They had lashed the wrists of the man they were sure had killed Masterson.
But those wrists weren’t lashed now!
Benson’s hands were even more inconspicuous than the rest of him. None of him was oversized. He was average in size throughout — perhaps a little less than average — and it verged on the miraculous to discover what power and quickness were in him.
His hands were a good example.
They were white and well-kept, with slender fingers.
They were steely in strength, but slim. In fact, they were slim enough so that when The Avenger held them with thumb in palm and fingers compressed, as only his training was able to do, they were no bigger in circumference than his wrists.
More than once people had discovered that too late. The Avenger could slide out of the tightest handcuffs and ease out of the harshest bonds. And he had done so now.
He had loosened the rope around his wrists by slight hand movements as they marched him to the tree. Now, as the four men gave the lynching tree their attention instead of the man they proposed to lynch, Benson dropped the rope to the ground and was free.
Any other man would have found himself about as bad off as when bound. But not The Avenger. Though he knew that Mike and Ike, undiscovered in their holsters, would not prevail against these four men. Another method of action had snapped instantly into being behind the pale and deadly eyes.
Les had his rope over the branch. One end was formed into a running loop. The other end was unknotted. He pulled on the rope doubled, and the limb above scarcely quivered.
“It’d hold six like this guy,” he said.
And his hold on the rope slackened.
It was the moment The Avenger had been waiting for. Three of the four men were next to the bole of the tree, including Les. The fourth man was standing beside Benson.
So fast that the eye could hardly follow his movements, The Avenger whipped his hands from behind his back. His left, like a gray steel model of a hand instead of flesh and blood, caught the man beside him on the side of the jaw. His right got the rope and jerked it from the lax grasp of the startled and incredulous Les.
The rope whisked down from over the tree limb and seemed to come alive in The Avenger’s steely, slim hand. It snapped around tree and men in a great circle.
Benson had thrown the loop end of the rope because that had more weight than the other end. The loop slapped into his hand after making a flying circuit of men and tree. The free end seemed to leap through the loop of its own volition.
Then Benson whipped the rope taut.
Les had managed at last to get his gun out. The free end of the rope lashed out like the end of a blacksnake whip. It smacked the gun from the rancher’s hand just as it belched flame. The bullet went into the ground.
One man unconscious on the ground, three men lashed to the bole of the tree like three captives bound to an Indian stake — and the white-haired man with the blazing, glacial eyes the only one free.
Holding the rope taut, Benson reached down with his left hand and got Ike from its slim scabbard. The throwing knife slashed the rope hobbling Benson’s ankles. But at no second was Benson’s white gaze off the three men.
Still holding the rope taut, he walked up to them. Just out of reach of Les’ free arm, he reached into his pocket and drew out letters and documents.
“You wouldn’t let me show you these before,” he said, voice quiet and calm. His face was expressionless, of course; it never would show emotion in that dead flesh. The roped men gazed at him in awe. What manner of person was this who could come within an ace of being hung, escape by a trick little short of miraculous in its swiftness — and still look as calm and cool as if strolling down a city sidewalk?
“I’d like you to glance at these now,” said Benson.
He opened the letters one by one in front of Les. The other two men were held, backs against the tree, at Les’ left and right, and couldn’t see.
“What do they say, Les?” one demanded, tone bitter at the reversal of circumstances and because of wounded pride in being trapped like this.
“Plenty,” said Les. “This guy seems to be about the biggest thing in the State. Letter from the governor of New York an’ from J. Edgar Hoover of the F.B.I., and one from the President. All sayin’ he’s a special investigator an’ to be given every consideration.”
“You still believe I murdered Masterson?” asked The Avenger, quiet-voiced.
Les’ lips compressed.
“Yuh could have forged these — or swiped ’em somewhere.”
“The man who killed Masterson apparently had white hair. I also have white hair. So you have leaped to conclusions. I’d like the benefit of the doubt, and I know you’ll be fair enough to give it to me.”
“Why’re yuh in these parts if yuh didn’t have anythin’ to do with Masterson’s death?” snapped Les.
Benson hesitated, then told as much as he could and still be believed.
“There is trouble in the construction camp over at Mt. Rainod. I was sent to end it. At the same time, I am sure, I will find out who did kill Masterson. Now, if you will give me your word not to make trouble I’ll turn you loose and get back to my work.”
“Yuh can’t stand there holdin’ that rope on us all day, an’ yuh don’t dast turn us loose,” jeered the man to Les’ right. “Got a tiger by the tail, ain’t yuh?”
“No,” said Benson, “I haven’t. I could easily knock you unconscious one by one and leave here.”
“Guess yuh could,” acknowledged Les grudgingly. “All right, turn us loose. We won’t try nothin’.”
Benson released his hold on the rope. The three men stepped, sheepish and furious, from the tree. Their hands went longingly to their guns, but they did not draw.
“O.K.,” Les drawled, tone and eyes deadly. “Mebbe yuh’ll be sorry yuh didn’t kill the lot of us. Because I promise yuh this, mister; if yuh don’t turn up somebody else yuh can tag as Masterson’s murderer in about four days, we’re comin’ for yuh. An’ we’re comin’ shootin’.”
Benson nodded. That was all. His dead, awesome face was as expressionless as white metal. His eyes were as unmoved as burnished chromium. He turned and walked to his horse and rode away.
The man The Avenger had knocked out, moaned and stirred a little. Les stared absently at him, intently at the figure on horseback disappearing in the direction of Mt. Rainod, and spoke for the four of them.
“Guess we made kind of a mistake, boys, when we thought we was goin’ to trap that guy! It’d be a sight easier to try an’ trap a hurricane.”
CHAPTER XI
Heart of the Mountain
Nellie Gray lived through about six lifetimes in the three seconds it took the section of cliff to fall on her. She saw all of her past as a drowning person is supposed to see it, and came to the conclusion that there were a great many things she would have done differently had she known she was to come to such an untimely end. Being nicer to Smitty was one of them.
Then the cliff fell on her. And she wasn’t smashed after all!
Afterward she was never sure of just what it was all like. But she had a vague feeling that someone had thrown the whole top of a three-ring-circus tent over her slender body, pinning it to the ground under hundreds of pounds of strangling weight.
It wasn’t a thirty-foot slab of rock that hit her. It was a great big piece of canvas, cleverly painted to resemble the black basalt of the mountain.
She was held as tightly as a fish in a net. Like a fish, she flopped frantically to get free, but couldn’t.