CHAPTER IX.
Hurley, the two boys, and Juan surrounded Strong as he came back to the strip of beach and remounted, telling them to keep close in his wake.
“I'll lead the roan through first,” he said. “Then I can ride, and the others will follow. There is a ledge runs round the rim of the basin. It may have been natural, to start with, but it looks to me as if they'd built it up more level. Easy goin' once you git a hawss so it'll take it. You'd hardly guess it was thar to look at the pool, but it is, and thar's a cave back of the fall with a passage leadin' out of it. We'll have to use the torches for a ways, but I reckon we'll see whar we kin put them out befo' they glimpse 'em. We've found the back door, boys. We may have to make the last of it on foot. We kin shoot better thet a way an' the hawsses might nicker if thar's any others nigh whar we come out inter their hideout.
“Miguel, an' you Pedro, an' Juan, don't chuck away yore lead. Squeeze yore triggers an' the guns won't throw up or sidewise. Aim befo' you loose, an' aim low. A body's a dern sight better target than a head.”
“Thet's the talk,” endorsed Hurley. His whispering voice was like the growl of an old dog, unleashed on a strong scent. “Count yore shots an' try to be nigh cover for reloadin'. An empty gun's a pore weapon when the other man's loaded, but you don't want to fergit they're goin' to run out of shells same as you do. If we rush 'em, an' I reckon thet's your idee, Strong, they'll be rattled some an' shoot fast. The faster they shoot the mo' li'ble they air to miss. If you don't aim, you're jest givin' away cartridges.”
“Don't shoot till Hurley an' me start,” warned Strong. “Now then, wait till I coax the roan round the edge of the pool an' ride him back. He'll be steady once he savvies he's got his footin'. Thar's an eddy thar, but it don't amount to much.”
The roan went through safely, led by its bridle, returning confidently, while the other horses watched and, though they snorted a little, trailed the leader back behind the fall. They had brought all their torches with them, but used only one at a time, Strong bearing it, in the lead.
The fissure was shaped like an A some ten feet high, and, all along the way, smoke blurs showed its constant use, besides ends of charred wood, hoof-prints in the soft soil of the floor that sloped upward and then down again, the way winding by sharp turns, gradually descending well below the surface of the creek. Once they came to where three openings showed, and Strong dismounted to make sure of the right turn.
“I reckon they use mules for the chinks,” he said. “Most of the sign is mules' shoe. They're surer-footed an' quieter, mostly, for this work. It's the last time chinks'll come through here,” he added grimly. “What's wrong, Pedro?”
The Mexican had uttered an exclamation and crossed himself. He had made a light and looked into one of the confusing passages.
“There is a skeleton, señor,” he said.
“Some one Lobo disciplined, I reckon,” said Strong. “Mebbe a sick chink. If you're goin' to be feared of dead men, you better go back, son.”
“No, I'm not afraid, señor, but a skeleton, eet ees bad luck.”
“Bad luck for Lobo. Come on.”
Still they descended, and now the walls dripped moisture, and they could hear the running of hidden streams.
They came to a pit that filled the passageway and forced them to drift down a series of perilous ledges like rough steps to a trail that hugged the damp wall and bordered a black pool whose surface was broken by gurgling, gasping bubbles. The sound was fearfully distorted in the inclosed place. A chill wind blew through the cavern, and there was the fluttering of wings.
For better discipline, Hurley now brought up the rear, with the superstitious Mexicans ahead of him. Miguel whispered with chattering teeth and awe-struck voice.
“Thees ees hell itself. Señor, surely there are devils here! Men I do not fear, but devils”
“I don't see 'em. Come on.”
“But, señor, the wings!”
“Bats. Want to go back?”
“Heaven forbeed, señor. I stay weeth you.”
They passed through a chain of connecting caves. The coolies must have arrived at their destination in a state of stupor at the strange surroundings through which they passed. Miguel's suggestion of purgatory was well taken. They crossed places where weird formations on the walls looked, in the flickering, gusty light of the torch, like strange monsters gazing down or crouching, ready to leap upon them.
