If a member of a posse had come to the door, the first
thing his eyes fell upon would have been Andrew Lanning
lying on the floor on one side of the room and the
red-bearded man on the other. But, though his
host suggested this, Andrew refused to move his blankets.
And he was right. The hunters were roving the
open, and even Hal Dozier was at fault.
“Because,” said Andrew, “he doesn’t
dream that I could have a friend so far from home.
Not five thousand dollars’ worth of friend, anyway.”
And the trapper grunted heavily.
It was a truth long after wondered at, when the story
of Andrew Lanning was told and retold, that he had
lain in perfect security within a six-hour ride from
Tomo, while Hal Dozier himself combed the mountains
and hundreds more were out hunting fame and fortune.
To be sure, when a stranger approached, Andrew always
withdrew into the horse shed; but, beyond keeping
up a steady watch during the day, he had little to
do and little to fear.
Indeed, at night he made no pretense toward concealment,
but slept quite openly on the floor on the bed of
hay and blankets, just as Hank Rainer slept on the
farther side of the room. And the great size of
the reward was the very thing that kept him safe.
For when men passed the cabin, as they often did,
they were riding hard to get away from Tomo and into
the higher mountains, where the outlaw might be, or
else they were coming back to rest up, and their destination
in such a case was always Tomo. The cabin of
the trapper was just near enough to the town to escape
being used as a shelter for the night by stray travelers.
If they got that close, they went on to the hotel.
But often they paused long enough to pass a word with
Hank, and Andrew, from his place behind the door of
the horse shed, could hear it all. He could even
look through a crack and see the faces of the strangers.
They told how Tomo was wrought to a pitch of frenzied
interest by this manhunt. Well-to-do citizens,
feeling that the outlaw had insulted the town by so
boldly venturing into it, had raised a considerable
contribution toward the reward. Other prominent
miners and cattlemen of the district had come forward
with similar offers, and every day the price on the
head of Andrew mounted to a more tempting figure.
It was a careless time for Andrew. After that
escape from Tomo he was not apt to be perturbed by
his present situation, but the suspense seemed to
weigh more and more heavily upon the trapper.
Hank Rainer was so troubled, indeed, that Andrew sometimes
surprised a half-guilty, half-sly expression in the
eyes of his host. He decided that Hank was anxious
for the day to come when Andrew would ride off and
take his perilous company elsewhere. He even
broached the subject to Hank, but the mountaineer
flushed and discarded the suggestion with a wave of
his hand. “But if a gang of ’em should
ever hunt me down, even in your cabin, Hank,”
said Andrew one day—it was the third day
of his stay—“I’ll never forget
what you’ve done for me, and one of these days
I’ll see that Uncle Jasper finds out about it.”
