Zane Grey (28 page)

Brandt, with no thought of joining this foolhardy attempt to escape
from the inclosure, ran to the little port-hole that he might see the
outcome. Legget and his five redskins were running toward the narrow
outlet in the gorge. The awkward and futile efforts of the Indians to
remain behind the shield were almost pitiful. They crowded each other
for favorable positions, but, struggle as they might, one or two were
always exposed to the cliff. Suddenly one, pushed to the rear, stopped
simultaneously with the crack of a rifle, threw up his arms and fell.
Another report, differing from the first, rang out. A savage staggered
from behind the speeding group with his hand at his side. Then he
dropped into the brook.

Evidently Legget grasped this as a golden opportunity, for he threw
aside the heavy shield and sprang forward, closely followed by his
red-skinned allies. Immediately they came near the cliff, where the
trail ran into the gorge, a violent shaking of the dry ferns overhead
made manifest the activity of some heavy body. Next instant a huge
yellow figure, not unlike a leaping catamount, plunged down with a
roar so terrible as to sound inhuman. Legget, Indians, and newcomer
rolled along the declivity toward the brook in an indistinguishable
mass.

Two of the savages shook themselves free, and bounded to their feet
nimbly as cats, but Legget and the other redskin became engaged in a
terrific combat. It was a wrestling whirl, so fierce and rapid as to
render blows ineffectual. The leaves scattered as if in a whirlwind.
Legget's fury must have been awful, to judge from his hoarse screams;
the Indians' fear maddening, as could be told by their shrieks. The
two savages ran wildly about the combatants, one trying to level a
rifle, the other to get in a blow with a tomahawk. But the movements
of the trio, locked in deadly embrace, were too swift.

Above all the noise of the contest rose that strange, thrilling roar.

"Wetzel!" muttered Brandt, with a chill, creeping shudder as he gazed
upon the strife with fascinated eyes.

"Bang!" Again from the cliff came that heavy bellow.

The savage with the rifle shrunk back as if stung, and without a cry
fell limply in a heap. His companion, uttering a frightened cry, fled
from the glen.

The struggle seemed too deadly, too terrible, to last long. The Indian
and the outlaw were at a disadvantage. They could not strike freely.
The whirling conflict grew more fearful. During one second the huge,
brown, bearish figure of Legget appeared on top; then the dark-bodied,
half-naked savage, spotted like a hyena, and finally the lithe,
powerful, tiger-shape of the borderman.

Finally Legget wrenched himself free at the same instant that the
bloody-stained Indian rolled, writhing in convulsions, away from
Wetzel. The outlaw dashed with desperate speed up the trail, and
disappeared in the gorge. The borderman sped toward the cliff, leaped
on a projecting ledge, grasped an overhanging branch, and pulled
himself up. He was out of sight almost as quickly as Legget.

"After his rifle," Brandt muttered, and then realized that he had
watched the encounter without any idea of aiding his comrade. He
consoled himself with the knowledge that such an attempt would have
been useless. From the moment the borderman sprang upon Legget, until
he scaled the cliff, his movements had been incredibly swift. It would
have been hardly possible to cover him with a rifle, and the outlaw
grimly understood that he needed to be careful of that charge in
his weapon.

"By Heavens, Wetzel's a wonder!" cried Brandt in unwilling admiration.
"Now he'll go after Legget and the redskin, while Zane stays here to
get me. Well, he'll succeed, most likely, but I'll never quit.
What's this?"

He felt something slippery and warm on his hand. It was blood running
from the inside of his sleeve. A slight pain made itself felt in his
side. Upon examination he found, to his dismay, that his wound had
reopened. With a desperate curse he pulled a linsey jacket off a peg,
tore it into strips, and bound up the injury as tightly as possible.

Then he grasped his rifle, and watched the cliff and the gorge with
flaring eyes. Suddenly he found it difficult to breathe; his throat
was parched, his eyes smarted. Then the odor of wood-smoke brought him
to a realization that the cabin was burning. It was only now he
understood that the room was full of blue clouds. He sank into the
corner, a wolf at bay.

