She looked at him quickly, her eyes searching his. She glanced at the rock. "It doesn't make sense. Except" a" she paused, studying it a" "there's a Dease River up here somewhere and a Dease Lake."

"There is?" Orrin looked surprised. "What d'you know about that?"

She looked at him again, half angry.

In the morning, Charlie Fleming was gone.

Chapter XXIII.

Fleming was gone, and a light rain was falling that froze as it reached the ground. We drank our coffee standing around the hissing fire in our slickers.

"I'd like to know where he went," Orrin said, "but it's not worth following him."

"D'you think he made sense out of Logan's message?"

"If he did," Shorty said, "he's smarter than me."

"We've been pa.s.sing messages around for years," Orrin said. "Started back in the feuding days, I reckon. The 'Clinch S' just means he's a Clinch Mountain Sackett, which is one branch of the family, descended from old Yance. 'Dease?' simply means we should head for the Dease River, and the destination after that is in doubt."

"Unless you were one of the family," Tyrel commented, "it's unlikely you'd guess."

"Why'd you say he was still alive? That message might have been written days ago."

"Could be, but it's scratched on there with some of that chalk rock he picked up, and had it been more'n a few days old, it would have washed away."

Cap came riding in as they were mounting. "Took a look at the trail," he said. "There's a marker there. Could be by one of you boys, but that trail is one thin cow wide, and with this ice a" "

"Think we can make it?"

"Maybe. There's no tellin' the luck of a lousy cow. Anyway, it doesn't seem like we have much choice."

"It's up to me, then," I said, and rode out with old Brindle falling in behind.

When we started up the trail, old Brindle hesitated, not liking it. His horns rattled against the wall, but as I was going on, and he was used to following, he sort of fell in behind.

"Hope I don't let you down, old boy," I said. "It looks bad to me, too!"

We wound steadily upward, the trail narrowing, then widening, occasionally opening to a small s.p.a.ce of an acre or more covered with stunted trees, then narrowing again. The sleet continued to fall, and the air was cold. Far below, we could see the spearlike tops of trees, and the silver ribbon of a stream.

The trail grew steeper. At times, I had to dismount and lead my mount over the icy rocks. At one point, I came to a bank of last year's snow, a dirty gray shelf of the stuff, which I had to break off to make a way for my horse and the following cattle.

It was slow, hard work. All day long, we climbed. There was no place to stop and rest; there was not even a place to stop.

Suddenly, the trail dipped down around a steep elbow bend, and the rock of the trail slanted toward the outer edge. Walking along the wall as tightly as possible, I led the roan around the corner.

The cattle came on. Glancing back when several hundred yards farther along, I was in time to see a steer suddenly slip and, legs flailing, plunge off into s.p.a.ce headed for the tops of the trees five hundred feet below. Even as I looked, another fell.

Swearing softly, I plodded on, feeling for footholds around the edge. Suddenly, as it had begun, the narrow trail ended and gave out into a thick forest. Ahead, there was a meadow and beyond a stream, already icing over.

There was room enough, and there was but little undergrowth. Tying the roan, I went to a deadfall and from under it tried to gather some sc.r.a.ps of bark that had not been soaked by the rain. From inside my shirt, I took a little tinder that I always kept for the purpose, and breaking a tuft of it free, I lit a fire. As it blazed up, I hastily added more fuel.

Walking back into the woods, I broke off some of the small suckers that grew from the tree trunks and died. They had long been dead and were free from rain. By the time the cattle began to wander out on the meadow and the first rider appeared, I had a fine fire blazing and was rigging a lean-to between two trees that stood about ten feet apart.

The trees had lower limbs approximately the same height above the ground, and selecting from among the fallen debris, broken limbs, and dead branches one of proper length I rested it in the crotches of the limbs selected, and then I began gathering other sticks to lean slant-wise from the pole to the ground.

From time to time I stopped to add fuel to the fire, well knowing the effect the fire would have on the tired men and the two women.

Across the poles, I put whatever lay to hand. I was not building anything but a temporary shelter, and I used slabs of bark from fallen trees, fir branches and whatever was close by.

