'I know that. I don't want to find out from you where the hiding place of these scoundrels is. You probably don't know exactly where they hole-up. But you can tell me this — and forget afterward you have told me. If I went to Ed Mullins's place, would I be likely to bump into them?'
Looking at him, the woman felt again for a moment the hot excitement that had so stirred her blood in the days of her warm youth. He still had the same lean clean build, the same reckless dancing eyes, wrinkled at the corners now from having squinted into a thousand summer suns. And he still carried his lithe body with that grace which was neither insolence nor pride, but had a touch of kinship with both — the poised power of leashed strength she had never seen in any other man.
'Go home, before anything happens to you,' she pleaded.
He smiled at her. 'You haven't answered my question, Sally. I'm not going home until I've finished my business.'
'But you won't tell me what it is,' she said sulkily.
'If you don't know, you can't tell your husband,' he reminded her.
'If I told him, he would never peep. But all right. Don't tell me.' She said, ungraciously: 'I don't think they will be at Ed's place today. They will be deeper in the hills.'
'Good. Enough said.' He gathered the reins, but before he started asked a friendly question. 'How have things been going with you, Sally?'
'I'm all right.' She brushed his interest aside rudely. 'Worry about yourself. They say you've grazed death a dozen times in these last weeks.'
'Yet I am here,' he answered lightly.
'For how long?'
As he rode out of the park to the bench above, the last challenge she had flung at him lingered in his mind. He could turn right toward the pleasant plain he had left an hour ago, or he could head toward the notched peaks which lay sharp and bleak above the huddled hills and tangled gorges to the left. What he had in mind was perilous, perhaps foolhardy. But at this same hour a hundred thousand American boys were following the hard straight path leading to certain and desperate danger. They were not going forward because they liked it, or because they were being driven by anything except the spark of self-respect burning in them that would not let them falter. It was their job. Well, this was his, a small one compared to theirs. Even to let the two sift through his mind together made him ashamed.
His buckskin climbed steadily, following no path, circling rocks, turning back where sheer cliffs in front of him made an impasse and searching for breaks in the rock walls that would permit a passage. There was an easier way to Mullins's mountain ranch, but it was essential to his purpose that he meet nobody
By way of a box canon he came to a crotch in the hills from which he could look down on the cabin and the corrals Mullins had built in this mountain pocket. Already the hard dry peaks back of it were taking on the colors of sunset, the gorges in them filled with lakes of violet and purple. Through glasses he watched the clearing below, scanning every acre of it for signs of human life. No smoke came from the chimney. The door of the house was closed. Mullins had a shepherd dog. It was not moving about the homestead. Cattle and horses grazed in the pasture. Since a small stream ran through it, they could take care of themselves if the owner was absent.
Cautiously he rode down to the steading, alert for the least suspicious movement. The bay horse Mullins usually rode was not in the pasture. Hal was convinced the man was absent. He dismounted, opened the door of the cabin, and walked inside. The place was neater and cleaner than he had expected it would be. Fresh bedding and a swept floor, clothes hung up in an orderly way on a rack, surprised the uninvited visitor. There were evidences that the owner had left in haste. The table was set for dinner, but the meal had not been eaten. Half- cooked potatoes were on a stove in which only a few embers of fire were left. Coffee had been put in the pot, but no water had yet been added. It was plain that word had reached Mullins of man-hunters in the hills and that he had beaten a hurried retreat. He would not be back as long as Sheriff Elbert's posse was in the Rabbit Ear district. That might be for two or three days.
Hal camped in a ravine the entrance to which was fenced by nature with a thick growth of prickly pear. He waited until after dark before lighting a fire for fear somebody might come to the cove and see the smoke. The buckskin he picketed in a growth of alfilaria. He slept beneath the stars with his saddle for a pillow. Once he awoke, to hear the barking of a coyote, but fell asleep again almost at once.
While the darkness still held, he ate a breakfast of coffee, flapjacks, and bacon. Before the crystal dawn broke, he stamped out the fire. Objects were mysterious in the dim morning light, but as the sun rose the ocotilla and Spanish bayonets lost their ghostly appearance and the country took on its desert harshness.
There was no sign of life in the cabin. Hal watered the buckskin and picketed the pony in another place, after which he lay down in the shade of a mesquite where he could see the trail that descended from the rim. He had brought several books with him, in expectation of one or two long days of waiting. A volume of Shaw's plays he tried first. The acid tang of the humor suited his mood.
HAL REMAINED a squatter on the Mullins place two days without seeing another human being. Though a man fond of activity, he had the capacity for patience acquired by years of life in the outdoors where nature cannot be hurried. He read and ate and slept. His pipe he smoked contentedly, no suggestion of restlessness in his easy indolence.
It was in the late afternoon of the third day that Ed Mullins came back to his ranch. Hal caught sight of him as he and his horse appeared in silhouette on the rim rock of the saucer where the rustler had homesteaded. The bay gelding moved down the ledge road and another horse and rider stood against the skyline. A third horseman appeared.
Hal sat up, a wry grin on his face. 'Holy smoke, it's an army,' he told himself aloud.
When he had finished counting, six riders were descending the steep trail into the ranch basin. Through his glasses he picked them out one by one — Mullins, Fenwick, Doc, Polk, Frawley, and Buck. One could not find a choicer bunch of ruffians in a visit to Alcatraz, he thought. No doubt they had gathered here on some definite mission of deviltry. It flashed into his mind that they might have come to get him, but he rejected this guess as improbable. They could not know he was on the place unless Sally Kendall had betrayed him, and he was quite sure she had not.
While they were still coming down the ledge road in Indian file, he walked through the brush to where his buckskin was picketed. The belly of the horse was full of alfileria, and fortunately he had watered it not more than an hour ago. He saddled, packed his belongings, and tied the animal to a mesquite. When he left, it was probable that he would be in such a hurry that every second counted.
From his observation post back of the prickly pears, Hal watched the riders unsaddle and turn their mounts into the pasture. Evidently they meant to spend the night here. Occasionally their voices drifted to him on the evening breeze, but they were too far away for him to make out what they said. He was pleased to see that Mullins's dog had reached home with his tail down and head dragging. Evidently the day's trip had exhausted him. After being fed the shepherd would very likely fall into a long sound sleep. Hal hoped so. An inquisitive and intelligent dog nosing about might destroy his chance of escape.
Some of the men hung around the corral. Doc went with Muffins into the cabin, from the chimney of which smoke presently rose. They were preparing supper for the party.
The long shadow from the mountain back of the park began to stretch across the floor of the little valley. In the crotch of two peaks the sky became a caldron of color, changing quickly from turquoise and magenta and rose to violet and purple. A film of mist softened the harsh outlines of the range. Night was dropping its blanket of darkness over the land.
Mullins came to the door and shouted, 'Come and get it.' The men outside hurried into the house.
Hal took from the saddlebags he had inherited from his father all the food that remained, a bit of dry cheese rind, a crust of bread, and a piece of chocolate. He announced formally, 'Dinner is served, Mr. Stevens,' and began his meal. If circumstances had been different, it would have been pleasant to drop in and eat a hearty meal with the
