The fire having now burned down to proper coals, Mr. Long set about supper; with the corner of his eye on the lookout for the pursuers of the late Bransford. He set the coffee-pot by the fire – they were now in the edge of the tar-brush; there were only two of them. He put on a pot of potatoes in their jackets – he could see them plainly, diminutive black horsemen twinkling through the brush; he sliced bacon into a frying-pan and put it aside to await his cue; he disposed other cooking ware in lifelike attitudes near the fire – they were in the long shadow of Double Mountain; their horses were jaded; they rode slowly. He dropped the sour-dough jar and placed the broken pieces where they would be inconspicuously visible. Having thus a perfectly obvious excuse for not having sour-dough bread, which requires thirty-six hours of running start for preliminary rising, Jeff – Mr. Tobe Long – mixed up a just-as-good baking-powder substitute – they rode like young men; they rode like young men not to the saddle born, and Tobe permitted himself a chuckle: “By hooky, I’ve got an even chance for my little bluff!”
He shook his head reprovingly at himself for this last admission. With every minute he looked more like Tobe Long than ever – if only there had been any Tobe Long to look like. His mind ran upon nuggets, pockets, placers, faults, true fissure veins, the cyanide process, concentrates, chlorides, sulphides, assays, leases and bonds; his face took on the strained wistfulness which marks the confirmed prospector: he was Tobe Long!
The bell rang.
CHAPTER XII
THE SIEGE OF DOUBLE MOUNTAIN
“Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
– The Dictionary.
“Ho-o-e-ee! Hello-o!”
As the curtain rose to the flying echoes Long stepped to the edge of the dump, frying-pan in hand, and sent back an answering shout in the startled high note of a lonely man taken unawares.
“Hello-o!” He brandished his hospitable pan. Then he put it down, cupped hands to mouth and trumpeted a hearty welcome: “Chuck! Come up! Supper’s ready!”
“Can’t! See any one go by about two hours ago?”
“Hey? Louder!”
“See a man on a sorrel horse?”
“No-o! I been in the tunnel. Come up!”
“Can’t. We’re after an outlaw!”
“What?”
“After a murderer!”
“Wait a minute! I’ll be down. Too hard to yell so far.”
Mr. Long started precipitately down the zigzag; but the riders had got all the information of interest that Mr. Long could furnish and they were eager to be in at the death.
“Can’t wait! He’s inside the mountain, somewheres. Some of the boys are waiting for him at the other end.” They rode on.
Mr. Long posed for a statue of Disappointment, hung on the steep trail rather as if he might conclude to coil himself into a ball and roll down the hill to overtake them.
“Stop as you come back!” he bellowed. “Want to hear about it.”
Did Jeff – Mr. Long – did Mr. Long now attempt to escape? Not so. Gifted with prevision beyond most, Mr. Long’s mind misgave him that these young men would be baffled in their pleasing expectations. They would be back before sundown, very cross; and a miner’s brogan leaves a track not to be missed.
That Mr. Long was unfeignedly fatigued from the varied efforts of the day need not be mentioned, for that alone would not have stayed his flight; but the nearest water, save Escondido, was thirty-five miles; and at Escondido he would be watched for – not to say that, when he was missed, some of the searching party would straightway go to Escondido to frustrate him. Present escape was not to be thought of.
Instead, Mr. Long made a hearty meal from the simple viands that had been in course of preparation when he was surprised, eked out by canned corn fried in bacon grease to a crisp, golden brown. Then, after a cigarette, he betook himself to sharpening tools with laudable industry. The tools were already sharp, but that did not stop Mr. Long. He built a fire in the forge, set up a stepladder of matched drills in the blackened water of the tempering tub; he thrust a gad and one short drill into the fire. When the gad was at a good cherry heat he thrust it hissing into the tub to bring the water to a convincing temperature; and when reheated he did it again. From time to time he held the one drill to the anvil and shaped it, drawing it alternately to a chisel bit or a bull bit. Mr. Long could sharpen a drill with any, having been, in very truth, a miner of sorts – he could toy thus with one drill without giving it any very careful attention, and his thoughts were now busy on how best to be Mr. Long.
Accordingly from time to time he added an artistic touch to Mr. Long – grime under his fingernails, a smudge of smut on an eyebrow. His hands displeased him. After some experimenting to get the proper heat of it he grasped the partially cooled gad with the drill-pincers and held it very lightly to a favored few of those portions of the hand known to chiromaniacs as the mounts of Jupiter, Saturn and other extinct immortals.
