scott awoke in the morning with a feeling of expectancy like a boy who has promised himself when he went to sleep that he would go fishing at four o’clock. he lay there drowsily for a moment watching the western peaks catch fire from the rays of the rising sun, and wondering vaguely what it was that he was going to do. his eyes rested for an instant on the telephone and he sat up with a jerk, awake to the situation.
he looked cautiously out over the dam and the ca?on trail. it was not likely that dawson would come so early in the morning. he did not know that scott knew anything of his attempt to shoot him at the cabin and had no reason to believe that he would be expected at the dam. so there was no reason why he should come so early, but scott intended to be prepared for him. he bridled jed and led him over to the side of the meadow farthest from the trail and tied him back of a large clump of willows. he hid the saddle in a thicket near the trail.
he cooked his breakfast in the open with the receiver to his ear for he suspected that baxter was on the lookout down below and might try to warn him. he was not nervous and excited as he had been that night at his own cabin, because he knew what was coming and felt prepared for it. moreover, it was daylight and he was located so that he could see the only road of approach for some distance. there was no chance for an unexpected shot from an unseen foe.
it would have been easy enough to sneak back into the hills. he could elude an army up there among those crags where he had climbed the day before. but what good would it do? he could not wipe out the traces of his presence at the dam, he could not even make it appear that he had finished his business and left. he had made but a one way trail in the ca?on and it would be an easy matter to find jed even if he was hidden from sight.
no, there was nothing to gain by taking to the hills. he had been hunted long enough. he would stay and fight it out. he realized that being unarmed he would be at a tremendous disadvantage, but he thought he could manage it if he had the chance to plan the meeting as he wanted it. it was a desperate chance, but after his past experience he felt that no chance would be too desperate to escape becoming a hunted creature again, uncertain what danger might be threatening him next. he planned just what he would do in every contingency he could think of and had worked out everything so nearly to his own satisfaction that he was not in the least rattled when the telephone rang his own call at his district headquarters. he answered it promptly.
“this is baxter. benny reported dawson going your way at nine-thirty. somebody must have spilled the beans. are you ready for him?”
“sure,” scott answered with even more confidence than he really felt.
“good. then go to it. so long.”
scott took off his head gear and laid it aside. he glanced at his watch. it was ten fifteen. his visitor ought to arrive about eleven-thirty or possibly a little earlier if he was in a hurry. scott went carefully over his plans once more to see if he could think of anything that he had overlooked. then he settled down to watch the trail.
he was not at all nervous. he was waiting for something definite; he knew what it was, where it was coming from, and approximately when it would arrive. moreover, he felt prepared to meet it. there was the same tense feeling of expectancy that he had often experienced when he was waiting for the opening of a boxing match, but no nervous shivers and no trace of fear.
it was a beautiful day. there were a few small clouds high up and moving slowly that cast a patch of shadow here and there on the broad landscape, but for the most part the sun shone brightly. a strange day scott thought for a man to start out to commit a murder. murders had always been associated with storms in the books he had read, and it was hard for him to think seriously of it on such a day as this. as the sun rose higher the little streamlets on the other side of the reservoir began to increase in volume and babble a little louder. all seemed peaceful. there was no place in that valley for strife and violence; and yet he knew that every tick of the watch was bringing it nearer.
his eye followed the shadow of a cloud slowly up the ca?on slope till it disappeared over the ridge. when he looked back at the trail there was a horseman in full view. it did not startle him; it was what he had been waiting for, and he had a feeling of real satisfaction when he recognized dawson. it would take him ten minutes more to arrive and he could watch him for at least half of that time.
dawson did not act like a man who was bent on murder, at least he did not act as dugan had that night at the cabin, and that was the only real experience that scott had had. he was riding along the middle of the trail as he had always ridden about his work, with no pretense at secrecy and no attempt at silence. on he came in broad daylight as openly as he would have ridden to a wedding. already the clatter of his horse’s iron-clad hoofs on the loose stones of the trail was plainly audible. surely this man could be on no business of which he was ashamed.
when horse and rider disappeared in a willow thicket just beyond the lower end of the pasture scott stepped quickly from his hiding place and took up his position behind a large rock which lay near the cabin and close beside the trail. he had no idea of avoiding this man, but he wanted to pick his own meeting place and have him within easy reach of his hand when he was discovered. only in that way could he hope to have a fair chance with that revolver. he could see through a screen of brushes beside the rock and watch his visitor after he entered the meadow.
