CHAPTER V
ROUNDING UP SASSOON
De Spain joined his associates at dark outside the Gap. NeitherSassoon nor his friends had been seen. The night was still, the skycloudless, and as the three men with a led horse rode at midnight intothe mountains, the great red heart of the Scorpion shone afire in thesouthern sky. Spreading out when they rode between the mountain walls,they made their way without interruption silently toward theirrendezvous, an aspen grove near which Purgatoire Creek makes its wayout of the Gap and, cutting a deep gash along the edge of the rangefor a hundred miles, empties into the Thief.
Scott was the first to reach the trees. The little grove spreadsacross a slope half a mile wide between the base of one toweringcliff, still bearing its Spanish name, El Capitan, and the gorge ofthe Purgatoire. To the east of this point the trails to Calabasas andto Sleepy Cat divide, and here Scott and Lefever received de Spain,who had ridden slowly and followed Scott's injunctions to keep thered star to the right of El Capitan all the way across the Sinks.
Securing their horses, the three stretched out on the open ground towait for daylight. De Spain was wakeful, and his eyes rested withcuriosity on the huge bulk of Music Mountain, rising overwhelminglyabove him. Through the Gap that divided the great, sentinel-like frontof El Capitan, marking the northern face of the mountain rift, fromRound Top, the south wall of the opening, stars shone vividly, as iflighting the way into the silent range beyond.
The breathing of his companions soon assured de Spain that both wereasleep. The horses were quiet, and the night gave no sound save thatvaguely through the darkness came the faint brawl of tiny cataractstumbling down far mountain heights. De Spain, lying on his side, hishead resting on his elbow, and his hands clasped at the back of hisneck, meditated first on how he should capture Sassoon at daybreak,and then on Nan Morgan and her mountain home, into which he was aboutto break to drag out a criminal. Sassoon and his malice soon driftedout of his mind, but Nan remained. She stayed with him, it seemed, forhours--appearing and disappearing, in one aspect more alluring thananother. Then her form outlined in the mists that rose from thehidden creek seemed to hover somewhere near until Scott's hand laid onthe dreamer's shoulder drove it suddenly away. Day was at hand.
De Spain got up and shook off the chilliness and drowsiness of thenight. It had been agreed that he, being less known in the Gap thaneither of his companions, could best attempt the difficult capture. Itwas strictly a _coup de main_, depending for its success on chance andnerve. The one that tried it might manage to bring out his man--ormight be brought out himself. Between these alternatives there was notmuch middle ground, except that failing to find Sassoon, or in case heshould be intercepted with his prisoner, the intruder, escapingsingle-handed from a shower of bullets, might still get away. ButMorgan's Gap men were esteemed fairly good marksmen.
Bob Scott, who knew the recess well, repeated his explicit directionsas to how de Spain was to reach Sassoon's shack. He repeated hisdescription of its interior, told him where the bed stood, and evenwhere Sassoon ordinarily kept his knife and his revolver. The westernsky was still dark when de Spain, mounting, discussed the lastarrangements with his scouts and, taking the bridle of the led horse,turned toward Round Top. At its narrowest point the Gap opening isbarely two miles wide, and the one road, in and out, lies among therocks through this neck; toward it all trails inside the Gap converge.De Spain gave his horse his head--it was still too dark to distinguishthe path--and depended on his towering landmarks for his generaldirection. He advanced at a snail's pace until he passed the base ofEl Capitan, when of a sudden, as he rode out from among highprojecting rocks full into the opening, faint rays of light from theeastern dawn revealed the narrow, strangely enclosed and perfectlyhidden valley before him. The eastern and southern sides still lay indarkness, but the stupendous cliffs frowning on the north and westwere lighted somewhat from the east. The southern wall, thoughshrouded, seemed to rise in an unending series of beetling aretes.
