Only the echoes of her piercing cry made answer, and she wrung her hands and beat her breast in anguish.
"I'm going for help!" she cried abruptly. "They'll get behind trees pretty soon, and fight from cover. I'll ride to Halfmoon Flat for the constable and a posse to put a stop to this. Can't—can't you ride up the trail and find a way down to them, Oliver? Old Man Selden maybe will listen to you. Oh, maybe you can patch up peace between them!"
"I'll try," said Oliver grimly.
She wheeled White Ann and entered the narrow trail. Oliver followed. Recklessly she moved her mare at her rolling singlefoot along the dangerous trail, and eventually came out on the hillside. At once White Ann leaped forward and sped over the hills, a streak of silver in the noonday sun.
Oliver loped Poche to an obscure deer path that led down to the river, and as swiftly as possible began negotiating it.
He had not progressed twenty yards when the chaparral before him suddenly parted, and Digger Foss confronted him, his wicked Colt held waist-high and levelled.
"Stick 'em up!" he growled. "Be quick!"
Thoroughly surprised, Oliver reined in, and Poche began to dance. Mechanically Oliver raised his hands above his head, then almost regretted that he had not tried to draw. But the picture of Henry Dodd reeling against the legs of Jessamy's mare had been with him since his first day in the Poison Oakers' country. He knew that the halfbreed's aim was sure, and that his heart was a reservoir of venom.
The first shock passed, his composure returned in a measure. There stood the halfbreed, spread-legged in the path. The lids of his Mongolic eyes were lowered, and the beads of jet glittered wickedly from under them. He was drunk as a lord, Oliver knew quite well from the augmented insolence of his cruel lips; but Oliver knew that he might be all the more deadly, and that some drunken gunmen can shoot better than when sober.
"What is this?—a holdup?" he asked, and bit his lip as he noted the tremble in his tones.