"Then that's where we'll find him. In that old, abandoned camp," he
exclaimed. "It's a ten-to-one bet that he got some supplies up there
some time within the last few days, when he made up his mind to do
this job, and that he plans to lay quiet there until it is safe for
him to get out of the country."
The others nodded their heads sagely.
"If you're sure of that," the drill runner said, "the best thing to do
is for us to leave the trail over here a ways and come up to the old
camp from behind it. He might be on the watch for this trail."
"Good again!" asserted the millman. "Here, you take the lead now and
we'll follow."
For another hour they plugged along the trail with an increasing
alertness, and wondering how soon the drill runner would turn off. At
last he looked back and gestured to them. They understood. He slipped
off the trail into the brush and began going slowly. Once he stopped
to whisper to them to be cautious, inasmuch as within a few hundred
yards they would reach their goal. Now they began to exercise the
utmost caution of movement, spreading out according to individual
judgment to avoid windfalls and thickets. Again the lead man stopped
and signaled them. He beckoned with his arm, and they closed up and
peered where he indicated.
Out in the center of a clearing stood a big, rambling structure that
had done service and been abandoned. A slow wisp of smoke, gray and
thin, floated upward from the rough chimney, a part of whose top rocks
had been dislodged by winter storms. They dropped to the ground and
held a whispered consultation. They argued heatedly over the best
course to pursue. The millman favored surrounding the cabin, and then
permitting him with two others to advance boldly to the door and
endeavor to capture their man.
The packer, Sinclair, suggested another course, which was nothing less
valorous than a straight rush for the doors and windows; but Chloride
fought that plan.
"It ain't that I'm afraid to take my chances," he declared; "but if we
do that, some of us, with such a crowd, is sure to get shot. We don't
want to lose no lives on a skunk of a dynamiter like this feller must
be. I'm for surroundin' the house, then callin' him out. If he's an
honest man, he'll come. If he ain't, he'll fight. Then we'll get him
in the long run if we have to fire the cabin to-night."
"And maybe burn a couple of million dollars worth of timber with it at
the same time," growled the drill runner. "That's a fine idea! I'm for
Jack's plan. First, line out around the cabin, out of sight of course,
then two men walk up and get him. I'm one of 'em."
"And I the other," declared Rogers. "Let's lose no time."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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