Always the cold draft of air flickered and always there was the noise of hidden water, now back of the oozing walls, now overhead, or beneath their feet. They passed bats hanging like grapes from the ceiling. They rode through several hundred feet of guano deposits, so old that they were like ashes under their feet, though they still gave out a stale stench of ammonia that brought the water to their eyes.
Once, they skirted a great jut of rock and, again, they came to two upthrusts like domes. Their lofty tops were corrugated so that they resembled mammoth stems of asparagus, one of them lofting up to the high roof, both surrounded with glittering stalagmites.
There was one vast chamber with a flinty floor where the hoofs rang and reechoed through the pillars of pendant stalactites, reaching down to meet corresponding forms reared from the constant siliceous flow that made the slender pendants gleam like crystals, or icicles, where they caught the light of the torch and sent it back prismatically reflected, until it seemed as if they were indeed in Aladdin's garden of jewels, while the clang of the hoofs was changed to music, as if a giant had softly struck his tuning fork.
Some formations were shaped like elephants' ears, others like the spread wings of enormous birds, like sponges, like toadstools—many of them snowy white, flashing like moonstones. Even the desperate need for haste and the grim nature of their mission could not stay their admiration, though they passed in silence—the Mexicans in awe.
Down, ever down, they descended, and it became steadily colder. It seemed as if they had been hours on the way. Finally, they came to where a gorge opened left and right, the torch incapable of piercing the height of it, its depth a frightful abyss crossed by an unrailed bridge of planks over which the horses passed cautiously. On the far side Hurley's mount dislodged a fragment, and it went down through the gloom, descending silently into the gulf, to disappear in silence.
A sharp ascent commenced along a narrow corridor. There was a difference in the air current. It blew more strongly. It was no longer musty like the wind from a crypt, but had a tang of open air, of grasses, a faint taint of wood smoke. Again, they came to cross galleries that Strong had to explore to determine which one to take, and so, climbing fast, they arrived at a vast amphitheater and, looking upward, saw a star. It was a great shaft from the very top of the mesa.
Their direction had been steadily north and east, leading always toward the cañon. Fresh tracks showed them their path through a tunnel where they had to crouch low, and it was difficult to handle the torch. The current became a draft of wind that was sweet and pure, and it was clear that they were coming to the open, clear that the Lobo pack did not live in caves as they had fancied.
Strong passed the torch back to Hurley, who dropped it behind in the trail where its light served them for a while. The tunnel opened out into a vaulted room with a pool, a great arch beyond, and, through the arch, the glimmer of a fire.
They held swift debate. Their torches were all gone. To return the way they had come would be difficult, if not impossible. If the attack on the cañon gate materialized soon, the situation would be altered. By themselves they could not hope to wipe out the whole crowd with odds of eight to one, hardly to hold them off. The girl must be rescued, and the disposal of her raised a problem,, with scant time to solve it.
They could hear ribald laughter, the booming of a deep voice and shouts of loud acclaim. Strong slipped from his saddle and went forward to reconnoiter.
He looked out through the arch upon a glen walled in by stupendous cliffs that rose far to the rim of the mesa. High up was a field of deep purple studded by stars, not yet reached by the moon, though in the east her coming radiance could be distinguished. A fall came tumbling down a thousand feet, and from it there ran a torrent that seemed to disappear beneath an archway at the other end like the one under which he stood, doubtless the cave from which Skeleton Creek issued into the cañon.
There were trees growing here and there in little groves or standing apart—bushes and rock masses that must have fallen from the cliffs long since, vine-clad now. Along one cliff there showed the dim bulk of several cabins with lights in the windows of one or two of them.
His quick eyes took it all in before it centered on the group that had gathered about a great fire. They seemed to be standing about a flat stone or rude table. On it he thought he saw a gleam of light fabric that caught the firelight, but was motionless. A swift stirring in his veins announced that this was Lucy.
