XXI
My next moment of consciousness consisted of a sensation of helplessness. I was awake; I heard sounds vaguely; but I could not see, nor could I move.
“There.” A voice seemed to speak from a far-away darkness. “He’s coming to; you didn’t kill him after all, cap.”
I felt something strike me heavily in the side.
“Yes. He’s coming to. Prod him again. —— him! He delayed us, and every minute counts.”
Once more the heavy blow fell on my side. I opened my eyes wearily. Painfully turning my head I looked toward my side and made out a heavy boot. Some one had been kicking me. My eyes moved up the boot; Garvin was its owner. The sight of his gross face brought back memory and consciousness. There was blood on his mouth; in the lower lip was a long cut, and I was glad.
Garvin was staring at me with a mingling of curiosity and respect in his expression.
“Where the —— did you learn that punch in the Adam’s apple?” he said. “That’s a new one to me. And, say, you’re quick; quickest man I ever see; and you’re all there for a middle-weight, bo.”
“Who hit me in the back of the head?” I demanded weakly. “That was a cowardly blow.”
I heard a growl somewhere which I recognized as Brack’s.
“We were in a hurry,” he said, “and you would not give us a chance to handle you gently. You delayed us. That may be serious.”
I strove to rise and struck my chest against a board. I was conscious of a rhythmic motion, and a dull, squeaky sound, repeated without cessation. My senses cleared. I turned my head. I was lying under a seat in one of the life-boats and the boat was being rushed onward under the impulse of eagerly pulled oars.
“What’s this?” I groaned. “What sort of an outrage is this?”
I twisted myself from under the seat and sat up, looking around for the yacht. There was no sight of it. There was no sight of anything but water and steep hills, and the second life-boat closely following us. We were pulling up a narrow, winding bay. Its width was fairly uniform, probably a hundred yards. Its water was pure blue. And on both sides, and before and behind us, rose the craggy, fir-clad hills, approaching the size of mountains, shutting us out from all the rest of the world.
“Sit down, Mr. Pitt; it is more comfortable.” From the bow Brack spoke, and I turned upon him.
“What do you mean?” I began, and there I stopped.
For, though Brack spoke in laughing fashion, there was no laughter about his lips, none in his eyes. His face was set like a bronze mask, his mouth was scarcely visible, his eyes shone hard and fiery between slitted lids. Brack had ceased to pretend; the brute in him was having its way, and he didn’t care who saw it.
“You would better have slept soundly this morning, Mr. Pitt,” he said. “If your foolish fight delayed us too long—you will soon know why.”
“I want to know why right now!” I cried, in spite of the terror that his face inspired. “You’ve assaulted me; you’ve taken me off the yacht by force. You’ll pay for this when we get back home.”
“Suppose,” said he musingly, “suppose you should never get back home?”
His tone, not his words, froze me. I could not speak. I looked at the faces of the men who were rowing furiously, at Garvin. And I looked at the cold blue water through which we were speeding and knew it was no more remorseless than the men in that boat.
“Don’t you think now it would have been better for you to have slept?” said Brack.
“I think,” I retorted hotly as the power of speech came rushing back to me, “that you had better take me back to the yacht; and I know that I will see you punished for assault for this.”
A sound like laughter issued from his throat, but his expression did not change.
“Assault?” he repeated. “Ha! You forget that you are out of the land of courts now, Pity. Assault! Ha! Why, Pitt, that will be like a maiden’s kiss compared to what’s going to happen in the next half hour. Sit down; you’re in that oar’s way. Put him down, Garvin.”
Garvin obediently kicked me back of the knee-joints and I dropped with a noisy clatter to the bottom of the boat.
“—— you!” swore Brack in a loud whisper. “If you make another noise like that I’ll have you dumped overboard. You’ve made us late. Now just you lay still and nice where you are, Pitt; we’re having no noise on this excursion.”
I sat silent. I was half dazed from the blow on the head and by my situation, and for the next few minutes I observed what was taking place as one who is less than half awake. By this time we had come to the head of the bay and were entering the mouth of a small river which rambled crookedly down through a gap in the hills.
“More juice in your strokes, men,” whispered Brack. “It’s a strong current, and we haven’t much farther to go.”
His words stimulated the men. Their fierce eyes grew fiercer, and they bent to their oars with all their might. Most of them were panting from excitement and exertion.
“We’ll land here,” said Brack presently. “No noise, men.”
The boats swung in to the bank indicated and the men tumbled out, clutching their rifles eagerly.
“Come along, Pitt.”
“No,” I responded. “From what I hear you’re bound for some sort of a crime.”
“So are you. That’s why I took you along—to make you pay for sleeping so lightly. Get out.”
Two men sprang into the boat toward me, and I was forced to obey. With Brack in the lead a single file was formed and I started up a faintly marked footpath which ran along the stream. I was placed near the middle of the line; Madigan brought up the rear. I was the only man in the party who was not armed.
For the next ten minutes we hurried forward, through brush, over rocks and fallen logs, and through muddy spring-holes without a word being spoken. Brack in the lead, seemed to take no notice of the obstacles that presented themselves, and every man in the line with the exception of myself seemed imbued by the same fierce eagerness. I was helpless. The man behind me was continually treading on my heels, his heavy breath was on my neck, and I, too, was forced to hurry, driven along, moving as in a cruel nightmare.
