The Portal of Dreams

by Charles Neville Buck

"What did you tell 'em?" demanded Dawson curtly.

"I told 'em I'd had a little business round hyar—let 'em think it was somethin' ter do with er still, an' said I'd jest spent the night hyar ruther then hoof hit back home."

Dawson jerked his head toward the stairway. "Did they say anythin' 'bout comin' up here?"

"No. They kinder eyed them steps, but they didn't say nothin'."

For a moment Garvin's chief henchman walked the floor, then he snarled out, "Did they ask anything erbout me?"

"Jim Calloway 'lowed that somebody'd done seed you in this country, an' I said no, that you was over thar in Virginny."

Again there was a moment's silence after which Dawson's orders came in quick staccato violence.

"Bud, you've got ter go ter town, so's they'll believe thet story. Don't come back hyar no more. Them fellers'll ride back before sundown. They suspicions somethin' an' they'll jest about slip back ter make shore. I'll take this feller an' lay out in the timber tell night. Here, give me a lift."

The two of them raised me, still gagged, and carried me down the stairs. Keeping the house between themselves and the general direction of the road, they bore me by a path that ran along a cliff to a dense clump of timber. Then the lesser villain started on with his ambling step, pausing at the cabin to pick up the jug which was to corroborate his claim that his business had to do with illicit distilling. He also stopped indoors to obliterate all traces of human occupancy.

It was perhaps a mark of respect to my belligerency which led Dawson to leave me gagged, but it was a painful compliment. He propped me up so that I might have my back against a tree, and from our place of concealment we could look down unseen on the house. This time my captor did not favor me with conversation. He sat silent with his visage black and snarling, and his hand from time to time crept involuntarily toward his holster. As for myself, I was distinctly uncomfortable. The gag cramped my jaws and the rope about my ankles was unnecessarily tight. But during the three hours that I had to sustain this position, events were transpiring which gave a certain interest to the situation. The men who had come earlier returned, as Dawson's suspicion had prophesied. They shouted as before and when they received no answer they approached with a caution that carried me back to childhood stories of Indian attacks on block houses. Finally they entered the place, and Dawson sat there looking on, his hands wrapped about his knees and his shoulders shaking with silent laughter, as he surveyed their elaborate caution. They remained in the house for more than an hour and then reconnoitered the premises, at one time passing very near our place of hiding. Once more my custodian's lean hand caressed the grip of his pistol, and his thumb slipped down the safety catch. But in the end they rode away and I sorrowfully recognized their conviction that they had been running down a false clue.