That return journey with the sheriff, which had been so suddenly proved impossible, was to bring our firearms which the sheriff had appropriated on his arrival and made Slim set in a corner. The sheriff himself was not in a very happy mood, quite snappy because of that foiled attempt. He had thrown off his cartridge-belt in the cabin, and in the flurry at the end had only been able to secure his rifle in addition to his blankets. How many charges were in its magazine I did not know. He had worn his cartridge-belt apart from the belt to which his revolver hung, and in the latter were no cartridge-holders.
Part of the sheriff's "shortness" when speaking to Slim was due to the fact, I think, that Slim, intent upon getting out the provisions, had come away without a thought for any arms at all. But the Indian had made up for Slim, for he had not unbuckled his arsenal, and in addition to his revolver had, on either side of his tanned and fringed coat, cartridge pockets with four shells on either side. The loss of our weapons (Apache's and mine) mattered little.
But this is all by the way, and was not so carefully considered at the time as these remarks would lead you to think. I mention it here at all simply because of what happened later. We were not seers or prophets to be able at the time to know all that this shortage of ammunition was to mean.
Enough of that matter, then, and as for the journey through the wilderness, which was by Canlan's route now, at an acute angle from our former route, I need not tire you with a description. It was just the old story of plod, plod, plod over again; of trees and open glades and silence, and at nightfall the forest voices that you know of already.
After three days of this plodding we sighted a soaring blue mountain ridge with snow in its high corries and this as I guessed was Baker Ridge; but it took us a good day's journey to come to its base, even though the valley between was but scantily wooded. It was on the afternoon of the fourth day that we came to the eastern shoulder of Baker Ridge and lost sight for a space of the valley behind ere we sighted the one ahead, travelling as on a roof of the world where were only scattered blackberry bushes and rocks strewn like tombstones or tipped on end like Druidical stones.
Then the falling sides of the southern steep came to view, bobbing up before us, and on the first plateau of the descent the sheriff had some private talk with Slim who presently, with a final nod to a final word of instruction, set off with a sweep of his pony's tail and loped away out of sight, going down sheer against the sky over the plateau's verge.
When we, following more slowly, arrived at that point he was nowhere visible, having evidently pushed on speedily. Nor at the third level did we have any sight of him, though now we caught a glimpse of the first sign of civilisation—a feather of steam puffing up away to left among the scrubby trees, indicating the Bonanza mine; and a little beyond it another plume of steam from the McNair mine. A little below us there was a running stream and this being a sheltered fold of the hill, I suppose, defended from the east and north, there grew honeysuckle there and the scent of it came to us most refreshingly. There we sat down, apparently, from the sheriff's manner, to await some turn of events.
CHAPTER XXIII
The Sheriff Changes His Opinion
