Part 31 (2/2)

The night was well spent; dawn would come early. And with the dawn, they had no doubt, the mountain trails would fill with Zoraida's men, questing like hounds. Hence Betty and Jim lost no more time in making their trip down the steep slope to the trickle of water. They drank again, lying side by side at a pool. Then Jim filled Betty's ”bucket”

and they returned to their place of refuge. Kendric arranged the boughs for Betty and made her lie down. By the time he had carved and fitted a plug into their ”water bottle” Betty was asleep.

CHAPTER XIX

HOW ONE WHO HIDES AND WATCHES MAY BE WATCHED BY ONE HIDDEN

But Kendric himself did not sleep. He sat by their dead fire and watched the gradual thinning of the darkness about him as the vague light filtered in from the awakening outside world. He looked at Betty sleeping, only to look away with a frown darkening his eyes. She would sleep heavily and long; she would awake refreshed and--hungry. He was hungry already.

”It's open and shut,” he told himself. ”It's up to me to forage.”

And it was as clear that there was always a risk of being seen as he left their hiding place. That risk would increase as the day brightened. Hence, since he must go, it were best not to tarry. He found in his pocket a stub of pencil and an old envelope. On it he wrote a brief message, placing it on the ground near her outflung hand, laying Bruce's pistol upon it.

”I'm off to fill the larder. Stick close until I come back. If I'm long gone it will be because I can't help it. But be sure I'll be back all right and bring something to eat. Jim.”

He left her, not without uneasiness, but eager to hurry away so that, if all went well, his return might be hastened. He took the rifle and slipped cautiously through the bushes, stopping to make what a.s.surance he could that he was not being seen, crawling for the most part across the open places, keeping as much as possible where boulders or trees hid him. He had already made his tentative plans; he made his way down into the bed of the ravine and thence upstream. Swiftly the light increased over the still solitudes. The sun was up on the highlands, the canons only were still dusky.

He found a place where he could stand hidden and see the cliff-broken slope where Betty was. Here he stood motionless for a long time, watching. For he knew that if by chance someone had seen him and had not followed it was because that someone had elected rather to seek the girl. At last, when the stillness remained unbroken and he saw no stirring thing, he expressed his relief in a deep sigh and went on.

His plan was to work his way up the ravine until at last he topped the ridge and went down on the further side. From his starting place he had roughly picked out his way, shaping his trail to conform to those bits of timber which would aid in his concealment. Once over the ridge he would press on until several miles lay between him and Betty. Then, if he saw game of any sort or a straying calf or sheep, he would have to take the chance that a rifle shot entailed. If his shot brought Zoraida's men down on him, he would have to fight for it or run for it as circ.u.mstances directed.

He was an hour in cresting the first ridge. Before him lay a wild country, broken and barren in places where there were wildernesses of rock and th.o.r.n.y bush; in other places scantily timbered and grown up in tough gra.s.ses. A more unlikely game country he thought that he had never seen. But the land hereabouts was not utterly devoid of water and always, as he went on, he sought those canons where from a distance he judged that he might come to a spring. Even so he was parched with thirst before he found the first mudhole. And before he drew near enough to drink he sat many minutes screened by some dusty willows, his eye keen either for watering game or for Zoraida's hirelings who would be watching the waterholes.

But, when at last he came on, he found nothing but a jumble of tracks.

Ponies had watered here and had trampled the spring into its present resemblance to a mudhole. He found a place to drink, and drank thirstily, finding no fault with the alkali water or the sediment in it. He washed his hands and face in it, wet his hair and went on.

There came three more spurs of mountain to cross, all unlikely for game, each one hotter and dryer than the others. Twice he had seen a coyote; he had seen two or three gaunt, hungry-looking jackrabbits.

They had been too far away to draw a shot, gray glimmers through patches of sage. He had seen never a hoof of wandering cattle. And he realized that during the heat of the day there was small hope of his sighting any browsing animal. He would probably have to wait until the cool of evening and then, if he made his kill, return to Betty in the dark. And, though he keenly kept his bearings, he knew that if he mistook a landmark somewhere and got into a wrong canon, he'd have his work cut out for him finding her at night. Well, that was only a piece of the whole pattern and he kept his mind on the immediate present.

He estimated that he was ten miles from camp. Ahead of him stretched still another ridge, a little higher than the others but a shade less barren; there were scattered pines and oaks and open gra.s.sy places.

From the top of this ridge, half an hour later, he glimpsed a haze of smoke rising from the little valley just beyond. And when he came to a place whence he could have an un.o.bstructed view he saw a scattering flock of sheep, a tiny stream of water and a rickety board shack. It was from this shelter that the smoke rose. It was high noon and down there the midday meal was cooking.

Food being cooked right under his nose! All day he had been hungry; now he was ravenous. So strong was the impulse upon him that he started down the slope in a direct line to the house, bent upon flinging open a door and demanding to be fed. But he caught himself up and sat down in the shade, hidden behind some bushes, and pondered the situation. The sheep straggled everywhere; he might wait for one of them to wander off into the bushes and then slip around upon it and make it his own with a clubbed rifle. Or he might go to the house, taking his chance.

While he was waiting and watching he saw a man come out of the cabin.

The fellow lounged down to the spring for a pan of water and lounged back to the house; the eternal Mexican cigaret in his lips sent its floating ribbon of smoke behind him. Ten minutes later the same man came out, this time to lie down on the ground under a tree.

”Just one _hombre_,” decided Kendric. ”A lazy devil of a sheepherder.

There's more than a fair chance that his _siesta_ will last all afternoon.”

At any rate, here appeared his even break. He sprang up, went with swinging strides down the slope, taking the shortest cut, and reached the cabin by the back door. The Mexican still lay under his tree.

Kendric looked in at the door. No one there, just a bare, empty untidy room. It was bedroom, kitchen and dining-room. In the latter capacity it appealed strongly to Kendric. He went in, set his rifle down, and rummaged.

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