That time was not quite come. But even now the face of the Traps was gaunt and harsh. Gone was the velvety mask of green which had partly hidden the austerity of the land; gone, too, the flaunting colors which had replaced the emerald tone. Through the thinned forest everywhere showed thickly strewn bowlders and the grim barrenness of crag-face and naked rock slope. The vistas through the brush lengthened in all directions. And with this opening of the woods a new, sullen, ominous noise began to shock the quiet air from time to time—the sulphurous explosion of gunpowder.
Thus far, the guns of the Traps had been noticeably silent. Only at long intervals had one spoken. So dense was the undergrowth that the Trapsmen, knowing they had little chance of sighting game, had almost entirely refrained from hunting. But now the deep roar of muzzle-loading shotguns smashed the stillness early and late, varied occasionally by the blunt bang of some black-powder rifle. Mother Nature, hitherto the protectress of her feathered and furred children, now was betraying them into the hands of men. All hunted things moved with increasing peril.
Yes, all hunted things—human as well as animal. Hunted men, and the friends of those men traversing the brush in furtive missions, were concealed but thinly now by the leafless branches. And while most of the hunters prowling the wilds were seeking only meat and sport, there were also those who stalked more dangerous game.
Three of them, there were. But they did not work together. In fact, one of the three avoided the others, who worked always as a pair. Yet their separate trails crossed at times, and at such times there was a verbal fencing, a give-and-take of half-humorous banter with an undertone of menace. Hammerless Hampton, free ranger, hunter of Snake Sanders and silent partner of Steve, outfaced or outmanœuvred Ward and Bill, who also sought Snake but whose more important quarry was that same Steve—and who, consequently, scrutinized Hampton’s movements at every opportunity.
“When we git somethin’ on you, Hampton, we’ll gather you right in,” Ward reiterated in sardonic humor. To which Douglas, with devil-may-care smile, would reply: “All right. But it’ll take both of you to do it. How’s business?”
“Oh, pickin’ up all the time,” with a carelessness that might or might not be assumed. “We know about where one of our guys is hangin’ out, but we’ll let him lay until we git to talk to the other one a little. We’re gittin’ a good vacation, and we ain’t in any rush.”
How much of this ambiguous answer was true Douglas could not tell. And, suspecting that it was purposely phrased to evoke questions from him, he made no queries as to which of the “guys” was being spared while the other was sought. Nor did he ever allow his eyes to stray in the direction of Steve’s subterranean cavern; he knew Ward was subtly tempting him to give some involuntary indication of his knowledge of the fugitive’s retreat, and he gave none. He observed with misgiving, however, that the pair now seemed always to be somewhere near Dickie Barre.
Ward’s half-jest about the “vacation,” though, seemed to hold much of truth. He looked like the instinctive outdoorsman, who really would derive much pleasure from working in rough country. Certainly both he and Bill showed the good effects of open-air life: the city sleekness of flesh and redness of face were gone, and they were more lean of frame, more lithe of movement, brown of skin and clear of eye. Bill still wore the sour look which seemed habitual, and toward Hampton he always maintained a grouchy silence—perhaps because he knew he would get the worst of any verbal encounter. But, from the physical standpoint, there could be little doubt of his ability to hold his own with almost any one. He and his mate now were a formidable combination.
“If it’s not a sassy question, how do you fellows manage to live in here?” Douglas wondered at one of their unexpected meetings. “Shouldn’t think you’d find it easy to get food and shelter.”
“Oh, that’s easy. We’ve got a little shelter of our own, where nobody’ll bat us over the dome when we’re sleepin’. And for grub, we have a wagon that comes up every so often from down below; meets us outside, and we pack in the fodder. Anything else you want to know?”