"Sufferin' snakes!" he muttered. "What made the old fool open up to that fella? Wonder whether he told him anythin' 'fore I come up? Hell! Mebbe he's goin' there now. I gotta see; Cal will keep."
Hurriedly he went to where he had hidden his horse, mounted, and set out after the C P man. The necessity for keeping under cover made pace impossible, but his quarry was in no hurry, and presently he espied him. The foreman had dismounted again and was gazing on a scene which, even to the most surfeited sightseer, could not but be awe-inspiring. A giant gash in the side of the mountain, resembling the mark left by a mighty axe-blow, provided a passage for the river. Prickly pear, catclaw, and other shrubs fringed the rims of the chasm for the most part, but there were a few spaces where the very brink could be approached. In one of these Sudden was standing.
The Sluice. The name was not an inapt one for this long, narrow stone trough with its spray-splashed, almost vertical, bare walls. Leaning forward, the puncher could see where the water entered, cascading over a fall of twenty feet, snow-white and glistening with points of fire like a stream of jewels in the rays of the sun, to drop into a yeasty smother of foam and spray, and then--as though it had finished with play--to roll on through the rift with the smooth, sinuous ease of a gigantic reptile.
"She must be some sight when Stormy sheds his winter coat," Sudden mused. He watched the fragments of froth as they eddied and swirled some forty feet below, and nodded understandingly. "Don't 'pear to be travellin' fast now, but she is; fella wouldn't have much chance in there, I reckon. Must be another fall below--that one ain't makin' all the racket."
Meanwhile, Riley, having found his man, had also dismounted and was creeping up on him. Save for keeping under cover, he had no need for caution, the roar of the river drowned every sound, and the foreman had no thought of company in that wild spot. The Circle B man's eyes were gleaming vengefully, and his brain was busy.
"Bet he's the on'y one the ol' fossil has yapped to," he muttered. "With him outa the way, Cal could be made to talk. Gawd! What a chance; wish I could swing it alone, but it's too big--I'll have to let King in." He looked round suspiciously as he suddenly realized that he was speaking aloud, and then he laughed. "I'm a plain damn fool," he went on. "Why, fella could shout an' yu wouldn't get a whisper. Here's where we even up for Whitey."
He had reached the last clump of foliage between himself and his unsuspecting victim, only a few yards separating them. For a moment Riley paused, his lips drawn back in a vulpine snarl, his slitted eyes gauging the distance he had to spring. Sudden, poised almost on the edge of the chasm, was rolling a smoke, his mind mulling over what the prospector had told him. If the Burdettes learned of the mine they would stop at nothing to get possession of the C P. He had warned California not to chatter, but he knew the type. Liquor would loosen his tongue and he would boast; many a miner who had made a lucky strike had lost all, even life itself, because he could not keep his mouth closed.
He had snapped a match alight and was applying it to the cigarette between his lips when a jarring thrust from behind sent him staggering towards the abyss. For an instant he tottered, trying to regain his balance, and then, realizing that he must fall, pitched headlong. Riley, crouching above, watched the body drop like a stone and plunge into the depths. It had been easy; three long strides, a push, and the deed was done. He waited till the puncher rose to the surface, dragged out his gun and fired--twice. He saw the man in the water fling up his hands, and sink. Dropping to his knees, he waited, scanning the stream closely; there was no sign. Riley stood up; his hands were shaking.
"Reckon I fixed yu, Mister Green," he said hoarsely. "Gotta go an' break the bad news to King now; he'll be some grieved--mebbe."
At the moment that he mounted and rode away the man he believed he had murdered slid his head above water and eagerly gulped air into his aching lungs. The initial plunge into the icy stream had driven the breath from his body and he had been forced to come up immediately. Then, though he had not heard the reports, he had seen the spit of the bullets in the water beside his head and gathered that the man above meant to make a job of it. Promptly sinking again, he swam beneath the surface, his own efforts and the powerful current taking him a considerable distance. Sudden was an expert swimmer, and water itself had no terrors for him. With his nostrils just clear he waited for the ominous "plop" of a bullet; it did not come, and he smiled grimly.
"Lucky for me I ain't red-headed or bald--that jasper would 'a' got me," he told himself. "Wonder who it was? Mebbe California got sorry he talked so much, but I'm bettin' it was a younger an' stronger man gave me that jolt."
Satisfied that the would-be assassin had departed, he raised his head and looked about. The dark walls between which the stream was swiftly swinging him held out no hope whatever. Rising sheer, they presented for the first ten feet a smooth, polished surface, the work of the springtime floods.
"I'll need wings to beat this proposition," Sudden reflected, adding sardonically, "an' I'm liable to get 'em, but it'll be too late."
Conserving his strength for the struggle he knew must come, he let the current carry him, content just to keep afloat. Soon he noticed that the reverberating roar of the river was becoming louder; that must mean only one thing --another fall, and he knew it could not be a little one. Desperately he searched the walls of his watery prison, but no crack or cranny affording hand- or foot-hold presented itself; a cat could not have climbed them. Then, as he swung round a bend, he saw a sight at which even the bravest might well have quailed.
Little more than a hundred yards ahead, the sides of the gully closed in, forming a narrow, tunnel-like passage through which the stream swept at incredible speed. Along the centre of this outlet Sudden could see a tumbled, boiling ridge of foam, tossing like the wind-worried mane of a huge white horse. He knew the meaning of that; rocks there--jagged teeth which would tear him to bits when the cruel current hurled him upon them. Even if he escaped this fate, the deafening thunder told him that it would only mean death in another form, beaten and pounded in the fury of the larger fall.
The prospect spurred the puncher to action; he now began to savagely fight the force he had hitherto submitted to, heading for the rock wall, where he hoped to find the current less powerful. It was not long before he realized that his efforts were futile. He was a strong man, his open-air life had endowed him with muscles of steel, but his soggy clothing and the numbing chill of the water werebeginning to tell, and against the terrific thrust of the torrent he was impotent. Fight as he might, he felt himself being forced nearer and nearer to that awful gully of death. Thrashing out with leaden limbs, his hand struck something, and he clutched desperately; it was a submerged needle of rock. With an effort he got his other hand to it and held on, though his arms seemed to be leaving their sockets. Conscious that he must soon let go from sheer exhaustion, he fought his way round to the up-stream side of the rock, and was immediately flattened against it. The pressure was enormous, but the position eased his aching muscles.
"Guess I know now how the meat in a sandwich feels," he mutttered, and made an heroic attempt to grin. For some moments he clung there, breathless and gasping, while the galloping stream, like a live malignant thing, strove to tear him away. He was now perilously near the danger-spot. Idly he watched the stump of a tree whirl past to vanish in the welter of warring waters, saw it leap into view again, white streaks showing where it had been riven on the rocks, disappear, and emerge once more still further shattered. Sudden knew that it would be spewed out of that deadly maw as splintered fragments. That would be his fate unless . . .