The trail of deception
only to find the ranch-house deserted. He went in and looked around.
On the floor of the main room, near a table, was the opened envelope
in which the note had been mailed.
McLean put the envelope in his pocket, a grin on his fat lips. No one
would ever be able to identify the penciled writing on that envelope,
and as far as the note was concerned, McLean was not afraid of that.
After satisfying himself that no one was at the ranch, he rode back
to Pinnacle City.
X
Near sunset, Jim Bailey began to take stock of his situation. He had
ridden miles, but had not seen a human being and just now he had no
idea where he was. He had lost all sense of direction, but strangely
enough, was not worried. The fact that darkness comes swiftly after
sundown had no terrors for him.
He rode along a cow-trail, angling up around the point of a hill, and
saw a group of buildings below him. He drew up, partly screened by the
tall brush. The place consisted of a roughly-built ranch-house, of two
or three rooms, a series of tumble-down corrals and a huge, sway-backed
stable. Two loose horses browsed around the littered yard.
As Jim looked the place over, two riders came in from behind the house,
traveling slowly. Suddenly one of them pointed out past the stable. A
moment later the other rider reined swiftly to the right and galloped
down past the corrals and drew up in the heavy brush between Jim and the
ranch-house. Jim could not see him, but sensed he had concealed himself.
The other rider dismounted, dropped his reins to the ground and went
into the house.
The actions of the two men seemed strange to Jim Bailey. In a few
minutes five riders came in past the stable and drew up at the house.
He saw the man come outside, bareheaded, and talk with them. After a
short conversation he went back, got his hat, climbed into his saddle,
and rode away with them.
Jim felt that these five men were one of the searching parties and that
this man had joined them. But why did the other one hide from them, he
wondered? After a few minutes he saw the other man ride back past the
corrals, dismount at the house and go inside.
Jim decided not to go down there. He had noticed there was a road
leading away from the ranch, and he surmised that it would lead to
Pinnacle City. The man was in there quite a while, but finally came
out, carrying a sizable bundle, which he tied on the back of his
saddle. The man seemed to be keeping watch of the surroundings and
after he mounted his horse he kept turning his head, looking things
over.
Then he turned his horse and headed back the same way they had come to
the ranch. Why Jim Bailey elected to follow this man, he had no idea.
He rode off the point of the hill and swung in behind the horseman who
rode slowly, but in the opposite direction from Pinnacle City.
Jim Bailey kept the man in sight through a long, brushy swale, following
a well-used cow-trail. It was growing darker all the time, but he could
still see the man after they went out of the swale. He was bearing off
across rough country, and Jim was afraid he would lose track of him. He
didn’t dare hurry. Objects became more indistinct, until suddenly he
realized it was dark. The last he saw of the other rider, he was heading
over some broken country, and holding a fairly straight line.
There was a full moon, but its effect was of little value this early
in the evening. Jim stopped and tried to take stock of his position.
After looking around he had no idea which way he had come. Irish was
perfectly willing to rest.
“If we go on,” Jim said aloud, “we can’t be more lost than we are
now. Just why I followed that man I don’t know, Irish. Well, he must
have a destination in mind and that is what I need most right now--a
destination.”
* * * * *
So Irish went on, dodging brush and piles of rock, circling brushy
washouts, until Jim suddenly realized that he was on the rim of a
mighty canyon. Far across the canyon he could see moonlight shining
on the cliffs. Somewhere a coyote lifted its voice in displeasure,
and Jim’s spine tickled a little. Another and still another added
their voices, until they sounded like gabbling geese.
Jim turned Irish gently and started along the rim. Stunted pines and
huge, gnarled manzanitas grew along the rim. The flinty rock scraped
under Irish’s shod hoofs. Suddenly a horse nickered ahead. The animal
was tied to a manzanita snag, standing full in the moonlight. It was
the horse Jim had followed.
He rode into the shadow of some small pines and dismounted. He tied
Irish securely and went back to the other horse. The rider was not
there, but Jim found an old trail down the sharp side of the cliff.
At that, it wasn’t much of a trail, but even in the moonlight he
could see the fresh scrapes of boot-marks.
Jim looked the situation over carefully. Twenty feet down, the trail was
in absolute darkness.
“Suppose Mary is down there,” he said to himself. “Suppose they hid
her down there. Why would that man go down the trail, unless he had
a very urgent reason--and what could the reason be? This man hid
from the posse, while the other went along. That, in itself, looked
suspicious.”
He looked at the moon, at the depths of the canyon, and added,
half-aloud:
“While asking questions, Bailey--what in the devil are you doing up
here--all alone--and lost?”
Shivering a little, he slid off the rim and started down the trail,
leaning in against the bank, carefully digging his high-heels into
the dirt and against the rocky projections. Jim Bailey was
frightened. The light had gone now, and he had to go slowly, feeling
his way. It seemed hours since he had left the rim. It was like
going down a slanting ladder, feeling ahead for each rung. Something
scraped against his cheek, and he stopped, groping around with his
left hand. It was a rope.
