Henry's guess was indeed correct; this talent and the release bead's repair function were truly a match made in heaven.
Barely suppressing his excitement, Henry quickly climbed to the first fork of the two-meter-tall white fir.
The second fork was at least six or seven meters high, so it didn't hinder Henry from standing on the first branch, which was over half a meter thick.
He first felt the mountain wind, spread his arms to test his balance, then slightly moved his feet to adapt to the feel of the branch.
With everything ready, Henry steadily rushed forward at a slow speed, jumping off when he was more than three meters from the opposite side—not waiting until the very end, to avoid exceeding the weight limit.
"Whoosh!" Henry landed easily and precisely in the center of the three-meter-square platform on the opposite side—he had jumped at least 4.5 meters.
This truly gave Henry the feeling of "Lingbo Weibu" from a martial arts novel.
Because these two mountain peaks were over 700 meters high—far exceeding the effective range of current rifles and pistols—half of the bandits were ambushing on the mountainside or even lower.
This was also why Henry chose to jump over at the very top—unless a bandit happened to be looking in the direction of the sky at that exact moment, they wouldn't discover him.
So Henry wouldn't encounter bandits at the peak, and as long as he didn't deliberately reveal himself at the peak, the bandits below wouldn't discover him.
Normally, ambushing bandits would be looking downwards.
Henry was not in a hurry to go down and search for possible ambushing gangs; he walked towards the end of the other direction, towards Denver, about one or two hundred meters from the mountain peak.
He planned to launch his search from that direction unexpectedly, reducing his risk of exposure and increasing his chances of finding the enemy.
After all, the other party wouldn't have expected him to bypass them from this direction, so they certainly wouldn't be as heavily guarded.
After spending more than ten minutes walking to the end, Henry gradually walked down, while using his Reconnaissance LV3 skill and sharp eyesight to search for suspicious places.
Wherever one walks, traces are bound to be left behind.
Because he was walking from top to bottom, his field of vision was wider, and he quickly discovered five rather peculiar spots.
The most obvious trace was closest to the valley entrance and also the lowest—probably not even 30 meters above the valley, with severely trampled bushes.
Henry strongly suspected that was where the possible ambushing gang's vehicles were parked, so he carefully concealed himself and walked down towards that location.
The clothes he was wearing now were obtained from the McKinley's metal smelting plant's large warehouse, colorful and predominantly green—somewhat similar to army camouflage in a previous timeline, even the hat was the same camouflage, so he wouldn't be discovered unless he moved at high speed or someone got extremely close to him.
Still more than twenty meters away, Henry heard someone inside cursing loudly: "Damn it! Why is my luck so bad today? Why isn't that damn Henry here yet? How long has it been? It's made me lose so much!"
'Huh? I really didn't find the wrong person?'
Henry secretly praised his own caution and became even more careful in his concealment, stealthily approaching.
At this moment, Edith, Madeline, and Richard in the cave all lowered their heads to avoid attracting the attention of the enraged Russell.
The other four bandits saw that Russell was a sore loser and didn't add fuel to the fire, merely smiling and continuing to play cards.
As for being afraid of Russell, there was none of that.
They were all desperadoes; who didn't have a moment of madness?
Unless they were particularly strong like Frank, others were basically on equal footing, with only Bick and a few other particularly young ones having slightly lower status.
A few with particularly accurate marksmanship held particularly high status, second only to Frank.
They disdained meddling in this or that, completely incomparable to sycophants and perverts like Jim.
For example, Bond, the leader of the Skull Gang, who died by Henry's gun.
Russell threw down his cards, no longer participating in the game.
His card luck was bad; playing more would only lead to more losses, so he might as well find some other fun.
Russell strode towards Edith and the others. When he got closer, he didn't say anything to Edith—for some inexplicable reason, he couldn't commit any evil acts towards her.
He leaned his head towards Madeline's neck and sniffed—so fragrant!
Although this girl wasn't as beautiful as that one, she had a better figure, and her skin was good, the cool white skin he liked, and she was beautiful enough.
Madeline was frightened by his greedy, boar-like gaze and actions, desperately trying to hide behind Richard, but there was nowhere to go.
Russell then looked at the maid, Ruth, two meters away—she was also acceptable; if he didn't have this girl, she would be fine, but since there was someone better, why settle for less?
Richard saw Russell's eyes suddenly turn fierce and had a bad feeling.
These bandits could be speaking nicely one moment and turn hostile the next.
"She is my wife, and also from a noble family, and will pay ransom, please do not harm her!"
Russell hesitated for a moment, but now he was lust-crazed and couldn't think straight; anyway, he roughly knew that noblewomen weren't worth much money.
If he could consider everything thoroughly, fearing this and that, he wouldn't have become a bandit.
However, Russell still added another layer of insurance.
He grinned and asked his card partners: "Don't you guys want to have some fun? Except for this noble girl who's still a virgin and more valuable, don't touch her. These two are both fine. I'll go first with this one, and you guys can decide who goes first with that one after I'm done with this one."
With that, Russell grabbed Madeline's arm and dragged her out of the cave. The immense force made Madeline nearly fall, stumbling and screaming, involuntarily following him.
"Behave yourself, don't make me pull your hair or cut your throat!"
Richard, with his hands tied, was furious at this moment, desperately chasing after them, violently twisting his upper body and shouting, "Let her go! Please let her go, we'll pay"
Russell completely ignored him and couldn't strike him hard—that was money!
If this guy had a heart attack from a kick, Frank wouldn't let him off the hook.
Forget it, if he wants to be a spectator, let him follow, it's irrelevant.
Russell ignored Richard and kept dragging Madeline forward.
Edith had never experienced any of this before; everything had been fine for the past two hours, and the two small bandits guarding them had been very polite. How did it suddenly turn out like this?
At this moment, the other four card-playing bandits were already excitedly drawing cards and comparing values, seeing who would be the first to take Ruth.
Bick and another young bandit looked on enviously as they compared card values.
The maid Ruth trembled in despair.
Edith suddenly came to her senses, screaming and rushing towards Russell, trying to stop him from dragging Madeline.
In less than half a minute, the not-so-large cave instantly became a chaotic mess.
At this moment, Henry had just arrived at the cave entrance, as he had to conceal himself, and the path was not easy.
Additionally, as he walked, he attached a skill Flying Dagger holster with 12 skill Flying Daggers to his waist.
--+--
T/N: Although I'm an inexperienced Editor, I do have a Patreon account! Although it seems like I don't have many supporters right now, my webnovel will be released in full every day, and the advanced chapters will be uploaded to Patreon.
It may not be worth it now, but who knows, it might be different in the future. Who knows!
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