Satisfactory blisters-while-you-wait were thus obtained. These were pricked with a pin; some were torn to tatters, with dust and coal rubbed in to give them a venerable appearance. The pain was no light matter; but Mr. Long had a real affection for Mr. Bransford’s neck, and it is trifles like these that make perfection.
The next expedient was even more heroic. Mr. Long assiduously put stone-dust in one eye, leaving it tearful, bloodshot and violently inflamed; and the other one was sympathetically red. “Bit o’ steel in my eye,” explained Mr. Long. Unselfish devotion such as this is all too rare.
All this while, at proper intervals, Mr. Long sharpened and resharpened that one long-suffering drill. He tripped into the tunnel and smote a mighty blow upon the country rock with a pick – therefore qualifying that pick for repointing – and laid it on the forge as next on the list.
What further outrage he meditated is not known, for he now heard a horse coming up the trail. He was beating out a merry tattoo when a white-hatted head rose through a trapdoor – rose above the level of the dump, rather.
Hammer in hand, Long straightened up joyfully as best he could, but could not straighten up the telltale droop of his shoulders. It was not altogether assumed, either, this hump. Jeff – Mr. Long – had not done so much work of this sort for years and there was a very real pain between his shoulderblades. Still, but for the exigencies of art, he might have borne his neck less turtlewise than he did.
“Hello! Get him? Where’s your pardner?”
“Watching the gap.” The young man, rather breathless from the climb, answered the last question first as he led his horse on the dump. “No, we didn’t get him; but he can’t get away. Hiding somewhere in the Basin afoot. Found his horse. Pretty well done up.” The insolence of the outlaw’s letter smote him afresh; he reddened. “No tracks going out of the Basin. Two of our friends guarding the other end. They say he can’t get out over the cliffs anywhere. That so?” The speech came jerkily; he was still short of breath from his scramble.
“Not without a flying machine,” said Long. “No way out that I know of, except where the wagonroad goes. What’s he done?”
“Robbery! Murder! We’ll see that he don’t get out by the wagonroad,” asserted the youth confidently. “Watch the gaps and starve him out!”
“Oh, speaking of starving,” said Tobe, “go into the tent and I’ll bring you some supper while you tell me about it. Baked up another batch of bread on the chance you’d come back.”
“Why, thank you very much, Mr. – ”
“Long – Tobe Long.”
“Mr. Long. My name is Gurdon Steele. Glad to meet you. Why, if you will be so kind – that is what I came up to see you about. If you can let us have what we need; of course we will pay you for it.”
“Of course you won’t!” It had not needed the offer to place Mr. Gurdon Steele quite accurately. He was a handsome lad, fresh-complexioned, dressed in the Western manner as practised on the Boardwalk. “You’re welcome to what I got, sure; but I ain’t got much variety. Gwin, the old liar, said he was coming out the twentieth – and sure enough he didn’t; so the grub’s running low. Table in the tent – come on!”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t, you know! Rex – that’s my partner – is quite as hungry as I am, you see; but if you could give me something – anything you have – to take down there? I really couldn’t, you know!” The admirable doctrine of noblesse oblige in its delicate application by this politeness, was easier for its practitioner than to put it into words suited to the comprehension of his hearer; he concluded lamely: “I’ll take it down there and we will eat it together.”
“See here,” said Tobe, “I’m as hungry to hear about your outlaw as you are to eat. I’ll just throw my bedding and a lot of chuck on your saddle. We’ll carry the coffee-pot and frying-pan in our hands – and the sugar-can and things like that. You can tank up and give me the news in small chunks at the same time. Afterward two of us can sleep while one stands guard.”
This was done. It was growing dark when they reached the bottom of the hill. The third guardsman had built a fire.
“Rex, this is Mr. Long, who has been kind enough to grubstake us and share our watch with us.”
Mr. Steele, you have observed, had accepted Mr. Long without question; but his first impression of Mr. Long had been gained under circumstances highly favorable to the designs of the latter gentleman. Mr. Steele had come upon him unexpectedly, finding him as it were in medias res, with all his skillfully arranged scenery to aid the illusion. The case was now otherwise – the thousand-tongued vouching of his background lacked to him; Mr. Long had naught save his own unthinkable audacity to belie his face withal. From the first instant Mr. Rex Griffith was the prey of suspicions – acute, bigoted, churlish, deep, dark, distrustful, damnable, and so on down to zealous. He had a sharp eye; he wore no puttees; and Mr. Long had a vaguely uncomfortable memory, holding over from some previous incarnation, of having seen that long, shrewd face in a courtroom.
