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Out of the Depths: A Romance of Reclamation, a novel by Robert Ames Bennet |
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Chapter 18. On The Brink |
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_ CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE BRINK Early to bed, early to rise. The two men were up at dawn. During the night the coyotes had sneaked into the camp. But Blake had fastened the food in the chuck-box and slung everything gnawable up in the branches out of reach of the sly thieves. At sunrise the two started out on their day's work, Ashton carrying his rifle and canteen and the level rod, Blake with the level and a bag containing their lunch and a two-quart sirup-can of water. "We'll run a new line from the dike bench, around the hill and across the valley the way we rode out yesterday," said the engineer, as they climbed the slope above the waterhole. "That will give us a check by cross-tying to the line of the creek levels where it runs into the gulch." "Can't you trust to the accuracy of your own work?" asked Ashton with evident intent to mortify. Blake smiled in his good-natured way. "You forget the first rule of engineering. Always check when you can, then re-check and check again.--Now, if you'll kindly give me a reading off that bench." Ashton complied, though with evident ill will. He had wakened in good spirits, but was fast returning to his sullenness of the previous day. He took his time in going from the bench-mark to the first turning point. Blake moved up past him with inspiring briskness, but the younger man kept to his leisurely saunter. In rounding the corner of the hill twice as much time was consumed as was necessary. When they came to the last turn at the foot of the rocky slope, where the line struck out across the valley towards the foot of the mountain side, Ashton paused to roll a cigarette before holding his rod for the reading. Small as was the incident, it was particularly aggravating to an engineer. The reading would have taken only a moment, and he could then have rolled his cigarette and smoked it while Blake was moving past him for the next "set up." Instead, he deliberately kept Blake waiting until the cigarette had been rolled and lighted. Blake "pulled up" his level and started forward, his face impassive. Ashton leaned jauntily on the rod, sucked in a mouthful of smoke, and raising his cigarette, flicked the ash from the tip with his little finger. At the same instant a bullet from the crags above him pierced the crown of his hat. He pitched forward on his face, rolled half over, and lay quiet. Most men would have been dumfounded by the frightful suddenness of the occurrence--the shot and the instant fall of Ashton. It was like a stroke of lightning out of a clear sky. Blake did not stand gaping even for a moment. As Ashton's senseless body struck the ground, he sprang sideways and bent to lay down his instrument, with the instinctive carefulness of an old railroad surveyor. A swift rush towards Ashton barely saved him from the second bullet that came pinging down from the hill crest. It burned across the back of his shoulder. Heedless of the blood spurting from the wound in the side of Ashton's head, Blake snatched up the automatic rifle and fired at a point between two knobs of rock on the hill crest. Promptly a hat appeared, then an arm and a rifle. It might have been expected that a bullet would have instantly followed; yet the assassin was strangely deliberate about getting his aim. Blake did not wait for him. He began to fire as fast as the automatic ejector and reloader set the rifle trigger. Three bullets sped up at the assassin before he had time to drop back out of sight. Blake started up the hillside, his pale eyes like white-hot steel. He was in a fury, but it was the cold fury of a man too courageous for reckless bravado. He went up the hill as an Apache would have charged, dodging from cover to cover and, wherever possible, keeping in line with a rock or tree in his successive rushes. At every brief stop he scanned the ridge crest for a sign of his enemy. But the assassin did not show himself. For all that Blake could tell, he might be waiting for a sure shot, or he might be lying with a bullet through his brain. To avoid suicidal exposure, the engineer was compelled to veer off to the right in his ascent. He reached the ridge crest without a shot having been fired at him. Leaping suddenly to his feet, he scrambled up to the flat top of a high crag, from which he could peer down upon the others. The natural embrazure from which the assassin had fired was exposed to his view; but the place was empty. He looked cautiously about at the many huge bowlders behind which a hundred men might have been crouching unseen by him, advantageous as was his position. To flush the assassin would require a bold rush over and around the rocks. Blake set his powerful jaw and gathered himself together for the leap down from his crag. At that moment his alert eye caught a glimpse of a swiftly moving object on the mesa at the foot of the far side of the hill. It was a horse and rider racing out of sight around the bend of a ridge point. Blake whipped the rifle to his shoulder. But the cowardly fugitive had disappeared. He lowered the rifle and started back down the hill faster than he had come up. Leaping like a goat, sliding, rushing--he raced to the bottom in a direct line for Ashton. The victim lay as he had fallen, his head ghastly red with blood, which was still oozing from his wound. Blake dropped down beside the flaccid body and tore open the front of the silk shirt. He thrust in his hand. For some moments he was baffled by the violent throbbing of his own pulse. Then, at last, he detected a heartbeat, very feeble and slow yet unmistakable. He turned Ashton on his side, and washing away the blood with water from the canteen, examined the wound with utmost carefulness. The bullet had pierced the scalp and plowed a furrow down along the side of the skull, grazing but not penetrating the bone. "Only stunned.... Mighty close, though," muttered Blake. He looked at the ashen face of the wounded man and added apprehensively, "Too close!... Concussion--" Hastily he knotted a compress bandage made of handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs around the bleeding head, and stretching Ashton flat on his back, began to pump his arms up and down as is done in resuscitating a drowned person. After a time Ashton's face began to lose its deathly pallor. His heart beat less feebly; he drew in a deep sighing breath, and stared up dazedly at Blake, with slowly returning consciousness. "I'll smoke all I please and when I please," he murmured in a supercilious drawl. Blake dashed his face with the cupful of water still left in the canteen. The wounded man flushed with quick anger and attempted to rise. "What--what you--How dare you?" he spluttered, only to sink back with a groan, "My head! O-o-oh! You've smashed my head!" "You're in luck that your head wasn't smashed," replied Blake. "It was a bullet knocked you over." "Bullet?" echoed Ashton. "Yes. Scoundrel up on the hill tried to get us both." "Up on the hill?" Ashton twisted his head about, in alarm, to look at the hill crest. "But if he--He may shoot again." "Not this time. I went up for him. He went down faster, other side the hill. Saw him on the run. The sneaking--" Blake closed his lips on the word. After a moment his grimness relaxed. "Came back to start your funeral. Found you'd cheated the undertaker. How do you feel now?" "I believe I--" began Ashton, again trying to raise himself, only to sink back as before. "My head!