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Suddenly, Kimmel and Kesney, who rode side by side, reined in. A small wall or rock was across the trail, and an arrow pointed downward into a deep cleft.
“What do you think, Hardin? He could pick us off man by man.”
Hardin studied the situation with misgivings, and hesitated, lighting a smoke.
“He ain’t done it yet.”
Neill’s remark fell into the still air like a rock into a calm pool of water. As the rings of ripples spread wider into the thoughts of the other five, he waited.
Lock could have killed one or two of them, perhaps all of them by now. Why had he not? Was he waiting for darkness and an easy getaway? Or was he leading them into a trap?
“The devil with it!” Hardin exclaimed impatiently. He wheeled his horse and pistol in hand, started down into the narrow rift in the dark. One by one, they followed. The darkness closed around them, and the air was damp and chill. They rode on, and then the trail mounted steeply toward a grayness ahead of them, and they came out in a small basin. Ahead of them they heard a trickle of ru
Cautiously they approached. Suddenly, they saw the light of a fire. Hardin drew up sharply and slid from his horse. The others followed. In a widening circle, they crept toward the fire. Kesney was the first to reach it, and the sound of his swearing rent the stillness and shattered it like thin glass. They swarmed in around him.
The fire was built close and beside a small ru
“I’ll be cussed if I will!” Short said violently. “I’ll go sleep on the desert first!”
“Well—” Hardin was philosophical. “Might’s well make the most of it. We can’t trail him at night, no way.”
Kimmel had dug a coffee pot out of his pack and was getting water from the stream which flowed from a basin just above their camp. Several of the others began to dig out grub, and Kesney sat down glumly, staring into the fire. He started to pick a stick of the pile left for them, then jerked his hand as though he had seen a snake and getting up, he stalked back into the trees, and after a minute, he returned.
Sutter was looking around, and suddenly he spoke. “Boys, I know this place! Only I never knew about that crack in the wall. This here’s the Mormon Well!”
Hardin sat up and looked around. “Durned if it ain’t,” he said. “I ain’t been in here for six or seven years.”
Sutter squatted on his haunches. “Look!” He was excited and eager. “Here’s Mormon Well, where we are. Right over here to the northwest there’s an old saw mill an’ a tank just above it. I’ll bet a side of beef that durned killer is holed up for the night in that sawmill!”
Kesney, who had taken most to heart the taunting of the man they pursued, was on his knees staring at the diagram drawn in the damp sand. He was nodding thoughtfully.
“He’s right! He sure is. I remembered that old mill! I holed up there one time in a bad storm. Spent two days in it. If that sidewinder stays there tonight, we can get him!”
As they ate, they talked over their plan. Travelling over the rugged mountains ahead of them was almost impossible in the darkness, and besides, even if Lock could go the night without stopping, his horse could not. The buckskin must have rest. Moreover, with all the time Lock had been losing along the trail, he could not be far ahead. It stood to reason that he must have pla
“We’d better surprise him,” Hardin suggested. “That sawmill is heavy timber an’ a man in there with a rifle an’ plenty of ammunition could stand us off for a week.”
“Has he got plenty?”
“Sure he has,” Neill told them. “I was in the Bon Ton when he bought his stuff. He’s got grub and he’s got plenty of .44’s. They do for either his Colt or his Winchester.”
Unspoken as yet, but present in the mind of each man, was a growing respect for their quarry, a respect and an element of doubt. Would such a man as this shoot another in the back? The evidence against him was plain enough, or seemed plain enough.
Yet beyond the respect there was something else, for it was no longer simply a matter of justice to be done, but a personal thing. Each of them felt in some measure that his reputation was at stake. It had not been enough for Lock to leave an obvious trail, but he must leave markers, the sort to be used for any tenderfoot. There were men in this group who could trail a woodtick through a pine forest.
“Well,” Kimmel said reluctantly, and somewhat grimly, “he left us good coffee, anyway!”
They tried the coffee, and agreed. Few things in this world are so comforting and so warming to the heart as hot coffee on a chilly night over a campfire when the day has been long and weary. They drank, and they relaxed. And as they relaxed, the seeds of doubt began to sprout and put forth branches of speculation.
“He could have got more’n one of us today,” Sutter hazarded. “This one is brush wise.”
“I’ll pull that rope on him!” Short stated positively. “No man makes a fool out of me!” But in his voice there was something lacking.
“You know,” Kesney suggested, “if he knows these hills like he seems to, an’ if he really wanted to lose us, we’d have to burn the stump and sift the ashes before we found him!”
There was no reply. Hardin drew back and eased the leg of his pants away from the skin, for the cloth had grown too hot for comfort.
Short tossed a stick from the neat pile into the fire.
“That mill ain’t so far away,” he suggested, “shall we give her a try?
“Later.” Hardin leaned back against a log and yawned. “She’s been a hard day.”
“Both them bullets go in Joh
The question moved among them like a ghost. Short stirred uneasily, and Kesney looked up and glared around. “Sure they did! Didn’t they, Hardin?”
“Sure.” He paused thoughtfully. “Well, no. One of them was under his left arm. Right between the ribs. Looked like a heart shot to me. The other one went through near his spine.”
“The heck with it!” Kesney declared. “No slick, rustlin’ squatter can come into this country and shoot one of our boys! He was shot in the back, an’ I seen both holes. Joh
Nobody had seen it. Neill remembered that, and the thought rankled. Were they doing an injustice? He felt like a traitor at the thought, but secretly he had acquired a strong tinge of respect for the man they followed.
The fire flickered and the shadows danced a slow, rhythmic quadrille against the dark background of trees. He peeled bark from the log beside him and fed it into the fire. It caught, sparked brightly, and popped once or twice. Hardin leaned over and pushed the coffee pot nearer the coals. Kesney checked the loads in his Winchester.
“How far to that saw mill, Hardin?”
“About six miles, the way we go.”
“Let’s get started.” Short got to his feet and brushed off the sand. “I want to get home. Got my boys buildin’ fence. You either keep a close watch or they are off gal hootin’ over the hills.”
They tightened their saddle girths, doused the fire, and mounted up. With Hardin in the lead once more, they moved off into the darkness.
Neill brought up the rear. It was damp and chill among the cliffs, and felt like the inside of a cavern. Overhead the stars were very bright. Mary was going to be worried, for he was never home so late. Nor did he like leaving her alone. He wanted to be home, eating a warm supper and going to bed in the old four poster with the patchwork quilt Mary’s grandmother made, pulled over him. What enthusiasm he had had for the chase was gone. The warm fire, the coffee, his own weariness, and the growing respect for Lock had changed him.