“Hey! Did you see the whole thing?” exclaimed Lovell.
“No,” said Silver. “I see the saddlebag is missing. That’s all.”
“You see everything,” said Lovell gloomily, “even when I think that you’re seeing nothing.”
That unwilling compliment Silver passed over in silence. But he said afterward: “What was in the saddlebag?”
“That don’t make any difference,” said Lovell. “There was things in it that I couldn’t afford to lose—and it was stolen right here on your own mountain, right here under your nose!”
“Was there money in that bag?” asked Silver calmly.
“No matter what there was—it was mine!” exclaimed Jimmy Lovell. “What difference does it make—what there was in that bag?”
“It makes a little difference,” said Silver. “I need to know. Was there money in the bag?”
“Yeah, and what if there was?” asked Lovell, goose flesh prickling on his body as he felt himself approaching dangerous ground.
“Stolen money?” went on Silver.
“Damn!” cried Lovell. “You ain’t going to help me. You don’t want to help. You only want to ask questions!”
“I’m going to help you,” said Silver. “That is, I’ll help except in one case. But I want to know a little of the truth first. Was it stolen money?”
“I’ve been robbed!” cried Lovell woefully, “and you sit around and ask questions, is all you do!”
“You’re a thief yourself, Lovell,” said Jim Silver.
“Me?” shouted Lovell, and then he was silent, staring. At last he burst out: “What makes you think that “
“Everything about you,” said Jim Silver. “Your ways with your hands and your eyes. And besides, people who hate the world always have done harm in it. You hate the world, Lovell. I’ve never heard good words from you for any one. You’re as bitter as poison about every one.”
“I got my reasons,” said Lovell gloomily.
“I’m asking you again, was there stolen money in that bag?”
“Yes,” said Lovell suddenly. He made a gesture of surrender. “You wanta know—and there you have it. The money was stole! But,” he went on, shouting out the words in a fury, “it was taken away from me while I was with you—after you’d promised to watch out for me. I ask you, is that what a man has got a right to expect from Jim Silver?”
Silver raised his hand, and the other was silent.
“Who was the man that took the stuff away from you? Did he own it?”
“No,” cried Lovell. “He didn’t have no more right to it than… “
“Than you have?”
“I went through hell to get it! I’m in hell now!” groaned Lovell. “And all you do is ask questions.”
“One man got at you. What sort of a man?”
“How d’you know it was only one man?” demanded Lovell, curiosity getting the better of him for an instant.
“You wouldn’t resist more than one man,” answered Silver calmly. “And to-day you did resist.”
“I wish I’d split his wishbone for him,” snarled Lovell. “I had the chance, too, and my gun stuck in the holster.”
“You ought to file the sights off your gun,” suggested Silver, smiling a little.
“I can’t file a gun. I can’t shoot by instinct,” said Lovell. “You know that. I ain’t like you! And my gun stuck. Even then, I got right in at him.”
“He had a hard set of knuckles, eh?” suggested Silver.
“You know him? You met him?” asked Lovell. “You just been stringing me along all this while?”
“No,” answered Silver. “But I can see the knuckle marks on your temple.”
Lovell writhed his lips, but said nothing.
“You’ve come up here with stolen money. Another thief took the loot from you. You think I ought to get it back for you,” said Silver, slowly summarizing the case. “And, as a matter of fact, I don’t know what I ought to do.”
He fell into a moment of musing, and a thousand words rushed up in the throat of Lovell. For the first time he had real hope that he might be able to persuade the big man to help him. The trail, as far as Lovell was concerned, was lost long before; but Silver, with his uncanny eyes and sense of things, helped by the hair-trigger sense of smell with which Frosty was armed, might unravel older and harder trail problems than this one.
And then inspiration descended upon Lovell. He was choking with desire to appeal, but he gripped his teeth hard together and spoke not a word. He could see that something in the mind of Silver was working, however obscurely, on his behalf, and he was inspired to let that inward spirit react upon Silver instead of trying to push his own case.
Jim Silver began to stride up and down.
Then, pausing at the edge of the camp, he tipped back his head and sent a long whistle screeching through the woods. The sound was not great in volume to one close at hand, but along his nerves Lovell could feel the knifelike penetrating of the vibrations. The whistle ended, and the thin echoes presently were still.
Silver had called in the wolf, and that could only mean one thing.
Lovell stood up, stiff and trembling with hope and with fear.
Silver said to him: “This is the rottenest business that I’ve ever been mixed up in. I don’t know that I’m doing right. But if I promised to take care of you while you were with me on Iron Mountain—mind you, don’t remember having made that promise—then I’ve got to keep my word. I’m going to trace down that money and give it back to you, and then I hope you’ll get out of my sight and never make me rest eyes on you again.”
XVIII—DEATH IN THE AIR
When Wayland had gained the shelter of the rocks, he waited for a few moments, convinced that the riders would presently be at him. Phil Bray was off to the left, riding one horse. The other animal had to carry both Mantry and tall Dave Lister, but it had seemed able to keep up with the mustang which had but a single burden. And those three savage men would surely be at Wayland in another moment.
A full minute passed, while Wayland lay gasping, before he realized that he was being given the grace of a little intermission from danger. He ventured to look up above the rocks that were sheltering him, and he saw one horse in full view, another out of sight on the other side of the hill of rocks, perhaps. But of the three men he could see nothing.
Perhaps they had decided that his gunfire was a thing they did not wish to face, no matter how contemptuous they were of his ability to shoot straight.
Then hope, which had been dead, sprang up into a giddy and instant life in him. He wormed his way rapidly back among the rocks until he had gained the crest of the little heap. And the first thing that he saw beneath him was a hat floating among the boulders, as though it rested on water!
He tried a snap shot hastily at that sombrero, and it disappeared at once.
A moment later a heavy slug beat against the forehead of a rock at Wayland’s side. A stinging spray of lead whipped into his shoulder.
It merely grazed the skin, but the sting was as of hornets.
He withdrew to a little natural fortress at the top of the heap of rocks. Big boulders encircled him. He could sit at ease and peer out through the gaps. But he saw nothing, he heard nothing. He had to look up to see a sign of life, where a pair of buzzards were circling high up. He wondered, with a cold thrill of awe, what information their devilish instincts had given to them, and how near a death might be. Not so very far away, the carcass of a horse was stretched for their feasting, but perhaps this pair preferred meat of a rarer sort.
After a while he began to grow very thirsty.
Thirst in dry Western air progresses rapidly from a dryness of the throat to a fever of the brain. He hardly had noticed that he wanted a drink before he began to find it hard to swallow.