13

It was midnight by the time the entire group completed the trip through the two tunnels and were again in Snowslide Canyon above the blocked off portion.

“Do we make camp here an’ wait for daylight?” Sam asked Pat, “or shall we ride on a ways fust?”

“I’d say we ought to ride on a ways. Long as the canyon stays like this with no way out of it we cain’t pass up the Runyon hideout. But I better ask Miss Lily how she feels. That walk up through the tunnels must of been tough on her.”

He went back to where Lily and Dock were together and asked her, “How you feeling now, Miss Lily?”

“Terrible,” she admitted, but she laughed as she said it. “Although walking loosened up some of my stiff muscles.”

“Do you feel like ridin’ on tonight?”

“Should we?”

“I reckon it’d be best if you can make out to straddle a hawse.” Pat hesitated and then went on to explain, “Yore uncles must have a hideout up near the Pass somewheres. If we wait here till mornin’ they’ll see us comin’ an’ most likely start shootin’. Then, we’ll just naturally have to start shootin’ back, Miss Lily. An’ that’ll ruin yore plan for gettin’ to ’em peaceable.”

“And if we ride on now?”

“If we can get to their hideout an’ past it before daylight, we can keep on goin’ over the Divide an’ let you ride up on ’em alone. If yore still dead-set on doin’ it.”

“You think it’s silly of me, don’t you?”

“I think it’s plenty dangerous,” Pat agreed. “Ain’t much doubt but that they’re the outlaws, Miss Lily. An’ after a man has hit the owlhoot trail it’s mighty hard to come back.”

“They’re still my uncles,” she told him bravely. “I won’t believe they’ve murdered anyone until they tell me with their own lips.”

“You feel like hittin’ the saddle again?”

“If you think it’s best.”

“Then,” said Pat gruffly, “we’re a-wastin’ time here. S’pose you ride back with Dock while Sam an’ Ezra an’ me lead the way.”

He went back and told Sam and Ezra, “We’re ridin’. The gal ain’t got much sense but plenty of spunk.”

As the trio headed on up the dark canyon, letting their horses follow the old stage road by instinct, Ezra said, “I figger it ain’t more’n fifteen miles on up to the Pass. I never been over this road but I’ve heard tell the canyon don’t shallow out till near the top of the Divide.”

“Long as it stays narrow like this, it’s a cinch we won’t pass by their camp without knowin’ it,” Sam put in. “We kin easy see any time we come to a road out.”

They kept their horses at a swinging walk that covered the ground at the rate of not more than five miles an hour. It was below zero here near the top of the Continental Divide, and the air between the narrow canyon walls was filled with moisture from the frothing, thundering stream on their left. The dampness was cold and penetrating to the men accustomed to the crisp dryness of Powder Valley on the lower slope of the Rockies.

They stayed in their saddles, grimly hunched forward and beating arms across their chests to keep up blood circulation, standing in the stirrups for long intervals and putting their mounts to a jolting trot to shake off the damp chill that ate into the very marrow of their bones.

None of them said anything about stopping. It became a grim test of endurance between them; and the remuda with Dock and Lily bringing up the rear remained doggedly on their heels, shaming them into continuing when they might otherwise have stopped.

Here, on the very rim of the backbone of the country, the first sign of daylight came much earlier than in the lower country. While the flat plains of eastern Colorado and Kansas were still blanketed in night, the early light of morning began to touch the high rim of the canyon above them.

It was Ezra who first noticed it, and who broke the silence that had gripped them for more than two hours.

“Looks like it’s awready breakin’ day up yonder. An’ it ain’t near as fur up to thuh top as ’twas back where we made camp.”

Pat craned his neck up for a look and said through chattering teeth, “Sunlight won’t come too quick for me. Must be nearin’ the top, all right.”

“If I ever git warm ag’in,” said Sam Sloan viciously, “I swear tuh Gawd I’ll never stick my nose outside thuh house after sundown. You-all know what I bin thinkin’ about thuh last hour?”

“I bet I kin make uh good guess,” Ezra snorted.

“Go ahead an’ guess.”

“About Kitty an’ that warm bed back to thuh Lazy Mare ranch.”

“A man’d think you was married yore ownself tuh hear yuh talk,” Sam retorted. “How-come you guessed so easy?”

“Man don’t hafta be no fortune-teller tuh figger that out.”

Pat pulled his horse up abruptly and pointed ahead to the right. “Ain’t that a break in the canyon right yonder?”

“Shore is,” Ezra agreed instantly. “Looks like another gulch cuttin’ down into this-un.”

“Come on.” Pat spurred his horse forward into a trot.

The others followed a few hundred yards to a point where the sheer right-hand wall of the canyon was cut by a steep ravine leading up above timberline to the snowclad peaks now beginning to glisten redly with the light of a new day.

Here Pat dismounted and went on foot a little way up the ravine, spreading out his coat to form a shelter while he squatted on the ground. “Walk up here an’ take a look while I strike some matches,” he shouted at Ezra. “See if there’s hawse tracks turnin’ up here while I hide the match-light from above in case anybody’s lookin’ down here.”

He waited until Ezra was beside him, then fanned out three matches in his hand and lighted them simultaneously. Ezra bent to study the ground in front of them.

“Yep. This is it awright. Same old tracks we saw back yonder with one set of fresh ones headin’ up and back.”

Pat blew out the matches and stood up to look up the small ravine. “Still too dark to see anything,” he muttered. “Tell you what, Ezra. You-all ride on up the main canyon a ways. Be safer to top over the Divide, I reckon, ’fore you stop to build up a fire. Wait there for me.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I’ll ride up here a ways with Miss Lily. Make sure she’s found her uncles’ hideout, then I’ll ride back.”