Not many moments passed before the outlaw understood that he could not
withstand the increasing heat and stifling vapor of the room. Pieces
of burning birch dropped from the roof. The crackling above grew into
a steady roar.

"I've got to run for it," he gasped. Death awaited him outside the
door, but that was more acceptable than death by fire. Yet to face the
final moment when he desired with all his soul to live, required
almost super-human courage. Sweating, panting, he glared around. "God!
Is there no other way?" he cried in agony. At this moment he saw an ax
on the floor.

Seizing it he attacked the wall of the cabin. Beyond this partition
was a hut which had been used for a stable. Half a dozen strokes of
the ax opened a hole large enough for him to pass through. With his
rifle, and a piece of venison which hung near, he literally fell
through the hole, where he lay choking, almost fainting. After a time
he crawled across the floor to a door. Outside was a dense laurel
thicket, into which he crawled.

The crackling and roaring of the fire grew louder. He could see the
column of yellow and black smoke. Once fairly under way, the flames
rapidly consumed the pitch-pine logs. In an hour Legget's cabins were
a heap of ashes.

The afternoon waned. Brandt lay watchful, slowly recovering his
strength. He felt secure under this cover, and only prayed for night
to come. As the shadows began to creep down the sides of the cliffs,
he indulged in hope. If he could slip out in the dark he had a good
chance to elude the borderman. In the passionate desire to escape, he
had forgotten his fatalistic words to Legget. He reasoned that he
could not be trailed until daylight; that a long night's march would
put him far in the lead, and there was just a possibility of Zane's
having gone away with Wetzel.

When darkness had set in he slipped out of the covert and began his
journey for life. Within a few yards he reached the brook. He had only
to follow its course in order to find the outlet to the glen.
Moreover, its rush and gurgle over the stones would drown any slight
noise he might make.

Slowly, patiently he crawled, stopping every moment to listen. What a
long time he was in coming to the mossy stones over which the brook
dashed through the gorge! But he reached them at last. Here if
anywhere Zane would wait for him.

With teeth clenched desperately, and an inward tightening of his
chest, for at any moment he expected to see the red flame of a rifle,
he slipped cautiously over the mossy stones. Finally his hands touched
the dewy grass, and a breath of cool wind fanned his hot cheek. He had
succeeded in reaching the open. Crawling some rods farther on, he lay
still a while and listened. The solemn wilderness calm was unbroken.
Rising, he peered about. Behind loomed the black hill with its narrow
cleft just discernible. Facing the north star, he went silently out
into the darkness.

At daylight Jonathan Zane rolled from his snug bed of leaves under the
side of a log, and with the flint, steel and punk he always carried,
began building a fire. His actions were far from being hurried. They
were deliberate, and seemed strange on the part of a man whose stern
face suggested some dark business to be done. When his little fire had
been made, he warmed some slices of venison which had already been
cooked, and thus satisfied his hunger. Carefully extinguishing the
fire and looking to the priming of his rifle, he was ready for
the trail.

He stood near the edge of the cliff from which he could command a view
of the glen. The black, smoldering ruins of the burned cabins defaced
a picturesque scene.

"Brandt must have lit out last night, for I could have seen even a
rabbit hidin' in that laurel patch. He's gone, an' it's what I
wanted," thought the borderman.

He made his way slowly around the edge of the inclosure and clambered
down on the splintered cliff at the end of the gorge. A wide,
well-trodden trail extended into the forest below. Jonathan gave
scarcely a glance to the beaten path before him; but bent keen eyes to
the north, and carefully scrutinized the mossy stones along the brook.
Upon a little sand bar running out from the bank he found the light
imprint of a hand.

"It was a black night. He'd have to travel by the stars, an' north's
the only safe direction for him," muttered the borderman.

On the bank above he found oblong indentations in the grass, barely
perceptible, but owing to the peculiar position of the blades of
grass, easy for him to follow.

"He'd better have learned to walk light as an Injun before he took to
outlawin'," said the borderman in disdain. Then he returned to the
gorge and entered the inclosure. At the foot of the little rise of
ground where Wetzel had leaped upon his quarry, was one of the dead
Indians. Another lay partly submerged in the brown water.

