The Breaking Point - Page 147/275

Bassett looked at his watch. It was half past twelve.

"Even if I could get a horse I couldn't get out of the town."

"You might, on foot. They'll be trailing Rickett's horse by dawn. And if

you can get out of town I can get you a horse. I can get you out, too, I

think. I know every foot of the place."

A feeling of theatrical unreality was Bassett's chief emotion during the

trying time that followed. The cloaked and shrouded figure of the woman

ahead, the passage through two dark and empty rooms by pass key to an

unguarded corridor in the rear, the descent of the fire-escape, where

they stood flattened against the wall while a man, possibly one of the

posse, rode in, tied his horse and stamped in high heeled boots into the

building, and always just ahead the sure movement and silent tread of

the woman, kept his nerves taut and increased his feeling of the unreal.

At the foot of the fire-escape the woman slid out of sight noiselessly,

but under Bassett's feet a tin can rolled and clattered. Then a horse

snorted close to his shoulder, and he was frozen with fright. After

that she gave him her hand, and led him through an empty outbuilding and

another yard into a street.

At two o'clock that morning Bassett, waiting in a lonely road near what

he judged to be the camp of a drilling crew, heard a horse coming toward

him and snorting nervously as it came and drew back into the shadows

until he recognized the shrouded silhouette leading him.

"It belongs to my son," she said. "I'll fix it with him to-morrow. But

if you're caught you'll have to say you came out and took him, or you'll

get us all in trouble."

She gave him careful instructions as to how to find the trail, and urged

him to haste.

"If you get him," she advised, "better keep right on over the range."

He paused, with his foot in the stirrup.

"You seem pretty certain he's taken to the mountains."

"It's your only chance. They'll get him anywhere else."

He mounted and prepared to ride off. He would have shaken hands with

her, but the horse was still terrified at her shrouded figure and

veered and snorted when she approached. "However it turns out," he said,

"you've done your best, and I'm grateful."

The horse moved off and left her standing there, her cowl drawn forward

and her hands crossed on her breast. She stood for a moment, facing

toward the mountains, oddly monkish in outline and posture. Then she

turned back toward the town.