Chapter XVI: Unseen Enemies

The amazing uproar lasted only for seconds, and then intense silence once more settled over the palisade. There was no one in sight, and Dexter could not imagine what calamitous events were taking place on the other side of the cliff. But as his glance swept back and forth along the brink of the precipice, the momentary quiet was suddenly shattered by a second shot.

In a flash he stooped to grasp his pistol. "I'm going up," he announced, and hurriedly belted his holster about his waist. "You stay here, Alison, and I'll come back for you when I can."

Without waiting for her reply, he set his foot in the nearest cranny and started to clamber onward. The remaining distance was not far, and he went up in a rush and scrambled over the final escarpment. He reached the top, and crouched warily on the brink of the cliff to survey the open ground beyond.

The plateau dipped back for a mile or more to the base of the ringing mountain peaks, and on the snow-sheeted meadow were outlined the figures of two men. One was a couple of hundred yards away, running as fast as legs would fly, heading for a distant cedar thicket and the notch that gave exit towards the northern end of the valley below. Nearer the cliff top another man was standing, with pistol in hand. The second intruder, short and stocky in build, was clad in the tunic of the mounted police. Dexter observed the silhouette of his broad back, and laughed aloud.

"Hello, colonel!" he called.

The thick-set figure swung around to stare dumbly at the man on the crest behind him. "Dexter!" he blurted out in astonishment.

"By the way the other fellow keeps on going, I should judge that you're not shooting as well as you used to," remarked the corporal blandly.

"I just pitched a couple across his bows, as they say, hoping he'd halt," explained Devreaux. "Rather take him back alive if I can. If I know a pink complexion, that man's Crill."

"Unquestionably," agreed the corporal, his glance following the fleeing outlaw. The man was out of pistol range, still plowing up the snow as he sprinted for the shelter of the timber. "A person with a double chin should know better than to overexert himself," Dexter resumed calmly. "He'll drop in his track by the time he reaches the notch."

"Sure he will," assented Devreaux. "No sense winding ourselves in hundred-yard dashes. We can trail comfortably behind, sure to land him before night." He nodded with satisfaction. "Bit of luck--what? Funny thing how I walked into him like this, after all these days of futile hunting. I was coming up the draw from the south, and as I stepped into the open, there was Crill staggering towards the cliff with a big rock in his arms. When he saw me he dropped it and ran--

"The rock was to be bounced off my head," interrupted Dexter. "You appeared at exactly the right second."

"Eh?" exclaimed the colonel.

"We've taken Crill's full measure," observed Dexter. "Runs from a man in the open, but is willing to do casual, cold-blooded murder when his victim is unable to defend himself. I was climbing up the cliffside, you know."

"It'll be a pleasure to lay hands on him," grunted the superintendent. "Luckily, we've got him."

"Unless his friends cut in ahead of us." The corporal gazed across the plateau, and saw the fugitive dart into the cover of a distant patch of trees. "I have a strong suspicion that he's not traveling alone."

Devreaux thrust his pistol back in the holster, and turned abruptly upon the departing trail. "Let's go," he said. He started to move forward, but with his first step he halted and whirled to look behind him.

An avalanche of stones rattled down the slope of the cliff, and as he faced the direction of the sound, a small, white-clad figure came suddenly into view above the brink of the precipice. His mouth dropped open, and stood motionless with peering, blinking eyes, his face ludicrous with amazement. "Alison!" he exploded at last. "Where did you come from?"

The girl did not answer. She lifted herself to her feet, crossed the top of the cliff, and stopped in front of Dexter. "Whatever you may do to me later," she said in a tremulous voice, "at least I owe my life to you."

"Miss Rayne and I happened to meet down below here," the corporal explained uncomfortably, turning to Devreaux. And then as he observed the superintendent's expression of bewilderment, he found his lips twitching at the corners. "She seemed to be lost from you, colonel."

