Behind him his pack leaned against the base of a pine. Beside him lay his gun. Before him stretched the long panorama of the Traps.
From the half-naked rock of Millbrook Mountain, where the rim of the great bowl curved westward to merge into the Minnewaska steeps, to the castle-like peak of Sky Top, beneath which the strange lake of Mohonk nestled out of sight in a cup of sheer stone, rambled the top of the Great Wall. Northward from Sky Top it dipped downward in a long sweep, and there the east-swinging wall of Dickie Barre seemed to close in and complete the unbroken ring of uplands surrounding the forested chasm. But the man loafing up on the breezy point knew that such was not the case.
Though he had not yet traveled in that direction, he had been studying a couple of squares of Government topographic map, of which several were in his ditty-bag; and he knew that the walls did not close. They pinched together into a narrow ravine, then veered apart again, each pursuing its own way into the north until it became only a series of rounded knolls sinking into the other low hills beyond. And that ravine, or perhaps the wider valley floor beyond, must be the Clove of which Marion Oaks had spoken.
Through that ravine and on into the north, the map said, ran a road—the inside road of the Traps; and along that road-line, at wide intervals, were the little square symbols which, to the topographer, signify “houses.” One of those dots must be the house where Jake Dalton had lived before he was found “swelled up terrible”; where now even the hard sons of the craggy hills dared not sleep because of the fearful thing which could not be seen but could be felt. Before sundown, the lone blond man intended, he would find that house and see whether it was fit for habitation. If so, he meant to inhabit it, ha’nt or no ha’nt.
Everything impelled him toward that house. To live continuously among the bowlders where he had stayed last night was neither comfortable nor sensible: the place was too far from water, from food, from human associates; and when the drenching fall rains should come, as they might at any time, he would be almost unprotected. For sinister purposes, for the concealment of nameless activities and of wanted men, the maze of cliff-blocks was ideal; but for the steady residence of a man who dodged neither lawmakers nor lawbreakers it was the reverse. And to a red-blooded, two-handed fellow like Douglas Hampton the story of the uncanny house was enough. Had it been an even poorer place than his rocky lair, he would have journeyed thither to seek the solution of its mystery.
But the day was far from old, and there was time to loaf and look and bask and think, unworried by necessity. Here was none of the rush and drive of the city, the scurry to fill assignments, the fret and fume of the hordes of business-slaves hurtling over-ground and underground in ant-like activity. Here was nothing to do but relax, absorbing the golden sunlight and the green beauty of nature and the clinking music of unseen hammers far below and far away on the Mohonk slope, where millstone-makers were rifting rock in their little quarries. What though one had no habitation? What though his food was almost gone and the pipe dangling from the corner of his mouth was empty? Time enough to seek shelter when night approached; time enough to rustle for food when the last crumb had vanished. Now was the hour to let his city-starved soul feast on freedom.
So he leaned there on an elbow, blinking outward and downward at the varying verdure of the hardwood forests, the red spots of sumach and the orange tips of goldenrod brightening the little fields, the tiny houses dotting the openings, the little ribbons of smoke drifting away from their chimneys. His thoughts moved in a slow circle—from Marion to Steve, from Steve to the haunted house, from the haunted house to the legend of the long-dead outlaw gang, from the gang to its women prisoners, and so back again to Marion. Where was she now? Down in one of those houses, beaten and sworn at for running away? Much nearer, still talking with her escaped-convict lover in the “hide-out” to which she had taken him? Limping along somewhere in the masking brush, forgetful of pain, thinking only of bringing food to the worn-out fugitive? Only the labyrinth below could tell; and it was not in the habit of telling tales about its children.
And this Snake Sanders, who had wriggled out of the way of officers and let a boy suffer the penalty of some unknown crime—who and what was he? The thinker, accustomed to studying faces and voices, felt that Steve’s denial of guilt and denunciation of Snake were genuine. His virulent hatred, his vicious threat against that man, were those of the bitterly wronged. Yet Marion, herself swift-tempered and courageous, had shown that she feared this Snake, who might be a-sneakin’ and a-slidin’ along near at hand——
The blond man grew tense. Something was sneaking along, though not very near. Something was creeping stealthily toward him from the thick growth behind; something which made no footfall, but which caused a slight difference in the rustling of the breeze-kissed leaves.
He started to turn his head, then checked the movement. He felt that he would see nothing: that the creature was traveling with Indian stealth, keeping itself masked; that his look behind would only warn the sinister thing that its approach was known. He was lying dangerously close to the edge, and his nerves shouted to him to get back while there was time. But he held himself where he was.