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  Title: Out of the Depths

  A Romance of Reclamation

  Author: Robert Ames Bennet

  Release Date: June 15, 2009 [eBook #29131]

  Language: English

  Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

  ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT OF THE DEPTHS***

  E-text prepared by Roger Frank

  and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

  (http://www.pgdp.net)

  Transcriber’s Note:

  The author consistently refers to a handgun as a “Colt’s.” This is a Colt’s revolver, though the word “revolver” is not used.

  * * *

  OUT OF THE DEPTHS

  * * *

  It was a wild race [Page 32]

  * * *

  Out of the Depths

  A ROMANCE OF RECLAMATION

  BY

  ROBERT AMES BENNET

  AUTHOR OF “OUT OF THE PRIMITIVE,” “THE SHOGUN’S

  DAUGHTER,” “WHICH ONE,” ETC.

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

  GEORGE BREHM

  CHICAGO

  A. C. McCLURG & CO.

  1913

  * * *

  Copyright

  A. C. McCLURG & CO.

  1913

  * * *

  Published March, 1913

  * * *

  Copyrighted in Great Britain

  PRESS OF THE VAIL COMPANY

  COSHOCTON, U. S. A.

  * * *

  TO

  “THE SONS OF MARTHA”

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. Deep Cañon 1

  II. A Yearling Sold 9

  III. Queen of What? 20

  IV. Downhill and Up 32

  V. Into the Depths 39

  VI. A Test of Caliber 52

  VII. The Chance of Reclamation 68

  VIII. A Man’s Size Horse 81

  IX. The Snake 93

  X. Coming Events 110

  XI. Self-Defense 125

  XII. The Meeting 138

  XIII. The Other Lady’s Husband 148

  XIV. A Descent 162

  XV. Levels and Slants 176

  XVI. Metal and Mettle 185

  XVII. A Shot in the Dusk 197

  XVIII. On the Brink 207

  XIX. The Plotters 218

  XX. Indian Shoes 232

  XXI. Madonna Dolorosa 244

  XXII. A Real Wolf 254

  XXIII. The Temptation 268

  XXIV. Blind Love 280

  XXV. The Descent Into Hell 291

  XXVI. In the Gloom 303

  XXVII. Lower Depths 315

  XXVIII. Light in the Darkness 327

  XXIX. The Climber 339

  XXX. Lurking Beasts 349

  XXXI. Confessions 357

  XXXII. Over the Brink 366

  XXXIII. Friends in Need 374

  XXXIV. Reclamation 388

  * * *

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  PAGE

  It was a wild race Frontispiece

  It sounded its shrill, menacing rattle 106

  “You have something to tell me––your voice––your eyes––” 286

  Another desperate clutch at the rope––still another 328

  * * *

  OUT OF THE DEPTHS

  CHAPTER I

  DEEP CAÑON

  The hunter was riding leisurely up the steep mountain side above Dry Mesa. On such an ascent most city men would have preferred to climb afoot. But there was a month’s layer of tan on the hunter’s handsome, supercilious face. He balanced himself lightly on his flat English saddle, and permitted the wiry little cow pony to pick the best path over the ledges and up the stiff slopes between the scattered pines.

  In keeping with his saddle, the hunter wore English riding breeches and leggins. Otherwise he was dressed as a Texas cowboy of the past generation. His sombrero was almost Mexican in its size and ornateness. But his rifle was of the latest American pattern, and in place of the conventional Colt’s he carried an automatic pistol. As his horse patiently clambered with him up towards the top of the escarpment the man gazed indolently about between half-closed eyelids and inhaled the smoke from an unbroken “chain” of gilt-tipped cigarettes.

  The pony scrambled up the last ledges and came to a halt on the rim of High Mesa. It had been a long, hard climb. Tough as he was and mountain bred, the beast’s rough coat was lathered with sweat and his flanks were heaving. The hunter’s gaze roamed carelessly over the hilly pine-clad plateau of the upper mesa, while he took a nip of brandy from a silver-cased flask and washed it down with a drink of the tepid water in his canteen.

  Having refreshed himself, he touched a patent lighter to another cigarette, chose a direction at random, and spurred his pony into a canter. The beast held to the pace until the ascent of a low but steep ridge brought him down to a walk. With the change of gait the hunter paused in the act of lighting a fresh cigarette, to gaze up at the sapphire sky. The air was reverberating with a muffled sound like distant thunder. Yet the crystal-clear dome above him showed no trace of a cloud all across from the magnificent snowy ranges on the east and north to the sparsely wooded mountains and sage-gray mesas to the south and west.

  “Can’t be thunder,” he murmured––“no sign of a storm. Must be a stream. Ah! cool, fresh water!”

  The sharp-roweled spurs goaded the pony up over the round of the ridge as fast as he could scramble. At the top he broke into a lope and raced headlong down the other side of the ridge through the tall brush. The reverberating sound of water was clearer but still muffled and distant.