Jonathan carried the weapons of the savages to a dry place under a
projecting ledge in the cliff. Passing on down the glen, he stopped a
moment where the cabins had stood. Not a log remained. The horses,
with the exception of two, were tethered in the copse of laurel. He
recognized Colonel Zane's thoroughbred, and Betty's pony. He cut them
loose, positive they would not stray from the glen, and might easily
be secured at another time.

He set out upon the trail of Brandt with a long, swinging stride. To
him the outcome of that pursuit was but a question of time. The
consciousness of superior endurance, speed, and craft, spoke in his
every movement. The consciousness of being in right, a factor so
powerfully potent for victory, spoke in the intrepid front with which
he faced the north.

It was a gloomy November day. Gray, steely clouds drifted overhead.
The wind wailed through the bare trees, sending dead leaves scurrying
and rustling over the brown earth.

The borderman advanced with a step that covered glade and glen, forest
and field, with astonishing swiftness. Long since he had seen that
Brandt was holding to the lowland. This did not strike him as singular
until for the third time he found the trail lead a short distance up
the side of a ridge, then descend, seeking a level. With this
discovery came the certainty that Brandt's pace was lessening. He had
set out with a hunter's stride, but it had begun to shorten. The
outlaw had shirked the hills, and shifted from his northern course.
Why? The man was weakening; he could not climb; he was favoring
a wound.

What seemed more serious for the outlaw, was the fact that he had left
a good trail, and entered the low, wild land north of the Ohio. Even
the Indians seldom penetrated this tangled belt of laurel and thorn.
Owing to the dry season the swamps were shallow, which was another
factor against Brandt. No doubt he had hoped to hide his trail by
wading, and here it showed up like the track of a bison.

Jonathan kept steadily on, knowing the farther Brandt penetrated into
this wilderness the worse off he would be. The outlaw dared not take
to the river until below Fort Henry, which was distant many a weary
mile. The trail grew more ragged as the afternoon wore away. When
twilight rendered further tracking impossible, the borderman built a
fire in a sheltered place, ate his supper, and went to sleep.

In the dim, gray morning light he awoke, fancying he had been startled
by a distant rifle shot. He roasted his strips of venison carefully,
and ate with a hungry hunter's appreciation, yet sparingly, as
befitted a borderman who knew how to keep up his strength upon a
long trail.

Hardly had he traveled a mile when Brandt's footprints covered
another's. Nothing surprised the borderman; but he had expected this
least of all. A hasty examination convinced him that Legget and his
Indian ally had fled this way with Wetzel in pursuit.

The morning passed slowly. The borderman kept to the trail like a
hound. The afternoon wore on. Over sandy reaches thick with willows,
and through long, matted, dried-out cranberry marshes and copses of
prickly thorn, the borderman hung to his purpose. His legs seemed
never to lose their spring, but his chest began to heave, his head
bent, and his face shone with sweat.

At dusk he tired. Crawling into a dry thicket, he ate his scanty meal
and fell asleep. When he awoke it was gray daylight. He was wet and
chilled. Again he kindled a fire, and sat over it while cooking
breakfast.

Suddenly he was brought to his feet by the sound of a rifle shot; then
two others followed in rapid succession. Though they were faint, and
far away to the west, Jonathan recognized the first, which could have
come only from Wetzel's weapon, and he felt reasonably certain of the
third, which was Brandt's. There might have been, he reflected grimly,
a good reason for Legget's not shooting. However, he knew that Wetzel
had rounded up the fugitives, and again he set out.

It was another dismal day, such a one as would be fitting for a dark
deed of border justice. A cold, drizzly rain blew from the northwest.
Jonathan wrapped a piece of oil-skin around his rifle-breech, and
faced the downfall. Soon he was wet to the skin. He kept on, but his
free stride had shortened. Even upon his iron muscles this soggy,
sticky ground had begun to tell.

The morning passed but the storm did not; the air grew colder and
darker. The short afternoon would afford him little time, especially
as the rain and running rills of water were obliterating the trail.