He accepted all of this pain naturally and simply, because he felt assured that punishment of this sort must follow when a man has failed in his duty as he had failed on that day when three robbers with guns walked into the Elkdale bank. The thought that there was fate in the thing—above all, that he should hardly have finished hanging on the wall the picture of fearless Jim Silver before his own reign of terror began! Wayland kept the calm and smiling face of that man before him now. He knew that he could not be what Silver was, but he also knew that he could strive to lengthen his steps in the right direction. That was what he was doing now.
He descended, at last, not to actual timber line, but into the lower hollows, where the tough mountain shrubs were growing in specially favorite dells. There he had camped on this night, building a fire, putting at hand a sufficient quantity of fuel to refresh it, and then lying down.
He fell into a sound sleep. He was so exhausted that he could have slept on the back of a pitching mustang. But he wakened in the first gray of the morning, stiff with cold.
He got up, stamped to get the blood back into his feet, and then lay down to try to get another hour of sleep. But the bitterness of the cold, driven through him by the wind, refused to let him rest. He had to sit up. dizzy with weariness, and fairly hug the fire in order to get some of its heart into his shuddering body.
He was in that posture still when his burro—he was making his search for the robber on foot—jerked up its head from the scanty grass where it was browsing, and looked steadily toward its master and beyond him. At the same time a voice behind Wayland said:
“Take it easy, stranger. We want some of your chuck. We don’t want anything else you’ve got. Stick up your hands!”
Wayland stuck them up. He wanted to laugh. He, the hunter after the bandit who had the loot of the Elkdale First National, was again held up, and sat like a fool with his arms above his head, at the mercy of more robbers.
He turned his head and saw three men standing in the gray of the morning light. They had led their horses around the corner of the bluff that should have given shelter to Wayland and his fire. But the wind had seemed to blow all night right out of the heart of the sky. These three men, with the morning mist about them, and in the dull-gray light of the dawn, looked larger than human to Wayland. The tallest of the three advanced &st, saying:
“You fool, why didn’t you build two fires and sleep between ‘em?”
Oliver Wayland said nothing. He merely gaped. It was the simplicity and the comfort of the idea that stung him to the bone.
“Is he heeled?” asked the deeper and heavier voice that came from the second of the trio.
The tall man came closer to Wayland, ran his hands over his clothes, and removed a Colt .45 that hung from his belt. He slept with that gun, as part of the necessity of getting used to it. He had never done much with weapons of any kind in his entire life. But he had had to bring along with him a weapon of some sort when he advanced along the trail of his present quarry. He had practiced with it every day, pointing it quickly, then leaning to see how closely it was aimed at the target. He blazed away a few rounds daily, also, and told himself that his marksmanship was constantly improving.
“Yeah. He’s heeled,” said the man who had fanned Wayland.
“Boys, it’s Wayland! It’s the cashier!” said the second man.
The mention of his own name peeled a veil from across the eyes of Wayland. He looked at the three and knew them, suddenly, to be Phil Bray, Joe Mantry, and Dave Lister, who had escaped from the prison on the very night when he had gone there to try to persuade them to betray their own treacherous fourth companion, who had disappeared with the bank loot.
If he had picked over all the men of the world, he could hardly have chosen three more dangerous ones for encounter. They knew him, and he knew them. That was enough to make three men of their type murder him to insure his silence.
Something more than the cold of the wind ate into him.
“Yeah, it’s Wayland, all right,” said Lister, who had taken the gun. “Whatcha know about that. Wayland!”
“He’s out of luck,” said Joe Mantry casually. “But where’s his chuck?”
“Where’s your chuck, Wayland?” asked Bray.
“There,” said Wayland, nodding. “In that tarpaulin.”
Mantry instantly uncovered it.
“A rind of bacon; some hard-tack; no coffee. Nothin’ but tea. The food ain’t fit for a dog!”
“I thought I’d better travel light,” explained Wayland.
“Put down your hands,” said Bray. “You’re not dead yet—and we’ve got your gun. You’re not dead yet.”
“No, he’s only dying,” said Joe Mantry, taking a kick at the tarpaulin that he had thrown back over Wayland’s provisions.
Wayland turned his pale, handsome face toward Mantry and said nothing. Joe Mantry, of all the three, had the convincing record as a man-killer.
“Why is he dying?” asked Bray.
“Look, chief,” answered Dave Lister, the penman, “you wouldn’t turn him loose, would you? After he’s seen us up here? After he’s spotted us? You wouldn’t turn him loose to ask for trouble, would you?”
“Yeah. The whole regular army would be up here after us in a coupla shakes,” suggested Mantry. “What good is he, anyway?” he added bitterly. “There ain’t any blood in him. And he eats dog food. Gosh, but my stomach’s empty!”
“You kill him and you gotta kill a thousand,” said Bray.
“We’re not going to kill a thousand,” agreed Lister. “But look the facts in the eye. He knows us. He’ll spread the news that we’re up here.”
“You kill him and you gotta kill a thousand,” said Phil Bray.
“You ought to put an article in the paper,” suggested Mantry sardonically. “You ought to send it in to the society editor somewhere. ‘Up on Iron Mountain, enjoying a few weeks of rest, are Philip Bray, Joe Mantry, and Dave Lister, the murderers and bank robbers, recently of Atwater prison.’ That’s the sort of news you ought to publish. As good publish it as turn Wayland loose.”
Wayland said nothing. Instead, he stared fixedly at the face of Bray, who seemed puzzled and kept shaking his head.
Suddenly Bray reached a decision.
“You can’t go around murdering everybody you see that knows you,” he declared. “You kill him and you’ve gotta kill a thousand,” he reiterated for the third time. He waved his hand. “Get the idea out of your heads, boys,” he concluded.
“This is the devil of an idea,” agreed Joe Mantry lowering his head in a significant manner and glowering at his chief.
Dave Lister jabbed an elbow into Mantry.
“Quit it, Joe,” he said. “Quit it, will you? The chiefs always right. He’s gotta be right.”
“All right,” agreed Mantry. “We’ll say he’s right again, but “
He wound up by shrugging his shoulders.
Bray answered: “When you think I’m wrong, you can vote me down, the pair of you. There’s certainly more than one way of crossing a mountain.”
Joe Mantry, however, argued no more. He merely said: “Wayland, you ought to be dying, but Bray’s brought you back to life.”
Wayland felt it would be foolish to offer any thanks. In the meantime, the three set about cooking up the meager provisions of Wayland for a breakfast. They worked with remarkable speed and precision. No orders were given by Bray. Every man knew exactly where to turn his hand. And presently Wayland was being asked to sit down at his own fire and partake of his own food.
He did so, still in a silence.
The three ate ravenously, rapidly. Then they lay back and smoked cigarettes. There had been practically no conversation for nearly an hour before Joe Mantry asked: