Chapter IV

Hunting the Deserter

NO. We’ll get the drop on him!” Uncle John told her, grimly.

“You said ‘we.’ Do you mean that I can go with you?” I asked.

“Sure you can go. I may need you to help herd him. Hannah can fireguard for you while we are gone,” he answered.

“Oh, no! No! I would n’t stay here alone for all the world!” sister cried.

“Then you will come with us. The telephone is n’t working; you can’t do any good here if a fire does break out. Let’s have some lunch and be off,” Uncle John told her.

Hannah made no answer to that. She looked scared as she turned from us to start a fire in the stove.

Of course I asked Uncle John about the firebugs, but he knew no more about them than I, and doubted that they had been found. I told him, then, about my find of the cave hole, and about seeing old Double Killer. And then we had lunch and planned how we should go after the deserter. We were to sneak down through the timber and strike the bottom of the canyon at a point below the little grass park, where I had seen the camp fires, and then cautiously, step by step, move up and make our capture.

“Afraid?” Uncle John asked Hannah, when she had washed the lunch dishes.

“Yes, scared, but going with you, all the same!” she answered.

We took up our rides and Hannah belted on her pistol, and we started down the trail to the cabin, where Uncle John’s horse was tied and restlessly pawing the ground; and from there we turned oh along the divide, followed it for four or five hundred yards, and began the descent into the canyon. The going was good under the spruces for some distance, and then we began having trouble to find a way past a series of small cliffs; there we had to be very careful where we stepped, lest we dislodge rocks to go crashing down and give the camper warning of our approach. When, at last, we arrived at the bottom of the canyon; we found that it was very narrow and full of boulders – some of them as large as a house – with only a few clumps of willows here and there along the stream. The grass park that we were heading for is on the south side of the stream, so we crossed and turned up toward it, and almost at once came into a well-used game trail running parallel with the creek, and about fifty yards above it. We had not followed it far when Uncle John, in the lead, paused and pointed at a muddy place in it: there, half obliterated by the hooves of passing deer, were the footprints of a man who had gone up the trail.

“Days old. Wore broad shoes. Army shape,” he whispered to us as we bent over the tracks. “I guess we get Mr. Deserter, poco pronto!”

“But he will fight!” said Hannah.

“Wife-beaters generally don’t fight! However, maybe you’d better keep well behind us from here on,” he told her.

Hannah said no more. We started on, but instead of dropping back she kept close behind me. Uncle John, looking over his shoulder, motioned her to slow up. She shook her head so determinedly that her two hair braids flopped straight out, and were so funny – her face red, her eyes snapping, that we put hand to mouth and laughed.

All the same, this was no laughing matter. Why should n’t the deserter fight when he well knew that, if he was captured, he would go to jail for years and years? I was bound to face whatever was to happen, ahead there on the trail, but, oh, how I wished that Henry King had never come into our part of the mountains!

Moving on silently in the beaten trail, and more and more slowly, we at last sighted the open grass park, and then stood a long time looking out at it, and searching the timber bordering it for our man. On our right some dead wood had been broken up and carried away, and a young spruce stripped of its branches – for a bed, of course, but of him there was no sign. “You two stand right here, while I circle around a bit,” Uncle John told us, and turned straight off to the left and was soon out of our sight. Hannah then came up beside me, pistol in hand, and we waited fearfully, hardly breathing, for whatever was to happen: waited for hours, it seemed, and at last heard Uncle John shout: “Come on! Come ahead, youngsters, the bird has flown!”

I uncocked my rifle. Hannah slipped her pistol back into its holster. All my excitement went with Uncle John’s call. I felt suddenly tired. We went to the edge of the little opening, to Uncle John poking about under a thick branching spruce. “There’s where the sneak slept,” he said, pointing to a thick-laid bed of spruce branches. “And he has quilts: there’s a wad of cotton from one of them; and over there close to the creek is his fireplace.”

We went to it, within a few feet of the creek, and found around it the end of a ham bone, several empty cans, and a pair of tattered socks. The ashes of the fireplace and several half-burned sticks in it were water-soaked.

“Yes, the bird sure has flown!” Uncle John repeated.

“It was he who frightened the deer and turkeys! He has gone west! Over on the other slope! But we did n’t see him cross the bare ridgetop

“What is all this! Explain,” Uncle John interrupted. And when I had told him all about it, he said: “Sure it was he who scared them; but he never crossed the ridge, there in the open: he crossed farther south, where it is well timbered. Come. I’I1 bet we can find his tracks going up the canyon.”

