As a matter of fact, when Talpers had realized that Jim McFann had failed in his mission of assassination, the trader had been consumed with alternate rage and fear. A kidnaping had been the last thing in the world in the trader's thoughts. Assassination, with some one else doing the work, was much the better way. Running off with womenfolk could not be made a profitable affair, but here was the girl thrown into his hands by fate. It would not do to let her go. Perhaps a way out of the mess could be thought over. McFann could be made to bear the brunt in some way. Meantime the best thing to do was to get as far into the hills as possible. McFann could outwit the Indian police. He had been doing it right along. He had fooled them during long months of bootlegging. Since his escape from jail the police had redoubled their efforts to capture McFann, but he had gone right on fooling them. If worst came to worst, McFann and he could make their getaway alone, first putting the girl where she would never tell what she knew about them. Across the mountains there was a little colony of law-breakers that had long been after Talpers as a leader. He had helped them in a good many ways, these outlaws, particularly in rustling cattle from the reservation herds. It was Bill Talpers who had evolved the neat little plan of changing the ID brand of the Interior Department to the "two-pole pumpkin" brand, which was done merely by extending another semicircle to the left of the "I" and connecting that letter and the "D" at top and bottom, thus making two perpendicular lines in a flattened circle.
The returns from his interest in the gang's rustling operations had been far more than Bill had ever secured from his store. In fact, storekeeping was played out. Bill never would have kept it up except for the opportunity it gave him to find out what was going on. To be sure, he should have played safe and kept away from such things as that affair on the Dollar Sign road. But he could have come clear even there if it had not been for the uncanny knowledge possessed by that girl. The thought of what would happen if she took a notion to tell McFann how he had been "double-crossed" by his partner gave Talpers something approaching a chill. The half-breed was docile enough as long as he thought he was being fairly dealt with. But once let him find out that he had been unfairly treated, all the Indian in him would come to the surface with a rush! Fortunately the girl was proving herself to be close-mouthed. She had traveled for hours with the half-breed without telling him of Talpers's perfidy. Now Bill would see to it that she got no chance to talk with McFann. The half-breed was too tender-hearted where women were concerned. That much had been proved when he had fallen down in the matter of the work he had been sent out to do. If she had a chance the girl might even persuade him to let her escape, which was not going to do at all. If anybody was to be left holding the sack at the end of the adventure, it would not be Bill Talpers!
With various stratagems being brought to mind, only to be rejected one after another, Talpers watched the tent until midnight, the half-breed sleeping near at hand. Then Bill turned in while McFann kept watch. As for Helen, she slept the sleep of exhaustion until wakened by the touch of daylight on the canvas.
With senses preternaturally sharpened, as they generally are during one's first hours in the wilderness, Helen listened. She heard Talpers stirring about among the horses. It was evident that he was alarmed about something, as he was pulling the picket-pins and bringing the animals closer to the center of the glade. McFann had been looking down the valley from the sentinel rock. She did not hear him come into camp, as the half-breed always moved silently through underbrush that would betray the presence of any one less skilled in woodcraft. She heard his monosyllabic answers to Talpers's questions. Then Bill himself pushed his way through the underbrush and climbed the rock. When he returned to the camp he came to the tent.
"I don't mind tellin' you that Plenty Buffalo is out there on the trail, with an Injun policeman or two. That young agent don't seem to have had nerve enough to come along," said Talpers, producing a small rope. "I'll have to tie your hands awhile, just to make sure you don't try gittin' away. I'm goin' to tell 'em that at the first sign of rushin' the camp you're goin' to be shot. What's more I'm goin' to mean what I tell 'em."
Talpers tied Helen's hands behind her. He left the flaps of the tent open as he picked up his rifle and returned to McFann, who was sitting on a log, composedly enough, keeping watch of the other end of the glade where the trail entered. Helen sank to her knees, with her back to the rear of the tent, so she could command a better view. The tent had been staked down securely around the edges, so there was no opportunity for her to crawl under.
Apparently the two men in the glade, as Helen saw them through the inverted V of the open tent flaps, were most peacefully inclined. They sat smoking and talking, and, from all outward appearances, might have been two hunters talking over the day's prospects. Suddenly they sprang to their feet, and, with rifles in readiness, looked toward the trail, which was hidden from Helen's vision.
"Don't come any nearer, Plenty Buffalo," called Talpers, in Indian language. "If you try to rush the camp, the first thing we'll do is to kill this girl. The only thing for you to do is to go back."
Then followed a short colloquy, Helen being unable to hear Plenty Buffalo's voice.
Evidently he was well down the trail, hidden in the trees, and was making no further effort to approach. The men sat down again, watching the trail and evidently figuring out their plan of escape. There was no means of scaling the mountain wall behind them. Horses could not possibly climb that steep slope, covered with such a tangle of trees and undergrowth, but it was possible to proceed farther along the upper edge of the valley until finally timber-line was reached, after which the party could drop over the divide into the happy little kingdom just off the reservation where a capable man with the branding-iron was always welcome and where the authorities never interfered.