The host, on hospitable rites intent, likewise all ears and eager questionings, was all unconscious of hostile surveillance. Nothing could be more carefree, more at ease than his bearing; his pleasant anticipatory excitement was the natural outlook for a lonely and newsless man. As the hart panteth for the water, so he thirsted for the story; but his impatient, hasty questions, following false scents, delayed the telling of the Arcadian tale. So innocent was he, so open and aboveboard, that Griffith, watching, alert, felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. Yet he watched, doubting still, though his reason rebelled at the monstrous imaginings of his heart. That the outlaw, unarmed and unasked, should venture – Pshaw! Such effrontery was inconceivable. He allowed Steele to tell the story, himself contributing only an occasional crafty question designed to enable his host to betray himself.
“Bransford?” interrupted Mr. Long. “Not Jeff Bransford – up South Rainbow way?”
“That’s the man,” said Steele.
“I don’t believe it,” said Long flatly. He was sipping coffee with his guests; he put his cup down. “I know him, a little. He don’t – ”
“Oh, there’s no doubt of it!” interrupted Steele in his turn. He detailed the circumstances with skilful care. “Besides, why did he run away? Gee! You ought to have seen that escape! It was splendid!”
“Well, now, who’d ’a’ thought that?” demanded Long, still only half convinced. “He didn’t strike me like that kind of a man. Well, you never can tell! How come you fellows to be chasin’ him?”
“You see,” said Steele, “every one was sure he had gone up to Rainbow. The sheriff and posse is up there now, looking for him; but we four – Stone and Harlow, the chaps at the other end, were with us, you know – we were up in the foothills on a deerhunt. We were out early – sun-up is the best time for deer, they tell me – and we had a spyglass. Well, we just happened to see a man ride out from between two hills, quite a way off. Stone noticed right away that he was riding a sorrel horse. It was a sorrel horse that Bransford stole, you know. We didn’t suspect, though, who it was till a bit later. Then Rex tried to pick him up again and saw that he was going out of his way to avoid the ridges – keeping cover, you know. Then we caught on and took after him pell-mell. He had a big start; but he was riding slowly so as not to make a dust – that is, till he saw our dust. Then he lit out.”
“You’re not deputies, then?” said Long.
“Oh, no, not at all!” said Steele, secretly flattered. “So Harlow and Stone galloped off to town. The program was that they’d wire down to Escondido to have horses ready for them, come down on Number Six and head him off. They were not to tell any one in Arcadia. There’s five thousand dollars’ reward out for him – but it isn’t that exactly. It was a cowardly, beastly murder, don’t you know; and we thought it would be rather a big thing if we could take him alone.”
“You got him penned all right,” said Tobe. “He can’t get out, so far as I know, unless he runs over us or the men at the other end. By George, we must get away from this fire, too!” He set the example, dragging the bedding with him to the shelter of a big rock. “He could pick us off too slick here in the light. How’re you going to get him? There’s a heap of country in that Basin, all rough and broken, full o’ boulders – mighty good cover.”
“Starve him out!” said Griffith. This was base deceit. Deep in his heart he believed that the quarry sat beside him, well fed and contented. Yet the unthinkable insolence of it – if this were indeed Bransford – dulled his belief.
Long laughed as he spread down the bed. “He’ll shoot a deer. Maybe, if he had it all planned out, he may have grub cached in there somewhere. There’s watertanks in the rocks. Say, what are your pardners at the other side going to do for grub?”
“Oh, they brought out cheese and crackers and stuff,” said Gurd.
“I’ll tell you what, boys, you’ve bit off more than you can chaw,” said Jeff – Tobe, that is. “He can’t get out without a fight – but, then, you can’t go in there to hunt for him without weakening your guard; and he’d be under shelter and have all the best of it. He’d shoot you so dead you’d never know what happened. I don’t want none of it! I’d as lief put on boxing gloves and crawl into a hole after a bear! Look here, now, this is your show; but I’m a heap older’n you boys. Want to know what I think?”
“Certainly,” said Rex.
“Goin’ to talk turkey to me?” An avaricious light came into Long’s eyes.
“Of course; you’re in on the reward,” said Rex diffidently and rather stiffly. “We are not in this for the money.”
“I can use the money – whatever share you want to give me,” said Long dryly; “but if you take my advice my share won’t be but a little. I think you ought to keep under shelter at the mouth of this cañon – one of you – and let the other one go to Escondido and send for help, quick, and a lot of it.”
