The Frontier, May 1926 — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

66 or four yards beyond, Toi-Yabe’s left hand found a sharp right-angle in the edge, and his groping right encoun- tered nothingness! He inched for- ward, lifted out the Colt revolver. A shot blazed into the inky darkness, causing Dickie to cry out and shrink close. During the momentary life of that red-yellow flare Toi-Yabe saw that what he had dreaded most lay be- fore him. This wag the end of the ledge! True, ten or twelve yards be- yond a six-inch sliver of horizontal rock stilt clung to the arching tunnel wall, yet all the rest had broken away. Since manifestly it was impossible to cross the stream or breast the current, they could proceed no farther in this direction. But one alternative remained, and Toi-Yabe, his wide mouth tightened, played it. He turned and slowly made his way with the lad back through the pitch blackness. Time for them did not exist. Since they had fallen into the water he supposed several hours had elapsed; and now, with every prospect of another blind end to his ledge of comparative safety, he was tortured by the picture of the suffer- ing he had brought upon the child— suffering borne uncomplainingly, how- ever. \ XK ANY T THE break in the Lees) \ | \ ledge where the black, speeding sur- face curved on two feet below he leaned, cupped his and drank, {i nat cht sa ; ui) : ae = o ie ZZ — ee Za hand, then offering some The water was hard with mineral, yet it lacked even a trace of to Dickie. alkaline bitterness. This showed clearly that for a long distance up- stream, at least, the river did not see the surface and daylight. Though Toi- Yabe never was to ascertain the fact, the stream likewise kept to its subter- ranean channel until it mingled its sub- stance with that of the stern Virgin, bound for a mating with the great Colorado. Time unmarked, unguessed, crawled along. When he was tolerably certain that he had passed the pillar which had given him access to the ledge, Toi- Yabe halted and fired, desiring another brief glimpse. There right ahead, a few yards, was the self-same pillar or another exactly like it! Such similar- ity was not probable. Toi-Yabe gri- maced. The progress of the two was like that of a heavy lizard, yet he cer- tainly had believed they must have THE FRONTIER traversed much more than this dis- tance. He continued the grim, almost hopeless journey, speaking brief words of encouragement to Dickie. He reached what seemed the end, 1n- deed. A cave-in of the wall had filled the ledge with loose rock. One large, jagged chunk in particular blocked the way. The remaining shots from Toi- Yabe’s six-gun revealed that the block- ade extended over a width of only four or five feet, though for all he could do in climbing, the burdened ledge itself might as well have given away. Methodically reloading the weapon, the prospector probed forward with one hand leading his charge. He soon found that the risk of clinging to this jutting as he edged about would be a poor chance, indeed. Loose rock sliv- ers fell away, and more came from the wall. Instead of attempting this, Toi- Yabe dug carefully with his fingers, lifting out pieces of granite and drop- ping them in the stream. Soon he met the large boulder. Tentatively he wrenched, and then crowded back in quick alarm. With a grinding crash quickly followed by a splash the over- balanced weight of granite fell into the stream! Toi-Yabe, who had dared hope for no such immediate success, quickly seized Dickie, and edged past the spot upon which more rock might fall at any moment. He found himself upon a broadening, ascending curve of the ledge, where the low, rushing mutter of the onyx waters seemed to die away. Here, though he did not pay it much attention, the stream dived still deeper ina brief arc. Along the breast of this cttrve sheer centrifugal force threw outward small whitecaps, invisible now. A dozen yards more, and then Toi- Yabe stopped, quivering—and not from the cold which had left his veins there while he wrestled with the cave- in of rock. Unless hope deceived his eyesight, ahead and high on the same side he traveled, was a faint but dis- cernible streak of gray! It had to be light; and the presence of light in this tunnel could mean nothing save an aperture in the ceiling—possibly just such a break in the floor of the valley as that one through which Toi-Yabe anid the lad had come into peril! It was characteristic of the tall, lean ex-bandit that an unexpected hope, in- stead of causing him to rush forward in an impulse of tumultuous relief, held him quiet one interminable min- ute, arm around Dickie, considering. Then he drew the newly loaded six- gun, snapped two spoiled cartridges, and obtained an explosion from the third. But he saw little during the brief flash, except that a ten-foot ledge in- clined upward. He rose to his feet. “Looks good, little feller,” he said. “I’m c-cold!” chattered Dickie. That second, from perhaps fifty yards in front and above him, a shot blazed forth in answer to his own! The leaden slug went pitt upon some part of the rock wall, then whined on in ricochet. Almost the same instant a second flash and report came; where the bullet went Toi-Yabe did not know. He thrust Dickie behind him. His gaze was fastened upon the broad way gently inclining upward in a slow curve; he had caught an ephemeral glimpse of a crouching figure there at the top of the slope. Toi-Yabe dropped to his elbow, forcing Dickie to lie down. “Stay right there, pard!” he whis- pered. Reloading the fired chambers of the .44, he shifted his single remain- ing belt holster to the rear and began the Indian stalk. The other man had all the advantage, yet Toi-Yabe, ob- sessed by a gnawing sympathy for the lad whose life had been thrust into his hands, was in no mood to compromise. More than once he had fought to a fin- ish with an opponent in the chaparral ; his bandit days were filled with such encounters. Now with the gray light high to the right becoming more and more plain, he was ready to exercise every wile and kill without mercy this unknown man who obstructed the road. Another might have cried out, at- tempting parley—and surely failing, as circumstances were ordered. Toi- Yabe, believing that the skulker above would think him hugging the inside wall, bellied forward on the very brink of the river. Now he saw vaguely the wide flat of a horizontal lie of the ledge, though strive as he might he could distinguish no hint of his un- known opponent. A third shot blazed. This time Toi- Yabe saw momentarily the man’s head and extended arm. Yet Toi-Yabe held his fire. He knew now where the other was waiting, and went for that spot with a minimum of delay. Knowing that he himself was shielded by an im- penetrable blackness, Toi-Yabe cov- ered the yards swiftly but noiselessly, keeping to the outside. The grayness was becoming more pronounced. Toi-Yabe saw that it must come from a ceiling aperture COMmicooOoKS.Cotn