“Wayland,” said Bray suddenly, “you’ll get what you want, then. Tell us about the friend of Lovell?”
“His name is Jim Silver,” said Wayland.
Bray got up to his feet. He took the pipe out of his mouth and made a gesture that sent the ashes from the bowl flying out into a thin arc that hung an instant in the air.
“Silver?” he muttered. “Jim Silver?”
“That’s what Lovell told me.”
“Jim Silver?” echoed Dave Lister. “Then Silver will come down on our trail!”
“Steady,” said Joe Mantry. “You gents make me sick. Silver’s only flesh and blood, and he can’t see in the dark. We’re safe enough here till the morning. And if he sees us then, why, we’ll have a chance to see him, too, and if three can shoot as well as one, maybe we’ll nail that hombre and put an end to him!”
He spoke with a rising confidence, so that it was plain that the need of a fight was in his blood.
“We’ll stay here till morning,” said Bray slowly. He put the pipe back between his teeth and gritted them against the stem of it. “And then, in the morning,” he went on, “we’ll start trekking. We’ll split up the coin, and we’ll head every man for a different point on the compass.”
He fell silent again.
“What’s the main idea?” said Dave Lister, his voice running up sharp and high. “Split up in a pinch?”
“Because,” said Bray, “if he finds us all together, he’ll swallow us all at a bite. We’ve got no chance against him. But if we scatter, probably two of us will get away. One of us is pretty sure to, by traveling fast and keeping on going.”
“You’re that afraid of him, are you?” asked Joe Mantry, sneering again.
Bray looked at him with a vague eye.
“Don’t talk to me, Joe,” he said. “I’ve got to think.”
He sat down again, and was buried in thought. Then Wayland said:
“All right, boys. I’ve lived up to my side of the bargain. I’ll go now. I’m not afraid of the dark.”
Bray did not seem to hear, but Mantry laughed loudly. He crossed to Wayland, and, with a jab of his foot, drew attention.
“You poor fool,” he said, “we told you that we’d turn you loose, but we didn’t tell you when! You’ll stay put till we’re ready to handle you.”
Wayland stared at Bray, and the big man gave him no heed. He looked toward Dave Lister, and saw the tall fellow grinning as he strode back and forth.
There was no use in appealing to either of them, he understood. The double cross was perfectly apparent. There was nothing for Wayland to do but stare at the fire and wonder how many hours separated him from the death that would now surely come. He knew too much, and he had revealed too much. They would have to get rid of him. That swiftly running stream of snow water might be the answer.
XX—FOLLOWING FROSTY
It had seemed to Jimmy Lovell that he would never be able to set Silver in motion, but once that famous man had commenced to act, Lovell felt that all he needed to do was to sit back and take things easy. In the first place, he would merely bring Jim Silver to the place where he had last seen Wayland. Then he would simply watch Silver work. “But it’s going to be dark,” wailed Lovell. “It’s going t to be dark before long, and then you can’t do anything.”
“You show me the place where you met him,” said Silver, and mounted Parade. At the same time there was a rustling sound in the I brush, and Frosty came bounding out at them. There was enough light to show thin streaks of blood on his vest, and it was plain that even in this short absence the matchless hunter had managed to find food. When he saw his master on Parade, he sat down and pointed his nose at the man and ruffed out his mane. Lovell set himself to withstand the ghostly sound of the wolf howl. But it did not come.
Lovell was on his mustang by this time. They had broken camp in a very few minutes, because a Jim Silver camp never had many things lying about. A wolf can pause where it pleases and curl up for sleep, and Jim Silver seemed to be able to do the same thing.
So Lovell led the way down the slope to the spot where he had last seen Wayland.
The day was nearly dead now, but out of the ground, lingering on the grass, there seemed to rise a thin luster. The dew was not yet falling, but the gleam of the green was as though it were wet.
Lovell pointed out the important features. Here he had ridden the horse; here he had shot the rabbit; there Wayland had stood among the trees; there he had stalked out; here he had confronted Lovell; there they had wrestled on the ground, there where the crushed grass was slowly erecting itself again; and, finally, in these places the little burro had gone away, with its master following after him.
While this explanation took place, Silver kept Parade and the wolf at a distance. As it ended, he brought in Frosty with a gesture and showed him first the impressions of the feet of Wayland, letting him M his nostrils with the scent. Afterward he picked up the trail of the burro. Then he mounted.
It was deep twilight now, and Frosty struck off along that trail at a steady lope that kept the horses at a trot or a canter. Only now and then the wolf paused, scented right and left, or threw his muzzle high into the air, and then went rapidly on again.
Another picture came suddenly into the mind of Lovell —of himself fleeing for life, and this relentless pursuer following over a trail that the eyes of no man could hold, with Parade striding in the rear, and Jim Silver and his guns mounted on the stallion. It was a partnership, Lovell felt, of more than human power. Dread made his scalp prickle, and anger worked in his heart. Even while Silver was laboring for him, Lovell felt a finer hatred distilling in his soul.
They got into rough country, where it was difficult to follow the wolf by sight, for the gray of his coat seemed to fit into the color of the shrubbery and of the rocks. He glided like a vanishing thought before them.
Even then Lovell did not have to worry. For Parade would follow Frosty by the scent, easily. So, blindly conducted, Lovell went forward, his mustang on a constant lope now, until they were journeying up a big canyon with a flat floor. In the midst of this Frosty stopped. Parade halted a moment later beside him, snorting softly, and stamping.
“Something strange,” said Silver, “but probably it’s not dangerous. Frosty won’t go closer unless I lead him in.”
He rode Parade forward a short distance, then turned in a moment and called:
“The body of a dead horse. That’s all. But there’s one strange thing about it. The saddle and bridle are still on it!”
“Somebody was in a hurry. How did it die?” asked Lovell.
Silver was already on the ground, lighting a match. Lovell did not even dismount. It was useless, he felt, to add his acute observation to the all-seeing eyes of Jim Silver.
“Shot,” said Silver. “A rifle bullet at fairly long range.”
He dropped the match. His stem face disappeared in the night once more. Again Lovell had the strange, shuddering feeling that this man was pursuing him, not Way-land.
Frosty, in the meantime, had slipped up to the dead carcass, sniffed at the saddle, and now uttered a faint howl and started on back trail.
“He’s afraid!” exclaimed Lovell.
“Not afraid. He’s telling us that our man left this horse and went back down the canyon.”
“But Wayland had a burro, not a horse!”
“Well, if he wanted a horse, he had money enough with him to buy it, I suppose.”
“Or he might steal it. And then somebody started shooting at him?”
Silver had lighted another match and with it was running back up the canyon floor in the direction from which i the dead horse had evidently been coming. Parade, his mane and the reins of his hackamore tossing, followed his master closely. But Frosty remained in the distance, sitting down and watching Silver’s proceedings. There in the starlight, the big wolf looked like a dim ghost.