He lifted the lid of the stove and reached in, feeling the ashes. There had been no fire since morning; he was sure of that. He stood in the middle of the room and studied the whole interior questioningly. Gary’s good clothes—which were not nearly so good as they had been when Monty first saw him—hung against the wall farthest from the stove, the coat neatly spread over a makeshift hanger. Gary’s good hat was in the cupboard nailed to the wall. A corner of his suit case protruded from under the bunk. Gary was in the rough clothes he had gleaned from Waddell’s leavings.
Monty could not find any canteen, but that told him nothing at all. He could not remember whether Waddell had canteens or not. The vague uneasiness which he had at first smothered under his natural optimism grew to a definite anxiety. He knew the ways of the desert. And he could think of no plausible reason why Gary should have left the cañon afoot.
He went out and began looking for tracks. The dry soil still held the imprint of automobile tires, but it was impossible to tell just how long ago they had been made. Several days, at least, he judged after a careful inspection. He heard a noise in the bushes across the little creek and turned that way expectantly.
The spotted cat came out of the brush, jumped the tiny stream and approached him, meowing dolefully. Monty stood stock still, watching her advance. She came directly toward him, her tail drooping and waving nervously from side to side. She looked straight up into his face and yowled four or five times without stopping.
“Get out, damn yuh!” cried Monty and motioned threateningly with his foot. “Yuh can’t stand there and yowl at me—I got enough on my mind right now.”
The mottled cat ducked and started back to the creek, stopping now and then to look over her shoulder and yowl at Monty. Monty picked up a pebble and shied it after her. The cat gave a final squall and ran into a clump of bushes a few yards up-stream from where Monty had first seen her.
“That damned cat ain’t human!” Monty ejaculated uncomfortably. “That’s the way she yowled around when Steve Carson——” He lifted his shoulders impatiently at the thought.
After a minute or two spent in resisting the impulse, Monty yielded and started out to see where the cat had gone. Beyond the clump of bushes lay an open space along the bank of the creek. On the farther side he saw the mottled cat picking her way through weeds and small bushes, still going up the creek and yowling mournfully as she went. Monty walked slowly after her. He noticed, while he was crossing the open space, a man’s footprints going that way and another set coming back. The soil was too loose to hold a clear imprint, so that Monty could not tell whose tracks they were; though he believed them to have been made by Gary.
The cat looked back and yowled at Monty, then went on. At a point nearly opposite the potato patch the cat stopped near a bushy little juniper tree that stood by itself where the creek bank rounded up to a tiny knoll. As Monty neared the spot the cat leaped behind the juniper and disappeared.
Monty went closer, stopped with a jerk and stood staring. He felt his knees quiver with a distinct tendency to buckle under him. The blood seeped slowly away from his face, leaving it sallow under the tan.