It was slow work for the pony. After riding for another quarter of an hour Hollis saw, during another lightning flash, another of his landmarks, and realized that in the last quarter of an hour he had traveled a very short distance. The continuing flashes of lightning had helped the pony forward, but presently the lightning ceased and a dense blackness succeeded. The pony went forward at an uncertain pace; several times it halted and faced about, apparently undecided about the trail. After another half hour’s travel and coming to a stretch of level country, the pony halted again, refusing to respond to Hollis’s repeated urging to go forward without guidance. For a long time Hollis continued to urge the animal–he cajoled, threatened–but the pony would not budge. Hollis was forced to the uncomfortable realization that it had lost the trail.
For a long time he sat quietly in the saddle, trying in the dense darkness to determine upon direction, but he finally gave it up and with a sudden impulse took up the reins and pulled the pony to the left, determined to keep to the flat country as long as possible.
He traveled for what seemed several miles, the pony gingerly feeling its way, when suddenly it halted and refused to advance. Something was wrong. Hollis leaned forward, attempting to peer through the darkness ahead, but not succeeding. And now, as though having accomplished its design by causing Hollis to lose the trail, the lightning flashed again, illuminating the surrounding country for several miles.
Hollis had been peering ahead when the flash came and he drew a deep breath of horror and surprise. The pony had halted within a foot of the edge of a high cliff whose side dropped away sheer, as though cut with a knife. Down below, perhaps a hundred feet, was an immense basin, through which flowed a stream of water. To Hollis’s right, parallel with the stream, the cliff sloped suddenly down, reaching the water’s edge at a distance of two or three hundred feet. Beyond that was a stretch of sloping country many miles in area, and, also on his right, was a long, high, narrow ridge. He recognized the ridge as the one on which he and Norton had ridden some six weeks before–on the day he had had the adventure with Ed Hazelton. Another flash of lightning showed him two cotton-wood trees–the ones pointed out to him by Norton as marking Big Elk crossing–the dead line set by Dunlavey and his men.
Hollis knew his direction now and he pulled the pony around and headed it away from the edge of the cliff and toward the flat country which he knew led down through the canyon to Devil’s Hollow, where he had taken leave of Ed and Nellie Hazelton. He was congratulating himself upon his narrow escape when a flash of lightning again illuminated the country and he saw, not over a hundred feet distant, sitting motionless on their ponies, a half dozen cowboys. Also on his pony, slightly in advance of the others, a grin of derision on his face, was Dunlavey.
CHAPTER XI
PICKING UP THE TRAIL
At about the time that the storm had overtaken Hollis, Potter was unsaddling his pony at the Circle Bar corral gate. A little later he was on the wide lower gallery of the ranchhouse washing the stains of travel from his face and hands. At supper he was taciturn, his face deeply thoughtful. Had Ten Spot come? What had been the outcome of the meeting? These questions preyed on his mind and brought furrows into his face.
At supper he caught Norton watching him furtively and he flushed guiltily, for he felt that in spite of Hollis’s order to say nothing to Norton he should have told. He had already informed Norton that Hollis intended remaining in Dry Bottom until a later hour than usual, but he had said nothing about the intended visit of Ten Spot to the Kicker office. Loyalty to Hollis kept him from communicating to Norton his fears for Hollis’s safety. It was now too late to do anything if he did tell Norton; whatever had been done had been done already and there was nothing for him to do but to wait until nine o’clock.
After he finished his meal he drew a chair out upon the gallery and placing it in a corner from where he could see the Dry Bottom trail he seated himself in it and tried to combat the disquieting fears that oppressed him. When Norton came out and took a chair near him he tried to talk to the range boss upon those small subjects with which we fill our leisure, but he could not hold his thoughts to these trivialities. He fell into long silences; his thoughts kept going back to Dry Bottom.