"If cussin' would help, you'd be a whole team an' a spare hoss," was Dover's dry comment, when the tirade ended.
"It eases a fella some," Yorky excused. "Do you figure th' Doc has skipped, Boss?"
"He's no quitter," Dan told him.
"What they goin' to do with us?"
"Can't say. Scared, son?"
"I dunno," Yorky admitted. "Couple o' months back I wouldn't 'a' cared, but now ..." He was silent for a moment. "A man must take his medicine, Jim allus said."
The disappearance of the doctor caused some consternation, to Bundy in particular. Flint and Lake were despatched to find him, and Garstone seized the opportunity for a quiet word with the foreman.
"Splitting the dollars four ways doesn't help our plans," he commenced meaningly. "We won't have enough between us to get the Circle Dot, much less the Wagon-wheel."
Bundy realized that he was needed. "They ain't done much," he said. "Oughta be well satisfied with five thousand apiece."
"That or--nothing," Garstone said deliberately. "You agree?"
"Shore I do," was the reply. "Nothin'--for choice."
The men under discussion came in at that moment. "Can't find a trace of him," Flint reported. "We combed the gorge thorough. All their horses is gone too--they had 'em picketed further along; looks like someone stampeded 'em."
"That cursed sawbones," Bundy exploded. "Wish I'd put his light out earlier."
"Well, they won't see the horses again, and it's a long walk to Rainbow," the Easterner said. "But it makes one difference: with that fellow at large, we can't leave Trenton here."
Chapter XXI
Beth sat down; daylight was a very welcome experience after the long lack of it, and she was terribly tired. Soon, however, sex asserted itself, and the task of neatening her appearance occupied her. Sudden too, inured as he was to physical exertion, found a rest acceptable; sitting cross-legged, he rolled a cigarette, wondering the while where the twistings of the tunnel had brought them. On their right towered the great head of Old Cloudy, and far away to the left the sky glowed faintly red, telling of the coming sunrise. Below, a sea of purple mist eddied and swirled.
The girl was studying this grave-faced, saturnine man who, having saved her life, had not hesitated to risk it again in the presence of another threat. The memory of that fearful leap sickened yet thrilled. What were they to do now? She put the question.
"Wait till it clears lower down," he said. "I reckon we've both had enough o' walkin' blindfold."
"I am anxious to get back to my uncle," she pointed out. "I shall never forgive myself for running away."
"Natural enough--yu been raised different," he excused. "The cave can't be far off; we'll find it."
"You think they will remain there?"
"I reckon," he told her, a wisp of a smile on his lips. "They won't find that Cache, 'less Trenton has talked, which ain't likely."
"He did talk--to me, though I don't think he knew I was there," she confessed. "I told Mister Garstone."
"The devil!" His bleak expression alarmed her.
"My uncle needed that money urgently," she explained.
"So did Dover, an' he had a right to it, which Trenton did not," Sudden said sternly. "Red Rufe was Old Man Dover's brother."
The statement shook her, but she was loyal to her kin. "Then I am sure Uncle Zeb was ignorant of it."
"For years it has been common knowledge in the town."
"My uncle would not do anything dishonourable," she replied stubbornly.--
"If that goes for his men, mebbe it's no good tellin' yu some-thin' else," he returned. "Trenton was shot from behind." Her eyes flamed. "I don't believe it; you're just trying to prejudice me, and whatever I may owe you--
"Which is nothin' a-tall," he broke in. "Ask Doc Malachi." And as if to end the matter, "There's somethin' worth lookin' at."
Away on the eastern horizon, the grey had given way to a rosy glow, deepening towards its source, the flame-red disc of the sun, moving majestically up from behind the rim of the world. A growing golden light spread its radiance over the earth, softening the harsh outlines of crag and cliff.
"It's wonderful," the girl breathed.
"Shore is," the puncher replied. "Pity we humans can't grade up to the beauty o' the universe we live in."
"Some of it is ugly," she protested.
"On'y where man has interfered," he said cynically. "All nature has beauty of some kind."
"When I came to Rainbow we crossed a hideous desert, nothing but sand, cactus, and desolation."
"See that same desert by moonlight an' it'll beat the finest picture yu ever saw--if yu ain't thirsty," he added whimsically. "That scurry 'pears to be on the move; we'll start."
Side by side, they set off down the slope. The coarse grass, dotted with patches of greasewood, stunted mesquite, and cactus, made progress difficult and speed impossible. Before they had travelled far, a harsh warning rattle sounded, and from a bush just in front of Beth, a repulsive flat head shot up and swayed back to strike. Almost before she could cry out, a flash and roar came from her companion's hip and the reptile subsided, its head smashed by a bullet. Sudden drew out the empty shell, reloaded, and holstered the weapon. The girl stared at him in amazement.
"You were--so quick," she murmured, speaking her thought. He grinned at her, and, in that instant, seemed almost boyish. "No time to waste when Mister Rattler goes on the prod--he's a fast worker."
"I have--to thank you--again," she said.
"Shucks," he replied impatiently. "I sorta got yu into the mess, an' it's up to me to look after you."
This brought Dover into her mind. She would never understand these Western men; they resented any expression of gratitude, and could even be rude about it.
He had picked up the still quivering body. "A biggish one. Would you like his rattles?"
"Heavens, no, I hate snakes," she shuddered. "They are of no use, surely."
"The buttons? In Virginia the niggers make bracelets of 'em; they're claimed to keep off evil."
"I should have brought one when I came to Arizona," she said bitterly.
When they continued the journey, he went in front, "to deal with varmints," but they encountered no more, and presently reached a level ledge of short grass. By this time the first slanting rays of the sun were splitting the mist into filmy, opalescent veils which rose and melted away, revealing that they were on one side of a deep canyon, the walls of which dropped sheer to a tumbling, riotous river hundreds of feet below. It seemed likely to Sudden that the stream they had jumped in the tunnel might empty itself into this one, so the broken body of Rattray could be returning to Rainbow.
"Where now?" the girl asked.
"We'll follow the canyon, east, an' get around this hump," he decided. "Then a twist to the north should fetch us somewhere near the cavern."
They tramped on, pausing only to drink at a rivulet which crossed their path. But the hump was succeeded by more high ground, steep and brush-clad, an insuperable barrier which pinned them to the canyon-side. They spoke little, but once or twice, to take her mind from the fatigue he knew she must be enduring, the puncher remarked on the marvel of the painted walls of the gorge, purple, green, brown, and red, brilliant beneath the burning rays of the sun, and the grotesque pinnacled and turreted masses of grey rock which served as a background.
"Yes, it's all very lovely," she sighed, and tried to smile. "But it only proves that even beauty can breed monotony. I'd give it all for something to eat."
"We'll have breakfast right soon," Sudden told her. "Wait here; I'll be within call."