CHAPTER XVII
AT FIVE HUNDRED YARDS
The two officers halted to scan the heights, towering shadowy above them. They stood in the middle of the broad plateau, with the horseshoe curve of the mountains hemming them in like the rising tiers of a vast amphitheater. The lower slopes were circled by a belt of dense-growing evergreens, but the open, snow-covered level stretched between, and the nearest sheltering thicket was at least a quarter mile distant. Any object moving against the white background of the snow-field must present a conspicuous target, but when Devreaux broke the momentary silence, he spoke without concern, and seemed in no haste to make for cover.
"Crill?" he inquired, with a ruminative glance towards the lower notch. "He had a rifle."
Dexter observed the line of long, narrow footprints that marked the direction of the outlaw's flight, and casually shook his head. "No. I don't think so. The shot came from higher up, I should say, and from the western slope—"
The spiteful pi-n-g of a second bullet whipped the air behind him, and he briefly nodded. "Right!" he remarked. "From the timber somewhere on our left. That wouldn't be Crill. There are others about."
The colonel quizzed Alison Rayne with his chilly glance.
"If they're friends of yours," he remarked, "they haven't much regard for you. At such a distance they can only pitch 'em in for general results, and they're as apt to get you as they are a policeman."
The girl's delicate brows were bent in an expression that betokened curiosity rather than alarm. "We're really being shot at?" she asked. "I didn't hear any report."
"High power rifle, and six hundred yards' range at least," said the corporal. "Too far off to hear the crack." He lifted his head interestedly as another steel-jacketed missile shrieked across the meadow. "They aren't allowing enough windage," he added in expert criticism of another man's marksmanship. "And long shots from an elevation are always likely to overcarry."