THEY spent that night and the next morning in freezing cold until the sun rose, and in burning heat thereafter. The girl brought news at noon.
“The old man says that after this job’s done, and Silver’s surely off the trail, then maybe he can turn you loose,” she told Derry. “But are you going to want to be turned loose? There’s a lot of the men that feel pretty friendly about you, Tom. Hugh’s always got a good word for you. And that’s hard on him, because he wants me for his wife, you know. Suppose you stayed on with us! The old man would have you, all right. He’d have you, for my sake.”
Derry shook his head stubbornly.
“All there is to it, I’ve got to live by my own hands and my own head,” he told her.
And she went gloomily away.
The sun sloped off into the west, and a kind mountain-top reached up a shadow that blotted away the steady rain of fire, at last. It was just after that, that the northern look-out came hurrying to the rest with word that a dust cloud was travelling slowly up the side of Wool Creek. It might be the gold caravan.
The rest hurried off to look down the valley. And Derry, standing on tiptoe beside his tree, was able to see the cloud of dust turn into a string of little figures, some mounted men, and others pack animals, going ahead at a steady pace.
They halted not half a mile from the entrance to the gorge and rapidly began preparations for the camp. It was the gold caravan! Buck Rainey, using a strong glass, had actually identified some of the men and the animals. And yet, as the jubilation started in the Cary camp, a sudden report from the watcher on the southern cliff checked all rejoicing.
Derry, no matter how he stretched and strained on tiptoe, could not see into the pit of the southern valley below the cliff, but he could take the picture from the words of the Cary men, and from the strained, set face of Barry Christian.
Two riders had come out of the trees and were camping at the edge of the creek, close to the entrance of the gorge on the southern side. Two riders made little difference, or would have made a small difference to the Cary plans, ordinarily. But one of these men was on a big horse that shone like copper in the last sunset light, and with the two riders there was a great skulking monster of a grey wolf.
There was no question about it. Jim Silver and Taxi had managed to guess at the destination of the Cary party without having to follow the complicated trail across the mountain ridges.
There were the two men whom Christian feared most — and almost within hailing distance.
Yet that difference was too far, and the light too uncertain, to suggest snipe shooting. Moreover, the two men were moving back and forth, rarely glimpsed through the brush as they made their camp quickly. Derry saw Christian walk by, with his hand gripping the arm of Buck Rainey.
“If only Silver and Taxi will ride on through the canyon!” groaned Christian.
“Ay, said Rainey, “after we’ve cleaned up the gold caravan.”
“Damn the caravan!” answered Christian. “What’s the money compared with the chance of getting that devil off my trail once and for ever?”
Rainey nodded.
“We’ll spread out and surround the gold camp and tackle it after moonrise,” said Christian. “We’ll leave two or three men in the throat of the canyon to stop Silver and Taxi if they should happen to get one of their strange notions and march on after dark. We’ve still got every chance of taking both bags of game, Buck. Man, man, you’ve brought me out of trouble into a lot of good luck, I can tell you!”
A score of well-armed and trained fighting men, and separated enemies who did not know of the existence of an ally near at hand — what better chance could Barry Christian have asked for? In fact, it seemed to Tom Derry that the thing was as good as done already. First, they would swallow the gold camp. The noise of the rifles would never stretch through the canyon and warn Silver. Instead, the thundering of the waterfall was sure to muffle and cover that tell-tale sound.
So the darkness thickened over the plateau, and by the starlight Derry saw the preparations go forward. No watch was kept over the southern cliff now, since Silver’s camp was invisible in the darkness below. All the men were gathered along the northern edge of the plateau where the slope ran easily down into the valley.
That was when the girl came back to Derry and stood above him for a long moment. The roaring of the waterfall seemed to be wavering back and forth in the air, now drifting farther, now coming nearer.
“Suppose you were a free man, Tom, what would you do?” she said finally.
“Get into it!” he said. The mere suggestion made his heart leap up till he was almost suffocated.
“How could you get into it?” she asked. “The Carys are there to the north, and you couldn’t get through them. There’s a cliff to the south, and you’re not a bird to fly down to Jim Silver.”
“There’s a cliff straight down to the river,” he said. “but it’s not absolutely straight. There are juts and knobs of rocks. I saw one long crevice that a man could get a handhold in and slant down a hundred feet toward the bottom.”
