Oh, well, he’d hop off for Beaumont in the morning.
But he did not hop off for Beaumont in the morning. For something happened that night to keep him from Beaumont. As a matter of strict record, to this day he has never seen Beaumont.
II
Barlow borrowed one of Saxton’s cayuses to take a lope into the hills. He would have invited Ruth along, but then he was not sure that Ruth would be interested, and anyhow he realized that he did not cut a very expert figure on a horse.
Hard work, too, this horseback riding. He realized it more and more as the sun gradually sank behind the ridge to the west of the town. He had been walking beside his mount along the trail, but with darkness approaching he decided to try once more to ride, despite his soreness.
Saxton would probably be wondering what had become of him. Dusk had fallen with unexpected swiftness here in the mountains, and he was none too sure of the trail.
It was as he was rounding a curve from where he hoped to be able to see the fork leading into Pampa that he heard a sound that could not possibly be mistaken—by Bill Barlow. He had heard that sound too often to make any mistake about it.
That subdued roar was the pounding of twelve cylinders all right enough. He’d have bet a million dollars on it—if he had had it.
He gazed up into the violescent dusk. The roar was getting louder now, and sure enough, over the ridge from out of the north swooped a great shadow that circled about and made a landing in the hill-rimmed meadow just below him to the right.
“Jack Harraden!” he said to himself, “He must have heard I was in Pampa.”