We did find them, almost at once, on the other side of the grass park and going up the canyon, and wondered why he had left this place, where he could live comfortably upon his stealings from me, and for what place he was heading?

“Why, that is easily explained,” said Hannah.

“He came up an top last night, found that we had moved all our food up to the lookout, and knew that his stealing had been discovered and it was time for him to go.”

“He will not starve; he will rob the cattlemen’s camps, over on the Reservation, of everything he needs. You must ‘phone over there about him as soon as the line is working. Well, back we go ! Gee ! I’m mad ! Your Uncle Cleve and all the others, over there doing their best against the Huns, and this low-down coward sneaking about here in the forest, feeding his worthless carcass with our good grub! Well, maybe we’ll get him yet!” Uncle John exclaimed.

We had no more than arrived at the cabin and sat down to get our breath after the long climb, when the two telephone linemen came in sight down the trail, and I asked Uncle John to say nothing to them, nor others, about my cave find. I wanted it all to myself.

“Well, boy,” one of them said to me, as they dismounted, “you can ring up the office now; the line’s working. We found the break not three hundred yards below here. Not a break, either: the wire had been cut! Cut with a couple of rocks, it appeared like! Now, who in thunder could have done that!”

“Henry King! Deserter! Grub thief!” we cried.

Uncle John began explaining about him, and I went in to the telephone and did the like to me Supervisor, in Springerville, who said that he would ask the Indian agent on the Reservation to order his Apache police out in search for King. Neither the police nor the sheriff’s posse on our side had been able to find the I.W.W. firebugs, and it was hoped that they had left the country. However, I was to remain at the lookout from sunrise to sunset until further orders.

Uncle John was in a hurry to go home and insisted that Hannah return with him. But, first, he and the linemen brought my things at the lookout back to the cabin, packing them down on their horses in one trip. Hannah left her bed roll with me. She would soon be up to help me explore the cave, she said.

So, at about four o’clock, I was again alone on the summit of Mount Thomas. And lonely enough I was. More lonely still when I went down to the cabin in the dusk, cooked and hurriedly ate my supper, and tumbled into bed. And thought about Henry King. Why had he cut the telephone wire? Was it that he intended to make one last grand raid upon our supplies, and wanted to make sure that we should have no chance to report him before he could get well away from Mount Thomas? Yes, that was probably the explanation.

And there was all that wall chinking to be mudded--what time would I ever have to do that?

At three-thirty, the next morning, I had my breakfast, and then, by the light of a small fire that I built outside, I mixed mud and slammed it into the spaces, smoothed it with a strip of box cover and soon after dawn completed the task. I washed the mud off my hands, washed the breakfast dishes, prepared a lunch, took up my rifle, and, locking the door behind me, hurried up the trail to the lookout. The sun was just rising. A heavy bank of clouds was low in the southern sky. I looked out upon the great forest: nowhere was there even a wisp of smoke. Five mule deer were slowly feeding down the bare ridge between the White River forks. I watched them with the glasses until they entered the heavy timber that clothes all but the upper end of the ridge. The bucks had funny stubs of growing antlers; not until September would they get their full growth of branching prongs.

The belt of black clouds kept creeping up from the south, and at eight o’clock the first electric storm of the season struck Mount Thomas. With the first boom of it I was out of the lookout and running down the trail to the cabin. Terrible thunder crashed and echoed down into the deep canyons, and the whole summit of the mountain was one glare of lightning; blinding, zigzag lightning that struck the rocks time and again and tore them apart. Capped with a four-prong lightning rod though it was, I felt sure that the lookout would be destroyed. Only little rain came with the storm, but I was shivering with cold when I got into the cabin and built a fire in the stove.

At nine o’clock I ‘phoned the office, reported the storm, and was told to return to the lookout as soon as it ceased, for the lightning had probably started some fires. Now and then the rain beat upon the iron roof of the cabin with a deafening noise, but upon opening the door and looking out, I saw that the showers were but slight, wind-driven drizzles, not heavy enough to wet the ground. I returned to the summit in the last of them, the thunder and lightning having ceased, and upon emerging from the spruces, saw that the lookout had survived the storm. For seven years it had stood there, beaten by the fierce winter winds, shaken by the thunderstorms of summer, and though lightning had several times come into it along the wire and smashed the telephone, it had never been directly struck. I hurried up into it, looked north, south, east, and west, and discovered the smoke of three fires: one away down in the Blue Range, and two on the Indian reservation, in the direction of Fort Apache. I reported them.

