THERE was enough in that speech to make the Carys scowl, but the control of the old man was still powerful over them. They listened in silence and then drew back. And Tom Derry remained rather dizzy and bewildered by what had happened. He had come close to as horrible a death as a man could think of, he knew, and the girl had saved him from this. But almost more than the danger he had gone through, was the feeling that Christian once and for all had been damned. The old man had said, and it had not been denied, that whatever they were asked to do for Christian was bound to be crooked. If that were true, then Rainey had lied to him about the character of his friend. That saving of Christian at Blue Water had been actually a crime against more than the letter of the law.
And still Derry clung to his old belief in Rainey, like a bulldog to a fighting hold. He would not give up his faith. Somehow the thing would be explained.
He had breakfast in a thick silence with the old man and Maria. At the edge of the creek he got out soap and a razor and shaved. Immediately after that, the journey started.
The Cary clan divided. The women and children and a number of injured or sick men remained behind. In the other party there were seventeen youths or men in th prime of life who were ta take the trail. Tom Derry was to go with them. The old man would travel with the outfit and to take care of him there was Maria.
The farewell was very brief, very stern. It seemed to Derry that there was hardly a trace of human emotion in the voices of the clansmen, but when they were at a little distance, he looked back and saw that the mothers were holding up their smaller children to catch the last look at their fathers.
There were plenty of horses, but Derry, according to the will of the old man, had to go on foot. However, the way was very mountainous, and his long powerful legs kept him up with the riders easily enough. He was not very closely guarded. That is to say, men were not constantly at his side. But he knew that their glances were on him and he also knew that every one of the Cary men wanted only a fair excuse to put a bullet into him. The least movement on his part out of line would bring an accurate volley, he was sure.
And the old man headed the advance through the mountains! He sat his saddle with as straight a back as any of the youths, and though he did not ride at more than a walk, and though it was a mule instead of a horse that carried him, still he was plainly the overlord and brains of the outfit. A peculiar grim respect for him was still growing up in the mind of Tom Derry.
He found big Stan Parker in the line of riders and walked for a moment at his side.
“He’ll use the boys for one of his own crooked schemes,” she went on, “and that’ll get the law on us harder than ever. Grandpa, you’re losin’ your wits. There ain’t a man in the family that dares to give you advice. Take some from Tom Derry and see how it tastes.”
“I thought you was gone, sure enough, when they closed in on you. The gal saved your hide, brother,” said Parker.
“What was in Christian’s head when he sent me up here with you?” asked Derry. “Didn’t he know that the Carys were likely to lift my scalp?”
“I don’t know what was in Christian’s head, and why should I give a damn what happens to you?” asked Stan Parker frankly.
Derry regarded him calmly, and talked no more.
Afterwards, he had a chance to walk near the dancing mustang of “Molly” Cary. Generally she was close to the old man, but the narrowness of a defile had forced her back to a little distance, and there was room for Derry to walk beside her.
“Where are we headed, Molly?” he asked.
“For Barry Christian,” she answered.
“Christian? I thought the old man didn’t want to deal with him?”
“He don’t. But he’s made a deal with Christian, and now he’s going to carry through his part of the game, unless something better shows up in the meantime. Use your brain, Tom. Try to find a way these fellows can be used.”
“In a circus, fighting tigers with their bare hands,” suggested Derry.
She did not smile. “You use your head better than that, and maybe you’ll save the scalp on top of it,” she said. “There’s nothing between you and murder except the word of the old man, and that may peg out any time. He’s able to change his mind; you’ve noticed that.”
“I’ve noticed that,” agreed Derry. “What’s the deal with Christian?”
She shook her head.
“I’m fond of you, Tom,” she admitted, “but I’m not fool enough to trust you with everything I know. Whatever becomes of me, I’m a Cary, first, last, and all the time.”
And she found a chance to urge her pony away from him, while she rode up to regain her place beside the old man.
It was nearly noon of that day, and still the old man was sitting stiff and straight in his saddle, when two horsemen came out of a draw at the side of a wide gulch, two men on splendid horses, who waved their hands as they galloped in.
“Christian!” Derry heard the rider behind him say.
The whole line closed up until Derry could see that it was in fact Barry Christian and Buck Rainey beside him. At the sight of Buck, a vast burden rolled from Derry’s heart. He felt that he was breathing easily and deeply again for the first time in days.
He hurried toward Buck as that tall fellow dismounted, the leg which had been wounded sinking a trifle under his weight as he reached the ground. All about there was a general dismounting as Derry got to Rainey and gripped his hand.
“The devil’s to pay,” said Tom Derry. “The Carys are out for my scalp. They nearly lifted it this morning. You and Barry had better talk to them, Buck.”
“Of course,” said Rainey. “Of course, of course!”
He waved, and nodded, and moved into the thick of the talking men.
The old man sat on a rock while Maria Cary made a shade over him with a wide straw sombrero of Mexican make. And before him stood Christian, saying:
“Before we get any farther, we’d better talk about my friend yonder, Tom Derry. Tom, come over here, will you? Now then, tell me what’s happened since you started off on my horse.”
“Things went all right till the second day,” said Derry. “And then I spotted a grey wolf sneaking along behind me. The thing faded out in the brush. That evening, I saw it again. And that night, on the hill over Little Rock, Jim Silver and Taxi jumped me and tied me. The wolf had been Silver’s.”
“Hadn’t you brains enough to guess that?” asked Christian coldly.
The question startled Tom Derry, but he went on:
“I thought Taxi would put an end to me. But Silver seemed to think I might be straight. Anyway, he turned me loose. I got on the black horse and started — ”
“Why lie to me?” demanded Christian sternly. “You made a dicker with Jim Silver. He wants a trail laid that will take him up to us. He knew that you’d come this way. He hired you to double-cross us and leave sign that he and his wolf could follow. You cur, you’ve been a traitor to us. And you’re fool enough to think that we won’t see through any of your crooked ways?”