Buckling on the belt, he shoved the revolver viciously home in the holster.

“I’ll land that pair before the posse gets to ’em, and when I land ’em I won’t do no arguing with fists!”

“Say, I call that nerve,” put in the storekeeper, with patent admiration in his eyes, while he smoothed a fold of the cloth.  “Running agin’ one gent like Sinclair is bad enough—­let alone tackling two at once.  But you’d ought to take out a big insurance on your life, friend, before you take that trail.  It’s liable to be all out-trail and no coming back.”

A great deal of enthusiasm faded from Cartwright’s face.

“How come?” he asked briefly.

“Nothing much.  But they say this Sinclair is quite a gunfighter, my friend.  Up in his home town they scare the babies by talking about Sinclair.”

“H’m,” murmured Cartwright.  “He can’t win always, and maybe I’ll be the lucky man.”

But he went out of the store with his head thoughtfully inclined.

“Think of meeting up with them two all alone and not knowing what they was!” sighed Sandersen.  “He’s lucky to be alive, I’ll tell a man.”

Whitey grinned.

“Plenty of nerve in a gent like that,” went on Sandersen, his pale blue eyes becoming dreamy.  “Get your gat out, will you, Bill?”

Bill Sandersen obliged.

“Look at the butt.  D’you see any point on it?”

“Nope.”

“Did you look at that welt on the stranger’s head?”

“Sure.”

“Did you see a little cut in the middle of the welt?”

“Come to think of it, I sure did.”

“Well, Sandersen, how d’you make out that a gun butt would make a cut like that?”

“What are you driving at, Whitey?”

“I’m just discounting the stranger,” said Whitey.  “I dunno what other talents he’s got, but he’s sure a fine nacheral liar.”

20

It was some time before Riley Sinclair interrupted his pacing and, turning, strode over to the dim outlines of the sleeping girl.  She did not speak, and, leaning close above her, he heard her regular breathing.

Waiting until he was satisfied that she slept, he began to move rapidly.  First, with long, soft steps he went to his saddle, which was perched on a ridge of rock.  This he raised with infinite care, gathering up the stirrups and the cinches so that nothing might drag or strike.  With this bundle secured, he once more went close to the figure of the sleeper and this time dropped on one knee beside her.  He could see nothing distinctly by the starlight, but her forehead gleamed with one faint highlight, and there was the pale glimmer of one hand above the blankets.

For the moment he almost abandoned the plan on which he had resolved, which was no less than to attempt to ride into Sour Creek and return to the girl before she wakened in the dawn.  But suppose that he failed, and that she wakened to find herself alone in the mountain wilderness?  He shuddered at the idea, yet he saw no other issue for her than to attempt the execution of his plan.