The deep voice boomed out again, clear above the muffled roar of the fall. A chorus of “Huzzas!” followed the end of the speech.
Strong's decision was made. His heart told him that this was the girl he loved, and that she was in deadly peril. The words of Miguel rang in his ears as he raced back to his horse.
“If she did not suit Lobo,” Rudd had confided to Josefa in his drunken boasting, “he would let the men throw dice for her.”
This incredible thing was happening.
“Come on,” he said hoarsely. “Out with your guns. Scatter the devils.”
They came out on a run that changed into a gallop, a charge, increasing in speed at every stride. The Mexicans had one gun apiece. Strong and Hurley rode with one in each hand, poised, muzzle upward, guiding their horses with their knees, though once they sighted the fire and the men about it the wise ponies needed no more, knowing their objective, fired with the spirit of their masters, dodging between the blocks of stone, racing over the dense turf that carpeted their footfalls so that the eager pack did not hear them, did not heed them until after they entered the zone of the firelight.
Fast as he had come, Strong looked about him for some place to make a stand if he could not drive them. He had not been able to locate their horses. They would scatter them, save those they stretched on the grass, but the foe would rally, fight desperately.
Now the men surged together, hilarious. The booming voice had stopped. It had belonged to Lobo, without a doubt, and Strong tried to distinguish him, but failed as they came sweeping on. He could see the girl upon the table where Lobo had placed her like a slave in a market place. And she saw them—saw Strong. He was sure of that.
He saw her raise her head that had drooped, for all her bravery, at the sight of the ruffians dicing for the prize their leader had, for some strange reason, spurned. She stood erect, one hand to her breast as if to still the fluttering pulse of hope that might betray her.
On they came, the foe intent upon the cast of dice.
A roar went up, a shout of exultation.
“Double six! Match thet, one of ye!”
It was Rudd, his baldness shining in the glow, his stubby yellow mustache clear—even the powder blotch. He reached for the girl and was pulled aside by others who had not yet cast. He fought with them, flung them off, and, facing the flying horsemen, stared dumb at the sight of Strong, leaning slightly forward in the saddle, with the roan's head outstretched on a snaky neck, teeth bared, nostrils wide. The light shone on the gun barrels, revealed what might be the van of a squadron, charging down.
The girl called in a glad cry and, from one side, there came the loud bellow of warning from Lobo, who, unarmed, turned and ran toward the cabins.
He was trapped, caught in his own den, the only place where he ever let his hands be beyond grasping distance of his weapons. He had no gun, and Strong, with blazing eyes that flashed crimson in the fire, was coming like a thunderbolt. Neck and neck raced the gray of Hurley, the old puncher's weathered face grim as granite.
Rudd managed an inarticulate cry, his hand dropping to his holster. His gun came out, lifted, as the pack turned, snarling, to face the little cavalcade that seemed to have risen out of the very ground.
There came a streak of fire from Strong's right-hand gun, then spurts of flame in rapid succession from the rest.
Rudd leaped high in the air, twisting, crashing down with a bullet scoring just above the powder blotch, searing through bone and brain, tearing loose the back of his skull, as the roan leaped his prostrate body. With one gun holstered, Strong swept the girl from the table into the saddle before him, and wheeled the roan through the yelping, disconcerted mob that fired wildly as the excitement-maddened horses plunged and the shots went home.
The Mexicans shouted as they rode, welded to their saddles, riding down their men and firing at close quarters, trampling others as they fled and stumbled.
There was the sharp crack of a rifle and Strong's hat flew. Lobo had gained a weapon, and only the great leaps of the roan had spoiled his aim. His deep voice roared out orders, and the pack retreated, seeking cover in the shrubbery and back of the rocks, making for the cabins and, Strong guessed, the corral. As far as he knew, they were unscathed on their side, but the rifle cracked again, and a bullet struck the neck of the roan high up, close to the roots of its name. It shrieked and plunged, and he wheeled again to seek the safety of the group of rocks he had marked as he came out. Alone he would have charged Lobo in a duel to the death, but the girl, clinging to him, with the wonderful pressure of her arms about him, her face close to his, her breath upon his face, must be taken out of danger.
