Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/241

225 "Fine," growled Turk savagely. "A smashed leg always is. Turn me over a little. Bill, so's I can get a chaw; it's in my tail pocket."

Steele, seeking to move quietly, gripping the rocks with both hands, searching here and there in the pitch dark for toe hold, made his way slowly and painfully down into the river's bed. Save for the rushing of the confined water in the flume now above him all was still again. Not even the lone rifle broke the silence.

Only when he felt underfoot the thin trickle which still marked the old water course did he know that he had come to the bottom, and relax his grip on the sheer bank. He took the automatic from his pocket, thrusting it into his trousers band. Then began the slow climbing up on the other side.

At last, after many a half slip, after many a pause as he unwittingly sent a cascade of noisy stones rattling down behind him, he came to the top of the southern bank, bringing his head up slowly, staring with baffled eyes into the thick shadows before him. He planned to come upon Embry from above, it being his thought that the lone rifleman was still opposite the Goblet. But in utter darkness nothing is certain but uncertainty; Embry might have heard his approach, might have guessed at it, might be not ten steps away now with rifle butt at shoulder.

Well, a man must take his chance when it is offered him, and Bill Steele drew himself up, his gun at last in his hand. For a moment he stood, listening. Then there came to his eager ears the snap of a rifle, the