We have already told what the plan was, and therefore it is needless to dwell upon it. The note Ike Barker found fastened to his door was written by Tom at his partner’s dictation, and as Lish could not have been induced to undertake so dangerous a mission himself, Tom volunteered to put it where the ranchman could find it.
This he did without being discovered, but he breathed a great deal easier when he came back from the dug-out and joined his companion, who was waiting for him behind a swell a little distance away.
“There was a blanket hanging in the doorway, and I fastened the note to it with a pin I happened to have in my coat,” said Tom, with a sigh of satisfaction. “I guess they have gone about as far toward the hills as they will get this fall—don’t you?”
“I’m sartin of it,” answered the wolfer, who seemed to be as highly elated as Tom was. “Ike’ll know his critter as soon as he puts his peepers on to him, and he’ll have him back spite of Big Thompson or anybody else. He’s that kind of a feller.”
If Tom had really succeeded in stopping his brother’s progress it would have been a most unfortunate thing for himself. But Oscar was helped out of the difficulty by the kindness of the ranchman, and thus it happened that he was in a condition to give assistance to Tom at a time when he stood in the greatest need of it.
After this piece of strategy the wolfers journeyed more rapidly toward the hills. Having no wagon to impede their movements, they were able to take a straight course for the valley of which Lish had so often spoken, and in this way they gained nearly three days on Oscar and his guide, who were obliged to keep to the “divides.”
With his usual caution, the wolfer proceeded to hide himself as soon as he reached his hunting grounds.
He went the whole length of the valley, and when at last he was ready to make his winter’s camp, he selected a spot that was almost hemmed in by high and perpendicular bluffs, and which could be approached only from one direction.
Long before they were settled in this camp (their only shelter was a hastily constructed “lean-to,” through whose roof the snow found its way to the ground almost as readily as it did anywhere in the woods) Tom had become heartily disgusted with his partner and tired of his company.
He turned out to be a regular tyrant; and when things went wrong—and they never seemed to go any other way—he abused Tom without stint.