  The rider let his reins hang slack and recklessly dug in his spurs. The pony leaped ahead with still greater speed and burst out of the brush on to a narrow open slope that led down to the brink of a cañon. The hunter saw first the precipice on the far side of the yawning chasm––then the near edge, seemingly, to his startled gaze, right under his horse’s forefeet. He was dashing straight at the frightful abyss.

  A yell of terror burst from his lips, and he sought to fling himself backwards and sideways out of the saddle. His instinctive purpose was to fall to the ground and clutch the grass tufts. But in the same moment that he tried to throw himself off, the nimble pony swerved to the left so abruptly that the man’s effort served only to keep himself balanced on the saddle. Had he remained erect or flung himself to the other side he must have been hurled off and down over the precipice.

  Nor was the danger far from past. Carried on down the slope by the momentum of their headlong rush, the plunging pony “skidded” to the very brink of the precipice. Though the man shrank down and sought to avert his face, he caught a glimpse of the black depths below them as, snorting with fear, the pony wrenched himself around on the rim shelf of the edge.

  For an instant––an instant that was an age of sickening suspense to his rider––the pony toppled. But before the man could shriek out his horror, the agile beast had recovered his balance and was scrambling around, away from the edge. He plunged a few yards up the slope, and stopped, wheezing and blowing.

  The man flung the reins over the pony’s head and slipped to the ground. For a minute or longer he lay outstretched, limp and white-faced. When he looked up, the pony was stolidly cropping a tuft of grass. Beasts are not often troubl
ed with imagination. The hunter remembered his brandy flask. After two long pulls at its contents, the vivid coloring began to return to his cheeks.

  He rose to his feet and walked down to a ledge on the brink of the precipice with an air of bravado. But when he looked over into the chasm, he quickly shrank back and crouched on his hands and knees. Before again peering over he stretched himself out flat on the level ledge and grasped an out-jutting point of rock.

  Beneath his dizzy eyes the precipitous sides of the cañon dropped away seemingly into the very bowels of the earth,––far down in sheer unbroken walls of black rock for hundreds and thousands of feet. He flattened closer to the rock on which he lay, and sought to pierce with his gaze the blue-black shadows of the stupendous rift. Every nerve in his body tingled; his ankles ached with the exquisite pain of that overpowering sight.

  The chasm was so narrow and its depth so great that only in one place did the noonday sun strike down through its gloomy abyss to the bottom. At that single spot he could distinguish the foam and flash of the rushing waters, but elsewhere his only evidence of the sunken torrent beneath him was the ceaseless reverberations that came rolling up out of the depths.

  “Mon Dieu!” he muttered. “To think I came so near––!... Must be what they call Deep Cañon.”

  He crept away from the brink. As he rose to his feet his trembling fingers automatically placed a cigarette between his lips and applied the patent lighter. Soothed by the narcotic, he stood gazing across at the far side of the cañon while he sucked in and slowly exhaled the smoke. With the last puff he touched a fresh cigarette to the butt of the first, thrust it between his lips, and snipped the cork stub over the edge into the cañon.

  “There you are––take that!” he mocked the abyss.

  As he turned away he drew out an extremely thin gold watch. The position of the hour hand brought a petulant frown to his white forehead. He hastened to mount his pony. Short as had been the rest, the wiry little animal had regained his wind and strength. Stung by the spurs, he plunged up the side of the ridge and loped off along its level top, parallel with the cañon.

  The hunter drew his rifle from its saddle sheath and began to scrutinize the country before him in search of game. A pair of weather-beaten antlers so excited him that he even forgot to maintain his chain of cigarettes. His dark eyes shone bright and eager and his full red lips grew tense in resolute lines that completely altered the previous laxity of his expression.

  He had covered nearly a mile when he was rewarded for his alertness by a glimpse of a large animal in the chaparral thicket before him. He drew rein to test the wind in approved book hunter fashion. There was not a breath of air stirring. The mesa lay basking in the dry, hot stillness of the July afternoon. He set the safety catch of his rifle, ready for instant firing, stretched himself flat on his pony’s neck, and started on.

  The animal in the thicket moved slowly to the right, as if grazing. At frequent intervals the hunter caught glimpses of its roan side, but could not see its head or the outline of its body. At seventy-five yards, fearful that his game might take fright and bolt, he turned his horse sideways, and slipped down to aim his rifle across the saddle. It was his first deer. He waited, twitching and quivering with “buck fever.”

  Part of the fore quarters of the animal became visible to his excited gaze through a small gap in the screening bushes. The muzzle of his rifle wobbled all around the mark. Unable to steady it, he caught the sights as they wavered into line, and pulled the trigger.

  The report of the shot was followed by a loud bawl and a violent crashing in the thicket. There could be no doubt that the animal had been hit and was seeking to escape. It was running across the top of the ridge towards the cañon. The hunter sprang around the head of his pony and threw up his rifle, which had automatically reloaded itself. As it came to his shoulder, the wounded animal burst out of cover. It was a yearling calf.

  But the sportsman knew that he had shot a deer, and a deer was all he saw. He was now fairly shaking with the “fever.” His finger crooked convulsively on the automatic firing lever. Instantly a stream of bullets began to pour from the wildly wavering muzzle, and empty shells whirred up from the ejector like hornets.