“They’ll never let yuh ride back if they see yuh,” Ezra growled.

“I’ll hope they don’t see me.”

Pat strode back to the floor of the main canyon and down to Dock and Lily behind the remuda. They were both huddled in their saddles and looked cold and miserable.

“Push ’em on up over the Divide, Dock,” he told his son shortly. “Miss Lily an’ me are turnin’ off here.”

“Is this … the place?” she asked fearfully.

“Trail leads up a gully to the right,” Pat told her. “Get goin’, Dock. Follow Sam an’ Ezra.”

“What about you, Dad? Aren’t you comin’ with us?”

“I’ll be along directly.” Pat waited until Dock pushed his small herd ahead, and then swung into the saddle beside Lily.

“You don’t have to ride with me,” she argued weakly. “It’ll be dangerous if they see you.”

“I’ll try to turn back before they do.”

Pat showed her the turn-off and they started up the small ravine at a slow trot. The roar of the canyon behind them diminished in volume, and after a few minutes Pat was able to make himself heard with his normal voice again, “We got to figure what yo’re going to tell yore uncles.”

“About what?”

“About us. There ain’t much doubt they think we rode out of Fairplay on the trail of that reward yesterday mornin’. If they think we know the secret of the tunnels, they’ll never believe they’re safe from us. More likely suspect yo’re workin’ with us to find their hideout an’ turn ’em in.”

“What shall I tell them?” Lily shivered uncontrollably with the cold and the new fear that tightened about her heart.

“I been thinkin’ it over,” Pat admitted. “S’posin’ they were watchin’ and know we camped last night back of the slide. Then you pop up this mornin’. They’ll want to know right away where we are.”

“What shall I tell them?” she cried out again.

“Why not tell ’em the blanket dodge plumb fooled us, an’ after eatin’ supper an’ thinkin’ it over, we gave up an’ turned back. Tell ’em you noticed the tunnel behind the scrub oaks but didn’t tell us. That you let us start back, and then slipped away an’ came back through the tunnels by yoreself. They can check from the top an’ see we ain’t nowhere in sight this mornin’ … an’ maybe they’ll believe you,” he finished grimly.

“Suppose they don’t believe me?”

“Then they’ll most likely put lighted matches under yore fingernails to make you tell the truth.”

“Oh no!” she cried out in a choked voice. “Not Uncle Cleve and Art. I told you back in Fairplay how they’re the kindest men I ever knew.”

Pat swore softly under his breath. He said aloud, “That’s the chance yo’re taking. That they haven’t changed too much.”

“I’m willing to take it. Don’t you think you’ve ridden far enough? Shouldn’t you turn back now?”

“I’ll go a little more.” Pat glanced ahead calculatingly. “It’s ’most daylight now. I’d like to be plumb sure …”

“There’s a light up ahead,” Lily said tensely. “It just came on.”

“A lamp inside a cabin.” Pat pulled his horse up. “I reckon this is it, Miss Lily. I’d go on with you but I reckon that’s the worst thing that could happen.”

“Oh yes. You mustn’t be seen. They mustn’t know you’ve found their hideout.” Lily put her hand on his arm and her face was strained and white in the dim light of the new day. “I don’t know how to thank you … and the others. I’ve never known men like you before.”

Pat said savagely, “I hate like hell to leave you like this, Miss Lily. If anything happens …”

“It won’t.” She sounded more confident than she looked. “Do you think they’ll shoot … when I ride up?”

“Not if they get a good look at you first. Take off yore hat so’s they can see yore long hair when you get close. Ride up slow with your hands in the open.” Pat held out his hand to her. “Good luck.”

She caught hold of his hand and lifted it to press her lips against it. Then she spurred her horse away from him, up the ravine toward the lighted window of the outlaw’s hideout.

Pat looked down at his hand curiously. The back of it burned where she had pressed her lips as though it had been stung with a hot branding iron. He grinned sheepishly when he saw there wasn’t any mark on the flesh. He wondered what Sally would say when he told her about Lily Lytell.

He swung his horse about and sent him back to the canyon at a lope.

It was, as they had reckoned, only a few miles to Timberline Pass. It was full daylight up there on top of the world when Pat reached that point, and a little distance below him on the old stage road, he saw his partners and son drawn up around a blazing fire.

He loped down to them, and Ezra had a cup of coffee poured for him as he strode up to the fire. All three looked at him questioningly, but Pat took a couple of gulps of hot coffee before reporting.

“I reckon she found her uncles all right. She was ridin’ towards the lighted window of a cabin at the head of that gulch when I left her. Couldn’t be anybody else hid out up there.”

“I shore don’t like leavin’ her like that,” Ezra said glumly. “No tellin’ what’ll happen.”

“It’s her choice an’ she’s got to take her own chances on it,” Pat told him grimly. “Worst thing we could do to her would be to barge up there. An’ we still got a job of our own.” He stood up to look westward, down along the steep, rugged slope of the Rockies toward their destination.

“Sanctuary Flat’s down yonder somewheres. A day’s ride, maybe. How do you-all feel? Want to make camp here an’ get some sleep to make up for las’ night, or would you rather push on today?”

“I say le’s eat some breakfast an’ get goin’,” Sam Sloan voted. “I cain’t never sleep in thuh day-time.”

“How ’bout you, Dock?”

“I feel fine, Dad. Now that I’ve got warmed up again.”

“Suits me,” grunted Ezra. “I’ll beat up some flapjacks first an’ then we kin get movin’.”