第85章

Night soon mantled the gorge in blackness thick as pitch.Lucy could not tell whether her eyes were open or shut, so far as what she saw was concerned.Her eyes seemed filled, however, with a thousand pictures of the wild and tortuous canyons and gorges through which she had ridden that day.The ache in her limbs and the fever in her blood would not let her sleep.It seemed that these were forever to be a part of her.For twelve hours she had ridden and walked with scarce a thought of the nature of the wild country, yet once she lay down to rest her mind was an endless hurrying procession of pictures --narrow red clefts choked with green growths--yellow gorges and weathered slides--dusty, treacherous divides connecting canyons-- jumbles of ruined cliffs and piles of shale--miles and miles and endless winding miles yellow, low, beetling walls.

And through it all she had left a trail.

Next day Creech climbed out of that low-walled canyon, and Lucy saw a wild, rocky country cut by gorges, green and bare, or yellow and cedared.The long, black-fringed line she had noticed the day before loomed closer; overhanging this crisscrossed region of canyons.Every half-hour Creech would lead them downward and presently climb out again.There were sand and hard ground and thick turf and acres and acres of bare rock where even a shod horse would not leave a track.

But the going was not so hard--there was not so much travel on foot for Lucy--and she finished that day in better condition than the first one.

Next day Creech proceeded with care and caution.Many times he left the direct route, bidding Lucy wait for him, and he would ride to the rims of canyons or the tops of ridges of cedar forests, and from these vantage-points he would survey the country.Lucy gathered after a while that he was apprehensive of what might be encountered, and particularly so of what might be feared in pursuit.Lucy thought this strange, because it was out of the question for any one to be so soon on Creech's trail.

These peculiar actions of Creech were more noticeable on the third day, and Lucy grew apprehensive herself.She could not divine why.But when Creech halted on a high crest that gave a sweeping vision of the broken table-land they had traversed Lucy made out for herself faint moving specks miles behind.

"I reckon you see thet," said Creech "Horses," replied Lucy.

He nodded his head gloomily, and seemed pondering a serious question.

"Is some one trailing us?" asked Lucy, and she could not keep the tremor out of her voice.

"Wal, I should smile! Fer two days-an' it sure beats me.They've never had a sight of us.But they keep comin'.""They! Who?" she asked, swiftly.

"I hate to tell you, but I reckon I ought.Thet's Cordts an' two of his gang.""Oh--don't tell me so!" cried Lucy, suddenly terrified.Mention of Cordts had not always had power to frighten her, but this time she had a return of that shaking fear which had overcome her in the grove the night she was captured.

"Cordts all right," replied Creech."I knowed thet before I seen him.Fer two mornin's back I seen his hoss grazin in thet wide canyon.But I thought I'd slipped by.Some one seen us.Or they seen our trail.Anyway, he's after us.

What beats me is how he sticks to thet trail.Cordts never was no tracker.An'

since Dick Sears is dead there ain't a tracker in Cordts's outfit.An' Ialways could hide my tracks....Beats me!""Creech, I've been leaving a trail," confessed Lucy.

"What!"

Then she told him how she had been dropping cedar berries and bits of cedar leaves along the bare and stony course they had traversed.

"Wal, I'm--" Creech stifled an oath.Then he laughed, but gruffly."You air a cute one.But I reckon you didn't promise not to do thet....An' now if Cordts gits you there'll be only yourself to blame.""Oh!" cried Lucy, frantically looking back.The moving specks were plainly in sight."How can he know he's trailing me?""Thet I can't say.Mebbe he doesn't know.His hosses air fresh, though, an' if I can't shake him he'll find out soon enough who he's trailin'.""Go on! We must shake him.I'll never do THAT again!...For God's sake, Creech, don't let him get me!"And Creech led down off the high open land into canyons again.

The day ended, and the night seemed a black blank to Lucy.Another sunrise found Creech leading on, sparing neither Lucy nor the horses.He kept on a steady walk or trot, and he picked out ground less likely to leave any tracks.

Like an old deer he doubled on his trail.He traveled down stream-beds where the water left no trail.That day the mustangs began to fail.The others were wearing out.

The canyons ran like the ribs of a wash-board.And they grew deep and verdant, with looming, towered walls.That night Lucy felt lost in an abyss.The dreaming silence kept her awake many moments while sleep had already seized upon her eyelids.And then she dreamed of Cordts capturing her, of carrying her miles deeper into these wild and purple cliffs, of Slone in pursuit on the stallion Wildfire, and of a savage fight.And she awoke terrified and cold in the blackness of the night.

On the next day Creech traveled west.This seemed to Lucy to be far to the left of the direction taken before.And Lucy, in spite of her utter weariness, and the necessity of caring for herself and her horse, could not but wonder at the wild and frowning canyon.It was only a tributary of the great canyon, she supposed, but it was different, strange, impressive, yet intimate, because all about it was overpowering, near at hand, even the beetling crags.And at every turn it seemed impossible to go farther over that narrow and rock-bestrewn floor.Yet Creech found a way on.

Then came hours of climbing such slopes and benches and ledges as Lucy had not yet encountered.The grasping spikes of dead cedar tore her dress to shreds, and many a scratch burned her flesh.About the middle of the afternoon Creech led up over the last declivity, a yellow slope of cedar, to a flat upland covered with pine and high bleached grass.They rested.