At this point Hervey took the lead.  For that matter, he had never been lacking in sheer animal courage, and now he wound up the path with his long colt in his hand, ready to shoot, and shoot to kill.  Once or twice small sounds made him pause, uneasy.  But his progress was fairly steady until he came to the edge of the little clearing where the shack stood.

There was no sign of life about it.  The shack seemed deserted.  Thick darkness filled its doorway and the window, though the rest of the clearing was still permeated with a faint afterglow of the sunset.

“He ain’t here,” said Little Joe softly, as he came to the side of the watchful foreman.

“Don’t be too sure,” said the other.  “I’d trust this Perris and take about as many chances with him as I would with a rattler in a six-by-six room.  Maybe he’s in there playing possum.  Waiting for us to make a break across the clearing.  That’d be fine for Red Jim, damn his heart!”

Little Joe peered back at the anxious faces of the others, as they came up the path one by one.  He did not like to be one of so large a party held up by a single man.  In fact, Joe was a good deal of a warrior himself.  He was new to the Valley of the Eagles, but there were other parts of the mountain-desert where his fame was spread broadcast.  There were even places where sundry officers of the law would have been glad to lay hands upon him.

“Well,” quoth Joe, “we’ll give him a chance.  If he ain’t a fighting man, but just a plain murderer, we’ll let him show it,” and so saying, he stepped boldly out from the sheltering darkness of the trees and strode towards the hut, an immense and awesome figure in the twilight.

Lew Hervey followed at once.  It would not do to be out-dared by one of his crew in a crisis as important as this.  But for all his haste the long strides of Joe had brought him to the door of the hut many yards in the lead, and he disappeared inside.  Presently his big voice boomed:  “He ain’t here.  Plumb vanished.”

They gathered in the hut at once.

“Where’s he gone?” asked the foreman, scratching his head.

“Maybe he ain’t acting as big as he talked,” said Shorty.  “Maybe he’s slid over the mountains.”

“Strike a light, somebody,” commanded the foreman.

Three or four sulphur matches were scratched at the same moment on trousers made tight by cocking the knee up.  Each match glimmered through sheltering fingers with dull blue light, for a moment, and then as the sulphur was exhausted and the flame caught the wood, the hands opened and directed shafts of light here and there.  The whole cabin was dimly illumined for a moment while man after man thrust his burning match towards something he had discovered.

“Here’s his blankets.  All mussed up.”

“Here’s a pair of boots.”

“Here’s the frying pan right on the stove.”

They wandered here and there, lighting new matches until Little Joe spoke.