“Nope. You can mebby slide down an’ ford the crik to the road on the other side if it ain’t flooded too high from that rain in the mountains. You got a gun, Mister?”
The pistol Shayne had taken from one of Bryant’s men sagged in his coat pocket. He drew it, gave Strenk a light shove.
“Go ahead. You know the trail. Drop to the ground if we meet anyone.”
Strenk hunched his body for balance on the steep slope and moved upward as silent as an Indian. Shayne followed clumsily, straining his ears for further noise from the cabin. The only sound in the thick silence was the rumble of floodwaters from Clear Creek below them, and an occasional echoing shout from the lighted village which appeared fantastically remote from this high vantage point.
Cal Strenk stopped again after they had gone a hundred paces. He pointed to the shadowy bulk of the cabin squatting against the hillside.
“Nary a sign of anybody,” he said in an awed tone. “No light — no nothin’. Maybe it was a backfire from an auto we heard and it echoed back from up here.”
Shayne sucked a deep breath and grunted, “It was a pistol shot, and it came from up here.” His heart was pounding madly from the exertion of climbing at high altitude. He steadied himself with a hand on Strenk’s shoulder against a wave of faintness. After a moment he strode past the miner and went on to the dark and silent cabin.
The front door was open, sagging back on rusty hinges. The interior was a blot of thick darkness. Shayne stopped near the threshold and shouted, “Hey there — anybody inside?”
The words were echoed back hollowly.
Over his shoulder, he asked Strenk, “Got a flashlight?”