For eight days I kept those sunrise to sunset hours upon the summit, and during that time no one came near me, nor had I to report any new fires. I spent some time each day collecting beads and arrow-points close around the lookout, but did not once visit my cave hole. My mother and sister called me up from Riverside Station – still without a ranger – to learn how I was standing my lonely watch and long hours. I frequently listened in at the telephone and heard bits of news about the war, I.W.W. troubles at Globe and other mining camps, and the doings of the men in the Forest Service. Many of these men had girls in the different mountain settlements, and after hours would talk with them over the ‘phone. And such silliness they talked. It was sickening.

“Hello; that you, Laura? That you?” Bill would say.

“Yes, it’s me. How you getting along, Bill?”

“All right. How you getting along?”

“All right.”

A long pause. Bill trying to think of something to say. And then:

“Say, Laura, what you going to do Sunday?”

“Nothing. What you going to do?”

“Nothing.” Both titter, and I wonder what there is in that to laugh about? Another long pause, and Bill says:

“You ain’t going to do anything Sunday, Laura?”

“No. Wish’t I was.”

“Wish’t I was, too.” And both laugh again.

“Well, I guess I got to go take care of my horse. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Bill.”

And then says some one listening in: “Oh, good-bye, Bill, dear, sweet Bill!”

On the eighth day, Saturday, of my sixteen-hour watches, the Supervisor telephoned me that the I.W.W. firebugs had evidently left the forest, so I could resume my usual hours in the lookout. That meant that I could leave the lookout at four o’clock, sun time, and so have four hours of daylight for exploring my cave find. I called Riverside Station, hoping that some one would be there to take word to my sister that I wanted her to come up, but got no answer. The next morning, however, my mother went to the station and called me, to learn if I was safe and well, and after a lot of persuading, I got her to consent to Hannah spending a few days with me. A little later in the day, Hannah came to the ‘phone and asked if I had been down into the cave hole?

“Have n’t been near it since you were here,” I answered.

“Good! Promise that you will keep away from it until I come. You promise. Then I’11 be with you to-morrow afternoon.”

What with the big food chest, the stove, table, stools, and all, there was no space in the little cabin for a second bunk, nor a bed upon the floor, so, after quitting time that evening, I made a sleeping-place for myself out on the south side of the cabin: a pole bunk with a foot of springy spruce boughs in it, and a canvas pack cover for a roof. Hannah could have the cabin all to herself during the nights. With old Double Killer prowling around upon the mountain, and maybe worse than he, I just did n’t want to sleep out there. When bedtime came, and I stepped out for a last look around, the very thought of sleeping outside of my four well-chinked walls made me shiver. That made me plumb mad at myself. Did n’t Uncle John and all our other mountain men often sleep out, with never a thought that harm could come to them! Sure they did, and I would, too. I brought my bedding out and spread it upon my bough mattress, and got under the covers with my rifle at my side. I found then that I had made my canvas roof too low: it prevented me seeing anything more than ten feet off. I got up and raised it, and lay down again. That was better. I could see all of the little clearing in three directions; the cabin, of course, shut off the north side of it. There was now a good moon; it enabled me to see even into some of the shadows cast by the spruces. I sat up, aimed my rifle at a stump sticking up in the east end of the clearing, and could see it quite well through the sights; was sure that I could put a bullet into it. Sleeping out was n’t so bad, after all. I lay back upon my pillow, intending to watch the clearing for a time and learn if any night prowlers were about – and the first thing I knew it was morning! I had slept well: better than in the cabin. I sprang up and began my daily round of tasks, glad that Hannah would soon be with me to explore my cave find.

I had a hurried breakfast, put everything in the cabin in good order, and started up the trail to the lookout. When halfway there, I came upon the tracks of a bear that had passed down the trait during the night. Not old Double Killer, but a bear of good size – a grizzly, as I could tell by the imprint of his long claws in the soft earth. And staring down at them, maybe I shivered a a bit. If he had come nosing around under my bunk what would have happened? Try as I would to forget it, that unpleasant thought was with me, on and off, all day.