"Lost!" muttered the officer. "Yes. We were crossing a steep slope down by the lower pass, and I stepped on a slide of glacier ice that was hidden by snow. Went down on the glare, and rolled and coasted about a half mile to the bottom. Smashed my carbine so it wasn't even worth salvage, and nearly cracked my neck in the bargain. And when I had gathered myself up and labored back to the top, the girl was gone. It happened last evening, mind you, and I was all night and most of the day working back the trail. I'll say this much for the young lady: when she's in a hurry she can cruise with the best of us."

Devreaux turned to glower at the girl. "And I warn you now," he said with asperity, "I'm going to forget to be polite and use the wrist irons if you get 'lost' this way another time."

She flushed darkly, and averted her head, as though to hide the glint of tears upon her lashes. "What would be the use?" she replied in a tired, hopeless voice. "You're men--hard and ruthless--and I--I haven't a chance. You can order me to come and go as you please and threaten me with handcuffs, and I have nobody--there's nothing I can do about it--nothing."

"Exactly!" asserted the colonel. "And now we must go." He turned on his heel and set off across the meadow; and Alison Rayne sighed despondently, and followed him in mute resignation.

Dexter looked after her for a moment with a pensive frown and then, gloomily shaking his head, he hastened forward and caught step with her.

"How did you get the message that brought you to this place?" he asked suddenly, watching her face with slantwise curiosity.

"What message?" interrupted Devreaux brusquely.

The corporal gave a hurried account of his adventures in the cabin on the further side of the valley, telling of the boy he had found there, and of the voice that aroused him from sleep. "Reminded me of the queer business at the other cabin," he remarked. "Sounded like telephone talk--only there was no telephone." He faced the girl with searching gaze. "The young man informed me that he didn't know you, and pretended to be asleep and dreaming; but he said 'Alison' as distinctly as I say your name now. And he advised you to make your way to this mountain, where a friend would be waiting."

"What have you to say to that, Alison?" demanded Devreaux.

The girl cast a fleeting glance towards Dexter, and he fancied for a second that he saw a sardonic gleam in her velvet eyes. "I should say that Corporal Dexter is a little mixed up about who was dreaming," she observed in a quiet tone.

"Whoever was dreaming," returned the policeman, "it came true. You were advised not to return to the cabin, but to strike across country for Saddle Mountain. And here you are."

Devreaux swung around abruptly, his weather-seamed countenance grown stern and forbidding. "You're going beyond the limits of patience," he declared in a crusty voice. "I want to know how you people communicate with each other."

She met his formidable stare without the slightest show of alarm. "We people?" she echoed. "Really, Colonel Devreaux, I don't see what reason you have for trying to make out that I belong to a gang, or something." She sighed and shook her head, and smiled forlornly as she encountered the officer's scowling stare. "But I admit," she added, "that there are times when I almost wish I did. It's discouraging not to have anybody."

"I insist on knowing how that message was relayed to you," the superintendent persisted, unmoved by the gentle appeal of her half veiled eyes.

"You followed my tracks all the way up the valley to this place," she reminded him. "Wherever I went, you must have gone also. So if I'd met any one, or stopped anywhere to telephone, or held any conversation of any sort with anybody, why you couldn't have helped knowing about it, could you?"

The colonel regarded her tensely, with anger and something like reluctant admiration mingling in his baffled glance. "You say you came to this particular place only by accident?" he asked after an interval.

"I don't want to make a long trip to Fort Dauntless," she coolly replied, "and as you seem so determined to take me there, why I--naturally I wandered as far as I could--anywhere to get away."

"Humph!" grunted Devreaux. "That's frank enough, anyhow. Just wanted to escape from the clutches of the police? Weren't expecting to meet a friend here?"

"You keep forcing me to repeat that I have no friends," she complained. "I--"

She stopped with a startled gasp, and gazed blankly overhead, as suddenly, without warning, the stillness of the misty afternoon was punctured by a shrill shining sound--the crackling hum of a bullet in flight.