Once into the trees and moving, working away from the valley of the mine, we slowed down, holding to a steady pace. The snow had frozen, and we moved now across a good surface where there was no need for snowshoes.
The crude pair had been abandoned, as they were in bad shape anyway after the rough usage they had. As long as the cold held the snow would remain solid, but when it began to get warmer the ice beneath the snow, left from the sleet storm, would melt. Once that happened, travel would become impossible. At the lightest step, snow might slide, bringing down all the snow upon an entire mountainside in one gigantic avalanche. The cold was a blessing, severe as it was.
We traveled steadily. Nobody would be too anxious to investigate the mine, even when they began to believe we had escaped. And when they did investigate, they would start at once to seek for gold. Most of that in sight had been taken by me, and they were going to have to do some digging to get at the rest.
And before long they would have other things on their minds.
Time to time I stopped to give Ange a chance to catch her breath and ease her muscles. She didn't complain, and seemed to be holding up.
The moon was bright on the canyon wall when we came to the path down. Ange caught my sleeve. "Tell? Do we have to?"
"We have to."
I tried a foot on the trail. The frozen snow might make it a lot easier going down than loose snow over that sleet. Moving carefully, like a man walking on eggs, I started down.
Wind bit at exposed flesh, stiffening our muscles. The canyon below was a great open mouth of darkness. Above us the ridges and peaks towered pure, white, and glittering with wild beauty in the moonlight. It's rare in a man's Me to see such a sight, and I stopped for a minute, just taking it in. Ange was standing close behind, her hands on my back.
"I wish Ma could see that," I said. "She favors lovely things."
The wind gnawed at our faces with icy teeth, as we moved along. Snow crunched as we put our feet down, each step a lifetime of risk and doubt.
The path was scarce three feet wide, widening to four at the most but looking broader in spots because of the cornices of snow that hung over the lip. It was a steep path where every step had to be separate, the foot put carefully down, the weight rested gradually, and then the other foot lifted.
The sky above was amazingly bright; the moon made the hills and peaks like day. High above, on a frosty ridge where I hoped to be by daylight, the snow blew, throwing a brief veil across the sky. The snow hanging on the slopes above the trail made me mighty uneasy. Snow like that can start to slide on the slightest provocation, and with daylight it would become worse.
When we were halfway down, we stopped again, and Ange came up beside me. "You ready for it?" I asked her. They'll be coming soon, Ange."
"How long has it been?"
"Couple of hours ..."
We hit bottom with our knees shaking, and headed for the cave. By daylight they would realize we were gone. With the fire out, they would soon guess that we'd lit a shuck, and they would come a-helling after us.
We were almost to the cave before we smelled smoke. Catching a whiff of it, I pulled up short. Somebody was in the cave.
Stepping into the opening, gun up and ready, I found myself looking into the muzzle of a .44 gun. That gun muzzle looked as great as the cave mouth, as black as death itself.
"Mister," I said, "you put down that .44 gun. If you don't, I'm sure going to kill you."
And all the while he had the drop on me.
Chapter XIV
Newton was holding that pistol--that white headed kid I'd talked out of trouble back down the line.
He was lying on his back, looking sick, and the gun in his hand was shaky. A blanket was pulled over him, and I could see from the fire that he had been feeding sticks into it without getting up.
"What's the matter, Kid? You in trouble?"
He kept the gun on me. Could I swing that Winchester up in time to nail him? I was hoping I wouldn't have to try.
"Busted my leg."
"And they left you? That ain't hardly decent, Kid." Using up all the nerve I had in store, I put my rifle down. "Kid, put that gun away and let me look at your leg."
"You got no cause to help me," he said, but I could see he wanted help more than anybody I'd ever seen.
"You're hurt, that's cause enough. Maybe when you get well I'll have cause to shoot you, but right now I wouldn't leave no man in your kind of trouble."
I said to Ange, "You stay in the opening and keep a lookout. We may have to shoot our way out of here yet."
Taking the pistol from his hand, I pulled back the blanket. He had made a try at splinting his leg, but the splints had come loose. The leg was swollen and looked a fright.
I cut a split in his pants leg, and cut his boot to get it off. No cowhand likes to have a good pair of boots ruined, but there was no other way about it. Looked like a clean break a few inches below the knee, but those splints had been a lousy job. I cut some fresh ones, then I made a try at doing something to ease him.
I heated some water, and put hot cloths on that leg. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure how much good they'd do, but they would make him think he was being helped, a comfort to a man that's been lying alone, half-froze to death in a lonely cave.
"You drag yourself here?"
"They left me."
"That's a rawhide outfit, Kid. They aren't worth shootin'. You ought to cut loose from them and line up with a real bunch."
Breaking some sticks, I built up the fire, and all the time I was thinking what a pickle we were in. We had it bad enough, Ange and me, trying to take out over that ridge. And as if we weren't in trouble enough, we were now saddled with a man with a broke ... broken leg.
Folks might say it was none of my business, that my first duty was to get Ange out of here, and myself. It was nip and tuck whether we would make it or not--I'd say we were on the short end of the odds. The Kid had come with men who intended to rob me, probably murder me. And before that he had tried to pick a fight with me. Someday, somebody was going to have to shoot him, more than likely.
But left here, he would freeze to death before he could starve. There was no two ways about that. And none of that gold-hungry crowd would lift a hand to help.
Taking the axe, I walked down to the trees. The moon was gone now, but day was not too far off. Searching through a bunch of second-growth timber, stuff that had grown up after a slide had ripped it down, I found in a thick cluster of aspen just what I wanted, and cut two slim poles about eight feet long.
I carried them back to the cave, after trimming the branches off, and then took the axe and smoothed off one side. My axe was sharp and I'd split enough rails for fences back in Tennessee to know how to trim up a young tree. On the bottom end I made a bevel, curving the end upward a mite.
Going to the woodpile, I cut some crosspieces, notched the poles to take four of them, and then fitted them into the notches.
"What you fixin'?"
"You set quiet. Can't pack you out of here on my back, so I'm fixing a toboggan . . . such as it is."
"You'd take me out of here?" The Kid was not expecting any favors, seemed like.
"Can't let you lie here and freeze," I told him irritably. "Best thing you can do is stay quiet. If we get out at all, you'll be with us, but don't get your hopes up. Our chances are mighty poor."
For several minutes, while I wove some rawhide around the crosspieces, Kid Newton had nothing to say. Finally, he eased his leg a mite. "Sackett, you and that girl better take out. I mean, I'm no account. Why, I was fixin' to kill you back along the trail."
"Kid, you'd never have cleared leather. I wasn't hunting trouble, but I cut my teeth on a six-shooter."
"You can make it, you two. You're never going to get me over any trail on that sled."