By the time Lin and Baptiste reached the fire with the pack horses, I had a fairly comfortable shelter and was starting on another. Haney was first to reach the fire, and he began gathering fir boughs from nearby trees.

Orrin helped Nettie from her horse, and for a moment she swayed and fell against the horse. She straightened up. "I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I'm tired."

One by one, the men came in, carrying their gear, which they dropped under the second shelter. Several of them went to the fire. Cap walked out and began gathering boughs, and after a minute Shorty went to help.

Highpockets Haney held his hands to the fire. He looked around at me. "Tell Sackett I been a lot of places with you, but if you think I'm goin' back over that trail in the snow, you got another think a-comin'."

"We lost some stock, Cap?"

Rountree looked at me. Tired as he had to be, he looked no different than always. He had degrees of toughness n.o.body had ever scratched. "That we did!"

Shorty looked over at me. "Fourteen, fifteen head, Tell. I'm sorry."

"This weather's rough," Haney added. "We'll lose some more if we've far to go."

We huddled about the fire, and soon the smell of coffee was in the air. Tyrel went back to the edge of camp, and soon he came in with several chunks of meat "Big horn," he said. "I nailed him back on the other side of the mountain."

Soon the smell of broiling meat was added to that of coffee. Outside, the falling sleet rustled on the fir boughs and on the meadow. The cattle ceased to eat, and one by one took shelter under the trees.

"Ain't nothin' like a fire," Cap said, "and the smell of coffee boilin'."

"How far you reckon it is" Shorty asked.

n.o.body answered because n.o.body knew. Me, I leaned my forehead on my crossed arms and hoped there would be a marker on this side of the pa.s.s we'd come over. We would surely need it because I had no idea which way to turn.

The Dease was someplace off to the northwest. Beyond that, anybody's guess was as good as mine, and I was ramrodding this outfit.

We had fire, and we had shelter, and we had a bit of meat, and good meat at that. Yet I was uneasy.

Where had Charlie Fleming gone?

Surely, as we drew closer and closer to our destination, we drew closer to his also, so why hadn't he waited a bit longer where he could have coffee and grub on the way?

Maybe, just maybe, because we were closer than we thought.

Certainly, even though he could not interpret the message, he would know there had been a message, and that would mean that Logan Sackett was not only alive but free a" or probably free.

Had he fled to warn someone of our coming? Or was he afraid of Logan?

Orrin got up and moved over to where Nettie Molrone was. I could hear the murmur of their voices as they talked. "I'll ask about for your brother," he said, "as soon as we meet anybody. There'll be a town," he added, "or something of the kind."

The sleet still fell, but it was changing into snow, which would be worse, for beneath the snow there would be ice on the trails. Beyond the reach of the fire shadows flitted wolves.

Now stories came to me, stories told me when I was a small boy by my father. My father had trapped these very lands; he told us much of animals and their habits and of how the wolves would work as a team to drive an animal or a group of animals into a position where they could easily be killed. To drive an elk or moose out on the ice where he would slip and fall was one trick often used. Sometimes they herded them into swamps or drove them off cliffs.

These tricks were often attempted with men, and the unwary were trapped by them.

The snow continued to fall throughout the night, and when morning came, the ground and the trees were covered with it. We got out of bed under the lean-tos, and Baptiste had a fire built up in no time. It had burned down to coals during the last hours of the morning.

It was good to hear the crackle of the fire and to smell the wood burning. Tyrel saddled up, and him and me took a turn through the woods, bunching the cattle a little. They'd had tolerable shelter under the trees, but it was right cold that morning, and they were in no way anxious to move. Some of the horses had pawed away the snow to get at the gra.s.s. These were mustangs, used to wild country and to surviving in all kinds of weather.

We were slow getting started because everybody rolled out a mite slower than usual. Nettie's face looked pinched and tight, and she held her hands to the fire.

Orrin said, "We're gettin' close. This is the kind of country you'll find your brother in."

"How can he stand it? I mean even if there's gold."

"Gold causes folks to do all manner of unlikely things, ma'am," Tyrel said. "Sometimes even folks a body has figured were right good people have turned ugly when gold's in the picture."

