The Cross Pull/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
Late in the afternoon Kinney rode into camp, leading Moran’s favorite saddle horse as the note had asked. He brought also the news that Harmon was camped some five miles east of the cabin. He had seen the pack train winding down a ridge and later had located the horses grazing on a meadow. With the aid of his glasses he had identified them as Harmon’s string.
Moran had speculated over the possible number of men they would find when Flash led them to their retreat. There might be many and it was certain that they were desperate—men who would never surrender. He had put another proposition to Vermont to which he had at last agreed. Harmon’s opportune arrival simplified the carrying out of this plan. As a consequence, when Kinney left it was with the promise that he would visit the ranger’s camp on the following day. He carried both a letter and a verbal message from Moran. The letter was for the owner of the Bar T ranch, asking for the services of as many men as could be spared for the next two weeks. The verbal message was for Harmon, asking that he undertake the long trip to the Bar T and bring the others back.
Moran knew that both requests would be granted at once. Those men to whom he appealed were friends of long standing. Harmon and the Bar T boys would stay in a separate camp until their help was needed.
Shortly after Kinney’s departure Flash grew restless. He longed for the girl and the quiet of the cabin. Moran noticed it and once more sent him off, a note fastened to his collar. Even if he had not, Flash would soon have slipped away.
The following morning he reappeared at the camp at daylight and his training was resumed. After the first experience on the previous day he had tracked Vermont no less than half a dozen additional times; enough so that he was heartily tired of it. This mode of traveling at the end of a leash bored him exceedingly.
The second day was spent in the same way as the first except that they tracked many different men. He had now learned what Moran desired and on each new trail he increased the amount of help until at last he took the lead altogether, following the tracks at the limit of his leash. Every period of trailing was preceded by one of circling and hunting in the timber. These invariably terminated at the trail of some man and Flash soon discovered that it was for men that Moran was hunting. Once sure of this he started for the first trace of man scent, tugging at the end of the thong.
Of all the things which Moran had taught him he cared for this the least. Perhaps it was because of the restraining thong. Whatever the reason, he deemed it a vastly stupid game without point or end, this trailing of a man and finding him only to start out almost at once in search of another. If he had considered only his own inclinations he would have avoided rather than have sought them. He held to this business for the one reason that it pleased Moran, whose praise was so well worth working for. By the end of the second day he would follow any trail on which Moran started him.
The morning of the third day Moran and Vermont rode away from camp shortly after Flash returned from spending the night at the cabin.
Moran knew the country as well as any man and he had gone ever it in his mind, first eliminating all places which seemed unsuitable for sheltering the men they sought. Some were discarded for one reason and some for another. The full length of the Wapiti Divide was the first to go. Hunters scoured the Shoshone slope every fall and frequently came across and worked along the near side. If the camp had been there it would have been discovered by some one of these. One after another the stretches of gently rolling, easily accessible country were discarded. The open meadows along the river bottoms were crossed off the list of possibilities. The occasional parties of hunters which penetrated this deep into the hills usually followed these easier lines of travel.
Of the places which remained he chose the roughest spots as the most likely possibilities. Among these was the divide between the Thoroughfare and the Yellowstone. Bridger Lake nestled on the flat at the confluence of the two streams and behind it Hawk’s Rest, the point of the dividing range, swept up from its very banks, rising hundreds of feet in rugged cliffs.
All the first day was spent in exploring this one ridge. Flash found no taint of man scent and neither man found any likely traces. Before they had covered half of it Moran was positive they would not find it here. Flash’s keen senses would have detected some sign of any large number of men. Nevertheless, to make absolutely sure they pushed on, peering down into every rimrocked pocket which fell away from either side. Night found them far back where this short divide joined the mass of the parent range.
The Yellowstone breaks into a dozen smaller streams at its very head and these flare up into the hills, draining the fan-shaped basin in which the river heads. The following two days they worked around this rugged basin but still without success. They discovered many old signs of man; a scrap or two of paper; the ashes of two small fires and a dozen dim heel prints made early in the spring when the earth was soft and spongy from melting drifts. Both knew that these had been left by the men they sought. No others came to this high country so early in the spring. These men could wander all over the hills for nine months in the year. Only when the passes were clear and infrequent pack parties came in were they forced to withdraw to their main retreat. Even then they could travel about in twos and threes with little chance of being seen and even less of being recognized.