--What makes me so weak?" "Don't worry," reassured Blake. "It's only a scalp wound. You are weak from the shock and a little loss of blood. I'll get you a drink from my can, and then tote you into camp. You'll be all right in a day or two." He fetched the can of water from his bag, which he had dropped beside the level. Ashton drank with the thirstiness of one who has lost blood. When at last his thirst was quenched, he glanced up at Blake with a look of half reluctant apology. "I said something about your striking me," he murmured. "I did not understand--did not realize I had been shot. You see, just before--" "That's all right," broke in Blake. "I owe you a bigger apology. Last evening, while you were out hunting, someone took a shot at me. It must have been this same sneaking skunk. I thought it was you." "You thought I could try to--to shoot you?" muttered Ashton. "Yes. There's the old matter of the bridge, and you seem to think I am responsible for what your father has done. But after you came in, I soon concluded that you had fired towards the camp unintentionally." "If you had asked," explained Ashton, "I was around at the far end of these hills, nearly two miles from the camp, when I shot at the wolf and the rifle went wrong." "That was a fortunate occurrence--your going out and seeing the wolf;" said Blake. "If you hadn't taken that shot, we would not have known your rifle was out of gear. My first bullet merely made the sneak rise up to pot me. If the rapidity of the next three shots hadn't rattled him, I believe he would have potted me, instead of running." "So that was it?" exclaimed Ashton. "Do you know, I believe it must be the same scoundrel who attacked me the first day I rode down Dry Fork. No doubt he remembered how I ripped loose at him with the automatic-catch set." "Your thieving guide?" said Blake. "But why should he try to kill me?" "I'm sure I don't know," murmured Ashton. "Another drink, please." "I shall tote you back to camp, and--No, I'll lay you over there in the shade and go up to see if he is in sight." Picking up the wounded man as easily as if he had been a child, the engineer carried him over under a tree, fetched him the can of water, and for the second time climbed the rocky hillside. Scaling his lookout crag, he surveyed the country below him. A mile down the creek two riders were coming up towards the waterhole at an easy canter. He surmised that they were his wife and Miss Knowles. Their approach brought a shade of anxiety into his strong face. He swept the landscape with his glance. A little cloud of dust far out on the mesa towards Split Peak caught his eye. He looked at it steadfastly under his hand, and drew a deep breath of relief as he made out a fleeing horse and rider. He descended to Ashton, and taking him up pick-a-back, swung away for the camp with long, swift strides. Before he had gone half the distance, he felt Ashton's arms loosening their clasp of his neck. He caught him as he sank in a swoon. Without a moment's hesitation, he slung his senseless burden up on his shoulder like a sack of meal, and hastened on faster than before. Swiftly as he walked, the ladies reached the camp before him. When he came to the top of the dike slope, his wife had dismounted and Isobel was handing down the baby to her. As the girl slipped out of the saddle she looked up the slope. With a startled cry, she darted to meet Blake. Quick to forestall her alarm, he called in a gasping shout: "Not serious--not serious!" "Oh, Tom--Mr. Blake!" she cried. "What has happened?" "Scalp wound--faint--blood loss," Blake panted in terse answer. "He is wounded? O-o-oh!" She ran up and looked fearfully at the bloodsoaked bandages across Ashton's hanging head. Blake staggered on down the slope without pausing. Genevieve had started to meet him. But at her husband's panting explanation, she laid the baby on the nearest soft spot of earth and darted to the kit-chest. She was opening a "first aid" box when Blake crashed through the bushes and sank down with his burden under the first tree. Genevieve hastened towards the men, calling to her companion: "Water, Chuckie--that pail by the fireplace." The girl flew to fetch a bucket of water from the pool. Blake was peering anxiously down into Ashton's white face. "Didn't--know--but--that--" he panted. "No," reassured his wife. "He will soon be all right." She drew the unconscious man flat on his back and held a bottle of ammonia to his nostrils. The powerful stimulant revived him just as the girl came running back with the water. He opened his eyes, and the first object they rested upon was her anxious pitiful face. He smiled and whispered gallantly: "Don't be afraid. I'm all right--now!" "Then I'll drink first," said Blake. He took a deep draught from the pail, doused a hatful of water over his hot head and face, and stretched out to cool off. Genevieve, assisted by the deeply concerned girl, took the handkerchief bandage from Ashton's head and washed the wound with an antiseptic solution. She then clipped away the hair from the edges and drew the scalp together with a number of stitches. In this last the hardy cowgirl was unable to help. She clasped Ashton's hand convulsively and sat shuddering. Ashton smiled up into her tender pitying eyes. Genevieve had numbed his wound with cocaine. He was quite satisfied with the situation. Another antiseptic washing and a compress of sterilized cotton bound on with surgical bandages completed the operation. Then, when it was all over with, the young mother, who had gone through everything with the aplomb and deftness of a surgeon, quietly sank back in a faint. On the instant Blake was reaching for the ammonia bottle. A whiff restored his wife to consciousness. She opened her eyes, and smiling at her weakness, sought to rise. He held her down with gentle force and ordered her to lie quiet. "I shall fetch Tommy," he added. "We'll all take a siesta until noon." _ |
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