“What brings you up here, Longlegs?”
“I’m up here for my health,” said Wayland calmly.
“You he!” said Mantry, his fine, insolent eyes dwelling on Wayland with a leisurely contempt. “You lie. You’re up here on a man trail and a treasure hunt.”
Wayland said nothing.
Mantry turned to Bray.
“What about it, Phil?”
Phil Bray grinned and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “The boy cashier, honest Oliver—he’s up here trying to find the stolen money. Trying to find the man who has the loot. Going to give it back to the bank—going to open that bank up again, and get his job back, and everything.” He sat up suddenly. “You—Wayland!” he barked. “What makes you think that you’ll find your man up here?”
“What makes you think that you’ll find him here?” asked Wayland.
Bray stared. “You won’t talk, eh?” he asked with dangerous calm.
“What’s the use?” said Wayland. “If I really knew where the man was, I wouldn’t be camping out here in the middle of the sky, would I?”
Dave Lister laughed suddenly. “That’s a pretty good one,” he remarked. “Out in the middle of the sky is about where he’s camped, too! Hey, Wayland, you don’t even know his name; and you never saw his face.”
“No,” admitted Wayland. “I never saw his face, and I don’t know his name.”
“What do you know?” asked Mantry angrily. “I know the look of him when he’s bent over a horse, riding fast,” said Wayland. “That’s all.”
“Not a lot, is it?” demanded Bray.
“No. Not a lot. But better than nothing,” answered Wayland.
“I kind of like this hombre,” said Bray. “He means something when he says it.” Then he added. “Look at here, Wayland. Open up and tell us why you picked on Iron Mountain for your hunt?”
“I’ve tried plenty of other places,” answered Wayland, “But I’ve always thought, ever since the robbery, ever since that fourth man got away, that he must have known ° this part of the world pretty well. I thought that because of the way he was able to fade out of the picture. We were right on his heels, but he got clean away from us. Then I thought that he would probably keep in hiding for a while.”
“Why? Why shouldn’t he step right out for the East?”
“For fear somebody had recognized him during the chase,” said Wayland. “I thought he’d lie low—for months, even, until all talk about the robbery was forgotten. And then he’d start on his long trip. Half a million dollars is worth a lot of care, I suppose. And if he were lying low in the mountains, he might pick Iron Mountain sooner than any other. Iron Mountain is cut to pieces with ravines. You could hide half a million men around here, let alone half a million dollars.”
“He has brains,” said Bray, nodding. “He’s got brains, and he uses them. Just the same, you’re wrong, partner. He didn’t duck for cover—^not right away. He took a chance on his face being known. But—well, we’re up on Iron Mountain for the same reasons you are, take it all in all. That’s a good reason for you to hit off on another trail, ain’t it?”
Wayland waited, silent.
“I might even say,” went on Bray, “that you have some reasons for starting off in a new direction—and keeping your mouth shut about seeing us up here.”
“You think you could trust him that far?” Mantry sneered.
“I’m taking the chance,” said Phil Bray.
Joe Mantry began: “Well, you’re a ...”
He left the word unsaid.
Wayland, rising, said:
“I’ll get off Iron Mountain, and I’ll keep my mouth shut. Besides, you can trust me. Bray. I know a white man when I see one.”
He stood up.
Bray took Wayland’s gun and gave it back.
“Can you use it?” he asked with a twisting grin.
“If I’m close up and have a lot of time,” said Wayland.
Bray laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
“A bird like you,” he said, “can always do a lot more than he thinks, or than other folks think. Now get out of here.”
Wayland got out.
XIII—AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
Wayland went straight down the side of Iron Mountain. In his heart there was a vast temptation to turn back and attempt to trace the three criminals in their pursuit of their treacherous fugitive, but Wayland had given his promise, and his word was sound as steel. So he went down the mountainside when the sun was rising and the forests were shut from view under a wavering set of clouds all burning with the morning light.
The glory ended when he entered the fog. All about him the wet, black pine trees were dripping. The burro found a way more readily than the man, and Wayland followed the little animal rather blindly, as he often had followed it before, since he began his strange pilgrimage.
Presently the fog was above their heads. It changed into breaking clouds that blew apart. In the mid-morning Wayland walked through a pleasant country of big groves, interspersed by green meadows, and the cheerful sound of running water was always in his ears. He wondered now at the years he had spent in the bank at Elkdale. He wondered at all men who live in cities, where space is rented by the cubic foot. Out here on the lower slopes of Iron Mountain, every living creature seemed to have a right to the ground it stepped on, and to some part of the blue sky overhead.
He looked upon himself and on his past life, and saw nothing but hollow failure. His boyhood ambition had been better—to get a patch of land and a few cows, and then watch the herd grow while he made pasture room for it, buying here and there in small parcels. That was a life that meant slow and patient work, but it meant days of free riding, also, and good air, and nights of sound sleeping. It meant filling the hands with something better than an accountant’s pen.
He was thinking of these things, of the futility of all his life, of the emptiness, the hopelessness of this quest of his, when May Rucker rode a roan mustang toward him out of a thicket of pine trees. She came on him as suddenly as a thought. He let the burro go wandering on, bobbing its head a little with every step, and he did not recover his wits enough to drag off his hat before she had dismounted before him.
He could hardly realize that she was May Rucker, the banker’s daughter. She was brown and rosy. It was hard for her to remain calm and sober, because smiling was sure to begin in a moment.
He had no idea how he should act, but she showed him. When he attempted to shake hands, she put up her face and made him kiss her. And she kept close to him, with her head bent back, smiling.
“You give up this silly business and come home with me,” she said.
“What silly business?” asked he.
“Chasing a will-o’-the-wisp and half a million dollars. Let the money go hang. Father has paid every penny to the depositors. And he still has the old ranch left, over and above. He’s lost ten pounds, and learned how to swear at a mustang all over again. He says that squirrels are the only good bankers, because they can eat their own accounts. Now you come back home with me and go to work.”
He stared at her, as though he were trying to swallow i her words with his eyes.
“I can’t go home with you,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I’ve got to stay out here.” He indicated the mountains with a vague gesture. “I can’t go in. I’ve got to stay out here.”
“You’re going to lose your wits, like a sheep-herder,’* she said, shaking her head and frowning a little. “Wake up, Oliver.”
“It shook up my wits a little, seeing you suddenly like this,” said Wayland.
“How would it shake them up if you happened to whang into the thief you’re hunting for?” she asked.