Jed stood watching him for a moment, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.
“Think he’s very bad, doctor?” he asked, at last.
“Oh, no,” answered the surgeon. “Just overdone things, I guess, and fainted from the pain. He’ll be all right, as soon as I can get him to a place where I can fix him up.”
Jed heaved a sigh of relief.
“That’s good,” he said. “He’s a plucky kid. I’d hate to see him knock under,” and he strode away to join his men.
In another moment, they were off up the road in the direction taken by the robbers. The latter had a start of over an hour, but that did not worry Jed, because he knew they would soon find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Either they must take the chest with them, or leave it behind. If they took it, they could not abandon the wagon, and yet they would scarcely dare to use it after daybreak, for it had the name of the mining company painted on its side. On the other hand, they would not abandon the chest until they had opened it and secured the contents, and Jed knew that it would be no easy job to break the chest open. So he rode on at a sharp canter, confident that the fugitives could not escape.
For some miles there were no branches to the road except such as led to houses among the hills a little back from it. So he rode on without drawing rein, until he came to the place where the road forked. Here he found the sheriff and the posse which had set out on foot unable to decide which fork to take and unwilling to divide their forces.
“You wait a minute,” said Jed, jumping from his horse, and striking a match, he went a little way up one of the forks and examined the road minutely. “They didn’t come this way,” he announced, at last, and came back and went up the other fork. Here he repeated the same performance, lighting match after match. At last he stood erect with a grunt of satisfaction. “All right,” he said. “We’re on th’ trail.”
“How do you know we are?” inquired the sheriff, incredulously.