"Aha, I told yuh," he cried exultantly. "That was her crossed the river this mornin'. I found her track in the sand. One uh yuh stand guard, and the other feller come with me. We c'n trail her."
"Go ahead," I told MacRae—a superfluous command, for I could not have kept him from going if I had tried.
So I was left on the sand-bar with two dead thieves, and two who should have been dead, and a little knot of horses for company. Hicks and Bevans gave me little concern. I had helped tie both of them, and I knew they would not soon get loose. But it was a weary wait. An hour fled. I paced the bar, a carbine in the crook of my arm and a vigilant eye for incipient outbreaks for freedom on the part of those two wolves. The horses stood about on three legs, heads drooping. The smoke-clouds swayed and eddied, lifted a moment, and closed down again with the varying spasms of the fire that was beating itself out on the farther shore. I sat me down and rested a while, arose and resumed my nervous tramping. The foglike haze began to thin. It became possible to breathe without discomfort to the lungs; my eyes no longer stung and watered. And after a period in which I seemed to have walked a thousand miles on that sandy point, I heard voices in the distance. Presently MacRae and Piegan Smith broke through the willow fringe on the higher ground—and with them appeared a feminine figure that waved a hand to me.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SPOILS OF WAR.
All things considered, it was a joyous knot of humanity that gathered on that sand-bar—if one excepts the two plunderers who were tied hard and fast, their most cheerful outlook a speedy trial with a hangman's noose at the finish. I recollect that we shook hands all around, and that our tongues wagged extravagantly, regardless of whoever else might be speaking. We settled down before long, however, remembering that we were not altogether out of the woods.
The fire by this time had, to a great extent, beaten itself out on the opposite bank, and with nothing left but a few smoldering brush-patches, the smoke continued to lift and give us sundry glimpses of the black desolation that spread to the north. So far as we knew, the wind had carried no sparks across the river to fire the south side and drive us back to the barrenness of the burned lands. And with the certainty that Lyn was safe, and that we were beyond disputing masters of the situation, came consciousness of hunger and great bodily weariness. It was almost twenty-four hours since we had eaten, and we were simply ravenous. As a start toward an orderly method of procedure, we began by re-dressing Piegan's punctured arm, which had begun to bleed again; though it was by no means as serious a hurt as it might have been. Piegan himself seemed to consider it a good deal of a joke on him, and when I remarked that I failed to see how a bullet-hole through any part of one's person could be regarded in a humorous light, Piegan snorted, and told me that I would know more when I grew up. A little ventilation, he declared, was something a man's system needed every year or two.
Then we unsaddled and unpacked the horses, and moved them up on the grassy flat. Piegan elected himself guard over the prisoners, while the rest of us cooked a belated breakfast, and he assured them repeatedly that he would be delighted to have them make a break, so that he could have the pleasure of perforating their individual and collective hides. I really believe the old rascal meant it, too; he succeeded, at least, in giving that impression, and his crippled arm was no handicap to him—he could juggle a six-shooter right or left-handed with amazing dexterity.
Lyn substantiated Goodell's story in every detail, so far as it had dealt with her, and she told me, while we pottered about the fire, how she waited her chance when they made camp in Sage Creek, and, snatching Lessard's gun, ran for it in the dark.