Beyond the Law/Chapter 4

N THE floor of the Devil's Pocket Dick Farley came upon the trail again as he had foreseen. Where it ran from the ridges across the creek he found tracks. He drank first and then studied them. And slowly there came a frown into his eyes, and then a look of pain.

For there were the tracks of one horse, and of a man's boot-heels in the soft wet soil—tracks a month old, the tracks which Johnny Watson had left when he drew out of the valley to find his partner.

Back and forth Farley moved, stepping slowly by the side of the path, searching long and carefully for the fresh signs to tell him that two horses had passed here during the night or in the early morning. He did not find them. But a moment later, at the very edge of the stream, close to the spot where he had just flung himself down to drink, he found that another man had lain there drinking. He saw the prints of the heavy boots, saw that they had come from the west; that the man had crossed the stream here, stepping over the mere thread of water, and had pushed on toward the northern end of the valley. And the horses?

Dick had no doubt this was the man he sought. For some reason he had left the horses in the hills, hidden in some steep-walled cañon.

Again Farley pushed on, following the trail, seeing now and again the outline of the heavy boots where the soil was moist or dusty. In a little he ceased to look for the tracks, excepting at long intervals, for they led straight ahead, keeping to the path through the wiry grass, straight toward the lake. At noon he stopped to eat and smoke his pipe. And then again he pushed on.

He was tired now, but he gave no respite to the muscles which had been greatly taxed after a night of wakefulness.

Finally, a little after noon, he came to the lake shore, where the trail ran close to the water's edge, and at the base of the cliffs which rose a perpendicular twenty feet here, fifty feet there. And when he had drunk of the clear, cold water and had turned from looking out across the mile of dimpling crystal, mountain fringed, he made a discovery, a discovery which came very close to costing him his life.

Rising straight up through the clear air above the cliffs at his side was a thin wisp of smoke, such as climbs upward from a little camp-fire. His heart beat quickly at sight of it. It was back from the cliffs maybe a quarter of a mile, he judged. There must be a sort of table-land up there. There he would find the man he had followed. He saw that the tracks had come to the lake here ahead of him; that they continued northward along the shore. But again he left them, again to make a short cut, and began working his way up along the cliff-side. Clinging with his fingers to seams and crevices, driving the toes of his boots into the cracks which they could find, he drew painfully, slowly toward the top.

He was already so close to the edge above that he could almost reach it with a hand thrust up as far as he could reach, with fifteen feet between him and the ground below. He was straining every muscle, his face tight-pressed to the rocks, reaching up for the rough hand-hold which just defied him, when he was startled by a sound coming clearly to him from below—the unmistakable sound of the dip of a paddle.

He saw the trap he had blundered into. As he was, he could not turn, could not draw a gun from his belt. There he was, clinging to the face of the cliff, a mark to be seen from across the lake, with no hope of being overseen by the man who in a moment would drive a canoe around the rocky point a few yards away, who could shoot him in the back as easily as lift a finger.

Again he strained upward, and at last he succeeded in grasping the rock which protruded from the edge above, and drew himself up. Then he heard a cry from below, a cry as of warning; the rock came away in his hand, he clutched wildly to save himself, then plunged headlong, twisting as he fell. As his body had struck he felt a swift-driven pain through his head, and lost consciousness in a black nothingness.

Luckily for him the fall had been broken for he had twisted his body so that a part of his solid weight struck upon his shoulder, For life was still in him, and came back little by little. He tried dizzily to lift his head and could not. But he could turn a little to the side so that he could see the lake. There was the canoe, its paddle floating in the water. And coming toward him …

It was all so vague; he was so dizzy, the blackness wavered so like a misty veil in front of his eyes! For a little he would not believe that his mind was clear yet, that he was not wandering. For coming toward him was a girl; a girl clad in rough, coarse cloth, made into a short skirt and sleeveless blouse; a girl whose long braided hair was scarcely a deeper, richer brown than her bronzed cheeks, as brown as an Indian maid, but with great, fearless gray eyes. She came swiftly to his side and dropped down upon her knees, flinging back the thick braid which had brushed across his breast.

"I tried to call, to tell you!" she was saying, her low-toned voice coming to him clearly through the singing in his ears. "Are you very badly hurt?"

He didn't answer at once, but stared up at the fresh, girlish beauty of her, frowning to clear the mist from his eyes, telling himself that it was impossible.

She leaned closer and put her quick light hands upon his head. He felt a little shudder run through them. And then, before he could speak, she sprang up, ran to the lake and came back to him with water in her two hands. She bathed the cut, washed the blood away and, ripping a strip of cloth from the hem of her skirt, tied it about his head in a rude bandage.

"I thought—" he began, groping for words.

"Yes, yes!" she broke in. "You could not know how crumbling, how treacherous to the climber those rocks are up there. I tried to warn you. Are you very much hurt?"

"No, I don't think so," he answered, still frowning. And then, "You—where did you come from?"

She laughed, sitting back from him—her hands clasped about her two knees, her chin tip-tilted, a glimpse of her round throat telling that the bronze and copper of her coloring were not racial, that the slender body was of wonderful white and pink.

"No, you're not badly hurt. Or you wouldn't be wondering about other folk."

With an effort of will he drew his eyes away from her and turned them out across the lake. He had come to find a man, the man who had killed his partner; and instead, this was what he had found. This Naiad of a creature who was no shy backwoods lass, tongue-tied and blushing, but who looked at him with clear, amused eyes.

Was Johnny Watson wrong about this Devil's Pocket, after all? He had said that few men ever came into it; that they never came back; that they never lived here. Then how came this sparkling, radiant woodland maid here? Where had she come from now in her light canoe? Where was she going? Were there others?

Slowly his eyes came back to her.

"I didn't know any one lived here. I thought"

"Then what brought you here?" she asked.

"I came looking for—some one."

And then, realizing that this statement contradicted the one he had just made, he said by way of explanation:

"I meant that I did not know that womenfolk ever penetrated so far into the wilderness. Miners, I know, lone prospectors, get into all corners of the earth."

"And womenfolk?" she challenged him. "Are there then any places where men have led that their womenfolk have not followed them?"

He again tried to sit up, but sudden blackness swept upon him and he fell back. The gleam of amusement went as swiftly from her eyes, which were once more deeply womanly, intensely feminine and soft. Her cool hand was upon his forehead, pushing back the tangled hair, smoothing it; and her voice, cooing, tender, came to him like a whisper out of a dream:

"You are hurt, badly hurt! Don't try to move. Just rest; be very still."

Once more she sprang up and ran to the lake shore to bring water in his hat. She wet his forehead, readjusted the bandage and let a little trickle of water run upon his wrists. In a moment he opened his eyes to look up at her, forcing a smile to meet her anxious gaze.

"Can you tell me," she said softly, "where you are hurt? You can't move?"

"I'll try again in a minute It's my whole side, the right side." He glanced down toward his hand. "I think the wrist is broken. I got it caught under me as I fell. I can't move it."

"It is swollen already." she told him after a brief inspection. "Poor fellow, how it must hurt!"

Then as professionally as a trained nurse might have done it she moved her hand down along his side.

"Where does it hurt most?" she queried, her eyes upon his. "The shoulder, isn't it?"

"Yes. Just a bad bruise, I think."

"I hope so. Now, do you think that after a while, when you have rested a little, you can manage to walk? Just a few feet?"

"Yes. But where'll I walk to?"

"Just to the boat. And I'll take you the rest of the way."

"And the rest of the way?" he asked curiously.

"You are a mighty inquisitive creature for a patient!" she smiled. "Where do you suppose? Home, of course!"