  Before the hunter could realize what was happening, his magazine was exhausted, the last cartridge fired, and the shell flipped out. But he paid no heed to this. His eyes were on the fleeing calf. His cartridges were smokeless. Through the slight haze above his rifle muzzle he saw the animal pitch forward and fall heavily upon the round of the ridge. It did not move.

  Tugging at the bridle to quicken his horse’s pace, he hastened forward to examine his game. He was still so excited that he was almost upon the outstretched carcass before he noticed the odd scar on its side. He bent down and saw that the mark was a cattle brand seared on the hide with a hot iron.

  His first impulse was to jump on his pony and ride off. He was about to set his foot in the stirrup when the apprehensive glance with which he was peering around shifted down to the cañon. His gaze traveled back from the near edge of the chasm, up the two hundred yards of slope, and rested on the yearling as though estimating its weight.

  It was a fat, thoroughbred Hereford. He could not lift it on his pony, and he had no rope to use as a drag-line. He shook his head. But the pause had given him time to recover from his panic. He shrugged his shoulders, drew a silver-handled hunting knife, and awkwardly set about dressing his kill.

  * * *

  CHAPTER II

  A YEARLING SOLD

  Three riders came galloping along the ridge towards the hunter. At sight of his pony the grizzled cowman in the lead signed to his companions and came to a sudden stop behind a clump of service-berry bushes. The others swerved in beside him, the bowlegged young puncher on the right with his hand at his hip.

  “Jumping Jehosaphat!” he exulted. “We shore have got him, Mr. Knowles, the blasted––” His thin lips closed tight to shut in the oath as he turned his gaze on the lovely flushed face of the girl beside him. When his cold gray eyes met hers they lighted with a glow like that of fire through ice.

  “You better stay here, Miss Chuckie,” he advised. “We’re going to cure that rustler.”

  “But, Kid, what if––No, no! wait!” she cried at sight of his drawn Colt’s. “Daddy, stop him! The man may not be a rustler.”

  “You heard the shooting,” answered the cowman.

  “Yes, but he may have been after a deer,” answered the girl, lifting her lithe figure tiptoe in the stirrups of her man’s saddle to peer over the bushes.

  “Deer?” rejoined the puncher. “Who’d be deer-hunting in July?”

  “Then a bear. He fired fast enough,” remarked the girl.

  “Not much chance of that round here,” said the cowman. “Still, it might be. At any rate, Kid, this time I want you to wait for me to ask questions before you cut loose.”

  “If he don’t try any funny business,” qualified the puncher.

  “Course,” assented Knowles. “Chuckie, you best stay back here.”

  “Oh, no, Daddy. There’s only one man and between you and Kid––”

  “Sho! Come on, then, if you’re set on it. Kid, you circle to the right.”

  The puncher wheeled his horse and rode off around the chaparral. The girl and Knowles, after a short wait, advanced upon the hunter. They were soon within a few yards of him and in plain view. His pony stopped browsing and raised its head to look at them. But the man was stooped over, with his face the other way, and the incessant, reverberating roar of the cañon muffled the tread of their horses on the dusty turf.

  The puncher crashed through the corner of the thicket and pulled up on the top of the slope immediately opposite the hunter. The latter sprang to his feet. The puncher instantly covered him with his long-barreled revolver and snapped tersely: “Hands up!”

  “My––ante!” gasped the hunter. “A––a road agent!”

  But he did not throw up his hands. With th
e rash bravery of inexperience, he dropped his knife and snatched out his automatic pistol. On the instant the puncher’s big revolver roared. The pistol went spinning out of the hunter’s hand. Through the smoke of the shot the puncher leveled his weapon.

  “Put up your hands!––put them up!” screamed the girl, urging her horse forward.

  The hunter obeyed, none too soon. For several moments he stood rigid, glaring half dazed at the revolver muzzle and the cool hard face behind it. Then slowly he twisted about to see who it was had warned him. The girl had ridden up within a few feet.

  “You––you tenderfoot!” she flung at him. “Are you locoed? Hadn’t you any more sense than to do that? Why, if Daddy hadn’t told Mr. Gowan to wait––”

  “You shore would have got yours, you––rustler!” snapped the puncher. “It was you, though, Miss Chuckie––your being here.”

  “But he’s not a rustler, Kid,” protested the girl. “Where are your eyes? Look at his riding togs. If they’re not tenderfoot, howling tenderfoot––!”

  “Just the same, honey, he’s shot a yearling,” said Knowles, frowning at the culprit. “Suppose you let me do the questioning.”

  “Ah––pardon me,” remarked the hunter, rebounding from apprehension to easy assurance at sight of the girl’s smile. “I would prefer to be third-degreed by the young lady. Permit me to salute the Queen of the Outlaws!”

  He bent over the fingers of one hand to raise his silver-banded sombrero by its high peak. It left his head––and a bullet left the muzzle of the puncher’s revolver. A hole appeared low down in the side of the sombrero.

  “That’ll do, Kid,” ordered the cowman. “No more hazing, even if he is a tenderfoot.”