Linking his left elbow around the diminishing hemlock to relieve his tortured fingers and the more surely support his weight, he slipped the blazer from his belt and performed an amputation upon the limb. Having difficulty in returning the ax to its sheath, he dropped it. The clank of its fall upon the rocks sent a shiver through his racked frame.
Reminded thus of the alternative fate, he returned to his hand-over-hand performance, receiving in the effort an unexpected scalp wound from the stump of the branch he had removed.
The remaining yards entailed mental and physical torture, for his bridge began to bend. But at last he felt the needles of the fir brush his face; soon his body pressed gratefully in among the branches. One last reach, and he gained hold upon the main trunk. The ordeal was ended.
As down a shaky flight of stairs, he descended the older tree and with caution other than for his footing. Although it was highly probable that the skinner was by now far away and going farther, the fact was not established. Having overcome so many teeth of the trap, he did not wish to be caught by a last one. Seeing and hearing nothing, however, he took the short jump to the ground from the lowest branch.
For several minutes he lay upon a bed of fir needles at the foot of the tree which had formed his stairway, listening for sound of his quarry. Scarcely did he expect to hear any such, but he was taking no chances. Judging from the fact that no shots had been fired at him while he was overhanding the hemlock, during every moment of which ordeal he had presented a fair target, it was reasonable to assume that the unknown, red or white, was on his way.
A stranger to the region, Childress was at loss which way to turn for the easiest crossing of the ridge. They had crossed from north to south, so his choice must lay to east or west. As a matter of fact, he had no choice, at least nothing tangible on which to base one. He tossed a coin, heads west, tails east, and followed its dictation away from the sun that was sinking discouragingly low in the west.
As he traveled along the base of the ridge, thrown up by some prehistoric convulsion of nature and remindful of a scar, his tread was soft as any Indian's. His eyes were ever watchful for sign of the enemy, but his mind was elsewhere.
His thoughts were most of all upon the Gallegher girl of colorful wonder. What a spirited nymph of the ranch she was! Probably she had found no one either suspicious or alarming on the course he had sent her, and by now she was riding homeward. He was glad that she had not come with him, for she probably would have insisted on entering the brush and climbing the ridge. What could he have done with her had she followed him down to that trap of a ledge? How could he have brought her to safety on the forest floor? Supple as she was and undoubtedly strong from her life in the open, it was incredible that she could have overhanded on the hemlock bridge. And had he crossed to safety, leaving her on the ledge? While one man could throw down the improvised tree-trunk ladder, only a Sampson, singly, could have replaced it.
Presently he began to wonder at himself that he thought so much about her. That he had kept her out of trouble, as was his duty both as a man and a "Mountie" should have been sufficient. What was the use of speculating on the might-have-beens? Was it possible that—— He laughed at himself. Of course it wasn't possible that a hard-boiled sergeant of the Royal had developed a sentimental interest in a ranch or any other sort of girl.
Then he came to a gap in the ridge and upon a clearly blazed trail to the other side. He speeded his pace, one that was tireless from long mushing practice behind the dog teams of the Frozen North. An hour before the sun went out he was back at the starting point, where he found Silver and the skinner's cayuse on terms of grazing amity. Evidently his quarry had not cared to return even for his horse, perhaps fearing that his pursuer had a rear guard.