagne; an' the stars prickin' the crown o' the hoary old peaks like
diamonds; an' the little waves lappin' an' lavin' an' whisperin' an'
tellin' of the woman y' luve. An' care? Care, man? There wasna' a
care heavier than dandelion down. 'Twas sleep like a deep drink, an'
up an' away in the mornin', chasin' a young man's hopes to the end o'
the Trail! A suppose th' Almighty meant t' anchor men, or He wouldna'
permit the buildin' of toons! Once A was in New York! A did na' see
but one patch o' sunlight twenty stories overhead! Th' car things
screeched an' rulled an' the folks--the wimmen wi' awfu' stern wheeler
hats, an' the men--hurryin'--hurryin'!--Wayland, d' they get it?
There's only twenty-four hours in a day--they can't catch any more by
hurryin'--what are they hurryin' for? Do they get it--what they're
hurryin' for? Do they get anywhere? D' they sit down joyous at night?
A heard some laugh--It was not joyous! Do they get anything down there
in the awfu' heat?"

Wayland laughed. "I don't know," he said. "Care isn't light as
dandelion fluff! I'll bet on that."

The roar of waters below the moraine softened and quieted. There was a
chorus of little waves lipping and whispering among the reeds. A whole
aeon of resinous sunbeams breathed their essence through the dark from
the spicy evergreens. One need not attempt to guess of what Wayland
was thinking. He had forgotten his companion's presence till the old
man spoke.

"A suppose, Wayland, you are only one of an army of kiddie boys on the
job out here?"

Wayland absently roused himself.

"Land Service and Reclamation men have tougher jobs and less glory.
All we have to do is sit tight and it's a pretty good place to sit
tight in--this out-door world. Different with the other fellows!
They're hamstrung by the red tape of office, or blackguarded by some
peanut politician who is scoring an opponent! There was Walker down at
Durango, shot examining a coal fraud. He was a Land Office man; and
his murderers have not even been punished. Then, there were the two
chaps, who ran the rapids before the Gunnison Tunnel could be built;
though that's been exaggerated with a lot of magazine hog-wash to make
a fellow sick! Biggest job there was the engineer's work. Do you know
he drove that six mile tunnel from both ends and, when the two ends
met, they were not two inches off? Hog-wash and dish-water hacks
spread themselves in the magazines all over those chaps running the
rapids! You've run ten times worse rapids, yourself, on Saskatchewan
and MacKenzie hundreds of times. Yet those chaps--not one of
them--noted the wonder of a tunnel driven from both ends coming out
exactly even. Why, the poor ignorant foreign workmen cried when they
met from both ends, got hold of one fellow's wrist through the mud wall
and pulled him through bodily, cried like kids at the victory of it!
Your town hack didn't know what it meant to be a sand hog under ground
for years and come through to daylight like that. The ignorant
foreigner knew. I guess a good dozen of 'em had sacrificed their lives
to the work. They knew the quiet engineer fellow had conquered the
earth; and that fellow doesn't get the salary of a Wall Street
stenographer--a way Uncle Sam has. They'd give such a man a title and
a fifty thousand a year pension in England or Germany.

"Then, there was Fessenden, unearthed a lot of fraud in Oregon and got
himself crucified--got the bounce; had broken his health in that sort
of thing; got fired because he proved up that some smug politicians had
caused the death of an old couple by jumping their homestead claim and
driving them to penury. Then, there was Carrington. He was on the
Desert Reclamation Project; took his bride in on their honeymoon;
hundreds of miles from the railroad. She was delicate--lungs; poor
fellow thought perhaps camp life would cure her. She died there in the
heat. Two or three of the men gave up their jobs to help bring the
body out." Wayland land paused, lost in thought. "They got the body
out all right; but, the horror of it, Carrington went off his head!
Know an engineering chap tramped the Sierras for a hundred miles dogged
by a spotter from one of the railroads--but what's the use of talking
about it? These things have to be done; and these are the men on the
job."

"The Men on the Job," slowly repeated Matthews, "the men we make earls
and premiers of in Britain; but who of your big public cares one jot?
Time you wakened up as a Nation."

"You are using almost the same words as Moyese. He says the public
doesn't care a damn, wouldn't raise a hand to stand for the rights of
one of us, pays us less than dagoes earn. I guess Moyese doesn't
understand our point of view, can't take in why we keep at it."

The wind came through the trees a phantom harper. The little waves
lapped and whispered. The pine needles clicked pixy castanets; and the
moon beams sifted through the trees a silver dust.

"Why do you? Why do you keep on the job?" asked the old man.

"Hanged if I know," answered Wayland uncomfortably.

"A saw a man on the job to-day risk his life twice and think no more
about it than if he had been out for a walk. If a man in England, if a
man in Germany, if a man in Italy, yes by thunder, Wayland, if a man on
the job in pagan Turkey had done what you did to-day, he'd be given a
V. C. accordin' to the Turk, and a title and a pension for life."

"I don't despair of a cross myself, when Moyese hears what happened
to-day. It'll be a double cross with a G. B.; but, speaking of cross,
as we have to cross the lake, don't you think you'd better snatch a
little sleep?"

And so the two men, one representing the chivalry of the old West, the
other the chivalry of the new, stretched out to sleep with coats for
pillows, while the flood-waters went singing through the stones, and
the little waves came lipping and whispering, and the low boom of the
snow slides rolled through the chambered hollows of canyon and gorge.
Absurd, wasn't it, but the Ranger was not dreaming about the bevelling
trowel of the titan mountain gods? He went to sleep dreaming of the
star visible from the other side of the Holy Cross, dreaming dreams
that men and women have dreamed since time began; of drinking,
drinking, and drinking yet again, of life and love and blessedness from
the fount of human lips; of the seal that should be the seal to
service, not to self; of the gates ajar to a new life like the notch of
sky where the rocks of the Pass opened portals to the blue valley.
Would he have dreamed less joyously if he had known that the portals of
the Pass led to the avalanche and the desert and the alkali death? Who
shall say that love did not pay the toll? And in him rioted the
savagery of the fighter who wanted to seize his foe by the throat.




CHAPTER XIV

ON THE GAME TRAIL

The dull boom of a snow-cornice tumbling over some high cliff on the far
side of the lake awakened the Ranger to the chill darkness of mountain
night just before dawn. The moon had sunk behind the sky-line of the
peaks; and the little lake laving among the reeds lay inky in the shadow
of the heavy mist.

Wayland listened. The deep breathing of the horses round the ashes of
the mosquito smudge guided him across to saddles. He placed saddles,
pack trees and provisions on the raft. Then, he wakened the old man and
pulled the grunting horses to their feet. A little riffle, half wind,
half light, stirred the lake mist, revealing glare patches of snow
reflection in the water.

"Hoh! man, but y'r old peaks have a nip in the air at three in the
mornin'!" Matthews came down to the raft chaffing his hands. "That's a
job worthy a woodsman," he observed, holding the halter reins while the
Ranger got a couple of long poles.

A dozen saplings had been mortised to a couple of cottonwoods.

"They may take water; but they'll not sink; and they'll not tip,"
declared Wayland.

Reeds and willows had been used in place of nails. Two or three of the
logs were spliced to grip the end cottonwoods firmly. The two men
stepped on the raft.

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