He slipped cautiously around a corner of the shed, making no sound in the deep dust surrounding it, and stole back the way he had come, tingling.
“Begob, I’ll slape now—a little while!”
As Carson vanished down the tracks a head was stuck out through the doorway of the shed and turned so that its owner could scan his surroundings.
“All clear,” he whispered.
“Get going, then,” said another voice, and two men, their faces muffled with handkerchiefs, bearing something that bulked their pockets oddly, slipped out of the door and fled noiselessly, like gliding shadows, down the track toward the cut.
Rosalind had been asleep in the rocker. A cool night breeze, laden with the strong, pungent aroma of sage, sent a shiver over her and she awoke, to see that the lights of Manti had vanished. An eerie lonesomeness had settled around her.
“Why, it must be nearly midnight!” she said. She got up, yawning, and stepped toward the door, wondering why Agatha had not called her. But Agatha had retired, resenting the girl’s manner.
Almost to the door, Rosalind detected movement in the ghostly semi-light that flooded the plains between the porch and the picturesque spot, more than a mile away, on which Levins’ cabin stood. She halted at the door and watched, and when the moving object resolved into a horse, loping swiftly, she strained her eyes toward it. At first it seemed to have no rider, but when it had approached to within a hundred yards of her, she gasped, leaped off the porch and ran toward the horse. An instant later she stood at the animal’s head, voicing her astonishment.
“Why, it’s Chuck Levins! Why on earth are you riding around at this hour of the night?”