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breathed. "Mr. Sackett?"
It was Penelope.
My relief was so great that all I could say was, "Where have you been?"
She did not answer, but came swiftly toward me. "Who is that by the fire?"
"Harry Mims. Have you heard of him?"
"I know of him. You'd best awaken him. We must go quickly, before it is
light."
"What's happened?"
"Have you ever heard of a man called Tom Fryer? Or Noble Bishop?"
"Are they in this now?"
"Sylvie brought them in. I don't know where she found them, but from all I
hear,
this only makes things worse."
"Is Ferrara with them?"
"There's a slim, dark man. I didn't hear his name. They came into camp
tonight,
and they seemed to know you."
They knew me all right it could not have been worse. There were not three
more
dangerous men west of the Mississippi than those three.
"You are right," I said. "We'd better move."
Mims was sitting up. As we neared the fire he used his good hand to help
himself
up. "I heard. Let's get out of here. Let's get the gold and run."
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It took only a few minutes to roll up our beds and to bring up the horses.
Penelope would ride Mims's extra horse, for she didn't have one of her own.
We led our horses to the stream, then mounted and crossed. Mims took the
lead,
for he was sure he knew where the box canyon lay. I didn't like the sound of
a
box canyon, for that meant a trap a canyon with only one entrance, and the
chances were it had steep sides. It smelled like trouble but then, everything
smelled like trouble. I wished again that I had had sense enough to ride out
of
here before this.
Penelope was close beside me. "You're no tenderfoot," I said. "You couldn't
move
like that if you were."
"I grew up in the woods in Virginia. I was stalking deer before I was ten."
She'd had no right to make me feel she was helpless, I told myself. It was
downright dishonest. Why, she was as good in the woods as I was myself. And
she
had saved my bacon.
"You pulled me out of trouble." I said it a little grudgingly, for I wasn't
used
to being bested by a woman. "Thanks."
"That's all right," she said.
"Where's Loomis?" I asked.
"Somewhere around. I lost track of him."
It seemed to me she was neither worried nor sorry. Maybe she already had him
figured out. But how about me? How did she know I wouldn't take all that gold
and run? I gave her an uneasy look. Could be I was guessing wrong all the way
around. But one thing I felt pretty sure of she wasn't anything like Sylvie
Karnes.
When my thoughts turned to Ferrara, Fryer, and Noble Bishop, I felt a chill.
Any
one of them was bad enough. All three at once I wanted no part of.
Noble Bishop was a gunman. They told it around that he'd killed twenty men.
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Cut
that by half and it might be true at least, those killed in known gun
battles.
Whoever he might have dry-gulched I'd never be knowing, although that sort of
thing was more to the taste of Fryer than of Bishop. As for Ferrara, he was a
knife man.
All three were known men, hired killers, men for whatever was needed when
there
was violence to be done. No doubt Sylvie had gotten wind of them through
Hooker
or one of the others, and she had wasted no time in hiring them.
Harry Mims was old, and he might be crippled now, but he led us as swiftly
through the trees as though he could see in the dark. We followed, and when
he
brought up at the canyon's mouth we came up close to him.
"I don't like it," he said. "The place worries me."
"You're scared?" I was surprised, for that old man was tough. At any other
time
he might have gone for his gun at the very question.
"Call it what you like. Maybe the Indians know what they're talking about. I
don't like that canyon, and never did."
"You've been here before?"
"Yes ... It's a litter of bones in there. More than one man has died in that
place."
"Sure. Nathan Hume's pack train died there, or most of them. Their bones will
be
there what else would you expect?"
"There's others," he said soberly. "I tell you, I don't like the place."
"Let's get the gold then, and get out. If we don't do that, we might as well
leave right now, because they'll be coming and I'm not one to fight without
cause."
The dun didn't like the canyon either. He tried to turn away, fought the bit,
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and did all he could to avoid entering. The other horses were nervous, but
none
of them behaved as badly as the dun.
We rode in, darkness closed around us. Up ahead of us, Harry Mims coughed,
and
then drew up. "Like it or not, we'll have to wait until daylight. There's a
pool
covered with green scum, and there's some holes around here too. God knows
what's in them, but I'd not like to be."
We sat out horses then, no one of us wanting to get down from the saddle,
though
no one of us could have said why. It was simply an uneasy feeling we had, and
the way the horses acted. I know I had no wish to trust the dun with me out
of
the saddle, unless he was strongly tied.
Presently a saddle creaked. "I'm getting down," Penelope said. "I'm going to
look around."
"Wait!" I spoke sharply. "This may be a damned trap. Get back in your saddle
and
wait."
Well, I expected a quick answer, but none came. She got back into the saddle
and
sat quietly. By now the sky was growing gray, and it would not be very long
until it was light enough to see.
Nobody said anything for several minutes, and then it was Mims who spoke.
"Say
I'm scared if you like, but I can't get shut of this place fast enough."
Rocks and brush began to take shape, and we could see the walls of the
canyon.
Nobody was going to ride out of here unless he went out the front way. Or so
I
thought then.
"I could do with a cup of coffee," I said.
"Not there. Let's get the gold and get out."
"It won't be that easy," I said. "It never is."
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Nevertheless, I was as eager to be away as he was, for the canyon was a
depressing place. Bones lay about, and not all of them seemed old enough to
be
the remains of Nathan Hume's pack train.
We all saw the pool, which lay close to Penelope's horse. A still, dead place
covered with a scum of green. Penelope leaned over and stirred the surface
with
a branch she broke from a dead tree. The water under the scum was oily and
dark.
"You notice something?" Harry Mims said suddenly. "There ain't no birds in
here.
I've seen no insects, either. Maybe them Indians are right."
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