The shadows were pouring out of the gorges of the western mountains, and night began to invade the hollow of Sour Creek.  Every downward step of those shadows was to the feverish imagination of Sandersen a forecast of the coming of Sinclair—­Sinclair coming in spite of the posse, in spite of the price upon his head.

In the few moments during which Sandersen remained in the street watching, the tumult grew in his mind.  He was afraid.  He was mortally in terror of something more than physical death, and, like the cornered rat, he felt a sudden urge to go out and meet the danger halfway.  A dozen pictures came to him of Sinclair slipping into the town under cover of the night, of the stealthy approach, of the gunplay that would follow.  Why not take the desperate chance of going out to find the assailant and take him by surprise instead?

The mountains—­that was the country of Sinclair.  Instinctively his eye fell and clung on the greatest height he could see, a flat-topped mountain due west of Sour Creek.  Sandersen swung into his saddle and drove out of Sour Creek toward the goal and into the deepening gloom of the evening.

22

In the darkness beneath the north windows of the hotel, Sinclair consulted his watch, holding it close until he could make out the dim position of the hands against the white dial.  It was too early for Cartwright to be in bed, unless he were a very long sleeper.  So Sinclair waited.

A continual danger lay beside him.  The kitchen door constantly banged open and shut, as the Chinese cook trotted out and back, carrying scraps to the waste barrel, or bringing his new-washing tins to hang on a rack in the open air, a resource on which he was forced to fall back on account of his cramped quarters.

But the cook never left the bright shaft of light which fell through the doorway behind and above him, and consequently he could not see into the thick darkness where Sinclair crouched only a few yards away; and the cowpuncher remained moveless.  From time to time he looked up, and still the windows were black.

After what seemed an eternity, there was a flicker, as when the wick of a lamp is lighted, and then a steady glow as the chimney was put on again.  That glow brightened, decreased, became an unchanging light.  The wick had been trimmed, and Cartwright was in for the evening.

However, the cook had not ceased his pilgrimages.  At the very moment when Sinclair had straightened to attempt the climb up the side of the house, the cook came out and crouched on the upper step, humming a jangling tune and sucking audibly a long-stemmed pipe.  The queer-smelling smoke drifted across to Sinclair; for a moment he was on the verge of attempting a quick leap and a tying and gagging of the Oriental, but he desisted.

Instead, Sinclair flattened himself against the wall and waited.  Providence came to his assistance at that crisis.  Someone called from the interior of the house.  There was an odd-sounding exclamation from the cook, and then the latter jumped up and scurried inside, slamming the screen door behind him with a great racket.