In turn, he called to his own men and gathered them, going back toward the archway, but discarding that in favor of the stone ramparts that would form a bulwark for them while they could still deal death.
Now Lobo came tearing out on a great black stallion that neighed as it galloped, other riders back of him, rifles and pistols blazing at the invaders, bent on the annihilation of the audacious little troop whose numbers they now saw, who had left twice their number on the ground, dead or writhing in final agonies.
The rocks Strong had chosen were roughly assembled in the shape of a diamond, with one angle open, through which they rode into a hollow space that held the five horses with barely room for their riders to stand beside them on account of the smaller rocks inside the great boulders. These would serve for platforms on which to stand while they held off the outlaws with their fire.
If they had gone to the arch they might have put the girl out of the line of fire behind one of the walls, but they must have been themselves exposed, and a desperate charge might well have carried through from sheer weight of odds. Now, in the knowledge that Lobo did not hold, that, before long, there must come a challenge from the end of the cañon, they were well located for a defense that should be sufficient.
Lobo undoubtedly chuckled, sure that they had made a fatal slip. He could even, if he liked, draw off his men to rifle distance and leave the invaders penned in their rocky fort to broil in the sun, perish for lack of food and water, slowly capitulate. Something of that sort drifted through Lobo's mind, but he dismissed it for a more immediate reprisal. He had both man and girl here now. He linked them together in a flash of intuition, backed by the cry she had given when she saw Strong, a cry that held more of gladness than relief.
Now he could glut his deviltry by playing off one against the other, unless he had to kill Strong. That would be a pity, for he had no mind to give him an easy death. But he was shrewd enough to know that, unless he forced the issue, he would lose ground with his men. His supposedly impregnable retreat had been entered, and he could only suppose treachery. He already suspected Rudd of talking too much when he was drunk, and he had accused him of it, only to be indignantly given a denial which had strengthened his conviction rather than weakened it.
Rudd was dead, and he was glad of it. Rudd had started the beginnings of what might grow into a revolt when Lobo had tongue-lashed him after his return from the ambuscade without killing Strong. The main insurgent was disposed of, but he would have to wipe out this setback of invasion, recover the girl and his own prestige.
He recognized the shrewdness with which Strong had chosen what Lobo believed could be at the best only a temporary refuge, and he gave orders for his men to gallop about the place to draw the fire of the defenders, while two of them, expert hunters of beasts and men, clambered up the cliff to where they could command the inclosure with a plunging fire. Both were sharpshooters. The moon was due over the mesa rim within a few minutes now. It would be shining down on the in closure by the time they gained their vantage point, and he gave them strict orders to kill off all but the girl and Strong.
“I saw five of them,” he said. “Wait till they show, and you ought to clean off two the first shot. Git the other white man first. The greasers'll quit. You two air allus boastin' about shootin' out a buck's eye at a quarter of a mile. Let's see what you kin do now.”
“You needn't worry none,” said one of the men. “Jake an' me ain't done no boastin' we ain't backed up with the venison. Them hawsses'll nigh fill up the space inside those rocks, but I reckon the men'll be takin' cracks at you. They'll tuck the gal in on the ground. If either of us git a good chance, what's the matter with lettin' thet Strong fella have it in the laig?”
“So long as you don't kill him.”
“We won't. Jake'll work along the ledge some so we'll git 'em from two angles.”
It suited Lobo and he said so, getting his men together and explaining to them what he had in mind. “Soon's 'Butch' an' Jake git goin', we'll rush the dump. We'll git Strong an' let him watch the proceedin's. Rudd was high throw, wasn't he? Waal, he's lost out. You kin start the game all over. Now then, herd 'em. Hit 'em if you kin, but don't any of you plug Strong 'less you kin help it.”