the horse stopped on the edge of the meadow and breathed in the smell of the lush grass with deep noisy breaths through wide distended nostrils. it was something to which he was little accustomed. the delay seemed to suit the master’s mood. he sat idly in his saddle, apparently fascinated as scott had been by the grandeur and peaceful beauty of the scene.
his eyes were not searching the cabin and the immediate vicinity for a hunted man. he was gazing dreamily back into those encircling peaks and rugged, picturesque ca?ons. even at that distance scott could see a pensive sadness in his expression. any one who had ever had business dealings with him in the past would have been amazed to know that at that moment he would have been willing to trade all his ill gotten gains to be freed from the burden of his crimes and be able to roam those mountains once again as an honest man. he loved those barren peaks and rocky ca?ons. he knew every rock and tree and bunch of grass in all that countryside. they had been his life. and now he realized too late that he had risked and maybe lost it all for the sake of something he did not need.
he sat still so long that even his horse stopped cropping the luscious grass and turned his head to look at him inquiringly. scott, too, was becoming uneasy. could he have anything to fear from a man who gazed at the beauty of the hills like that? it did not seem possible, but he could not afford to take any chances and determined to be on his guard just as he had planned.
dawson seemed to be coming slowly to himself. he had been dreaming of what might have been. he was more of a sentimentalist than even his friends had ever realized but was also somewhat of a philosopher. what was gone was gone and he must make the best of what was left. nor would he let any one interfere with his success. the dreamy pensive look was gone now and in its place was the gleam of a hard determination which had made men say that when dawson wanted anything bad enough he always got it.
he looked sharply about him, shook himself together and rode straight across the meadow to the foot of the dam. he dismounted and climbed the foot trail which led up past the end of the cabin. scott tried to forget the man he had seen a moment before. he thought only of the look of hatred that this man had given him when he had accused him by the valley cliffs, and that he was the self-confessed companion of dugan on that horrible night visit to the cabin. he thought of that man and waited for him with every sense alive to the danger of the situation, and prepared for immediate action.
dawson came on straight up the trail and headed for the cabin without the slightest hesitation. whatever might be his own intentions he did not seem to have the slightest misgiving about the other fellow’s. when he passed the big rock scott stepped quickly into the trail immediately behind him.
“looking for me?” he asked sharply. he was ready to spring upon the man at the first sign of a hostile move.
dawson turned quickly. “so there you are,” he exclaimed. “yes, i was looking for you and i have had the deuce of a time finding you.” he seemed perfectly at ease and not in the least taken back by scott’s sudden appearance.
“i was transferred up here yesterday morning,” scott explained. he thought maybe dawson’s curiosity to know what had become of him the night before that would show itself, but it had no effect.
“so i found out later,” he admitted so frankly that scott wondered whether he really could have been with dugan, or whether he could possibly have mistaken the voice on the ’phone the night before.
“let’s sit down, i have a lot of things i want to talk over with you,” and without waiting for an answer he sat down on the ground with his back against the great rock and his face toward the rugged mountain peaks. scott accepted the invitation but carefully selected a position where he would still be within easy reach of dawson’s pistol arm.
“i could sit here for a week and look at that view,” dawson said wistfully, and the dreamy look was stealing into his face again, “but that’s not what i came for,” he added, bracing himself up quickly. “that was a clever job you did in ferreting out those extra sheep. i don’t know where in the thunder you got onto all that stuff, but you seemed to be able to produce the goods. however, i think you overreached yourself a little and made some statements which you can never prove.”
“i think i was careful not to say anything which was not true,” scott replied cautiously.
“possibly you were, but stating a truth is one thing and proving it is often something different.”
“i think that i can prove them,” scott said quietly.
“well, i doubt it. now let’s admit for the sake of the argument that all the statements you made were true, excepting, of course, your ability to prove them. you proved that there were more sheep than there were permits, but you did not prove how they got on the forest. your inference is that dugan let them through that hole in the fence while he was counting the others through the chute. but you can’t prove it. maybe he put them all through the fence without counting them, but there was no one there to see it. your evidence is entirely circumstantial and would not stand in any court.
“you said that i was a partner of jed’s and directed all the scullduggery. that is hardly likely, but suppose that it were true. you can’t prove it. you think that i recommended dugan’s appointment, but i didn’t. he was assigned to us by the district office and nobody on the forest had anything to say about it. you may say that i had the district office appoint him, but you can’t prove it. there is no proof that i am jed clark’s partner. it does not exist. you may know—it beats me how you found it out if you do, but you may know—that i hold a mortgage on jed’s ranch. even that would be hard to prove for the mortgage is not recorded. but a mortgage is no proof of partnership or even of complicity.