"Kyle Gavin did not want me to come looking for my brother," Nettie said. "He offered to lend me the money to start home."

"It's a rough country, ma'am. He knows that. He probably didn't want you to get trapped in a place you couldn't get out of."

We came down to a deep canyon before we'd gone more than a few miles and wound down a narrow switchback trail to the water's edge. The river flowed past the road a whole lot faster than we liked, so we pointed the herd upstream and started them swimming across somewhat against the current. They held to it only a little, but by that time they were well on their way, and when they turned a bit on the downstream side, they were pointed toward the landing. We got most of them across and started up the trail opposite. Shorty was in the lead, and as he topped out on the ridge, we heard a sharp report that went echoing down the canyon, and we saw Shorty whip around in his saddle and fall.

At least two hundred cattle were on the trail, and there was no way to get past them. We urged them on, and they began to boil over the edge, running. We crowded the rest of them across and Tyrel an' me, we went hightailing it up the trail after those cows.

We went over the edge, running, but saw nothing but an empty meadow scattered with the arriving cattle. Shorty's horse stood a short distance off, and Shorty was on the ground. Tyrel rode h.e.l.lbent for election across the meadow and into the trees, and I swung my horse around and rode to Shorty. He was on his face, and there was a big spot of blood on his back, and I turned him over easy.

His eyes were open, and he said, "Never saw him, Tell. Not even a glimpse. Sorry."

He was. .h.i.t hard, and he knew it. Nettie came up over the rim followed by Mary, and they went right to him.

"I did my part, Tell. Didn't I?" He stared up at me.

"All any man could, Shorty. We rode some rivers together."

"It ain't so bad," he said. "There's n.o.body to write to. I never had n.o.body, Tell."

"You had us, Shorty, and when we ride over the rim, we'll be lookin' for you. Keep an eye out, will you?"

There were low clouds, and the place where he lay was swept clean of snow. Nettie and Mary, they came to him, trying to ease him some, as womenfolk will.

"Can't you do something, Tell?" Nettie said to me.

"Nothin' he can do, ma'am," Shorty said. "Just don't try to move me."

Tyrel came back from the woods, and Orrin rode up, and we squatted near Shorty. "Highpockets and me," Shorty said, "we were headin' for the Jackson Hole country. You tell him he'll have to go it alone, will you?"

"He's comin', Shorty. He'll be here in just a moment."

"He better hurry. I got my saddle on something I can't ride."

Highpockets loomed over them. "See you down the road a piece, Shorty. You be lookin' for me. You'll know me because I'll have a scalp to my belt."

Nettie brushed the hair back from Ms brow, and Shorty pa.s.sed with his eyes on her face.

"He was a man loved high country," I said. "We'll bury him here."

"Smoke over yonder," Cap said. "Might be a town."

"Bunch the cattle," I said. "We're going on in."

Chapter XXIV.

Of the cattle with which we started less than half remained, and they were lean and rangy from the long drive.

"Nettie," Orrin advised, "you and Mrs. McCann had better hang back behind the herd. We're going to have trouble."

"What's this all about, anyway?" Mary McCann demanded.

"We'll know when we meet Logan, and that should be soon."

"Is that a town down there?"

"It is no town," Baptiste said. "Once there was fort. A man named Campbell had fort here back in 1838 or '39. Sometimes trapper mans camped here."

"There's somebody here now," Haney said, "and somebody killed Shorty."

Sitting my roan horse, I listened to what was being said with only a bit of my attention. What was worrying me was what we'd find down below. Shorty had been killed. Shot right through the chest and spine and shot dead. He had been shot deliberately, and to me it looked like they were trying to warn us to stay out.

"Baptiste? Why here? Why don't they want us there? Why would anybody want a herd of cattle here? There isn't enough gra.s.s to keep a herd of this size alive."

"You say he say 'before winter comes.' They want beef. They want food. No game comes in winter. Ver' little game. People could be much hungry."

"Winter comes an' n.o.body here. n.o.body goes out. I t'ink somebody wish to stay here through the winter."