Brack stopped suddenly and held up his hand. A sound had broken the silence ahead of us. It was repeated, a dull, slapping sound, and Brack whispered an oath.
“They’re up; chopping wood for breakfast. Follow me.”
He struck off into a wooded ravine at right angles to the trail. At a distance which I estimated to be three city blocks from the river he led the way by zigzags up a series of hills and presently we were nearing the crest of a ridge beyond which no further hills were visible.
“Get down now,” he ordered. “The lake’s in the valley over this hill. The man who shows himself above the brush or makes a noise’ll get hurt.”
He began to wriggle himself forward through the stunted trees until at last he was able to peer over the crest of the ridge, and the rest followed his example.
A small, blackish lake lay in the marshy valley below. On the shore opposite to us were two log cabins, several huge piles of dirt, and a crude derrick. Daylight was streaming into the valley, dispersing the night fogs, and we made out two men moving about the buildings. Brack swore much but softly.
“Slade and Harris!” He paused to curse again. “—— ’em! We’re too late. —— you, Pitt, you’ll pay for this.”
“What the ——!” snarled Madigan as the captain hesitated. “What’s all this foxy work for, Foxy? They’re two and we’re ten. Why don’t we go down an’ clean ’em up?”
“Easy—easy, Tad,” said Brack softly. “No noise. Slade and Harris are too good with the rifle to try any straight rushing. Besides, there’s a back trail over there, and they might get away. They’ve got the gold cached some place and we may need ’em alive to learn where it is. A little hanging up by the thumbs will make ’em tell. Gad! The fools! They’ve got three dumps; that means three shafts. The thing’s richer than I thought, and they’ve kept it all right down there because they swore to stay there till they had a hundred thousand apiece.”
“Gawd!” whispered Garvin. “Let’s take a chance, cap.”
“Easy, Garvin, easy!” chuckled Brack. “They’re a couple of suckers, but they can shoot.
“Well,” growled Madigan, “let’s have it—when do we go get ’em?”
Brack studied the scene before him for several minutes before replying.
“We’ve got to wait until they’re in the shafts,” was his decision. “This is too big a risk, giving ’em a chance. If we jump ’em now from this side they’ll put up a stiff fight and at the same time have a chance of getting away over their back trail. And if they get into the woods, they won’t leave the gold where we can find it easily. We’ve got to spoil that back trail for ’em.”
“Yep;” said Garvin, “leave ’em no getaway.”
“Madigan,” said Brack, “You take your men and circle around on this side of the ridge and go north until you strike their trail running out of the valley.”
“That’ll take a couple of hours.”
“A little longer, probably. When you’re set, fire three shots and we’ll start to rush ’em from this side. The rest’ll be easy. Boys, by ten o’clock we’ll all be rich.”
We fell back from the top of the ridge, and in a ravine well out of sight Madigan led his four men into the forest. Brack waited until they were out of sight and then hurried us back to the boats. Pulling Madigan’s boat behind us we were swiftly rowed down the river into the bay. Here the empty boat was tied up in a well-hidden nook, and we went on toward the yacht.
I now had an opportunity to note the distance which we had traveled. The fiord curved raggedly from the river’s mouth toward the sea. In spite of the foothills which shut us in I saw that our course at first took us away from the river and the lake. Then, where the bay began to widen, we began to curve backward until when, at last the Wanderer, riding serene and white on her cradle of blue water, appeared before us, I knew that our course had been such that the distance overland to the miner’s lake could not be much more than half of what it was by water. I judged the distance down the bay from the river-mouth to the Wanderer to be about three miles.
As we made out the yacht in the distance, the Captain looked at his watch.
“Back in nice time for breakfast,” he said. “Well, Pitt, how does it feel to belong to a gang of robbers? Please don’t say you don’t belong. You do, you know; we’ve elected you. Yes; you’re one of us now, and we’re going to keep close watch on you until this little job is over.”
“What is your object?” I asked. “Why did you drag me up there with you?”
“Because I suspect that you like to talk, Pitt,” said he, as he suddenly changed the course of the boat. “You were unfortunate enough to see us leaving ship. Had I permitted you to stay on board you would have talked. You might have talked in alarming fashion, and I do not wish Miss Baldwin to be alarmed—until our work here is done, at least.”
“Then why did you bring me back?” I cried. “For you certainly can not expect me to keep silent after what I have seen and heard.”
“You can talk all you want to now, Pitt,” he laughed. Then I saw that the boat was pointing toward the shore. “Talk your head off, Pitt. Because no matter how loud you talk your voice won’t be among those heard aboard.”
The boat shot into a tiny indentation of the fiord, from which the Wanderer could not be seen, and grounded on the gravelly beach.
“Will you get out sensibly, Pitt, or will you have to be knocked down and dragged out?” said Brack carelessly.
I stepped out.
“Barry, you stay here with him.”
A vicious-looking seaman of medium height followed me onto the beach, his rifle under his arm.
“We’ll be back in an hour or so,” continued Brack as the boat backed away. “Must look after our passenger, you know. And be nice, Pitt, and you won’t get hurt.”
“Yes, and make it —— nice, too!” growled the man Barry, scowling at me. “’Cause I don’t half like this job an’ I sort o’ figger the cap’ wouldn’t be sore if he come back and found I’d had to put you out of business.”