“Matter!” cried Jack, glaring around to right and left over the hillside. “Matter enough! What d’ y’ suppose made that rock fall that way?”
“Why,” said Allan, looking around bewildered, “the earth under it must have given way—”
“Nonsense!” interrupted the foreman, impatiently. “Look, here’s th’ hole it left. Th’ earth didn’t give way a bit. Y’ kin see th’ rock was pried out—yes, an’ here’s th’ rail that was used to do it with. Now, who d’ y’ suppose had hold of that rail?”
Allan turned a little giddy at the question.
“Not Dan Nolan?” he said, in an awed whisper.
“Who else but Dan Nolan. An’ he’s hidin’ down there in one o’ them gullies, sneakin’ along, keepin’ out o’ sight, or I’m mistaken.”
“Did you see him?” asked Allan.
“No, I didn’t see him,” retorted Jack. “If I’d seen him, I’d have him in jail afore night, if I had t’ hunt this whole county over fer him. But I know it was him. Who else could it be? You know he’s threatened y’. He’s been hangin’ around doggin’ y’ ever since I put y’ at this job. There’s more’n one of us knows that; an’ there’s more’n one of us knows, too, that he wouldn’t be above jest this kind o’ work. He lamed a man on my gang, onct, jest because he had a grudge ag’in him—dropped th’ end of a rail on his foot an’ mashed it so bad that it had t’ be taken off. He said it was an accident, an’ I believed him, fer I didn’t know him as well then as I do now. He wouldn’t stop at murder, Dan Nolan wouldn’t—why, that rock would ’a’ killed you in a minute, if it had hit you!”
“Yes, I believe it would,” said Allan, and he shivered a little at the thought of his narrow escape.
Jack took another long look around at the hills and valleys, but if Nolan was anywhere among them, the trees and underbrush hid him effectually. And Allan was loth to believe Jack’s theory; bad as Nolan was, it seemed incredible that he should be so savage, so cold-blooded, as to lie there on the brink of the precipice, waiting, moment by moment, until his victim should be in the precise spot where the rock would strike him. That seemed too fiendish for belief.