Nan of Music Mountain. Frank H. Spearman
still, the sky cloudless, and as the three men with a led horse rode at midnight into the mountains, the great red heart of the Scorpion shone afire in the southern sky. Spreading out when they rode between the mountain walls, they made their way without interruption silently toward their rendezvous, an aspen grove near which Purgatoire Creek makes its way out of the Gap and, cutting a deep gash along the edge of the range for a hundred miles, empties into the Thief.
Scott was the first to reach the trees. The little grove spreads across a slope half a mile wide between the base of one towering cliff, still bearing its Spanish name, El Capitan, and the gorge of the Purgatoire. To the east of this point the trails to Calabasas and to Sleepy Cat divide, and here Scott and Lefever received de Spain, who had ridden slowly and followed Scott’s 62 injunctions to keep the red star to the right of El Capitan all the way across the Sinks.
Securing their horses, the three stretched out on the open ground to wait for daylight. De Spain was wakeful, and his eyes rested with curiosity on the huge bulk of Music Mountain, rising overwhelmingly above him. Through the Gap that divided the great, sentinel-like front of El Capitan, marking the northern face of the mountain rift, from Round Top, the south wall of the opening, stars shone vividly, as if lighting the way into the silent range beyond.
The breathing of his companions soon assured de Spain that both were asleep. The horses were quiet, and the night gave no sound save that vaguely through the darkness came the faint brawl of tiny cataracts tumbling down far mountain heights. De Spain, lying on his side, his head resting on his elbow, and his hands clasped at the back of his neck, meditated first on how he should capture Sassoon at daybreak, and then on Nan Morgan and her mountain home, into which he was about to break to drag out a criminal. Sassoon and his malice soon drifted out of his mind, but Nan remained. She stayed with him, it seemed, for hours––appearing and disappearing, in one aspect more alluring than another. Then her form outlined in the mists that rose from the 63 hidden creek seemed to hover somewhere near until Scott’s hand laid on the dreamer’s shoulder drove it suddenly away. Day was at hand.
De Spain got up and shook off the chilliness and drowsiness of the night. It had been agreed that he, being less known in the Gap than either of his companions, could best attempt the difficult capture. It was strictly a coup de main, depending for its success on chance and nerve. The one that tried it might manage to bring out his man––or might be brought out himself. Between these alternatives there was not much middle ground, except that failing to find Sassoon, or in case he should be intercepted with his prisoner, the intruder, escaping single-handed from a shower of bullets, might still get away. But Morgan’s Gap men were esteemed fairly good marksmen.
Bob Scott, who knew the recess well, repeated his explicit directions as to how de Spain was to reach Sassoon’s shack. He repeated his description of its interior, told him where the bed stood, and even where Sassoon ordinarily kept his knife and his revolver. The western sky was still dark when de Spain, mounting, discussed the last arrangements with his scouts and, taking the bridle of the led horse, turned toward Round Top. At its narrowest point the Gap opening is barely two 64 miles wide, and the one road, in and out, lies among the rocks through this neck; toward it all trails inside the Gap converge. De Spain gave his horse his head––it was still too dark to distinguish the path––and depended on his towering landmarks for his general direction. He advanced at a snail’s pace until he passed the base of El Capitan, when of a sudden, as he rode out from among high projecting rocks full into the opening, faint rays of light from the eastern dawn revealed the narrow, strangely enclosed and perfectly hidden valley before him. The eastern and southern sides still lay in darkness, but the stupendous cliffs frowning on the north and west were lighted somewhat from the east. The southern wall, though shrouded, seemed to rise in an unending series of beetling arêtes.
De Spain caught his breath. No description he had ever heard of the nook that screened the Morgans from the outside world had prepared him for what he saw. From side to side of the gigantic mountain fissure, it could hardly be, de Spain thought, more than a few thousand yards––so completely was his sense of proportion stunned by the frowning cliffs which rose, at points, half a mile into the sky. But it was actually several miles from wall to wall, and the Gap was more than as much in depth, as it ran back 65 to a mere wedge between unnamed Superstition peaks.
Every moment that he pushed ahead warned him that daylight would come suddenly and his time to act would be short. The trail he followed broadened into a road, and he strained his eyes for signs, first of life, and then of habitation. The little creek, now beside his way, flowed quietly albeit swiftly along, and his utmost vigilance could detect no living thing stirring; but a turn in the trail, marked by a large pine-tree and conforming to a bend of the stream, brought him up startled and almost face to face with a long, rambling ranch-house. The gable end of the two-story portion of the building was so close to him that he instantly reined up to seek hiding from its upper and lower windows.
From Scott’s accurate description he knew the place. This was Duke Morgan’s ranch-house, set as a fortress almost at the mouth of the Gap. To pass it unobserved was to compass the most ticklish part of his mission, and without changing his slow pace he rode on, wondering whether a bullet, if fired from any of the low, open windows––which he could almost throw his hat into as he trotted past––would knock him off his horse or leave him a chance to spur away. But no bullet challenged him and no sound came from the 66 silent house. He cantered away from the peril, thinking with a kind of awe of Nan, asleep, so close, under that roof––confident, too, he had not been seen––though, in matter of fact, he had been.
He quickened his pace. The place he wanted to reach was more than a mile distant. Other cabins back toward the north wall could be seen dimly to his right, but all were well removed from his way. He found, in due time, the ford in the creek, as Scott had advised, made it without mishap, scrambled up a steep and rocky path, and saw confronting him, not far ahead, a small, ruinous-looking cabin shack. Dismounting before this, he threw his lines, shook himself a little, and walked up to the cabin door. It was open.
The mild-minded conspirators who had planned the details of the abduction were agreed that if the effort could be made a success at all, there was but one way to effect it, and that was to act, in every step, openly. Any attempt to steal on Sassoon unawares would be a desperate one; while to walk boldly into his cabin at daybreak would be to do only what his companions were likely at any time to do, and was the course least calculated to lead to serious trouble. None of the three were unaware of the psychological action of that peculiar instinct of danger possessed by 67 men habitually exposed to surprise––they knew how easily it may be aroused in a sleeper by the unusual happening about him, and how cunningly it is allayed by counterfeiting within his hearing the usual course of normal events.
De Spain, following the chosen policy, called gruffly to the cabin inmate. There was no answer. All had sounded extremely plausible to de Spain at the time he listened to Bob Scott’s ingenious anticipation of the probabilities, and he had felt while listening to the subtle Indian that the job was not a complicated one.
But now, as he hitched his trouser band near to the butt of his revolver with his right hand, and laid his left on the jamb of the door with an effort to feel at home, stepped unevenly across the threshold, and tried to peer into the interior darkness, Scott’s strategy did not, for some reason, commend itself quite so convincingly to him. There seemed, suddenly, a great many chances for a slip in the programme. De Spain coughed slightly, his eyes meantime boring the darkness to the left, where Sassoon’s bed should be. The utmost scrutiny failed to disclose any sign of it or any sound of breathing from that corner. He took a few steps toward where the man should be asleep, and perceived beyond a doubt that there was no bed in the corner at all. He turned toward 68 the other corner, his hand covering the butt of his gun. “Hello, Shike!” he called out in a slightly strained tone of camaraderie, addressing Sassoon by a common nickname. Then he listened. A trumpeting snore answered. No sound was ever sweeter to de Spain’s ear. The rude noise cleared the air and steadied the intruder as if Music Mountain itself had been lifted off his nerves.
He tried again: “Where are you, Shike?” he growled. “What’s this stuff on the floor?” he continued, shuffling his way ostentatiously to the other side of the room. But