Scott Burton on the Range

by Edward G. Cheyney

“One good thunder storm like we have at home,” Scott thought, “would spill the water over the top of that dam before a fellow had a chance to open the flood gates; but they don’t have them here, it just snows summer and winter.” And so it did as a rule. Only a storm on an exceptionally warm day would produce rain at that altitude.

He climbed one of the lower peaks and there, perched on a block of old volcanic rock, he had the whole country laid out before him. The group of old Benny’s lookout, which had seemed so high on the ridge above the valley cliffs, lay far below him. He could see the line of the cliffs and the fringe of trees along the stream in the main valley. A jutting rock was all that cut off the view of the town. The reservoir looked like a toy lake on the stage. There was quite a breeze up there on the rocks, but not a ripple marred the reflections on the surface of the pond. He could even see Jed feeding peacefully in the little meadow which appeared like a splotch of bright green paint spilled in the middle of an otherwise sombre picture. There was no limit to the view.

He searched all those miles of country within his vision for another moving object; there was none to be seen. He heaved a little sigh of relief and wondered when the time would come that he would be freed from the anxiety of watching for that pursuing shadow. It had been haunting him less than twenty-four hours, but they seemed to him like an eternity.

However, the worry had not yet affected his appetite and he started for the camp. He had climbed farther than he had realized. It took almost an hour of steady climbing to get down to the reservoir. He approached the camp cautiously but there was no trace of any one having been there and a nicker of welcome from the meadow told him that all was well with Jed. He ate his supper in comfort, put on his improvised head gear, and settled back against a mossy rock to listen to the gossip of the evening.

He watched the shadows chase the retreating sunlight up the eastern peaks and saw those shadows slowly deepen into darkness as the short twilight faded and disappeared. The world had gone to sleep and there came to his ear on the hushed night air the tinkling trickle of the little mountain streams and the plash of the water dripping through the dam. Suddenly the tips of the western peaks glowed white and the shadows came slowly down before the silver rays of the rising moon.

And not a word from the telephone. Either the people were unusually silent to-night or he had made some mistake in reconnecting his instrument. He was half dozing now, gazing dreamily at the moon herself balanced on the rim of the eastern peaks when he heard a faint click. It might have been the click of a receiver on the line or it might have been the cocking of a revolver.

Scott was wide awake now, as wide awake as he had ever been in all his life. He had been asleep and had that dreaded shadow stolen on him unawares, or was it only the telephone line? He had been too nearly asleep to know. For the next few minutes he sat with every sense alert and nerves on edge while he searched every shadow with anxious eye and listened in vain for the slightest suspicious sound. With a second slight click in the receiver he relaxed with a gasp of relief that could have been heard at the other end of the line if he had been anywhere near the transmitter.

It was another of those silent calls such as he had intercepted once before. He would have sworn that there were two men on that line now waiting to see if they had a clear field.

“Benson?” Scott recognized Dawson’s voice. Benson was the grouchy clerk in the supervisor’s office. So he belonged to the ring! Scott was glad of it; he had never liked the man but this was the first evidence that he had discovered against him.

“Well?” came the answer after a pause.