Chapter XXX: Dangerous Waters

Dexter searched about him with wide bewildered eyes. A deep, lifeless hush brooded once more over the forest, and he saw nothing anywhere but the still shadows of trees. His woodsman's instinct assured him that no human being lurked within hailing distance. Yet he could not doubt the testimony of his own senses. He had heard the thin, far call; a muffled, impalpable voice, that was the voice of Alison Rayne.

As he waited with bated breath, the murmur of sound again flickered through space--microscopic syllables of speech, apparently sent from nowhere. "Cabin--lower pass--help!" He made out the words distinctly, and in spite of reason, he knew that he could not be mistaken. Alison Rayne was calling him from somewhere, needing him for some reason, and as though his mind were attuned telepathically to hers, he heard.

He did not stop to wonder what it all might mean. On occasions before this he had observed the effects of strange phenomena at work in the wilderness, and by now he would not allow himself to be surprised at anything that might happen. He knew only that he had received a mysterious appeal for help, and if Alison wanted him, he would go the world over to find her.

Luckily the directions were clear. The voice had mentioned a cabin in the lower pass. How far it might be, he did not know, but he had already puzzled his way through the mountains, and was confident that he would have no difficulty in locating the mouth of the valley beyond. And if there were a cabin along the route, he could not miss it. He did not linger even to pack his traveling equipment, but started forward as fast as darkness and difficult ground permitted.

The mountain slope tumbled downward at a sharp slant, and he pushed blindly on through obscurity, feeling his way among the trees, crashing recklessly through briary patches, stumbling and sometimes falling over unseen obstacles in his path. How he traversed that length of dangerous hillside, without broken bones, he could not have said. But the luck of the mounted was with him, and when dawn finally overtook him, he had gained the bottom levels and found safer ground opening before him.

He found himself in a wild, steep-walled gulley, where a mountain torrent rushed and swirled among ugly bowlders. Fed from the distant heights by melting snows, the stream had already flooded level with the high spring marks, and the water still appeared to be rising. The upper embankment shelved above the surface of the rapids and he struck a slippery pathway that enabled him to follow along with the current.

For four or five miles he descended through the cut, and then the walls of the ravine began to widen, and at length he reached an open stretch of valley land, where a second stream came plunging out of a forking gulch to join the creek that had led him from the heights. He halted briefly to peer ahead through the morning mist.

Before him lay a strip of rising ground--a wooded hummock that, in ordinary stages of the water, would have been accessible from the embankment on which he stood. But the branching creeks had overflown their banks and the flood washed around the spit of land forming a small, triangular-shaped island. As he gazed across the swollen current, he discerned the dim outline of a log cabin, half hidden among the trees.

Dexter stared across the stream with narrowing eyes. This was the lower pass, and before him stood the cabin that the voice had told him he would find. No sound reached him above the noise of the rapids, and no movement was visible through the smoky haze of the dawn. Nevertheless, it must be here that he had been summoned by the cry for help, and there was nothing to do but investigate.

He glanced dubiously at the swift-running stream that cut him off from the isolated shore. It was fifty feet or more across the main channel, and the water boiled and eddied dangerously among sharp, slippery rocks. Swimming in such water was out of the question. In places the stream appeared to be almost shallow enough for fording but if a man happened to be swept off his feet nothing could save him from the rapids, and death among the rocks. Realizing the chance he was taking, the corporal hesitated only long enough to settle upon the safest place of crossing. He chose the spot where the current ran whitest, knowing that there he would find the shoalest water; and without removing his boots, or making any sort of preparation, he stepped into the water and started to wade out from shore.

The bank dropped away at a steep slant, and almost before he knew it he had plunged waist-deep in the icy stream. The current pulled and tugged at his legs and body, but he dug in his toes, leaned his full weight against the seething tide, and slowly and laboriously made his way forward. The gravel bottom sloped gradually downward, and by the time he had fought his way to the middle channel the water was gurgling above his armpits. At this stage of his journey, fortunately, a series of bowlders offered him a precarious anchorage, and he managed to work his way from one to another, until at last he could plant his feet once more. The rest of the trip across was only a question of holding his balance between each cautious step, and he soon stumbled into shallow water and clambered out on the shore of the island.

For a moment he stood in the lee of a hazel thicket, shivering with the cold, peering towards the cabin that loomed in the shadows not twenty paces beyond him. He had come up on the rear of the place, and the door, presumably, opened on the farther side. There were two windows in the wall that fronted his direction, but both were barricaded tight with heavy shutters. No sign of smoke came from the clay-daubed chimney. Judging by appearances, there was nobody about the premises. Nevertheless, he moved with caution when he finally went forward.

Circling the clearing on tiptoe, he passed around the corner of the cabin, and halted suddenly with a quick-drawn breath. Before the shut door, almost within arm's reach, crouched a bulky human figure.

Instinctively the corporal's hand slid into his pocket, and came out again, gripping the small pistol that had served him on another occasion. The sound of the rapids had smothered his footfalls, and his presence so far was undiscovered. The intruder's back was turned to him, and he saw only a bulging pink neck and a fat, gross body belted in a Mackinaw coat. For several seconds Dexter held his position, looking on with keenest interest. The thick-waisted stranger held a hunting knife gripped in his hands, and was hacking and sawing away at the planks of the battened front door. He had chipped a hole through the heavy slabs, and was now engaged in enlarging the aperture. It would appear that he was trying to cut an opening big enough to reach the inner latch-bar.

Dexter watched in silence for a space, and then quietly interrupted the work. "My hand isn't quite as pudgy as yours," he remarked. "Maybe mine'll go through."

The man's fingers opened with a jerk, his knife fell to the ground, and he whirled with a choking gasp to stare behind him.

Dexter smiled as he observed the reddish, flabby face that had turned his direction. The man was the outlaw, "Pink" Crill.