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They skirted the lake, taking it carefully, three going one way, and three the other. Finally, glancing back, Neill caught sight of Kesney’s uplifted arm.
“They found it,” he said, “let’s go back.” Yet as he rode he was thinking what they all knew. This was a delay, for Lock knew they would have to scout the shores both ways to find his trail, and there would be a delay while the last three rejoined the first. A small thing, but in such a chase it was important.
“Why not ride right on to the ranch?” Short suggested.
“We might,” Hardin speculated. “On the other hand he might fool us an’ never go nigh it. Then we could lose him.”
The trail became easier, for now Lock was heading straight into the mountains.
“Where’s he goin’?” Kesney demanded irritably. “This don’t make sense, nohow!”
There was no reply, the horsemen stretching out in single file, riding up the draw into the mountains. Suddenly Kimmel, who was now in the lead, drew up. Before him a thread of water trickled from the rock and spilled into a basin of stones.
“Huh!” Hardin stared. “I never knowed about this spring afore. Might’s well have a drink.” He swung down.
They all got down and Neill rolled a smoke.
“Somebody sure fixed her up nice,” he said. “That wall of stone makin’ that basin ain’t so old.”
“No, it ain’t.”
Short watched them drink and gri
“He’s a fox, right enough. He’s an old ladino, this one. A reg’lar mossy horn. It don’t take no time for one man to drink, an’ one hoss. But here we got six men an’ six horses to drink an’ we lose more time.”
“You think he really pla
Hardin looked around at him. “Sure. This Lock knows his way around.”
When they were riding on, Neill thought about that. Lock was shrewd. He was desert wise. And he was leading them a chase. If not even Hardin knew of this spring, and he had been twenty years in the Spring Valley country, then Lock must know a good deal about the country. Of course, this range of mountains was singularly desolate, and there was nothing in them to draw a man.
So they knew this about their quarry. He was a man wise in the ways of desert and trail, and one who knew the country. Also, Neill reflected, it was probable he had built that basin himself. Nobody lived over this way but Lock, for now it was not far to the Sorenson place.
Now they climbed a single horse trail across the starkly eroded foothills, sprinkled with clumps of Joshua and Spanish bayonet. It was a weird and broken land, where long fingers of black lava stretched down the hills and out into the desert as though clawing toward the alkali lake they had left behind. The trail mounted steadily and a little breeze touched their cheeks. Neill lifted his hand and wiped dust from his brow and it came away in flakes, plastered by sweat.
The trail doubled and changed, now across the rock face of the burnt red sandstone, then into the lava itself, skirting hills where the exposed ledges mounted in layers like a vast cake of many colors. Then the way dipped down, and they wound among huge boulders, smooth as so many water-worn pebbles. Neill sagged in the saddle, for the hours were growing long, and the trail showed no sign of ending.
“Lucky he ain’t waitin’ to shoot,” Kimmel commented, voicing the first remark in over an hour. “He could pick us off like flies.”
As if in reply to his comment, there was an angry whine above them, and then the crack of a rifle.
As one man they scattered for shelter, whipping rifles from their scabbards, for all but two had replaced them when they reached the lake. Hardin swore, and Kimmel wormed his way to a better view of the country ahead.
Short had left the saddle in his scramble for shelter, and his horse stood in the open, the canteen making a large lump behind the saddle. Suddenly the horse leaped to solid thud of a striking bullet, and then followed the crack of the rifle, echoing over the mountainside.
Short swore viciously. “If he killed that horse . . . !” But the horse, while shifting nervously, seemed uninjured.
“Hey!” Kesney yelled. “He shot your canteen!”
It was true enough. Water was pouring onto the ground, and swearing, Short started to get up. Sutter grabbed his arm.
“Hold it! If he could get that canteen, he could get you!”
They waited, and the trickle of water slowed, then faded to a drip. All of them stared angrily at the unrewarding rocks ahead of them. One canteen the less. Still they had all filled up at the spring and should have enough. Uncomfortably, however, they realized that the object of their chase, the man called Chat Lock, knew where he was taking them, and he had not emptied that canteen by chance. Now they understood the nature of the man they followed. He did nothing without object.
Lying on the sand or rocks they waited, peering ahead.
“He’s probably ridin’ off now!” Sutter braked.
Nobody showed any disposition to move. The idea appealed to none of them, for the shot into the canteen showed plainly enough the man they followed was no child with a rifle. Kimmel finally put his hat on a rifle muzzle and lifted it. There was no response. Then he tried sticking it around a corner.
Nothing happened, and he withdrew it. Almost at once, a shot hit the trail not far from where the hat had been. The indication was plain. Lock was warning them not only that he was still there, but that he was not to be fooled by so obvious a trick.
They waited, and Hardin suddenly slid over a rock and began a flanking movement. He crawled, and they waited, watching his progress. The cover he had was good, and he could crawl almost to where the hidden marksman must be. Finally, he disappeared from their sight and they waited. Neill tasted the water in his canteen, and dozed.
At last they heard a long yell, and looking up, they saw Hardin standing on a rock far up the trail, waving them on. Mounting, they led Hardin’s horse and rode on up the trail. He met them at the trail side, and his eyes were angry.
“Gone!” he said, thrusting out a hard palm. In it lay three brass cartridge shells. “Found ’em standing up in a line on a rock. An’ look here.” He pointed, and they stared down at the trail where he indicated. A neat arrow made of stones pointed down the trail ahead of them, and scratched on the face of the sand stone above it were the words: FOLLER THE SIGNS.
Kesney jerked his hat from his head and hurled it to the ground.
“Why, that dirty . . . !” He stopped, beside himself with anger. The contempt of the man they pursued was obvious. He was making fools of them, deliberately teasing them, indicating his trail as to a child or a tenderfoot.
“That ratty back-shootin’ killer!” Short said. “I’ll take pleasure in usin’ a rope on him! Thinks he’s smart!”
They started on, and the horse ahead of them left a plain trail, but a quarter of a mile further along, three dried pieces of mesquite had been laid in the trail to form another arrow.
Neill stared at it. This was becoming a personal matter now. He was deliberately playing with them, and he must know how that would set with men such as Kimmel and Hardin. It was a deliberate challenge, more, it was a sign of the utmost contempt.
The vast emptiness of the basin they skirted now was becoming lost in the misty purple light of late afternoon. On the right, the wall of the mountain grew steeper and turned a deeper red. The burnt red of the earlier hours was now a bright rust red, and here and there long fingers of quartz shot their white arrows down into the face of the cliff.
They all saw the next message, but all read and averted their eyes. It was written on a blank face of the cliff. First, there was an arrow, pointing ahead, and then the words, SHADE, SO’S YOU DON’T GET SUNSTROK.
They rode on, and for several miles as the shadows drew down, they followed the markers their quarry left at intervals along the trail. All six of the men were tired and beaten. Their horses moved slowly, and the desert air was growing chill. It had been a long chase.