V
As the three of them huddled to the earth under cover, there came a sparkle of light from the mound of rock ahead, and a bullet droned above them. At the flash, the driver darted his hand upward, fired every chamber of the five-shot revolver he carried. At once above his head the protecting rock splintered, and on a rock behind a bullet starred.
“Better not do that again,” said Clement, hugging cover.
“Shootin’ me up,” breathed the driver as he reloaded. “I’ll teach him.”
“You won’t that way,” said Clement. “Not without damage to yourself. That must be the half-breed Siwash planted there to hold us away from Cobalt as long as possible. He’s up to all the tricks. We won’t be able to rush him, we’ve got to get him by guile.”
“I don’t care about guile as long as I can shoot him up.”
Clement who, in the broadening pallor of light, had been studying the ground, said crisply, “You shall. Stick your revolver round the farther end of your rock ... no more than your gun, if you value your arm, and when you’ve fired, whip it in sharp. No, don’t trouble to aim at anything. Ready. Now fire.”
The driver’s revolver spoke. Almost at once there was an answering sparkle from the rock-cliff, and the rock against which the revolver rested chipped into flecks of flying particles.
“Close up,” said the driver. “He’s getting his range pretty.”
“He is,” said Clement, who had asked the driver to fire so that he might study their opponent’s position. “Lucky for us his first shots were mere sighters. But now he’ll get anything of us that shows. Also he moves after every shot. We won’t get him by pot shooting. We’ve got to tackle this fellow with some of his own cunning. And we’ve got to do it quickly before the light gets too good?”
His mind, accustomed in the old days to trench warfare, sized up the situation quickly and accurately.
“Will you two crawl over to the left there? And, don’t forget, cover is life. I want you to get behind those rocks. When I give you the word, I want one of you to blaze at him and draw his fire. When he fires back, I want you both to loose off.... Can you fire with the left hand, Gatineau? Well, do, alternating your shots. I want that lad to be convinced that he has three men pinned here.”
“And you’re going to flank him?” said Gatineau.
“I’m going to try to do that.”
“Not a very safe job with a slim feller like that,” said the driver.
“I had some practice at it in France.... Great training ground, France. Also, I’ve done quite a lot of stalking. Anyhow, it’s our only chance if we’re not to remain here all day.”
The two men crawled across to their stations and Gatineau fired at Siwash. The shot was immediately answered, and as immediately a very hearty fusilade burst from the two behind their rocks. Clement chuckled at the ardor Gatineau and his companion put into the business. It was a real early morning “hate.” Not three men but a file seemed to be in action.
But though Clement Seadon was grinning, he was also fulfilling his own part of the plan. Directly the attention of the man on the rock was occupied, he began to worm his way in a wide circle to the right. He had good cover, and he made excellent progress. He was also helped by the clever coöperation of his companions. They went one better than instructions. Instead of remaining in one place and firing from that, they worked steadily along the arc to the left, and Siwash—Clement was certain it was Siwash—in swiveling round to follow them, naturally turned his back more and more on Clement. They drew fire with all manner of tricks.
Meanwhile Clement made definite progress. The ground was rocky and made for stalking. In about half-an-hour he reached a position from which he could see the fellow as he moved stealthily from point to point. It was, as he had thought, Siwash.
Actually, at one time, he had Siwash’s legs and thighs at the mercy of his pistol, but though the chances were six to one on his hitting, he decided not to risk it. If he wounded the fellow he might not put him out, while it would betray the double game they were playing. When he fired he must do so with absolute certainty of putting an end to this pistol play.
All the same, he had to fire before he was ready. He had worked round to a fairly good position, when he saw no more than the hands of Siwash (the rest was covered) doing a peculiar thing. The hands seemed to be rolling a cigarette. The hands finished rolling the cigarette, and, with the utmost cunning, it was lighted. A broad puff of smoke rose up, and another, immediately drawing a spattering of shots from the men below. Siwash, hidden, puffed for a minute on the cigarette, then the hands appeared again, and Clement watched them fixing the wet butt of the smoke cleverly to the face of a rock. Siwash had calculated the draught well, for the lighted end gave off a thin thread of smoke, which occasionally became puffs, in the now advanced light of the growing day. Directly he had fixed up the cigarette, he appeared and began to slink away between the rocks.... Then Clement fired.
He had to fire. He recognized Siwash’s game at once. Siwash meant to hypnotize the men below with that cigarette smoke. With their eyes fixed on that, they would not notice the fellow was worming round them. The first intimation of his tactics they would get would be a shot from their exposed flank, and that shot would be aimed to kill. Clement recognized this in a flash, and fired.
He saw Siwash jerk and dive forward out of sight. He thought he had hit, but did not waste time speculating on the matter. He nipped forward rapidly to close with the brute. He had covered half the distance when he heard a shout, and saw the detective Gatineau on the ground where Siwash had fallen and disappeared. Gatineau stood upright, but drew no shot. Clement discarded cover and ran, scrambling over the rocks to join him.
He reached the spot, found Gatineau, but no Siwash. There was blood on the ground leading away through the rocks. Clement was about to ask questions when, with a loud “Got it, Steve,” the driver scrambled into sight. He had a large automatic in his hand as well as his own revolver.
“Say, you got him pretty,” shouted the driver. “But where is that bad man?”
“We saw him go down ‘smash!’ when you fired,” explained the detective. “He shot right into sight before dropping out of it; his gun dropped out of his hand, hit that rock there and went bouncing down to the foot of the outcrop.... I guess you hit him powerful. I came up here quick to get him if he wasn’t done, while the driver went for the gun.”
“An’ I got the gun, but you didn’t get that bad man.”
“He must be a pretty sick man, anyhow,” said Gatineau, pointing to the blood. “He can’t be far off.”
They followed the trail. It wormed in and out of the rocks, and against some of them was a smear of blood. Then suddenly, across an open space ringed with rocks, they lost it. Siwash had evidently staunched the flow before he had crossed this place. They stared at the rocks, the hard surface of which showed no footprints. They could see no sign of movement.
“He might be at any point of the compass there,” said Clement. “We might hunt all day for him, and not find him.... And we don’t particularly want to find him.”
“No, the sooner we get to Cobalt the better,” agreed Gatineau. “And his teeth are drawn anyhow. We can lodge information at the town and the police there can deal with him—if he remains hereabouts to be dealt with. We’d better get along.”
It was another hour and a half before they reached Cobalt. Here they learned that the tactics of Mr. Neuburg had accomplished all that that villain desired. Heloise and the companion Méduse Smythe had left. They had taken tickets to North Bay. By this time they were already beyond North Bay and any telephone message that could be got there.
They had vanished into the maze of cross lines that radiated from that railway junction.