Essential Western Novels - Volume 4. Max Brand

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      XVI

      AT BRYAM'S CABIN

      BRUCE MARVEL conserved the energies of his horse, for he knew that he might have a gruelling grind ahead of him. His, he realized, was an endurance race in which speed might readily prove a liability rather than an asset; for were he to reach his goal with an exhausted mount, failure must be his only reward.

      He believed that he was pitted against a hard and desperate gang and that even should he be so successful as to wrest Kay White from them, his ability to return her in safety to the TF Ranch might still depend solely upon what of stamina and speed were left in Baldy.

      He rode steadily until shortly after midnight when he dismounted and removing the horse's saddle and bridle permitted him to roll.

      A short time previously he had watered him in Mill Creek; and now when he had stretched his muscles in a good roll and both of them had rested for five or ten minutes, Bruce gave the animal a small feed of oats; and after he had cleaned them up they were soon on the trail again.

      All night he rode; and just before dawn he halted again for a brief rest, during which he removed the saddle and bridle from Baldy, rubbed down his back, turned the blanket and re-saddled immediately.

      As he mounted he glanced back down the valley, his eyes immediately attracted by a twinkling light ten or a dozen miles away.

      "That must be the sheriff and his posse," he thought, "for there wasn't nobody there when I came past."

      And far up, toward the head of Mill Creek Canyon, other eyes saw the light—the eyes of a watcher posted on the hillside above Hi Bryam's cabin. "Not so good," muttered the watcher, and, descending, he awakened two men who were sleeping outside the shack.

      "What's wrong, Mart?" demanded one of them.

      "They's a campfire this side of Mill Creek camp," replied the man. "I think we better be movin'. There shouldn't be nobody comin' this way that would build a campfire."

      "Cory told us to rest here for one day."

      "I don't care what he told us. I'm lookin' after my own neck, and I aint goin' to wait around here for no man."

      "Me neither," said Bryam. "He sure give us credit for sense enough to get out of here if you fellows were followed, and it looks like you was, all right."

      "It's all the same to me," said the third. "I aint hankerin' to have no one see me with this girl here, whether they're followin' us or not."

      "He was just figurin' on givin' the girl a rest, thinkin' she couldn't stand so much ridin'," said the first speaker.

      "She's had five hours rest now," said Bryam, "and that's all she's goin' to get for awhile. You and Mart get saddled up, while I rustle some grub. We got plenty time to eat and get a good start, even if they start now, which like as not they won't."

      "Probably they'll be waitin' till mornin'," said Eddie, "thinkin' they could pick up our trail better then."

      "That's sure a long way off," said Mart. "I don't see how you seen it in the first place, Eddie;" and, in truth, the distant campfire was little more than a glowing speck in the far distance. Only the keenest eyes could have detected it at all and even to such it did not burn steadily, but twinkled like a distant star of lesser magnitude.

      "Well, you fellers get busy," said Bryam. "I'll wake the girl and get the grub."

      "Better let her sleep as long as we can," said Eddie.

      "The hell with her," said Bryam. "She aint no better than we are."

      "She's a girl," said Eddie, "and we ought to treat her as decent as we can."

      "Don't be so soft," snapped Bryam.

      "I aint soft," said Eddie, "but I aint stuck on this business. Kidnappin' women aint never been my particular line of business."

      "Quit beefin'," said Mart, "and come on;" and Eddie followed off into the darkness in search of the hobbled horses.

      Bryam went to the cabin door and opened it. "Say, you!" he called. "Wake up. We're leavin'."

      Wake up! Kay White had been sitting wide eyed through the long hours since they had brought her to Bryam's shack. She could scarcely have forced herself to lie down upon the filthy thing that Bryam called abed, but she knew that even had she done so, she could not have slept. She felt physical fatigue; but her mind was too awake, too active to entertain any thoughts of sleep.

      "Dya hear me?" demanded Bryam.

      "I heard you," replied the girl. "I am ready."

      "I'm fixin' some grub," said Bryam. "When it's ready, I'll call you."

      The girl, sitting in the rickety chair before the rough table, made no reply, as her thoughts, bridging the interruption, attacked once more the tangled skein they sought to unravel. She had been able only to guess at the motive for her abduction, since her captors would tell her nothing; but the logical surmise was that she would be held for ransom.

      In the first instant of her capture she had sensed intuitively that Cory Blaine had deliberately led her into the trap; but when she had seen how roughly they had treated him and how heartlessly they had left him bound and gagged in the desolate gulch, that theory had been somewhat shaken. Then, again and again, the idea had forced itself upon her that perhaps in some way Bruce Marvel was responsible. There had been something mysterious about him. Both she and Dora Crowell had sensed that. He certainly was not what he had tried to lead them to believe he was, and this fact furnished a substantial groundwork for her suspicion.

      Yet always she put the thought aside, refusing to accept it; and when the two men had brought her to Hi Bryam's cabin, her suspicion settled once more upon Cory Blaine; yet why had Marvel chosen to leave the ranch at this particular time? That question troubled her, for she knew that he had been planning to remain longer. Could it be that the paper chase had given him the opportunity for which he had been waiting. She remembered his refusal to accompany the party to Crater Mountain and that this refusal had followed the announcement that the paper chase would take place the following day and what a silly excuse he had given for remaining at the ranch—hunting horse's teeth indeed! Added to all this was the fact that he had quickly given up his search for teeth and had absented himself alone from the ranch for hours; but further than that she could never pursue this line of thought, since it invariably stopped before the blank wall of unreasoning belief СКАЧАТЬ