CHAPTER XXVI
Just before utter blackness shut down on the land, Sandy McCrae dismounted and stripped saddle and pack from his horses. He looked up at the sky, shook his head, and, taking a light axe, cut two picket pins; after which he staked the horses out in the abundant pasture at the bottom of the draw, driving the pins in solidly beyond the possibility of pulling. Then he set about making a hasty camp.
Beside him a little spring bubbled out of the bottom of the draw and seeped away under tangled roots and fallen brush. A thirst-parched stranger might have ridden past twenty times on the bench above without suspecting its presence. The faint cattle trail leading to it entered the draw a quarter of a mile away, and led along under low but almost perpendicular banks.
Sandy's camp preparations were simple, but much more elaborate than if the night had been clear. Then he would have made his fire, boiled coffee, spread his bed, and gone to sleep beneath the stars; but because of the ominous storm cloud he constructed a lean-to by driving two forked stakes and joining them with a crosspiece. From these he slanted two poles to the ground, and on the poles laid a tarp, lashing it in place. The mouth of the lean-to faced away from the cloud bank. In addition it had the partial shelter of cottonwoods in full leaf. In this lean-to he collected his outfit. Next he made a fire and cooked supper. Afterward he smoked, squatting in the mouth of his shelter, staring silently at the dying embers, listening to the rising wind sighing above him sweeping across the bare grasslands, but scarcely fanning the coals in his protected camp.
He felt no loneliness whatever. Solitary camps and the love of them were his by right of inheritance. He neither required nor desired companionship. Fire, food, tobacco, and solitude satisfied his inmost soul. This was the life he loved. The fact that he was a fugitive from the law did not trouble him at all; it merely gave an added zest to the situation. Just once he chuckled grimly as he recalled the faces of Glass and Pugh when he had whirled on them, gun in hand. Glass had interpreted his intentions very correctly; he would have shot either or both on the slightest provocation. He was of the breed of the wolf, accustomed from childhood to deadly weapons, brought up in tradition of their use, and, like many outlaws who have bulked large in the history of the West, young enough to act on impulse without counting the ultimate cost.
As his little fire burned down he stepped out and regarded the darkened heavens. A heavy drop of rain struck his face and a flash of lightning ripped the black curtain, outlining bare banks, trees, and grazing horses for a brief instant. Sandy shrugged his shoulders philosophically. His shelter was good enough. He unrolled his bed, and, by the simple process of removing moccasins and gun belt, was ready to retire. He got into his blankets, taking his gun with him, and rolled them around him, leaving his face exposed until the last.
"Now, darn you rain!" he muttered. With which "now-I-lay-me" he drew the blanket completely over his head as a protection against mosquitoes, and, heedless of the smothering effect of it, which would have been unsupportable to a city youth, was asleep in ten seconds.
He slept for, perhaps, an hour. At the end of that time he suddenly became wide awake. He could not have told what had aroused him, but he was sure something had. He threw back the smothering blanket from his head and lay listening.
Overhead the wind threshed the tops of the trees, and roared hollowly as it rebounded from the farther side of the gulch. Rain, driven by the wind, slashed through the foliage and pattered against his primitive shelter. Thunder rolled in an endless fusillade, punctuated by flashes of lightning. But Sandy, without considering the matter, was quite sure that none of these things had awakened him. In a momentary lull of the storm, as he lay with his ear close to the ground, he thought he could hear the sound of hoofs coming up the draw, along the hard-beaten cattle trail.
It was barely possible that some wandering stock, drifting with the storm, were seeking the shelter of it; but it was more likely that range stock would have found cover to suit them before dark, and would stay in it till morning. Now, there is a difference between the tread of ridden and riderless animals, and Sandy thought that he had heard the former. Also, they were coming as he had come.