It was larger than an ordinary lariat, and he was able to discover
that it was tied around some sort of an old snag. Cautiously he
investigated. Just below him the trail broke almost sheer. Evidently
the rope was there to help men go down the impossible part of that
trail. Below was only a dark mass, like a lot of houses piled on top
of each other.
Jim took a deep breath, grasped the rope tightly, turned around and
went down slowly, his feet seeking purchase on the side of the wall.
It was hard on his hands, that rough rope, but he was making progress
slowly. He had gone down about a dozen feet, when he felt a heavy tug
on the rope. He thought for a moment that he had been discovered, but
a continuous tugging indicated that someone was coming up the rope.
Jim thought wildly of trying to go back, but it was impossible. One
of his flailing legs caught around the rope, giving it one turn, and
he started down fast. The rope burned his hands, but he didn’t even
feel it. Suddenly he crashed into somebody.
The rest of the descent was rather hazy for Jim Bailey. He lost control
of the rope with his left hand, his right was jerked loose and he went
into space for a few feet, landing in sliding rubble, to bring up
sharply on a smooth space, against a rock.
All he had heard from the other man was a startled curse when he had
crashed into him, but he knew the other was not far away. Jim realized
he had cut his cheek, because the blood was trickling into his mouth,
and his hands felt as though they had been burned. Still he was sure
no bones had been broken.
* * * * *
But Jim Bailey stayed put. He was in a dark corner and he was not going
to move until the other man started something. His gun had stayed in his
holster, and now he took it out. The feel of that gun was reassuring,
even if he knew he couldn’t hit anything with it.
Then he heard the other man off to his right. He was cursing in an
undertone, his rough clothes rasping against rock. Then he lifted his
voice to a conversational level and said:
“Who is it? _Quien es?_”
Jim did not answer. The man cursed some more, flinging rocks into the
dark spots. One barely missed Jim’s head, and it made him mad. He picked
up a shattered part of the rock and flung it back at the man. Judging
from the response, it must have registered, but the man wasn’t sure from
what direction it had come.
“Come out of there, or I’ll kill yuh!” rasped the man.
Jim thought he had been seen, but a moment later the man fired a shot,
almost at right-angles to where Jim was hidden. The man was evidently
searching out the darkest spots for his bullets. Jim hunched lower, the
old .41 gripped in both hands.
_Wham!_ The man fired again and the bullet smashed into the rocks almost
directly behind Jim, who swung the muzzle of his gun, shut his eyes and
yanked the trigger. The .41 blasted flame, almost jumped out of Jim’s
two-handed grip, and the hidden man yelped, either in pain or surprise.
“Don’t tell me I hit something!” exclaimed Jim, aloud.
The man didn’t say; he was cursing bitterly, and Jim heard him rasping
around over the rocks. Anyway, he wasn’t doing any more shooting. Jim
eased his position cautiously, watching further up the rocks, where the
moonlight streaked them with blue. From the sounds it seemed as though
the man was trying to get away.
Jim suddenly realized that if his enemy were able to get back to
that rope, and climb up to the trail, he might take the rope along.
Without the rope it might be impossible ever to get back to the rim.
The thought made him panicky for a moment, and he crawled out into
the moonlit strip. But nothing happened.
Trying to find his way back, he almost went over the sheer edge of the
cliff. Peering down, he could see, possibly a hundred feet below, to
where the moonlight streaked the rocks. He edged his way back and a
loose rock, the size of a football, crashed beside him. Several pieces
banged into him, but not against his head. Quickly he slid into the
heavy shadow again, thankful to be alive, but realizing that the other
man was above him now.
Jim worked cautiously now. He could hear the man once in a while, but
was unable to locate him exactly. Jim suddenly realized how tired he
was. His face was swollen, his hands swollen too, and he had bruises
too numerous to mention. He found loose rock, which gave under his
knees as he crawled carefully upward. He remembered that he had landed
in loose rock and dirt. Perhaps this was the place.
Above him he could hear the rasp and scrape of what sounded like someone
sliding on rock. He stood up, and something brushed his arm. It was the
rope again. He grabbed for it, but it was yanked out of his hands. The
man had reached the trail and taken the rope.
In sudden desperation Jim braced against the wall, cocked his gun,
gripped it in both hands and shot almost straight up. There was no
target, nothing to shoot at. He jerked back, losing his footing for
the moment, and a fraction of a second later a heavy object crashed
into him, and his consciousness went out in a shower of shooting
stars.
XI
He had no idea how long he was unconscious, except that the angle of
the moonlight had changed. He sat up, trying to remember where he was.
It was very confusing for a while, until memory came back. There was a
cut on his head, and a numb feeling in his legs, but the numbness was
caused by the twisted position he had occupied for an uncertain length
of time.
After a while he was able to move around, and he decided that no bones
were broken. Just below him on a moonlit ledge was a bright object,
which turned out to be a perfectly good six-shooter, three chambers
loaded. To the right was the edge of the cliff, where he had almost
fallen in the darkness. Suddenly he realized that the man had fallen