“A fly would get dizzy trying to make a climb like that,” she reminded him.
“I’m not a fly, but I wouldn’t get dizzy.”
“Suppose you got to Silver — you might save his neck, but you couldn’t possibly help the gold camp.”
“Maybe not. But saving Silver would be something.”
“What puts you on fire to help him?”
“Why do you ask that, Molly? You know he had me and could have smashed me, but he turned me loose.”
She was silent again.
“What sort of a snake would I be,” she muttered, “if I turned you loose? You’d never get down the cliff alive. And if you did, I’d be a traitor to my men!”
“Going straight is stronger than blood,” said Derry. “And what are people like you and me, compared with a man like Silver?”
“The air tastes as good to me as it does to him,” she answered. “The mountains are as free to me as they are to him. Tom, will you give up the thinking about him like a wise man? Or will you carry it all your life with you, if something goes wrong with Jim Silver tonight? Will you hate me every time you look at me?”
“No,” said Derry. “I wouldn’t hate you. I wouldn’t do that. But — ”
He paused.
She began to sob, not like a woman, but like a man, the deep sounds tearing her throat. Then, when she could talk, he could feel the force of will that enabled her to speak steadily again.
“The women are the deer. They run about like little fools. And the men turn ’em into venison. If I turn you loose, you’ll be dead before morning. If I don’t turn you loose, you’ll despise me for being what I am. You’ll hate me with your eyes, no matter what you speak with your mouth. Why was I ever born a Cary? But I’d rather be a Cary thief than any other name that’s honest. If I set you free, the Carys will turn me out like a dog. If I set you free, you’re dead, too.”
She threw herself down by him.
“Tom, will you listen?” she asked. “I could make you a happy man and forget all that happens tonight. It’s only one night. What can happen in a night to make the rest of your days dark for you? If you’re sad a while, I’ll pull up the old sun for you like a bucket out of a well. I’ll love you till you love me back, and a man and a woman together, they’re the only ones that can make happiness. Truer than anything, that’s true. Are you hearing me, Tom! Or are you thinking about Jim Silver and the death he’s coming to?”
“I’m loving you, Molly,” said he, “but I’m breaking my heart because of Jim Silver.”
She sat up from him suddenly.
“Ay,” she said at last, “what for should I go on talking? I knew you wouldn’t be the kind of a rat that a woman could budge by just talking. I’ve got the clippers to free you, and I’ll use ’em now. And ten minutes after, the river’ll be eating you! May it eat me, too! May it swaller me!”
She gripped his wrists, pried, a forefinger under the wires to lift them above the flesh, and then clipped rapidly until one hand, then the other, was free.
He stood up, lifting her with him, and she hung loose against him.
“Will you wait a minute?” she asked.
“There’s no time for waiting.”
“I’ll go to the cliff with you, Tom.”
“This way,” he said. “I marked the place where the crack runs down the wall, if I can get to it.”
They came to it. The roar of the river burst up at them in increasing explosions. The humidity of incredibly fine spray filled the air, and he drew the girl back from the edge of the rock for a moment. There was no strength in her. It seemed that she would drop to the ground if his arm left her.
“When you’re down, will you light a match?” she begged him. “And if I wait for ten minutes — and see no light — ”
“Mind you, Molly,” he said with a frightful cold of fear sweeping over him, “whether you see it or not, you won’t do any fool thing?”
“What have I done but fool things ever since I found you?” she said. “I’ve been like a fool boy, ranting around; I haven’t been a woman to you. I wish I’d been a woman to you. Then, light or no light, I’d have something more than a — than a damned star in the sky to steer by after you’re gone. But go on now, Tom, I’m dying, and I want you gone. I’m going to lie out there on the rock and wait for the sparkle of a match down there. God grant I may see it, or else — ”
He kissed her. The fear of what she might do made his lips numb. He dreaded lest that fear should work downward to his heart, and so he left her suddenly and went to the edge of the rock.
He had found the right place, he knew. Below him, though unseen, there was a narrow ledge which he ought to be able to touch with his feet. If he could drop to that, a crevice slanted away to the side and downward. And if he could reach that —
Well, if he failed in getting from one place to another, it might not be many minutes before another and a slighter body than his own hurtled through thin air and into the white water beneath.