To his astonishment, Lindley gave the signal to halt. In a few moments, the horses were pegged out under the trees, two soldiers were scrambling for firewood, and Lindley himself was squatting tailor-fashion beside the stream, rummaging in his pack.
"What now?" asked Dick, coming up.
"Now," said Lindley, fitting together the sections of a fly rod, "we wait. We are at the agreed spot, at the agreed time. Our contact may please himself to turn up today, or he may not. In the meantime -- " he handed Dick the rod, and began to assemble another -- "we fish."
Dick chose a colorful, wet fly from Lindley's collection, and cast upstream with care, but little finesse was needed: the stream was swarming with trout. Between them they had landed a dozen in less than half an hour, all of the same species, unfamiliar to Dick, with red-spotted sides and a yellow dorsal fin.
After dinner they lay at ease on their sleeping bags, watching the sky darken and the first stars come out. Crickets were thrumming in the fields above; a fresh, cool air drifted up from the stream, invisible now behind the dark tree-trunks. The dying fire glowed red. A little distance away, one of the tethered horses stamped and nickered. Lindley rolled over on one elbow; Dick saw his eyes glisten in the half-light.
From up the slope came a haiclass="underline" "Halt! Who goes there?"
The answer came in a low, guttural voice: "Friend."
"Advance and be recognized, friend."
Lindley had his revolver in one hand; with the other, he stubbed out his cigarette in a shower of tiny red sparks. Dick sat up. At first he could see nothing, then he made out two shadowy forms descending the slope. At Lindley's command, one of the other soldiers threw a handful of branches on the fire. The dry twigs blazed up; in the wavering light, Dick saw the approaching man's face. It was flat and brown, the nose wide, the hair coarse and black under a dirty felt hat. Gold rings glittered in the man's ears; he was dressed in a leather jacket and blue Levi's that clung to his bandy legs.
"Hello, Johnny," said Lindley, rising. "That's all right, Pierce; go back to your post. Sit down, Johnny -- you like coffee?"
The Indian grunted and sat down. "This is Johnny Partridge," said Lindley. "He's a Klamath; his people were chased out of Oregon by the Arapaho about fifty years ago. Not many of them left; Johnny does odd jobs for us now and then, don't you, Johnny?"
"Do good job," said the Indian, taking a steaming mug of coffee from one of the soldiers. He sipped it noisily and handed it back. "More sugar."
"That's right, four spoons for Johnny," said Lindley. His pink face was keen and cruel in the firelight "And plenty sugar, plenty tobacco for Johnny, if he gives us good information."
"Two rifle," said Johnny, raising his hand. "Hundred box cartridge."
"One rifle and ten boxes of cartridges," said Lindley, "If the information is good enough, Johnny."
"Plenty good. White man big medicine cross. Plenty trouble." With his hand he sketched a Gismo-shape in the air, so accurately that Dick, was half convinced. How could anybody out here in the wilderness have got hold of a Gismo? .
"Heaven only knows," Lindley had said the day before, "but it's just possible, and of course we have to be sure."
Now Lindley was saying, "You see big medicine cross yourself, Johnny?"
A vigorous nod. "Plenty big medicine. You come now, I show you."
"Think there's anything to it?" Dick asked Lindley as they were mounting.
"Oh, probably not. Johnny's never seen a real Gismo, only pictures. He's an incorrigible liar, anyhow; all Indians are." The column was forming; Lindley chirruped to his horse and trotted off to the head, leaving Dick to bring up the rear as before.
The roar of the stream fell behind them; the darkness closed in. Dick could barely see past his horse's head, except when they were mounting a rise and the rest of the column was silhouetted against the stars. There was no sound in the world except for the plodding of the horses' hooves and the faint jingle and creak of harness.
When the moon rose, low in the south, they were picking their way around the shore of a quiet lake, one sheet of dull silver beyond the jagged shapes of the pines. They rode, with brief rests, most of the night; the moon had set again when they came to a halt at last near the crest of a ridge.
"We rest here until dawn," said Lindley in low tones, gathering them around him. "No fires, no smoking, no loud talking. Sergeant, post two guards; the rest of you sleep if you can."
There was frost on the ground, and the air had turned bitter chill. Dick dozed fitfully in his sleeping bag, and woke to feel Lindley shaking him.
The sun was a faint greenish glow on the horizon; he could see the shapes of men and horses only as flat cardboard cutouts in the gray half-light. "Come with me," said Lindley.
They climbed to the top of the ridge, and lay down on the needle-carpeted ground, facing across the canyon. Beyond Lindley, Dick could make out the flat-hatted shape of Johnny Partridge. The other side of the canyon was a gray blank between the trunks of the pines. "Johnny claims he can see them already," Lindley remarked in an undertone, "but I think he is lying. Keep your eye on the skyline over there."
The sky insensibly brightened; there were silvery streaks, pale and cold, over the eastern horizon. Shadows could be distinguished, and a little color crept back into the world. Somewhere behind them a coyote was barking, a sleepy, lonesome sound. Dick could see now that the opposite crest was heavily wooded in small evergreens, with a few towering lodgepole pines. He blinked. At one moment the scene was absolutely deserted; the next, the shadows under the branches of the trees opposite were full of oval shapes -- dozens of them, all at the same height above the ground. As he watched, he actually saw a doorway appear in one of them and a tiny man-shape clamber down an invisible hanging ladder.
"Ah!" said Lindley beside him. There was a click and a rustle as he brought his rifle up to firing position. Dick saw him squinting through the scope; then he lowered the rifle again with a sigh. "Nice target, but we must have patience. Did you see him, Jones?"
"Yes."
"They're something new in this district -- weren't here when I came through two years ago. According to Johnny, they're a mixed crowd, half-breed Arapaho and Sarsi, escaped prisoners and that kind of thing, all interbred with degenerate whites. A cut above our friends of yesterday, though; they've got up to the monkey level."
The bottom of the canyon was a dry watercourse, choked with deadwood; the opposite slope was steeply eroded. "What I want you to do," Lindley said, "is to get across there as quietly as you can, but don't take all day about it. I'll give you three boys and Johnny for an interpreter; the rest of us will stay here and snipe."
The shadows were just beginning to darken when Dick and his squad reached the top of the trail. Somewhere a cur began to bark, and then another. One of the tree houses shook abruptly, and a head popped out of the doorway.
Behind them there was the short, sharp bark of a rifle. Splinters flew beside the primitive's head, and he ducked back inside with a shrill cry. Other tree houses began to shake; there was a confusion of emerging bodies, dogs barking, voices calling urgently back and forth in the morning air. Back on the other ridge, the rifles spoke again and again: a body fell thrashing into the brush at the foot of a tree.
At Dick's gesture, the soldiers had spread out along the edge of the village. He looked around for Johnny Partridge; there he was, to the right. "Tell them to bring it out," said Dick.
The Indian nodded. He threw back his head and uttered a short burst of guttural syllables, high-pitched, that made his throat pulse like an animal's.
After a moment, a hidden voice answered. Johnny Partridge listened, then turned. "They say no white man medicine cross here. Big liars."