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Updated: June 7, 2025
Personally he had little to fear beyond a detention unless he should attempt to escape, or unless a searching party might blunder on his traces. Bob had already made up his mind to use his best efforts to get away. As to the probabilities of a rescue blundering on this retreat, he had no means of guessing; but he shrewdly concluded that Saleratus Bill was taking no chances.
Silently, and with practised hands, the nurse began to unpack his bag and lay out upon a sheet, which she obtained from Rose and spread over the rough table, the many strange instruments, bottles, rolls of bandages and sponges in their sterile packages. "Have you any baking soda saleratus, Rose?" She nodded. "Good.
This travel must be uncertain and laborious; but if he proceeded along the road, Saleratus Bill must see the traces he would indubitably leave. In the obscurity of the shady side of the mountain he found his task even more difficult than he had thought possible. Again and again he found himself puzzled by impenetrable thickets, impassable precipices, rough outcrops barring his way.
The agent used none of the circumspection Baker had considered necessary, but rode openly into camp and asked for Bob. The latter, remembering Oldham's reputed antagonism to Baker, could not but admire the convenience of the arrangement. The lank and sinister figure of Saleratus Bill was observed to accompany that of the land agent, but the gun man, at a sign from his principal; did not dismount.
It might be just possible, with luck, to win far enough along this cliff to lie concealed behind some outjutting boulder until Saleratus Bill had examined the beach and gone his way. Bob was too much in haste to consider the unexplained tracks he must leave on the sand. He thrust the branch he carried into the still black water. To his surprise it hit bottom at a foot's depth.
Inexorably Sam Galloway saddled his pony. He was going away from the Rancho Altito at the end of a three-months' visit. It is not to be expected that a guest should put up with wheat coffee and biscuits yellow-streaked with saleratus for longer than that. Nick Napoleon, the big Negro man cook, had never been able to make good biscuits.
There his legs were immediately sucked beneath the overhanging rock that had convinced Saleratus Bill of his captive's fate. It seemed likely now to justify that conviction. Bob clung desperately, until his muscles cracked, but was unable so far to draw his legs from underneath the rock as to gain a chance to struggle out of water.
"Sulphur ointment is the best remedy against the effects of either of these mites, though when that cannot be obtained, saleratus water and salt water will partially allay the irritation. "The normal food of either must, apparently, consist of the juices of plants, and the love of blood proves ruinous to those individuals who get a chance to indulge it.
"Waiting for a better chance, maybe," suggested Amy. "Must be. But what better chance does he want, unless he aims to get Bob here, with a club?" They followed the tracks left by Saleratus Bill until it was evident beyond doubt that the gun-man had in reality departed. Then they started to retrace their steps. "Why not cut across?" asked Bob. "I want to see whereabouts I was shooting," said Ware.
From a narrow gorge, flanked by water-smoothed rock aprons, the river boiled between glassy perpendicular cliffs. "There ain't no swimming-holes in that there river," remarked Saleratus Bill grimly. Bob, leaning forward, could just catch a glimpse of the torrent raging and buffeting in the narrow box cañon, above which the mountains rose tremendous. No stream growths had any chance there.
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