De Spain caught his breath. No description he had ever heard of thenook that screened the Morgans from the outside world had prepared himfor what he saw. From side to side of the gigantic mountain fissure,it could hardly be, de Spain thought, more than a few thousandyards--so completely was his sense of proportion stunned by thefrowning cliffs which rose, at points, half a mile into the sky. Butit was actually several miles from wall to wall, and the Gap was morethan as much in depth, as it ran back to a mere wedge between unnamedSuperstition peaks.
Every moment that he pushed ahead warned him that daylight would comesuddenly and his time to act would be short. The trail he followedbroadened into a road, and he strained his eyes for signs, first oflife, and then of habitation. The little creek, now beside his way,flowed quietly albeit swiftly along, and his utmost vigilance coulddetect no living thing stirring; but a turn in the trail, marked by alarge pine-tree and conforming to a bend of the stream, brought him upstartled and almost face to face with a long, rambling ranch-house.The gable end of the two-story portion of the building was so close tohim that he instantly reined up to seek hiding from its upper andlower windows.
From Scott's accurate description he knew the place. This was DukeMorgan's ranch-house, set as a fortress almost at the mouth of theGap. To pass it unobserved was to compass the most ticklish part ofhis mission, and without changing his slow pace he rode on, wonderingwhether a bullet, if fired from any of the low, open windows--which hecould almost throw his hat into as he trotted past--would knock himoff his horse or leave him a chance to spur away. But no bulletchallenged him and no sound came from the silent house. He canteredaway from the peril, thinking with a kind of awe of Nan, asleep, soclose, under that roof--confident, too, he had not been seen--though,in matter of fact, he had been.
He quickened his pace. The place he wanted to reach was more than amile distant. Other cabins back toward the north wall could be seendimly to his right, but all were well removed from his way. He found,in due time, the ford in the creek, as Scott had advised, made itwithout mishap, scrambled up a steep and rocky path, and sawconfronting him, not far ahead, a small, ruinous-looking cabin shack.Dismounting before this, he threw his lines, shook himself a little,and walked up to the cabin door. It was open.
The mild-minded conspirators who had planned the details of theabduction were agreed that if the effort could be made a success atall, there was but one way to effect it, and that was to act, inevery step, openly. Any attempt to steal on Sassoon unawares wouldbe a desperate one; while to walk boldly into his cabin at daybreakwould be to do only what his companions were likely at any time to do,and was the course least calculated to lead to serious trouble. Noneof the three were unaware of the psychological action of thatpeculiar instinct of danger possessed by men habitually exposed tosurprise--they knew how easily it may be aroused in a sleeper by theunusual happening about him, and how cunningly it is allayed bycounterfeiting within his hearing the usual course of normal events.
De Spain, following the chosen policy, called gruffly to the cabininmate. There was no answer. All had sounded extremely plausible to deSpain at the time he listened to Bob Scott's ingenious anticipation ofthe probabilities, and he had felt while listening to the subtleIndian that the job was not a complicated one.
But now, as he hitched his trouser band near to the butt of hisrevolver with his right hand, and laid his left on the jamb ofthe door with an effort to feel at home, stepped unevenly acrossthe threshold, and tried to peer into the interior darkness,Scott's strategy did not, for some reason, commend itself quiteso convincingly to him. There seemed, suddenly, a great manychances for a slip in the programme. De Spain coughed slightly, hiseyes meantime boring the darkness to the left, where Sassoon's bedshould be. The utmost scrutiny failed to disclose any sign of itor any sound of breathing from that corner. He took a few stepstoward where the man should be asleep, and perceived beyond adoubt that there was no bed in the corner at all. He turnedtoward the other corner, his hand covering the butt of his gun."He
llo, Shike!" he called out in a slightly strained tone ofcamaraderie, addressing Sassoon by a common nickname. Then helistened. A trumpeting snore answered. No sound was ever sweeter tode Spain's ear. The rude noise cleared the air and steadied theintruder as if Music Mountain itself had been lifted off hisnerves.