Every night Flash went back to the cabin and every morning Betty sent him back to Moran. They were now far from home and the round trip was a long one, but it meant no hardship for Flash as the two men proceed slowly by day, covering only eight miles on an average.
The fourth morning of the hunt they broke camp at the head of the Yellowstone and rode downstream. Their intention was to work the divide between that stream and the Buffalo Fork of the Snake. Pacific Creek flows from Two Ocean Pass to the Snake while Atlantic Creek drains the opposite slope to the Yellowstone, joining it some ten miles from the head of the river. They rode down to the junction and turned up Atlantic Creek to follow the game trails up to the crest of the divide. They left their horses in the heavy timber near the mouth of the creek which was some five miles nearer their base of supplies than the spot where they had camped the previous night.
A well worn game trail led up the creek from the broad meadows of the Yellowstone. Here too were many signs of men and evidence that horses had often traveled on this trail. They had gone but a few yards upstream when Flash’s uneasiness was noticed by Moran. Flash knew well what lay ahead. Moran studied his actions closely. Flash gave no sign of having discovered any definite scent or sound but his general air was one of caring little for the place where Moran was leading him. From this Moran decided that Flash detected some lingering taint of man among these old signs; that it caused him uneasiness even though he knew that the men themselves were gone.
But it was not this. Once more Flash was handicapped by the animal habit of heeding more what his senses told him than of relying on what he knew. He needed something actual, something of the present, communicated to his brain over the paths of his senses rather than that which was stored in his mind from the past. He knew the camp was ahead. He had been there many times. From this he felt uneasiness, But there was nothing definite, no real scent or sound to prove to him that the danger was still there. Being an animal he needed the present corroboration of his physical senses to be sure of the menace which his mind told him lay ahead. Man, on the contrary, would have relied upon what he had previously discovered and which his reasoning mind assured him would be the same as in the past.
Moran watched him closely. When less than a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the creek Flash stopped abruptly, his hair bristling. A snarl rumbled in his throat. He had caught the trail scent of a man he knew. Moran turned and nodded to Vermont.
“He’s caught a trail scent,” he said. “He would be more excited if he smelled the man himself.”
Vermont assented, knowing this was true. They went ahead, hunting carefully for a sign. Flash noted these movements and immediately associated them with Moran’s actions during his two days of training. This was grasped the more readily from the fact that Moran still kept him leashed, yet he made no move to help. These other trails which Moran had sought had been made by friends. This man he knew for an enemy. He was one of those who had been around the fire that night. Flash had driven his teeth into him at least twice during the fight. Now that the actual scent was there he had no further doubt. True the scent was cold, having been left the evening before, but it was leading toward the secret camp.
Even though he did not consciously help Moran he located the trail for him. As they neared it his anxiety for closer inspection caused him to strain at the end of his leash and Moran followed. Flash held his nose low to the ground as he reached it, breathing deep of the hated scent. Moran discovered one or two faint prints on the hard packed game trail. The man had come in from a side gulch and turned upstream on the main path.
The valley was deep and gloomy. The little side streams which branched in were walled with frowning cliffs. There were a score of such, any one of which would have served as an ideal hiding place for the gang they sought. Both men knew that from now on the way was fraught with danger. While the outlaws had never molested parties who hunted here through fear of calling attention to their presence in the hills, any one of them would undoubtedly shoot on sight the first man who, either by accident or design, discovered their chosen hiding place. Moran motioned to Vermont to drop back and follow along behind. The marshal knew the reason for this; that it would be a useless sacrifice for both to stay with Flash. He would gladly have taken the lead but knew that the dog would not work for him. He shook his head regretfully and allowed Moran to proceed alone. He followed at a distance of a hundred yards.
When Flash realized that Moran was following the trail he was filled with doubt. This man was the girl’s enemy; therefore he was also Moran’s. If his master elected to play the foolish game of tracking him it must be through a mistake of identity whereby Moran believed he was following a friend. Flash held the trail merely from the habit of submitting to Moran’s will but he held it reluctantly.