From the lookout I could see no fire anywhere, but shortly after I had made my nine o’clock report, I heard Green’s Peak lookout ‘phone the officer about two fires to the west of him, and a half-hour later he reported a third fire, still farther west. Then, still listening in, I heard him and the Supervisor agree that the I.W.W. firebugs were probably the cause of them. My call rang. I was asked to try to find the fires, give a chart reading of them. I replied that I could see no smoke in that direction; that Green’s Peak and the high ridge south of it were the limit of my view of the forest to the west. Listening in again, I heard the Supervisor order out the various patrols to fight the fires, and tell them that he would again get a sheriff’s posse to try to help them locate the fire-setters. All this made me feel very blue. I could not understand why some men were so mean!

When I went down to the cabin, at noon, there was Hannah, and old Mr. Ames, who had brought her up on his way to his summer cattle range down on Blue River. He had lunch with us, and got very angry when I told him about the new forest fires. “I’11 tell you what is what,” he said. “Our forefathers fought and bled for this great country, and now we are fighting for it again. And sooner or later, we here at home have just got to get together and wipe out the I.W.W., and other Hun helpers!”

Hannah and I helped him get his pack-horses onto the trail, and he turned back down the mountain, still talking about the firebugs. We then went up to the lookout, taking with us a candle and a rope, and on the way I cut a number of two-foot lengths of stout spruce boughs, and a pole of about six feet. During the afternoon I made a rope ladder of these, first cutting the long rope in its center, and tying the lengths to the pole, about a foot apart. Then came, at last, five o’clock – by sun time four o’clock, and taking a last look over the forest for fires, and glad that we had none to report, we hurried down along the summit to the cave.

I had planned just how we were to get down into the cave hole, and back up. I let the ladder down until it touched the projecting ledge, and had about six feet of it to spare, the end tied to the pole. This I laid upon the slope straight back from the edge, and weighted with slab after slab of rock from the half-circle pile, most of the weight resting upon the end pole. Not even our combined weight, I well knew, could pull the ladder end from under the pile. Hannah went down first, and I was soon beside her upon the rock ledge. Right at our feet, and for the whole length of the ledge, gaped the cleft, running straight down into dense blackness, down, perhaps, into the very heart of the great mountain, and in places covered over with rock slabs that had either fallen from above or – as appeared more likely – been laid upon it by the old-time people with the intent to conceal it. At our right, at the end of the ledge, the hole running on into the mountain was much larger than it had appeared to be from above; large enough to admit us, one at a time, upon hands and knees. Before going to it, we dropped several pieces of good-sized rock into the cleft: each one of them clattered down into the darkness for a considerable time, proving that the cleft was of great depth. Had any one ever gone down there, and lived to get safely back up into the light? we wondered.

I led along the ledge to the cave hole, Hannah closely following, and got down upon hands and knees, lit the candle, and looked in. The passage sloped downward at an angle of about twenty degrees. The floor was strewn with earth and rock bits: the walls were smooth-edged layers of rock of varying thickness up to about eight inches; the roof was uneven.

“Can’t you go in?” Hannah asked, behind me.

“Yes, we can crawl into the hole, as far as I can see,” I answered.

“Well, lead on, then! I just can’t wait to see what is down there!” she exclaimed.

We crept down in for about ten feet, and found our way blocked by a large, three-cornered slab of roof rock that, in falling, had wedged between the walls. I took hold of it, shook it, gave the candle to Hannah, and with both hands and all my strength failed to free it. In falling, it had cut into projections of both walls, and there it would stick until I could get a crowbar and ply and batter it loose. Hannah all but cried when I told her that. I took the candle from her, and held it in over the top of the slab, and saw that, only a few feet ahead, the passage ran into a large chamber. I could see something like ten feet of its floor; beyond was black darkness. Upon the floor was a dim, dust-covered object that had the outline of a large, bottle-neck olla. Yes, I made out that it was an olla. I told Hannah what I saw and we sure were excited. Doubtless there were a number of ollas in the chamber, we said. And other things, too. Gold, maybe. Weapons and implements of the old-time people. In withdrawing the candle I glanced up at the roof and saw the three-cornered place from which the slab had fallen. It was white, almost, compared with the rest of the dark, time-stained roof The slab had but recently fallen. What was recent, in this underground place! I wondered. Perhaps that bright place would not become the color of the rest of the roof in a thousand years!