“you have woven a web of circumstantial evidence around me that looks bad. it would not stand in a court of law for a minute, but it will look nasty and will ruin my reputation. it will not do you any good to lose out in the law suit. in fact it may harm you with a lot of people because it will look as though you were trying to slip something over on me to push your own advancement. of course you want to make good. you want to clean up this crooked business and make the best showing that you can. but i do not believe that you want to ruin a man for nothing.”
“you are perfectly safe in thinking that,” scott said. he thought that dawson was trying to pump him to see what information he really had. yet, the ranger was not asking many questions or giving him much chance to talk. he could not make out just what the game was. it was too deep for him.
“i thought so,” dawson said resuming his story. “when i first came to this country ten years ago i had lived on the prairies all my life and hated them. they were so flat that you could look till your eyes ached and not see anything. the wind blew from one week’s end to the next and there was no getting away from it. i fell in love with these old mountains as soon as i laid eyes on them and i would have taken any job which would have given me a chance to be in them and live. this forest service job was better than that. it gave me a home in the heart of the mountains, a good living and a little more. i had a good business head and i invested my savings in sheep. i was successful and amassed a small capital. i could have left the service and made a fortune in sheep, but i liked the mountains too well to leave them for wealth. i accumulated considerable property more as mental exercise than anything else. i had no use for the money and would not leave the mountains and this outdoor life for any amount of wealth.
“so you see what my life here and my reputation mean to me and how little i care for the money i have made. you on the other hand are a young man, probably seeking your fortune in any field that shows the best chances. there is big money in sheep for the man who will devote his life to it.
“i have tried to show you what this life means to me. i think i have shown you how utterly impossible it would be for you to prove your case. you will only succeed in ruining me without helping either yourself or the service.”
“i can’t agree with you,” scott said, “because i think that i can prove all those things.” the man talked so frankly and pled so earnestly that it was hard to believe him utterly false. scott began reviewing his evidence to see if it was really as purely circumstantial as dawson had said it was.
dawson looked at him keenly and thought that he was wavering. “drop this impossible charge against me,” he said suddenly, “and all my accumulations of the past ten years are yours.”
so that was his game? all this smooth story was but the craftily laid background for the offering of a bribe. he was taking the last desperate chance of buying himself out of a hole which he knew to be otherwise hopeless.
scott’s growing sympathy turned instantly to disgust. “you can’t bribe me,” he sneered contemptuously, “any more than your hired cutthroat could bluff me.”
the change in dawson was instantaneous. the look of sentimental pleading was gone and his eyes flamed with malignant hatred. so sudden and violent was his fury that scott involuntarily recoiled before it. dawson sprang to his feet, out of reach, and drew his revolver.
“fool,” he hissed between his clenched teeth, “you are too good for this world.”
the neighing of a horse in the meadow below stayed his hand for an instant. furious as he was he realized that he would gain nothing if he freed himself from the charge of being a crook only to be branded as a murderer. he cast a hurried glance toward the meadow.
in that instant scott hurled himself upon him. he struck up the revolver with his left hand and followed through to dawson’s chin with his right. the report of the revolver dazed him and the sight of the barrel pointed at his breast had almost made him sick, but he struck that blow with all the desperation of a dying man backed by years of training. dawson sank down without a sound.
scott stood dazed for a second hardly knowing what had happened. he half thought that he had been shot. the sight of the smoking revolver still grasped in dawson’s fingers brought him to his senses with a jerk. he flung himself upon the gun and snatched it from the unresisting hand. he took off dawson’s belt, turned him over on his face, and bound his wrists together with the belt. he slipped the holster onto his own belt and dropped the pistol into it. one such experience was enough. he knew now how helpless an unarmed man was. he hated a gun but he never wanted to be taken at such a disadvantage again. the vision of the muzzle of that “forty-five” would always be with him if he lived to be a thousand.
the hot sun was blazing down on the unconscious man and scott dragged him into the shade of the aspens beside the camp. he was trembling from head to foot and now that the excitement was over he felt so weak that he was glad to sit down in the shade and try to think.
he looked out once more across the peaceful waters of the reservoir at those stately guardian peaks and shuddered to think how near he had been a few minutes before to losing his beautiful world forever.
