Scott Burton and the Timber Thieves

by Edward G. Cheyney

“Then let me go along and have two guns,” Murphy begged.

Scott saw that he would simply have the whole argument to do over again if he stayed there so he simply shook his head and moved off into the night. He had been brought up in the East in the atmosphere of an old New England town where the use of a gun in a fight was never heard of and he had developed a dislike for it which he had never overcome even after a year of life in the Southwest. At one time out there when he had looked for an instant into the barrel of a .45 and had realized with sickening force how helpless an unarmed man was in the face of a deadly weapon he had decided to arm himself. But the shock of that encounter had hardly worn off when he changed his mind. It seemed to him such a cowardly way to fight. He had boxed all his life and was not afraid to stand up to any man, but to shoot a human being and possibly kill him had always seemed beyond him. There were times like the present when he wished that he could use a gun, but as soon as the excitement was over and he had a chance to consider the question calmly he revolted against it.

To Murphy who had always lived in a society where nearly every one “toted” a gun, Scott’s position was altogether incomprehensible. It seemed to him that Scott was simply courting death to go into such a place as that unarmed, and he was strongly tempted to break his promise and go after him. He thought a whole lot more of Scott since he had seen him in that fight there at the camp fire. It was the most wonderful fight he had ever seen. This man whose courage he had doubted had overcome four men and rescued him from the fifth. He sat in the sand with his back against a tree and thought it over.

CHAPTER XIII

In the meanwhile Scott was moving cautiously along the beach in the direction of the camp fire. The fog had grown denser and he had to rely on his hearing for anything more than a few feet from him. The moon was completely blotted out but there was very little chance of going astray with the water lapping the beach on one side of him and the camp fire showing as a dull blur ahead. When he stumbled on to the railroad track he stopped and listened intently for a long time. He always had a dread of some one slipping up behind him and felt much safer if he was sure that all his enemies were ahead of him. He did not know how many men there were at the mill or how many had come down with the lumber, and there was always the possibility that some more might come straggling in from that direction.

He caught no sound save the weird screeching of the cat owls back in the swamp and crept on toward the growing light of the camp fire. He was close enough now to catch the blur of shadows passing between him and the fire and hear the rumble of sullen voices. He remembered seeing a clump of brush a little way from the fire on the side away from the beach and decided that his best chance would be to circle around inland and crawl up behind it. There was little chance of detection unless he should run on to one of those stragglers whom he so much dreaded, for the fog was dense enough to pretty well conceal anything outside of the immediate circle of the firelight.

His feet made no sound in the soft sand, but he had to move very cautiously to avoid the chance of striking a dead stick or a tin can. He was so close to them now that the slightest sound might give him away. He had completed his circle and was crawling slowly forward toward the clump of bushes when his heart seemed suddenly to stop beating and he stood frozen in his tracks. The black stub not more than six feet away and on which he had been directing his course had moved.

Had it really moved or was it another case of a waving palm leaf like the one which had fooled them back in the cemetery? He waited, hardly daring to breathe to see whether it would move again. He had a harrowing suspicion that it might be a man who had been watching him and was preparing to spring upon him as soon as he came within range. He argued that it could not be a man, for one of these men would shoot on sight and not wait to come to close quarters; they had probably had enough of that. But he might not be sure whether it was friend or foe and be waiting on that account.

The suspense was frightful, and it seemed to him that he had been crouching in that same cramped position for hours. He had just about decided that he had again been fooled by a stump when the object moved again. His first instinct was to lie flat on the ground to avoid detection, but he realized that that would put him in an utterly helpless position and he decided to wait as he was and be ready for anything. Unless the man did shoot he would stand a very good show of dodging him and losing himself in the fog.

The man came so close that Scott could almost have reached out and touched him. Every muscle in his body was as tense as a steel spring and he could hardly hold himself, it seemed so certain that the only sensible thing to do was to strike first and save himself. The figure passed slowly by and took its place in the sullen circle around the fire. Scott heaved a great sigh of relief and moved a little nearer. He felt that he had to get close enough to recognize the speakers and hear distinctly what was said or he would have accomplished very little by his eavesdropping.