The Spook Hills Mystery/Chapter 10

They went back to camp, looking frequently behind them; fearfully, too, if the truth were known. They offered to relieve Williams from his mournful vigil, and were repulsed with such a tone of finality that they could not well insist. So Spider and Shelton convoyed the girl to her camp wagon and left her there, while Spooky and Jim went back to the Sunbeam.

Spider did not feel like leaving her altogether alone, he told Shelton when they had ridden well away from the wagon. A man who would kill as Jake Williams had been killed, he asserted, might do any horrific thing. And the girl had threatened Burney, and had probably won his enmity even though he had given no sign of it in their presence. For that matter, neither had he given signs of any murderous intent toward the Williams men.

"I'm going to stick around till morning, anyway," said Spider. "And if he does come back it'll just about be a case of shoot first and ask him what he wants afterward. I believe the man's crazy myself."

"You believe he did it, then?" Shelton questioned in an awed tone. "It doesn't seem possible. Burney always acted"

"Maybe it ain't possible," Spider retorted glumly. "But there's the dead man—you seen him yourself, and you seen how he was killed. And you seen the tracks leading up the hill behind him."

"Say, those tracks—they won't be there to-morrow," Shelton said impulsively. "Spooky scraped them all out with his foot as he went past, like you scraped out the tracks over there where we found old Dutch."

"Hunh!" said Spider. "But all the same, I could swear I seen Burney up on top of the hill looking down at us."

"But if he went to Pocatello, how could he get back so quickly?" Shelton eased his long legs down in a sandy spot where they had stopped in plain sight of the white-topped wagon and yet far enough away to relieve the girl from any sense of being watched.

"If he went to Pocatello," Spider repeated meaningly. "I kinda believe he did go. But if he did he sure didn't stay long. You seen his tracks, didn't you? And a man can't leave his tracks around where he ain't been, can he?" He snuggled down behind a rock, and made himself a cigarette where the glow of it could not be seen at the wagon. "Everything points to Burney," he went on musingly after he had smoked for a time in silence. "I believe it was him done it. At the same time" He settled his hat more firmly upon his head. "At the same, time I've got a hunch he didn't. There's something in this deal that don't look right to me. Unless you lied or was crazy, there's things that Burney don't seem to fit into."

"I know it," Shelton conceded gloomily. "He doesn't fit into any of it, as I see it; anything except those tracks. And it has occurred to me," he added, moving closer to the other, "that you or I or anybody could put on a pair of Burney's boots and make big tracks, Spider. It would be a clever way of hiding our own tracks, wouldn't it? And if these Williams men had an enemy, it would be a pretty smooth way of shifting suspicion"

"It would if he could take as long steps as Burney," Spider cut in dryly. "You couldn't step in them tracks, Shep—and you're taller than the average man."

"A fellow could step that far, by"

A scream—a shrill, woman's scream—brought them both to their feet, their hearts thumping wildly. They ran, leaping long through the sage and rocks. Shelton stumbled over a root and went headlong, and Spider went on. Without knowing why he did so he shouted—and in the faint starlight a great dark form left the wagon and went tearing off along the ridge. Over where the sheep lay huddled the dogs barked and barked, with growlings rumbling between the sharp staccato of their clamor.

Spider reached the wagon out of breath and weak with terror for the girl. "Vida!" he gasped when he could lay hand on the wheel. "Vida—for God sake, girl!"

From over his head she answered him, pushing open the narrow door in the canvas wagontop. "Oh, I—oh, Spider! He—came!" She crouched in the doorway, her hand reaching out so that she could touch Spider's shoulder for comfort. "How did you happen to be here?" she asked breathlessly, after a minute.

Spider pulled himself together and climbed up beside her. "We never left," he said. "We was standing guard. I was afraid maybe What did he do?"

Vida shivered. "I was trying to get to sleep, and I couldn't. The whole thing just—haunts me. And then I heard something outside, and I listened—and I was so scared I didn't seem able to move, not even to reach for my gun. And then this door was pushed open, and—I screamed. But he couldn't get through it like anybody else could. He was too—big. He blocked the whole doorway. And then you hollered. And he backed out and I heard him running. Oh," she shuddered, "it's—horrible! He—might have killed me like he"

"He's crazy," Spider muttered. "Burney wouldn't hurt anybody in his right mind."

"That don't help any," she retorted sharply. "Oh, he's—horrible!"

She broken down then completely. She sat crouching in the wagon, just inside the narrow doorway, and sobbed hysterically, her arms folded upon the doorsill. Outside, Spider tried to calm her with a diffident pat now and then on her heaving shoulders and with muttered imprecations and sympathy strangely intermingled.

It was too dark to get out after the marauder. In that faint light which the stars gave it was too dark to see anything clearly. From where he stood beside the wagon door, the ridge from which he had run was a vague blotch against the horizon. Shelton he did not see or hear anywhere. At first that did not mean anything to him; he had forgotten Shelton in his fear for the girl and in the reaction from his fright. When he did remember, he expected momentarily to see him appear out of the dark. When he did not come, and Vida's sobs had lessened to quiet weeping, Spider called to him. He waited, called again, and whistled.

He turned to the girl and laid his hand on her arm. "Say, Shep was back there with me," he told her uneasily. "We both started running when we heard you holler, and he ain't showed up yet. I guess I better go back and see what's wrong. And," he added more uneasily, "I guess you better go along with me. I don't like to leave you here."

Vida seemed at first not to hear him, but soon she got up and went back into the vague interior of the wagon. In a minute she returned with her hat and a man's coat—her father's probably—which she was buttoning when she came to the door. In one hand she held her six-shooter. She let Spider help her down, and she closed the door carefully. She was crying still, in a subdued, tired way that went straight to the big, soft heart of Spider. He took her by the arm and led her slowly back toward the ridge.

"Yuh don't want to feel so about it," he said bashfully. "A man's got to go when his time's called. And as for you—why, I reckon we'll take mighty good care you don't get hurt. Anyway, we'll round Burney up to-morrow. He can't git away. He's so ungodly big he can't beat it outa the country and hide anywheres in town, no more than an elephant could hide in a cabbage patch. And if he stays in these hills we'll git him."

"I know it," she assented apologetically. "I ain't a coward, either. I could kill him myself if I had a chance. I—I guess it was just nerves. I don't cry very often. If I cried every time I was unhappy," she said impatiently, "I wouldn't have time for anything else. But—I did get an awful scare. I—I thought I was alone, except for the herder over there with his sheep, and I knew he wouldn't hear anything. They're bedded down out there on the flat, where nothing can't sneak up on 'em so easy after this. So I—I"

"I know. I'd oughta told you we was going to hang around close. But I was afraid maybe you wouldn't like it. I wasn't so awful much acquainted, and I didn't know"

At that they came upon Shelton, lying just as he had fallen, face down in the sage. With lighted matches Spider saw what had happened. He had struck his head on a rock, and he was stunned; how badly they had no means of knowing.

Between them they carried him to the wagon and got him inside. By the light of a lantern they bathed and bandaged the purple lump and laid him out comfortably on Vida's bed. After that they sat and talked, and waited for the sun.