“What’s the matter with you going?” asked Griffith disingenuously. He wanted Long to show his hand. It would never do to abandon the siege of Double Mountain to arrest this soi-disant Long on mere suspicion. On the other hand, Mr. Rex Griffith had no idea of letting Long escape his clutches until his identity was established, one way or the other, beyond all question.
That was why Long declined the offer. His honest gaze shifted. “I ain’t much of a rider,” he said evasively. Young Griffith read correctly the thought which the excuse concealed. Evidently Long considered himself an elder soldier, if not a better, than either of his two young guests, but wished to spare their feelings by not letting them find it out. Griffith found this plain solution inconsistent with his homicidal theory: a murderer, fleeing for his life, would have jumped at the chance.
There are two sides to every question. Let us, this once, prove both sides. Wholly oblivious to Griffith’s lynx-eyed watchfulness and his leading questions, Mr. Long yet recognized the futility of an attempt to ride away on Mr. Griffith’s horse with Mr. Griffith’s benison. There we have the other point of view.
“We’ll have to send for grub anyway,” pursued the sagacious Mr. Long. “I’ve only got a little left; and that old liar, Gwin, won’t be out for four days – if he comes then. And – er – look here now – if I was you boys I’d let the sheriff and his posse smoke your badger out. They get paid to tend to that – and it looks to me like some one was going to get hurt. You’ve done enough.”
All this advice was so palpably sound that the doubter was, for the second, staggered – for a second only. This was the man he had seen in the prisoner’s dock. He was morally sure of it. For all the difference of appearance, this was the man. Yet those blasts – the far-seen fire – the hearty welcome – this delivery of himself into their hands?.. Griffith scarcely knew what he did think. He blamed himself for his unworthy suspicions; he blamed Gurdy more for having no suspicions at all.
“Anything else?” he said. “That sounds good.”
Tobe studied for some time.
“Well,” he said at last, “there may be some way he can get out. I don’t think he can – but he might find a way. He knows he’s trapped; but likely he has no idea yet how many of us there are. So we know he’ll try, and he won’t be just climbing for fun. He’ll take a chance.”
Steele broke in:
“He didn’t leave any rope on his saddle.”
Tobe nodded.
“So he means to try it. Now here’s five of us here. It seems to me that some one ought to ride round the mountain the first thing in the morning, and every day afterward – only here’s hoping there won’t be many of ’em – to look for tracks. There isn’t one chance in a hundred he can climb out; but if he goes out of here afoot we’ve got him sure. The man on guard wants to keep in shelter. It’s light to-night – there’s no chance for him to slip out without being seen. You say the old watchman ain’t dead yet, Mr. Griffith?”
“No. The latest bulletin was that he was almost holding his own.”
“Hope he gets well,” said Long. “Good old geezer! Now, cap, I’ve worked hard and you’ve ridden hard. Better set your guards and let the other two take a little snooze.”
Griffith was not proof against the insidious flattery of this unhesitant preference. He flushed with embarrassment and pleasure.
“Well, if I’m to be captain, Gurd will take the first guard – till eleven. Then you come on till two, Mr. Long. I’ll stand from then on till daylight.”
In five minutes Mr. Long was enjoying the calm and restful sleep of fatigued innocence; but his poor captain was doomed to have a bad night of it, with two Bransfords on his hands – one in the Basin and one in the bed beside him. His head was dizzy with the vicious circle. Like the gentlewoman of the nursery rhyme, he was tempted to cry: “Lawk ’a’ mercy on me, this is none of I!”
If he haled his bedmate to justice and the real Bransford got away – that would be a nice predicament for an ambitious young man! He was sensitive to ridicule, and he saw here such an opportunity to earn it as knocks but once at any man’s door.
If, on the other hand, while he held Bransford cooped tightly in the Basin, this thrice-accursed Long should escape him and there should be no Bransford in the Basin – What nonsense! What utter twaddle! Bransford was in the Basin. He had found his horse and saddle, his tracks; no tracks had come out of the Basin. Immediately on the discovery of the outlaw’s horse, Gurd had ridden back posthaste and held the pass while he, the captain, had gone to the mouth of the southern cañon and posted his friends. He had watched for tracks of a footman every step of the way, going and coming; there had been no tracks. Bransford was in the Basin. He watched the face of the sleeping man. But, by Heaven, this was Bransford!
