At this end there was a small log hut, outside which the Hill Bluffer was now in conversation with a hefty-looking, middle-aged Dilbian.
“Saw him turn off at the fork myself!” this Dilbian was bellowing. “You questioning the word of a public official? Want me to swear on my winch-cable? Eh?” He laid a heavy, pawlike hand on the great drum on which the cables of the bridge were wound, crank-driven through a series of carved wooden gears by a polished wooden handle.
“I was just asking!” roared the Bluffer. “A man can ask, can’t he?”
“If he asks politely, all right,” said the evident bridgekeeper, stubbornly. “I said I seen him turn off at the fork on this side and go over the bridge there.” He pointed along this side of the gorge and John saw where, on this side the trail did split, one way following along the near cliff face, and the other crossing the bridge disappearing through a cleft in the rock. “He headed toward the high country and Ice Dog Glacier.”
“All right. All right, I believe you!” said the Bluffer. He turned toward the bridge.
“Hey,” said the bridgekeeper. “Your toll.”
“Toll!”
The Bluffer spun about in outrage.
“Me? A government postman? Toll?”
“Well,” grumbled the other, “after doubting my word like that, I’d think you’d want—”
“Toll!” snorted the Bluffer, in contempt, and turning about, marched off over the bridge without waiting for the bridgekeeper to finish.
“Are we going someplace different?” asked John, as they left the far end of the bridge, and headed into the cleft in the rock.
“Streamside’s headed for glacier country,” muttered the Bluffer. “Or maybe he plans to double over the mountains the other way at Halfway House, and end up in the Free Forest. Anyway we got to shake a leg to catch him, if that’s it. Toll!”
He snorted again and put on speed.
Their new road took them steeply up and away from the territory of rivers and deep gorges. After half an hour’s climb they began to emerge into an area of wide, stony slopes across which a high-altitude wind blew with the sort of coolness that did not permit sleeping in the saddle.
It was past noon when they came around a bend in the slope three hours later and approached another inn. This one, situated to take advantage of what little natural shelter there was in this exposed area, was built almost exclusively of stone and earth. They stopped for a midday break, and John got down to stretch his legs gratefully. His brain was still refusing to make itself useful by coming up with any plan to frustrate the ambassador; but the cool, keen winds had blown John into physical wakefulness, so much so that he realized he was tired of the saddle. If it had not been clearly an impractical notion, John would have liked to forego riding and walk for a while.
But there was no hope of that. If John should try to make it on foot, the Bluffer would be over the horizon and out of sight inside of half an hour. That is, unless he held his pace down to that of his human companion. And, numb-minded as he was at the moment, John had to smile at the thought of the explosive and impatient Bluffer’s reaction, if he was asked to do that.
So, John made the best of it by taking a stroll around the stone inn of Halfway House to take the kinks out of his leg muscles. When he approached the front door of it again, he found the Bluffer on the point of explosion. The cause of this was not John, or anything he had done, but the other visitors at the Halfway House.
They were laughing at the Bluffer.
There were half a dozen of them just outside the door of the House, headed by a relatively short and chunky Dilbian carrying a sort of alpenstock.
“Hor! Hor!” the short Dilbian was bellowing.
“You want to make something out of it?” the Bluffer was roaring.
“What is it?” asked John. Nobody even heard him, of course.
“Fixed you right!” chortled the short Dilbian.
“Fixed me…! I’ll show who fixed me!” The Bluffer shook both fists high over his head. It was an awesome sight. “Swore to me as a public official, he did. Said he’d seen the Terror take the fork this way with his own two eyes!”
“He did! Sure he did!” put in somebody else. “Tell him, Snowshoe!”
“Why,” said the chunky Dilbian, “he saw the Terror take the right fork, all right. But after that he closed his eyes for a bit there, just like she’d arranged.”
“She?” bellowed the Bluffer. “Boy Is She Built?”
“Why, who else, postman? The Terror was waiting for her to catch up with him there.
“‘That long-legged postman’s right behind me,’ she says.
“‘Don’t, now,’ she says. ‘You can’t fight the government mail,’ she says. ‘I got a better idea.’ And she fixed it up with old Winchrope to close his eyes while they come back out of one fork and took the other to the Hollows with the female Shorty they had along.” The chunky Dilbian named Snowshoes stopped to laugh again. “Passing by myself at the time. Saw the whole thing. Laugh! Thought I’d split a gut!”
The Bluffer bellowed to the mountain sky. His eyes fell on John and he snatched John up like the package John was officially supposed to be.
The next thing they knew, they were fifteen yards back along the trail they had just come, and gaining speed.
“Hey!” said John. “At least let me get in the saddle.”
“What? Oh!” snarled the Bluffer. He checked and waited a few impatient seconds, while John crawled over his shoulder into the saddle. Then he took off again.
Two hours later they were back at the wrong end of the bridge. The word wrong was, thought John, used advisedly. For the bridge was now out of their reach.
What had been done was simple enough. Their end of the bridge had its cables fastened to the sheer cliff face some twenty feet back and another twenty feet above their heads. What had been done was to tighten these cables by means of the winch to which they were attached at their other end. The sag of the span had straightened out, lifting the bridge up and out of their reach.
The Hill Bluffer bellowed across the gap. His first forty words were a description of Winchrope’s person and morals, his last four an order to put the bridge back down where he and John could reach it, and cross.
There was no answer at the far end. The windlass to which the cables were attached showed no inclination to comply with the order by itself and no one emerged from the bridgekeeper’s hut.
“What’s happened?” asked John.
“He’s in there!” raged the Bluffer. “That bridge isn’t supposed to be cranked up until night—and then only to keep people from sneaking across and not paying their toll. He’s in there, all right. He just won’t come out and let it down, because he knows what I’ll do to him the minute I get over there.” He thundered across the gorge again. “Get out here and let down this unmentionable, indescribable bridge, so I can get over it at you and tear your head off!”
The bridgekeeper still showed no eagerness to take the Bluffer up on this invitation. Small wonder, thought John privately, standing prudently back out of arms reach of the wrought-up postman.
The Bluffer stopped shouting and looked up at the bridge overhead. He made a half-hearted motion as if to try reaching for it; but it was obviously many feet beyond even the stretch of his long arms. He dropped them, defeatedly.
“All right!” he roared once more, shaking his fist across the gorge. “I’ll climb up the gorge. I’ll go along the cliff. I don’t need a trail. I’ll get to the Hollows before Streamside does! And then I’m coming back for you!”