Part 10 (2/2)

It was quite dusk when they entered the foothills. The way, not good at best, grew difficult and dangerous to follow. Billy led on, however, until darkness closed down on them in a little cactus-grown canon. Here he halted and ordered camp for a few hours.

”Lord!” exclaimed DeWitt. ”You're not going to camp! I thought you were really going to do something!”

Billy finished lighting the fire and by its light he gave an impatient glance at the tenderfoot. But the look of the burned, sand-grimed face, the bloodshot eyes, blazing with anxiety, caused him to speak patiently.

”Can't kill the horses, DeWitt. You must make up your mind that this is going to be a hard hunt. You got to call out all the strength you've been storing up all your life, and then some. We've got to use common sense. Lord, I want to get ahead, don't I! I seen Miss Rhoda.

I know what she's like. This ain't any joy ride for me, either. I got a lot of feeling in it.”

John DeWitt extended his sun-blistered right hand and Billy Porter clasped it with his brown paw.

Jack Newman cleared his throat.

”Did you give your horse enough rope, John? There is a good lot of gra.s.s close to the canon wall. Quick as you finish your coffee, old man, roll in your blanket. We will rest till midnight when the moon comes up, eh, Billy?”

DeWitt, finally convinced of the good sense and earnestness of his friends, obeyed. The canon was still in darkness when Jack shook him into wakefulness but the mountain peak above was a glorious silver.

Camp was broken quickly and in a short time Billy was leading the way up the wretched trail. DeWitt's four hours of sleep had helped him.

He could, to some degree, control the feverish anxiety that was consuming him and he tried to turn his mind from picturing Rhoda's agonies to castigating himself for leaving her unguarded even though Kut-le had left the ranch. Before leaving the ranch that afternoon he had telegraphed and written Rhoda's only living relative, her Aunt Mary. He had been thankful as he wrote that Rhoda had no mother. He had so liked the young Indian; there had been such good feeling between them that he could not yet believe that Porter's surmise was wholly correct.

”Supposing,” he said aloud, ”that you are wrong, Porter? Supposing that she's--she's dying of thirst down there in the desert? You have no proof of Kut-le's doing it. It's only founded on your Indian hate, you say yourself.”

”That's right,” said Newman. ”Are you sure we aren't wasting time, Billy?”

Billy turned in the saddle to face them.

”Well, boys,” he said, ”you've got half the county scratching the desert with a fine-tooth comb. I don't see how we three can help very much there. On the other hand we might do some good up here. Now I'll make a bargain with you. If by midnight tonight we ain't struck any trace of her, you folks can quit.”

”And what will you do?” asked Jack.

”Me?” Billy shrugged his shoulders. ”Why, I'll keep on this trail till my legs is wore off above my boots!” and he turned to guide his pony up a little branch trail at the top of which stood a tent with the telltale windla.s.s and forge close by.

Before the tent they drew rein. In response to Billy's call a rough-bearded fellow lifted the tent flap and stood suppressing a yawn, as if visitors to his lonely claim were of daily occurrence.

”Say, friend,” said Billy, ”do you know Newman's ranch?”

”Sure,” returned the prospector.

”Well, this is Mr. Newman. A young lady has been visiting him and his wife. She disappeared night before last. We suspicion that Cartwell, that educated Injun, has stole her. We're trying to find his trail.

Can you give us a hunch?”

The sleepy look left the prospector's eyes. He crossed the rocks to put a hand on Billy's pommel.

”Gee! Ain't that unG.o.dly!” he exclaimed. ”I ain't seen a soul. But night before last I heard a screaming in my sleep. It woke me up but when I got out here I couldn't hear a thing. It was faint and far away and I decided it was a wildcat. Do you suppose it was her?”

DeWitt ground his teeth together and his hands shook but he made no sound. Jack breathed heavily.

”You think it was a woman?” asked Billy hoa.r.s.ely.

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