“He’s got no more right to the money than I have!” said Lovell. “It’s mine!”
“Is Wayland an honest man?” asked Silver.
“The fool ain’t got the sense to be anything else!” snarled the whisper of Lovell.
He saw Silver turn a little toward him, as though the last words had a peculiar weight in the mind of the big man.
“Wait here,” said Silver. “I’m going to explore.”
He pulled the reins over the head of Parade and let them hang. Then he disappeared among the trees to the left.
He was gone during one of the longest half hours in the life of Lovell. During that time, the tall man who had been striding back and forth and who must have been Dave Lister, went back beside the fire and lay down. A smaller guard took up the rounds, stepping with a quick and light movement, his head alert and uneasy as he walked. That would be Joe Mantry. Lovell felt that he could tell the step of the man-killer by his silhouette—tell it in an army of others.
The whole trio by the camp fire had now disappeared by the rocks. Perhaps they were already asleep when a shadow stirred near Lovell and he saw a slinking form and the green, phosphorescent light of the eyes of a beast of prey. Another form loomed immediately behind. It was Silver and Frosty, of course. And a shudder that was beginning to be familiar in the body of Lovell, like an accustomed nightmare, ran through his flesh.
Silver said: “I’m going to try to get at the camp.”
“You might as well try to walk up to a tiger in broad I daylight,” said Lovell. “That gent who’s walking on guard is a tiger. Lemme tell you something, Silver. You’re famous for gun work, but at your best you never were no better than Joe Mantry.”
“I’m going to try to get at the camp,” answered Silver calmly. “You go back to where we left your horse, and move it over to the creek’s bank. Come up the bank slowly, toward the camp. If you hear an outbreak of voices and shooting, you’ll know that I’ve been spotted. If you hear my whistle and the noise of a horse, you’ll know that I’ve gotten to Parade, But this is going to be work, I’m trying to get the stolen money. I’m trying to get Wayland, too.”
“Trying to get Wayland? Silver, don’t be a fool I and——”
“Do what I tell you,” said Silver. “And if I get Wayland free, then there will be three against three, and I suppose we may be able to handle them.”
Handle them? Yes, but first how could Jim Silver reach that well-posted, well-guarded camp?
The very soul of Lovell was consumed with curiosity.
But Silver, tossing the reins back over the pommel of the stallion’s saddle, went off, followed by the horse, preceded by the gliding ghost. Frosty. They faded silently into the woods, and Lovell turned back to get to his own mustang.
He felt a vague content. Whatever happened, there would be trouble for both Silver and the three. If they slaughtered one another to the last man, it would be perfectly pleasing to Lovell. He would almost give up his hope of the money for the sake of such an ending to his schemes.
Silver brought the big horse close to the bank of the stream. There, where a thicket of brush grew densely as cover, he left Parade again and posted Frosty, with a whisper, to guard the big horse. Then he returned in a wide semi-circle through the woods to the opposite side of the clearing.
He had very little time, for the moon was about to rise, he knew. At his side, down a shallow bank, ran the road that he was to follow to the camp. It was the coldly flickering stream of snow water.
He took off his boots and tied them, together with his guns, about his neck. Those well-oiled guns and the ammunition in them would defy the effect of water for a short time, at least. And whatever he did would have to be consummated rapidly.
So he entered the water.
It was so cold that the first touch of it seared his flesh like fire. Yet he lay down in the current. It was rapid and whirling, but so shallow that his hands could touch the bottom most of the way. And that sliding stream bore him now down toward the camp of the three and their fortune in stolen money, and their captured man.
He let the current bear him until he saw a dull red flicker of light across the surface. Then he pulled himself out until his head and shoulders were free of the stream.
He was so cold that he knew that he was nearly helpless. A child of ten could have handled him, frozen as he was. And yet he was approaching a threefold danger.
“Man-killer,” Lovell had called Joe Mantry. And the catlike quickness and lightness of the steps of Mantry, as he walked back and forth on guard, made Silver confident that Lovell had not misnamed his man.
He could see Mantry now, moving rapidly, pausing an instant each time he came to the end of his beat. Merely the sound of the water that was running, now, out of the clothes of Silver, seemed sufficient to attract the attention of such an ear.
But Silver was able to drag himself clear of the water, unheeded, and so like a snake to twist and wriggle himself forward until he was inside the nest of rocks.
There was still both flame and spreading heat from the camp fire. The heat itself was a blessing to Silver. He had a great, mad impulse to rise to his knees, guns in hand, and murder sleeping men, so that he could safely extend his arms around that fire and be warmed to the core of his heart.
One man lay on his back, with lean, long face looking as pale as stone. Another lay with his head resting on his saddle and looking very uncomfortable. But he was snoring softly, regularly in his sleep. Silver blessed that noise of snoring. It might cover a thousand other guilty noises of his own making, before long.
The third man was the prisoner. He was tall, also, and even in sleep, Silver thought that he could see pain and resolution in the face of Wayland.
With all his heart he was ready to believe what Lovell had said—that this was an honest man.
He crawled closer until he could whisper in the ear of the prisoner:
“Wake up but don’t move. Wake up but don’t move. Wake up but keep still.”
He kept repeating that over and over. And finally there was a little tremor that ran through the body of Wayland. He opened his eyes and heard:
“Wake up, but don’t stir.”
He did not stir. He merely rolled his eyes and saw the body of the man beside him, and wet clothing faintly glim-mering in the starlight, and by the imcertain rays of the flickering fire.
He raised his head a little and was able to see, at last, that the stranger was shuddering in an ague fit with the intensity of cold. His hands were unsteady. His head strained back on his neck. His wet face was red as blood.
Yet there was no disguising the features.
Suddenly the mind of Wayland went back to that other day when he had so calmly nailed up the picture of Jim Silver and Parade on the wall of the bank, to bring home to every man working there the example of a hero, unafraid to stand for the right thing.
Had not the thought of that same face forced him, perhaps, to take up the uncertainties of his trail, when he dared to match his wits against the bandits? For the sake of what Silver stood for in the world, Wayland had tried to act the part of a hero—and won in exchange the probability of an obscure death the next morning.
But he had won something else. Jim Silver in person was there to succor him.
He saw the gleam of Silver’s knife. He felt the light pull at the cords as the knife edge sheared through them. And then his hands were free.
They were free, but almost helpless. He moved them toward the saddlebag which still contained every penny of the treasure.
Bray had said: “Use this for your pillow, Wayland. Maybe it’ll give you happy dreams, eh?”
Bray had grinned, making that sardonic remark, and Wayland had remained awake for a time wondering how they would kill him—knife or gun. Or perhaps savage Joe Mantry would be able to devise some better scheme. He was a man of devices, was Joe Mantry.