Chapter XXIV: No Trail

The chase, which had been flung far, swung back towards Deadman Canyon, where the trail of the fugitives had disappeared; and with the others came the Randolphs and Isham Scarborough, riding up the creek from Tonto. Apache trailers came drifting in, drawn like vultures by the crowd; and soon, under their guidance, the search party crossed the creek and came out on the bench below the castle. Hall and Allifair could hear their shouts as they found the marks of his first turkey-trap, in the underbrush above the little spring; and then the chase led on to the cliff-dwellings below them, where Hall had made camp the first time. But the signs were all old and they came back to the spring, where they could look up and see the lost castle. Every word that they said could be heard now perfectly and Allifair trembled as she listened.

"Well, the house is there, ain't it?" argued Isham, trying to bully the Apache trailers. "How'd they git up to it? Well, _busca_ the trail!"

"No! No tlail!" responded the Apaches, and that was the last heard of them, for the cowboys had taken sides on the matter. Some swore that the trail came down from the top, and that they could see a kind of bear-track down the cleft; and the others were just as positive that it had ascended the cliff but had been lost by a cave-off of the rock.

"No! No tlail!" repeated the Apaches when the uproar had subsided, and Isham Scarborough came back at them angrily.

"You're scairt, you black rascals!" he shouted. "Hey, Charley--you take me up that mountain? Well, there now--you see? These danged Injuns are buffaloed--they're afraid Old Man Baker will kill 'em!"

"No! No 'flaid!" grunted the Indians, but they would not go up the chasm, for no Apache ever set foot on Baker Mountain.

"Hey, I'll tell you!" hollered Isham, his voice rising above the babel like the roar of a mountain bull, "I'll tell you where they've gone! Up Devil's Chasm and plumb over the summit--they couldn't get nowhere's else! Didn't we trail 'em to the crick, and ain't we rode clean to Tonto, cutting circles to pick up their tracks? Well, they crossed then I'm telling ye, even if you fellers couldn't, and by this time they're clean to Geronimo!"

"Well, let's go to Geronimo, then," spoke up Cal Randolph's even voice, "what's the use of trying to climb this mountain?"

"They may be hid up there," cried Isham. "But cripes, boys, we know one thing--they never went down that crick. And if they didn't go there where else could they go, except----"

He paused as a voice began shouting his name, and Hall peeped over the rampart. A man had ridden down to their camp across the creek and was waving his hat and hallooing.

"What d'ye want?" demanded Isham, walking to the edge of the bench and looking across at the runner, "what's the matter with you, anyhow?"

"Your wife says to come home!" shouted the messenger. "They's been a big raid--all your horses are run off! And three of the boys was found hung!"

"Hung!" echoed Isham, and every man in the party jumped up and ran to the rim.

"What's that?" they clamored, and Hall and Allifair rose up to catch the startling news.

"W'y, they was night-riders," explained the runner. "They wore masks and dressed like Injuns! Yes, come in at night and caught three boys standing guard! We found them hung to a tree! And they run off all your horses!"

"Hell's fire!" exclaimed Isham, and stood staring across the canyon while his men gathered together in groups.

"That was that sheepman, Grimes," whispered Hall to Allifair. "He's organized all those Mormons above the Rim."

"Oh, will he come down here?" asked Allifair aghast. "Because Ewing and Cal----"

"Maybe they'll leave, now," suggested Hall, and they listened again, for Isham was beginning to shout.

"Which way'd they go?" he inquired, and when the man answered north he burst into a fit of cursing.

"It's them dadburned Mormon ranchers!" he exclaimed, and started back for his horse.

"Well, let's go, boys," he said, when they had gathered by the spring, "we can tend to McIvor afterward. But if any one wants to stay here I'll give one thousand dollars to the man that brings me his hair. He's the dirty, doggoned rascal that stirred up all this ruckus, but I can't stop to monkey with him now. Come on, Cal; ain't you coming with me?"

"No!" answered Cal's voice and then, after a silence, "we didn't come out here to help you steal horses."

"Oh, you didn't, eh?" railed Isham, his voice tense with excitement, "well, since when have you got to be so good? Jest the minute they's any trouble----"

"We come out here to get our sister!" broke in Ewing's high voice. "And we're going to hunt till we find her."

"Well, hunt and be damned to ye!" burst out Isham in a fury, and went spurring off down the trail. His cowboys followed after him, talking low among themselves, and Hall and Allifair crouched down and listened.

"Well?" spoke up the voice which they recognized as Cal's; but Ewing did not reply. "Let's ask these Indians," went on Cal, "maybe they know of some trail. Hey!" he called, "come over here!"

"What you want?" demanded the Indian in arrogant tones, and Cal asked about the trail up the chasm. "No good!" replied the Apache. "Go hup--steep! Go hup mo'--mo' steep! Bimby too steep--fall down. Me no likum. Go home."

"Where you think this man go?" spoke up Ewing. "You find him, we give you two hundred dollars."

There was a gutteral conversation in Apache then, and Allifair began to cry softly, but Hall was listening over the wall. If the Apaches took up his trail they would undoubtedly find his horses; and his turkey traps and saddles, too. They might even find the entrance to their cave, with results which he did not care to contemplate; for he could not kill the Randolphs and they were sworn to kill him--but fate turned the shaft away. The Indians were afraid of Old Man Baker and his mountain and they revised their opinions to suit.

"Go hon--down wate'," answered the spokesman at last "Fall in--maybeso both dlown. How much you give--findum body?"

"Nothing!" burst out Cal, "go on away, you dirty devil. By God, Ewing; I believe he's right."

"Well, I told ye!" accused Ewing, his voice high and complaining, "I told you we hadn't ought to come! But you had to have your way, and now who's going to face Dad----"

"Aw, hush up!" returned Cal impatiently.

"You--give--coffee?" asked the Indian with painful distinctness, and Cal flew into a fury.

"No--damn ye!" he cursed. "Git away, before I kill ye. Come on, Ewing; let's quit and go home."

There was a silence then, broken by sonorous Apache as the Indians talked on gravely among themselves; and finally, across the creek, Hall saw the Texans riding north and the Randolphs heading for Tonto. Then he stooped and gathered up Allifair, who had given herself over to weeping, and carried her into the house.

"I can't help it!" she sobbed, "they're all so rough and brutal; and they curse and--oh, I just hate them! And to think of Cal and Ewing offering two hundred dollars----"

"And they'd have found us, too," nodded Hall. "But God looks after His own. I believe He is saving us, to work His will elsewhere--I'll never doubt it again. When I came here to look for you I was sure of my mission. I knew He was leading me to you; and I knew that somehow we should manage to escape, and be united, and unite our own people. But afterwards, when I was hiding like a rabbit among the rocks and the Scarboroughs were prospering so wonderfully--well, I couldn't believe it, it didn't seem possible, it hardly seems possible now. But hatred raises up hatred until it destroys itself; and now this sheepman, Grimes, whose herders they killed, has descended like a destroying angel upon them. It will all work out now, and when I come back----"

"Are you going?" she asked suddenly, sitting bolt upright. "Oh, Hall, I want you--here with me! I'll live on acorns, I'll do anything--won't you stay?"

"I'll be back soon," he said, and turned away.