CHAPTER XXVIII
A CHANGE OF BASE
The roan horse which Sim Gage rode was in no downcast frame of mind,but he himself, engrossed with his errand, did not at first notice thatit was the same half wild animal with which he had had combat at anearlier time. He fought it for half an hour or more down a half dozenmiles of the road, but at length the brute made matters worse bypicking up a stone, and going dead lame, so that any great speed wasout of the question.
Night was falling now across the winding trail which passed along thevalley lands and over the shoulders of the mountains. It was wildcountry even yet, but beautiful as it lay in the light of the fadingday. Sim Gage had no time to note the play of light or shadow on thehills. He rode. It was past midnight when he swung off his now meekand wet-sided horse, cast down the bridle rein, and went in search ofDoctor Barnes.
The latter met his caller with the point of an electric torch at thedoor.
"Oh, it's you, Gage?" said he. "Come in."
Sim Gage entered and seated himself, his hurt leg stiffly before him onthe floor. Briefly as he could, he told the reason of his errand andthe reason for his delay.
"Leave your horse here," said Doctor Barnes, already preparing for hisjourney. "We'll take my car."
A half hour later the two were again en route. The head light of thecar, swinging from side to side around the steep and unprotected curvesof the mountain slopes, showed the rude passageway, in places riskyenough at that hour and that speed. At that latitude the summer nightsare short, and their journey was unfinished when the gray dawn began toturn to pink upon the mountain tops. In the clearer light DoctorBarnes saw something which caused him to pull up.
"There's the wire break," he exclaimed. "Look here."
They both left the car and approached the nearest pole. It bore thefresh marks of a linesman's climbing irons. "Professional work. Andthat's a cut with nippers--not a break. Keep away from the free end,Gage's, it's probably a live wire. You're right. That gang is back inhere again. But tell me, what's that?--Do you smell anything?"
Sim Gage nodded. "Smoke," said he.
As the light grew stronger so that the far slopes of the mountain werevisible they saw the proof. Smoke, a heavy, rolling blanket of smoke,lay high over the farther summits.
"Damn their souls!" said Doctor Barnes fervently and tersely. "They'veset the forest afire again."
A half hour later they swung into the ranch yard. The call of "Halt!"came, backed by a tousled head nestled against the stock of aSpringfield which protruded from a window.
"Advance, friend!" exclaimed the corporal when he got his countersign,and a moment later met his Major in the dooryard. They were joined byWid Gardner, who rose from the place where he had sat, rifle across hisknees, most of the night crouched against the end of the cabin.
"We've got him in here," said the Sergeant, leading the way to thebarracks door.
"Got what?"
"The one we shot. He's deader'n hell, but I thought you might like tolook through his pockets."
Wid Gardner unemotionally accompanied them into the room of thebarracks where, on a couple of boards, between two carpenter'strestles, lay a long figure covered with a blanket.
"Scout Gardner got him last night about nine o'clock, sir," said theSergeant; "out in the lane behind the gate. Called to him to halt, andhe didn't stop."
"He didn't have no chanct to halt," said Wid Gardner calmly. "Ihollered that to him after I had dropped him. He wasn't the one I wasafter, neither."
"The rest of them got away," went on the Sergeant. "We heard the shotwhen we was just coming down the road. We come on to the head of thelane and heard brush breaking. They was trying to get to their car,down a little further. They whirled and came back through us in thecar, and we shot into them, but I don't know if we got any of 'em, thehorses was pitching so. They went back up the trail, or maybe up onthe Reserve road--I dunno. We come on down here to get orders."
Doctor Barnes slipped back the blanket. There was revealed the thin,aquiline face of a man dressed in rather dandified clothing. Therewere rings on both hands, a rather showy but valuable stickpin in thescarf. The hands were not those of a laboring man. At the bridge ofthe nose a faint depression showed that he wore eyeglasses. Hiscomplexion was blond, and his eyes, open now only to a slit, might alsohave been light in color. There was on his features, indefinablyforeign, the stamp not to say of birth so much as of education. Theman apparently once was used to easy if not gentle ways of life.
"Tell me how it happened," said Doctor Barnes to Gardner, who stood by.
"She can tell you more'n I can," said Wid--"Miss Squires. This ain'tthe feller. The real one that I want she used to work with--he wasforeman back East in the shops where she worked. His name wasDorenwald. She promised to meet him out there at sun-up this morning.I went out last night to see what I could see. I found this feller.He was coming down the trail. I waited till he got clost enough--aboutforty yard. Onct was enough."
"How many cars did you see?" Doctor Barnes demanded of the sergeant.
"One."
"Gage says he saw two."
"The other may be back in the hills yet."
"Well, here's work! Tell me, Gardner, is there any way those peoplecan get out on the other side of the Reserve, down the West Fork? Youknow the backwater above the little dam, two miles below the big dam?Most of the timber we intended to float out that way, to the mill atthe little dam. They may have gone on across in there.
"Now, Corporal, leave McQueston and two men here. I want the rest ofyou with me--we'll go up in the hills with my car. McQueston, take oneman and go and fix the break in the line three miles down the road.We'll either come back in my car or send it back to you somehow. Thefire may block us. Get your men ready. March!"
It was anxious enough waiting at the ranch, but the wait might havebeen longer. It was not yet eleven o'clock when the two women heardthe hum of the heavily loaded car and saw the men climb out again. Itwas Doctor Barnes who came to the cabin.
"It's no use," said he. "The fire has cut off the Tepee Creek trail.The best fir is gone, and there's no hope of stopping the fire now. Ifthey took their car up, they must have left it in there--some of themwent back up the trail. They may be over on the West Fork; and ifthey've got there, they've got a shorter route down to the dams thanaround by the Valley road."
He turned now to Mary Gage more specifically. "We've got a company oftroops down there to guard the big dam. It's safer there than it ishere. What do you think of going back now, to stop until this row isover? We can take better care of you there than we can here."
She sat for a moment, her face turned away.
"Will you come?" he repeated.
"One guess!" said Annie Squires for her. "In a minute!" And by thattime she was throwing things into the valises.