He presently detected that Moran was working this trail in a different manner from the way he had worked the previous ones. He made frequent stops and stood motionless while he peered ahead through the trees. Several times he reached back and loosened the automatic in its holster. Flash caught glimpses of Vermont moving noiselessly along behind. He carried a Winchester with his thumb on the hammer. Never once did he cross one of the little open glades in the timber until after Moran had disappeared among the trees on the opposite side. Flash had many times seen Moran stalk game. He was stalking now. Flash knew the truth at last. They were deliberately hunting down this man. A savage thrill surged through him with the knowledge but his uneasiness also increased.
Additional trails joined in from every branching canyon. The main path flashed a multitude of messages. These varying bits of scent were as plain to his quivering nose as the crazy colors of a patchwork quilt are plain to the eye of man. True, the majority of these scents were old, none of them made since the previous day, but he knew the perils of the spot to which they led.
Both men too, had noted all these things. The trail up the main creek was worn broad and deep; those that joined in from tributary canyons were too well traveled to have been worn by the feet of the few animals who would be apt to live in so restricted a space. The scarcity of game signs indicated that the country had been hunted thoroughly and often. Every open glade showed evidence of having been closely pastured year after year by many horses. Moran judged these to be the tracks of Brent’s string, left during his many visits to this spot with a pack train loaded with supplies.
Flash’s actions suddenly changed. As they neared the mouth of a canyon which opened from their left the wind brought him the scent of the men themselves. They were still far away but the air was heavily laden with their conglomerate odor. He shrank from entering this place in the light of day. But Moran proceeded no farther. He had found what he sought—all. that he could find in this way. He knew that Flash had caught the body scent. The men were there. It would be suicidal for the two of them to enter that gloomy canyon alone. In addition, their closer approach might serve to warn the men they hunted.
The entrance to the canyon was narrow, scarcely fifty yards across, and the mouth of it was flanked by towering cliffs. The broad trail turned into it while only a dim path followed on up the bottoms of the main creek. Just outside the canyon mouth was an opening which would have been the usual grassy park except that each succeeding spring the floods from melting drifts turned the rivulet which drained it to a raging torrent which boiled out of its banks and swept the flat. These freshets were freighted with débris and rocks. The lighter driftwood was carried on but the stones were deposited when the force which carried them was dissipated by spreading over the flat. This had formed a rock bar, thrown fanwise from the mouth of the gorge. Behind it, just within the grim walls, the timber grew again, standing dense and tall.
The two men retraced their steps. Flash could not understand this sudden change of front but he knew it for the better course. No good could result from penetrating this dim canyon in the light of day.
They rode down the Yellowstone to its junction with the Thoroughfare and up the latter stream to camp.
“To-morrow we can locate the head of that canyon,” Vermont said as they rode. “But before we go prowling along the rims I want to go back to camp and tell the boys where that place is. There’s always a chance that they may spot us just a second or two before we spot them. That gulch is probably rimrocked the full length so there’s no trail out except at the head. But we want to be sure. Then when the Bar T men come we can close in on them from both ways at once.”
The message which Flash bore to Betty that night carried the news of the find. She was not in the cabin when Flash arrived but he followed her warm trail up to where she sat with Kinney on the point of rocks.
It was too dark to read it without the aid of matches which Kinney shielded with his hands. She found its text disquieting and she feared terribly for Moran. Its effect upon the old man beside her was exactly the opposite. He looked back over the better part of a century of strenuous life and found that his most pleasant memories were those of the wildest days. He knew he could not stay out of the coming fight.
“Hell will break loose in these hills in a day or two,” he prophesied and the girl detected an eager note in the old man’s voice.
A dim glow showed through the trees on the point of the spur which hid the marshal’s camp. A bright blaze danced in a meadow just across the ridge from it and Kinney knew that Harmon had just arrived with the Bar T men. Another tiny point of light caught his eye; up among the bald ridges near Two Ocean Pass it dipped and swayed. A few brief flashes answered it from away off toward the Sunlight Gap. Kinney dropped his arm across the girl’s shoulders.
“War times, girl! War times!” he said. “The Injuns have got their signal fires going all through the hills.”