"Whar air they?"
Nick Peters's keen, discerning eye had been covertly scanning the flickering shadows and the fluctuating slants of yellow light about them. Now he boldly threw his glance over his shoulder.
Persimmon Sneed caught himself sharply.
"They ain't hyar-abouts," he said gruffly, on his guard once more.
A look of apprehension crossed the horse-thief's face. The denial was in the nature of an affirmation to his alert suspicion; for it is one of the woes of the wicked that, knowing no truth themselves, they cannot recognize it in others, even in a transient way, as a chance acquaintance. He must needs have heed. A number of men, doubtless, well armed, were in the immediate vicinity. As he whirled himself lightly half around on his spurred heel, his manner did not conform to his look.
"Did you-uns an' them kem all the way from the valley ter view the blazin' spring?" he asked. "Looks some like hell-fire," he added incidentally, and with the tone of one familiar with the resemblance he descried.
"Naw; we-uns never hearn on it afore; I jes' run on it accidental," Sneed replied succinctly, hardly daring to trust himself to an unnecessary word; for the staring men that had gathered at a respectful distance about the blazing spring numbered nine or ten, and an ill-advised tongue might precipitate an immediate attack on the dismounted, unarmed group awaiting his return at the verge of the bluff. A genuine thrill of terror shook him as he realized that at any moment he might be followed by men as ill prepared as he to cope with the horse-thief's gang.
"I see ye rid," said Nick Peters, observing his acquaintance's spurs.
"Yer frien's rid, too, I s'pose?"
Persimmon Sneed, desirous of seeming unsuspicious, merely nodded. He seemed as suspicious, in fact, as watchful, as stanch, as ready to spring, as a leopard in a cage. His thin lips were set, his alert eyes keen, his unshaven, stubbly jaws rigid, his whole body at a high tension. The man of quicker perceptions was first to drop the transparent feint, but only to assume another.
"Now, Mr. Sneed," he said, with an air of reproach and upbraiding, "do ye mean ter tell me ez ye hev kem up hyar with the sheriff or dep'ty ter nose me out; me, who hev got no home,—folks burned my house ter the yearth, namin' me 'horse-thief' an' sech,—nor frien's, nor means, nor havin's, plumb run ter groun' like a fox or sech?"