Beyond the Law

by Jackson Gregory

Finally, a little after noon, he came to the lake shore, where the trail ran close to the water’s edge, and at the base of the cliffs which rose a perpendicular twenty feet here, fifty feet there. And when he had drunk of the clear, cold water and had turned from looking out across the mile of dimpling crystal, mountain fringed, he made a discovery, a discovery which came very close to costing him his life.

Rising straight up through the clear air above the cliffs at his side was a thin wisp of smoke, such as climbs upward from a little camp-fire. His heart beat quickly at sight of it. It was back from the cliffs maybe a quarter of a mile, he judged. There must be a sort of tableland up there. There he would find the man he had followed. He saw that the tracks had come to the lake here ahead of him; that they continued northward along the shore. But again he left them, again to make a short cut, and began working his way up along the cliff-side. Clinging with his fingers to seams and crevices, driving the toes of his boots into the cracks which they could find, he drew painfully, slowly toward the top.

He was already so close to the edge above that he could almost reach it with a hand thrust up as far as he could reach, with fifteen feet between him and the ground below. He was straining every muscle, his face tight-pressed to the rocks, reaching up for the rough hand-hold which just defied him, when he was startled by a sound coming clearly to him from below—the unmistakable sound of the dip of a paddle.

He saw the trap he had blundered into. As he was, he could not turn, could not draw a gun from his belt. There he was, clinging to the face of the cliff, a mark to be seen from across the lake, with no hope of being overseen by the man who in a moment would drive a canoe around the rocky point a few yards away, who could shoot him in the back as easily as lift a finger.

Again he strained upward, and at last he succeeded in grasping the rock which protruded from the edge above, and drew himself up. Then he heard a cry from below, a cry as of warning; the rock came away in his hand, he clutched wildly to save himself, then plunged headlong, twisting as he fell. As his body had struck he felt a swift-driven pain through his head, and lost consciousness in a black nothingness.

Luckily for him the fall had been broken for he had twisted his body so that a part of his solid weight struck upon his shoulder. For life was still in him, and came back little by little. He tried dizzily to lift his head and could not. But he could turn a little to the side so that he could see the lake. There was the canoe, its paddle floating in the water. And coming toward him....

It was all so vague; he was so dizzy, the blackness wavered so like a misty veil in front of his eyes! For a little he would not believe that his mind was clear yet, that he was not wandering. For coming toward him was a girl; a girl clad in rough, coarse cloth, made into a short skirt and sleeveless blouse; a girl whose long braided hair was scarcely a deeper, richer brown than her bronzed cheeks, as brown as an Indian maid, but with great, fearless gray eyes. She came swiftly to his side and dropped down upon her knees, flinging back the thick braid which had brushed across his breast.

“I tried to call, to tell you!” she was saying, her low-toned voice coming to him clearly through the singing in his ears. “Are you very badly hurt?”

He didn’t answer at once, but stared up at the fresh, girlish beauty of her, frowning to clear the mist from his eyes, telling himself that it was impossible.

She leaned closer and put her quick light hands upon his head. He felt a little shudder run through them. And then, before he could speak, she sprang up, ran to the lake and came back to him with water in her two hands. She bathed the cut, washed the blood away and, ripping a strip of cloth from the hem of her skirt, tied it about his head in a rude bandage.