two riders came in sight from the direction of the river. At that distance I couldn't make them out, but they never so much as glimpsed us, but rode on ahead.
It took only a few minutes for me to ride down the hill and pick up their sign.
They had been bedded down under a rough shelter on the bank of the river overlooking the trail, and they had been waiting there for some time. Crouching, I looked back the way we had come. They must have seen us leave the river bed.
Who were these two who had been tricked out of their ambush by sheer luck? If there had not been those heavy clouds in the distance and that rain to worry me about the river bed, we would have walked into the ambush and they would have had us cold turkey.
Where they had waited they had a thick screen of boughs for concealment, and yet a perfect field of fire through neatly prepared openings in the brush where they had broken away leaves and twigs. They could have taken me and one of the others with the first two shots, and the ones who were left would never have gotten away.
Those two men were western men; I knew that by the way they rode, and they were experienced at their work. Right then I began casting around in my memory for some clue as to who they might be.
Men hired for the job, surely. I could bet on that. So who was there around Griffin or Fort Phantom Hill who might be hired?
The names I came up with weren't happy ones to think about. I knew of several around this part of the country, and any one of them would be a package of trouble. The two who had laid for us were good at their job, too good for comfort.
I walked the dun up out of the brush and across the green slope through the rain, and was thinking about what would happen when all of these treasure-seekers reached the Rabbit Ears at the same time ... Or could we get there first?
'Who were those men?' Loomis asked as I came back to the buckboard.
He had had his eyes open then. 'Hunters ... big-game hunters, Mr. Loomis, and we're the game.'
'They were waiting for us?' He was incredulous. 'Who could they be?'
'Somebody hired for cash to do a job. Good at the work, too. We were lucky this time, but we can't count on luck next time. Mr. Loomis, I didn't figure on this when I signed up with you, but it looks like I've got to go hunting for them.
Either I take those men, or they'll take us.'
He didn't come up with any objection, and from his remarks he seemed more worried about who was doing the hiring than about the killers themselves. There was nothing I could tell him about that, but I knew we were in trouble a-plenty.
The best way I knew to keep those two from doing their job was to find them first.
Chapter 6
The rain continued to fall--a light, gentle rain. Although there was no flash flood in the river, the water widened and deepened, and we went on, keeping some distance back from the bank.
It was close to noontime before we turned off up Punta de Agua Creek. We had to pick our way along, avoiding obvious places of ambush and trying to keep in the open without becoming too good a target. It wasn't easy.
My dun covered twice the distance of that buckboard, just checking back and forth. We held north on the right of the creek and when we made camp on Los Redos Creek we were about half a mile back of its junction with Punta de Agua.
Nobody had much to say. All of us were beat from the rough country we'd crossed, and Loomis was glum and mean looking. We watered the horses, then picketed them in close. I put together a bed for Penelope, and then went out a ways from camp and bedded down near a rock wall where nobody could come up on me sudden, and where I had a lookout over the camp.
The trend of Punta de Agua was a little westward, then north, but when we started out again we held due north. About four miles out the creek turned westward, but I kept the buckboard headed north. I had a hunch that would worry those men who were racking guns for us, for if we were headed for the Rabbit Ears and Romero it would seem more than likely that we would follow the creek.
However, Punta de Agua Creek took another bend north, and I figured to cut west and pick up the creek at that bend.
I rode ahead and scouted the country and we made good time. The rain had stopped, but the slopes were wet and slippery. Meanwhile, I was doing some contemplating. Those ambushers would be somewhere ahead ... but where? If I could figure that out, I might sort of roust around and get the best of them.
We turned suddenly and headed due west for Rita Blanca Creek, and when we reached it we stopped to eat. Loomis was giving me angry looks and he stalked off to the crest of a rise.
'He'll get himself killed if he isn't careful,' I said to Penelope, who was standing near me. But I wasn't watching Loomis, I was watching Flinch. The breed had me puzzled. He was a canny man, and a quiet one who did no talking at all, but he didn't seem to miss much. A couple of times I'd seen him casting about for sign. Now he was gathering sticks for a fire.
There was a good bit of broken brush and dead stuff lying near the creek. Flinch moved like a wild animal. A wild creature will move through the forest and never step on a fallen twig or branch. A horse might, or a cow, but never a deer or other wild animal, and Flinch was like that. You just never heard him as he moved, and scarcely saw him.
Was it entirely coincidence that he had been around when Loomis was looking for somebody to join them? He had not said he was familiar with this country, but I was sure he knew it as well if not better than I did myself.
As Penelope and I were talking, Loomis came back, and he looked at her sharply.
'Penelope! You come here!'
She turned, her chin up. 'Mr. Loomis, I will not have you speaking to me like that! You're not my father, and you're not my guardian!'
A moment there he was mad enough to strike her had she been close enough. He glared at her, then said stiffly, 'I gave up my business to come and help you.
Is this the thanks I get?'
Well, I had to hand it to her, the way she stood up to him. 'Mr. Loomis, I am very greateful for your coming, and I thank you for it, but that gives you no right to direct my life. If we find the gold, you will be paid.'
At that, his face flushed. 'You talk too much!' he flared.
'If you mean she talks too much about Nathan Hume's gold,' I said casually, 'you're wrong. She's never mentioned it until now, and as far as that goes, nearly everybody in this here country knows that story. I'd bet a pretty penny Flinch knows it, too.' I looked at Flinch.
He looked back at me and said nothing, but he knew all right.
'Her name was enough, even if it hadn't been for other things.'
Now, I'd lied a little bit there, saying she'd said nothing about the gold, but she was in trouble enough and I wanted to leave Loomis without a leg to stand on. And I was beginning to be suspicious of his motives. He didn't strike me as the sort to pull up stakes and take a young girl west on a wild gold chase.
'This ain't exactly a traveled country,' I added, 'and the route you're takin' ain't the one I'd have picked for you. But I'll take you through to Romero if that's where you want to go. Or if it suits you better, I'll take you right to the Rabbit Ears.'
Penelope looked thoughtful. 'Which is the shortest?'
'Right up Rita Blanca Creek, I'd say. The difference is slight, but it is a difference, and the travel is a whole lot easier.'
'We have to go to Romero,' Loomis said stubbornly. 'I planned on buying supplies there.'
'If you know where the gold is,' I suggested, 'you'd be better off to get there as fast as you can and get it before the whole country moves in on you.
'Somebody paid those gents who were laying out for you. Maybe it was that Karnes outfit, maybe somebody else. I'd suggest you move fast and get there first ... if you can.'
Well, that slowed him down. He wanted that gold, and he wanted it almighty bad.
After a moment he said, 'All right, you take us the quickest way.'