He tried again: "Where are you, Shike?" he growled. "What's this stuffon the floor?" he continued, shuffling his way ostentatiously to theother side of the room. But his noise-making was attended with theutmost caution. He had dropped, like a shot, flat on the floor andcrawled, feeling his way, to the opposite side of the room, only tofind, after much trouble, that the bed in the darkness was there, butit was empty. De Spain rose. For a moment he was nonplussed. An insideroom remained, but Scott had said there was no bed within it. He felthis way toward the inner door. This was where he expected to find it,and it was closed. He laid a hand gingerly on the latch. "Where areyou, Shike?" he demanded again, this time with an impatient expletivesummoned for the occasion. A second fearful snore answered him. DeSpain, relieved, almost laughed as he pushed the door open, thoughnot sure whether a curse or a shot would greet him. He got neither.And a welcome surprise in the dim light came through a stuffy pane ofglass at one end of the room. It revealed at the other end a manstretched asleep on a wall bunk--a man that would, in all likelihood,have heard the stealthiest sound had any effort been made to concealit, but to whose ears the rough voices of a mountain cabin are meresleeping-potions.
The sleeper was destined, a moment later, to a ruder awakening thaneven his companion outlaws ever gave him. Lying unsuspectingly on hisback, he woke to feel a hand laid lightly on his shoulder. Theinstinct of self-preservation acted like a flash. His eyes opened andhis hands struck out like cat's paws to the right and left: no knifeand no revolver met them. Instead, in the semidarkness a strange facebent over him. His fists shot out together, only to be caught in avise that broke his arms in two at the elbows, and forced them backagainst his throat. Like lightning, he threw up his knees, drewhimself into a heap, and shot himself out, hands, arms, legs, back,everything into one terrific spring. But the sinewy vise above onlygave for the shock, then it closed again relentlessly in. A knee, likean anvil, pushed inexorably into his stomach and heart and lungs.Another lay across his right arm, and his struggling left arm he couldnot, though his eyes burst with the strain from their sockets, releasefrom where, eagle-like claws gripped at his throat and shut off hisbreath.
Again and again, with the fury of desperation, Sassoon drew in hispowerful frame, shot it out, twisted and struggled. Great veinsswelled on his forehead, his breath burst in explosive gasps, hewrithed from side to side--it was all one. After every effort thecruel fingers at his throat tightened. The heavy knee on his chestcrushed more relentlessly. He lay still.
"Are you awake, Shike?" Sassoon heard from the gloom above him. But hecould not place the voice. "You seem to move around a good deal inyour sleep. If you're awake, keep still. I've come from Sleepy Cat toget you. Don't mind looking for your gun and knife. Two men are withme. You can have your choice. We've got a horse for you. You can rideaway from us here inside the Gap, and take what hits you in the back,or you can go to Sleepy Cat with us and stand your trial. I'll readyour warrant when the sun gets a little higher. Get up and choosequick."
Sassoon could not see who had subdued him, nor did he take long todecide what to do. Scott had predicted he would go without much fuss,and de Spain, now somewhat surprised, found Bob right in his forecast.With less trouble than he expected, the captor got his man sullenly onhorseback, and gave him severely plain directions as to what not todo. Sassoon, neither bound nor gagged, was told to ride his horse downthe Gap closely ahead of de Spain and neither to speak nor turn hishead no matter what happened right or left. To get him out in thismanner was, de Spain realized, the really ticklish part of theundertaking.
Fortune, however, seemed to favor his assurance in invading the lions'den. In the growing light the two men trotted smartly a mile down thetrail without encountering a sign of life. When they approached theMorgan ranch-house de Spain again felt qualms. But he rode close tohis prisoner, told him in restrained monologue what would happen if hemade a noise, and even held him back in his pace as they trottedtogether past the Gap stronghold. Nevertheless, he breathed morefreely when they left the house behind and the turn in the road putthem out of range of its windows. He closed up the distance betweenhimself and Sassoon, riding close in to his side, and looked back atthe house. He looked quickly, but though his eyes were off his pathand his prisoner for only a fraction of a second, when he looked aheadagain he saw confronting him, not a hundred yards away, a motionlesshorseman.