The Zane Grey Megapack. Zane Grey
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are they up to?” whispered Jonathan, as he and Wetzel lay close together under a mass of grapevine still tenacious of its broad leaves.
“Dicin’,” answered Wetzel. “I can see ’em throw; anyways, nothin’ but bettin’ ever makes redskins act like that.”
“Who’s playin’? Where’s Brandt?”
“I can make out Legget; see his shaggy head. The other must be Case. Brandt ain’t in sight. Nursin’ a hurt perhaps. Ah! See thar! Over under the big tree as stands dark-like agin the thicket. Thet’s an Injun, an’ he looks too quiet an’ keen to suit me. We’ll have a care of him.”
“Must be playin’ fer Mordaunt’s gold.”
“Like as not, for where’d them ruffians get any ’cept they stole it.”
“Aha! They’re gettin’ up! See Legget walk away shakin’ his big head. He’s mad. Mebbe he’ll be madder presently,” growled Jonathan.
“Case’s left alone. He’s countin’ his winnin’s. Jack, look out fer more work took off our hands.”
“By gum! See that Injun knock up a leveled rifle.”
“I told you, an’ thet redskin has his suspicions. He’s seen us down along ther ridge. There’s Helen, sittin’ behind the biggest tree. Thet Injun guard, ’afore he moved, kept us from seein’ her.”
Jonathan made no answer to this; but his breath literally hissed through his clenched teeth.
“Thar goes the other outlaw,” whispered Wetzel, as if his comrade could not see. “It’s all up with Case. See the sneak bendin’ down the bank. Now, thet’s a poor way. It’d better be done from the front, walkin’ up natural-like, instead of tryin’ to cover thet wide stretch. Case’ll see him or hear him sure. Thar, he’s up now, an’ crawlin’. He’s too slow, too slow. Aha! I knew it—Case turns. Look at the outlaw spring! Well, did you see thet little cuss whip his knife? One more less fer us to quiet. Thet makes four, Jack, an’ mebbe, soon, it’ll be five.”
“They’re holdin’ a council,” said Jonathan.
“I see two Injuns sneakin’ off into the woods, an’ here comes thet guard. He’s a keen redskin, Jack, fer we did come light through the brush. Mebbe it’d be well to stop his scoutin’.”
“Lew, that villain Case is bullyin’ Helen!” cried Jonathan.
“Sh-sh-h,” whispered Wetzel.
“See! He’s pulled her to her feet. Oh! He struck her! Oh!”
Jonathan leveled his rifle and would have fired, but for the iron grasp on his wrist.
“Hev you lost yer senses? It’s full two hundred paces, an’ too far fer your piece,” said Wetzel in a whisper. “An’ it ain’t sense to try from here.”
“Lend me your gun! Lend me your gun!”
Silently Wetzel handed him the long, black rifle.
Jonathan raised it, but trembled so violently that the barrel wavered like a leaf in the breeze.
“Take it, I can’t cover him,” groaned Jonathan. “This is new to me. I ain’t myself. God! Lew, he struck her again! Again! He’s tryin’ to kiss her! Wetzel, if you’re my friend, kill him!”
“Jack, it’d be better to wait, an’—”
“I love her,” breathed Jonathan.
The long, black barrel swept up to a level and stopped. White smoke belched from among the green leaves; the report rang throughout the forest.
“Ah! I saw him stop an’ pause,” hissed Jonathan. “He stands, he sways, he falls! Death for yours, you sailor-beast!”
CHAPTER XX
The bordermen watched Legget and his band disappear into the thicket adjoining the grove. When the last dark, lithe form glided out of sight among the yellowing copse, Jonathan leaped from the low cliff, and had hardly reached the ground before Wetzel dashed down to the grassy turf.
Again they followed the outlaw’s trail darker-faced, fiercer-visaged than ever, with cocked, tightly-gripped rifles thrust well before them, and light feet that scarcely brushed the leaves.
Wetzel halted after a long tramp up and down the ridges, and surveyed with keen intent the lay of the land ahead.
“Sooner or later we’ll hear from that redskin as discovered us a ways back,” whispered he. “I wish we might get a crack at him afore he hinders us bad. I ain’t seen many keener Injuns. It’s lucky we fixed ther arrow-shootin’ Shawnee. We’d never hev beat thet combination. An’ fer all of thet I’m worrin’ some about the goin’ ahead.”
“Ambush?” Jonathan asked.
“Like as not. Legget’ll send thet Injun back, an’ mebbe more’n him. Jack, see them little footprints? They’re Helen’s. Look how she’s draggin’ along. Almost tuckered out. Legget can’t travel many more miles today. He’ll make a stand somewheres, an’ lose all his redskins afore he gives up the lass.”
“I’ll never live through tonight with her in that gang. She’ll be saved, or dead, before the stars pale in the light of the moon.”
“I reckon we’re nigh the end for some of us. It’ll be moonlight an hour arter dusk, an’ now it’s only the middle of the arternoon; we’ve time enough fer anythin’. Now, Jack, let’s not tackle the trail straight. We’ll split, an’ go round to head ’em off. See thet dead white oak standin’ high over thar?”
Jonathan looked out between the spreading branches of a beech, and saw, far over a low meadow, luxuriant with grasses and rushes and bright with sparkling ponds and streams, a dense wood out of which towered a bare, bleached tree-top.
“You slip around along the right side of this meader, an’ I’ll take the left side. Go slow, an’ hev yer eyes open. We’ll meet under thet big dead tree. I allow we can see it from anywhere around. We’ll leave the trail here, an’ take it up farther on. Legget’s goin’ straight for his camp; he ain’t losin’ an inch. He wants to get in that rocky hole of his’n.”
Wetzel stepped off the trail, glided into the woods, and vanished.
Jonathan turned to the right, traversed the summit of the ridge, softly traveled down its slope, and, after crossing a slow, eddying, quiet stream, gained the edge of the forest on that side of the swamp. A fringe of briars and prickly thorns bordered this wood affording an excellent cover. On the right the land rose rather abruptly. He saw that by walking up a few paces he could command a view of the entire swamp, as well as the ridge beyond, which contained Wetzel, and, probably, the outlaw and his band.
Remembering his comrade’s admonition, Jonathan curbed his unusual impatience and moved slowly. The wind swayed the tree-tops, and rustled the fallen leaves. Birds sang as if thinking the warm, soft weather was summer come again. Squirrels dropped heavy nuts that cracked on the limbs, or fell with a thud to the ground, and they scampered over the dry earth, scratching up the leaves as they barked and scolded. Crows cawed clamorously after a hawk that had darted under the tree-tops to escape them; deer loped swiftly up the hill, and a lordly elk rose from a wallow in the grassy swamp, crashing into the thicket.
When two-thirds around this oval plain, which was a mile long and perhaps one-fourth as wide, Jonathan ascended the hill to make a survey. The grass waved bright brown and golden in the sunshine, swished in the wind, and swept like a choppy sea to the opposite ridge. The hill was not densely wooded. In many places the red-brown foliage opened upon irregular patches, some black, as if having been burned over, others showing the yellow and purple colors of the low thickets and the gray, barren stones.
Suddenly Jonathan saw something darken one of these sunlit plots. It might have been a deer. He studied the rolling, rounded tree-tops, the narrow strips between