Was ever a poor captain in such a predicament? A moment before he had fully and definitely decided once for all that this man was not Bransford, could not be Bransford; that it was not possible! His reason unwaveringly told him one thing, his eyesight the other!.. Yet Bransford, or an unfortunate twin of his, lay now beside him – and, for further mockery, slept peacefully, serene, untroubled… He looked upon the elusive Mr. Long with a species of horror! The face was drawn and lined. Yet, but forty-eight hours of tension would have left Bransford’s face not otherwise. He had noticed Bransford’s hands in the courtroom – noticed their well-kept whiteness, due, as he had decided, to the perennial cowboy glove. This man’s hands, as he had seen by the campfire, were blistered and calloused! Callouses were not made in a day. He took another look at Long. Oh, thunder!
He crept from bed. He whispered a word to sentry Steele; not to outline the distressing state of his own mind, but merely to request Steele not to shoot him, as he was going up to the mine.
He climbed up the trail, chewing the unpalatable thought that Gurdon had seen nothing amiss – yet Gurd had been at the trial! The captain began to wish he had never gone on that deerhunt.
He went into the tent, struck a match, lit a candle and examined everything closely. There was no gun in the camp and no cartridges. He found the spill of twisted paper under the table, smothered his qualms and read it. He noted the open book for future examination in English. And now Tobe’s labors had their late reward, for Rex missed nothing. Every effort brought fresh disappointment and every disappointment spurred him to fresh effort. He went into the tunnel; he scrutinized everything, even to the drills in the tub. The food supply tallied with Long’s account. No detail escaped him and every detail confirmed the growing belief that he, Captain Griffith, was a doddering imbecile.
He returned to the outpost, convinced at last. Nevertheless, merely to quiet the ravings of his insubordinate instincts, now in open revolt, he restaked the horses nearer to camp and cautiously carried both saddles to the head of the bed. Concession merely encouraged the rebels to further and successful outrages – the government was overthrown.
He drew sentry Steele aside and imparted his doubts. That faithful follower heaped scorn, mockery, laughter and abuse upon his shrinking superior: recounted all the points, from the first blasts of dynamite to the present moment, which favored the charitable belief above mentioned as newly entertained by Captain Griffith concerning himself. This belief of Captain Griffith was amply indorsed by his subordinate in terms of point and versatility.
“Of course they look alike. I noticed that the minute I saw him – the same amount of legs and arms, features all in the fore part of his head, hair on top, one body – wonderful! Why, you pitiful ass, that Bransford person was a mighty keen-looking man in any company. This fellow’s a yokel – an old, rusty, cap-and-ball, single-shot muzzle-loader. The Bransford was an automatic, steel-frame, high velocity – ”
“The better head he has the more apt he is to do the unexpected – ”
“Aw, shut up! You’ve got incipient paresis! Stuff your ears in your mouth and go to sleep!”
The captain sought his couch convinced, but holding his first opinion, savagely minded to arrest Mr. Long rather than let him have a gun to stand guard with. He was spared the decision. Mr. Long declined Gurdon’s proffered gun, saying that he would be right there and he was a poor shot anyway.
Gurdon slept; Long took his place – and Captain Rex, from the bed, watched the watcher. Never was there a more faithful sentinel than Mr. Long. Without relaxing his vigilance even to smoke, he strained every faculty lest the wily Bransford should creep out through the shadows. The captain saw him, a stooped figure, sitting motionless by his rock, always alert, peering this way and that, turning his head to listen. Once Tobe saw something. He crept noiselessly to the bed and shook his chief. Griffith came, with his gun. Something was stirring in the bushes. After a little it moved out of the shadows. It was a prowling coyote. The captain went back to bed once more convinced of Long’s fidelity, but resolved to keep a relentless eye on him just the same. And all unawares, as he revolved the day’s events in his mind, the captain dropped off to troubled sleep.
Mr. Long woke him at three. There had been a temptation to ride away, but the saddles were at the head of the bed, the ground was stony; he would be heard. He might have made an attempt to get both guns from under the pillow, but detection meant ruin for him, since to shoot these boys or to hurt them was out of the question. Escape by violence would have been easy and assured. Jeff preferred to trust his wits. He was enjoying himself very much.
When the captain got his relentless eyes open and realized what had chanced he saw that further doubt was unworthy. Half an hour later the unworthy captain stole noiselessly to Long’s bedside and saw, to his utter rage and distraction, that Mr. Bransford was there again. It was almost too much to bear. He felt that he should always hate Long, even after Bransford was safely hanged. Bransford’s head had slipped from Long’s pillow. Hating himself, Griffith subtly withdrew the miner’s folded overalls and went through the pockets.
He found there a knife smelling of dynamite, matches, a turquoise carved to what was plainly meant to be the form of a bad-tempered horse, and two small specimens of ore!
Altogether, the captain passed a wild and whirling night.