Heavy steps sounded in the cabin and with lightning rapidity Gale disappeared around the corner of the building and none too soon. Two of the riders strode to their horses and mounted.
“Follow in an hour, Shorty,” one of them called and the two departed.
Were they the two who were going to investigate the camp, she wondered. She hoped her friends would have some warning of the men’s approach and were able to prepare themselves. She would like to have followed them but she meant to stick here and see what happened. The rustlers were leaving one man at the cabin. Why? What further than robbery did they plot? Were they planning to return here and use the cabin as their hiding place after the K Bar O cattle were safely across the border? If that was it, she wanted to know so she could send the Sheriff and his men here and be sure it was no wild goose chase.
The moon was high overhead and moving slowly toward the west. Gale had no means of knowing what time it was for she wore no wrist watch, but she judged it to be about midnight. She would say it was an hour since the two riders had left, but still the other three had not followed them. The four of them were having a high old time, she reflected as a loud laugh floated out to her. She seated herself on the ground and leaned against the wall. Might as well be comfortable while she waited for something to happen. She was at the side, safe from immediate discovery should they come out without warning. But it would be better not to remain seated here, should she hear them, for it might just happen that they would come around this side.
Suddenly the loud talking came to an end and there was a scraping as of chairs on the floor. Three men came to the door and walked leisurely to their horses. Gale was peeping around from the back of the cabin now and she watched them as they rode away. There remained now only one man in the cabin. Cautiously she went around to the window at the front. Slowly she brought her eyes up to the level of the windowsill and gazed in. The Mexican--she had been right as to his nationality she realized now--sat before the fireplace, his chair tilted back, his feet propped on the table. In his hands he held a stick of wood and a knife and he whistled as he sent the chips flying. His profile was toward Gale and she shivered at the ugliness of his countenance.
“Wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark alley,” she reflected to herself as she studied him. A long scar ran down his cheek, making his profile even more repulsive than it would ordinarily have been. “Something definite with which to identify him, that scar,” she told herself as she left the window.
The moon as it moved westward caused a dark, heavy shadow on the far side of the cabin and Gale stepped into its protecting blackness. A sudden thought of her horse occurred to her and she went back to where he was tied to see if he was secure and safe. There was no telling when she might want him in a hurry. She might have to leave suddenly, she thought humorously. She returned to the cabin and sat down in the protecting shadow. She wondered if there was a harder thing in the world than the job of waiting. Her eyes were growing uncomfortably heavy and the danger of falling asleep was very near. She smothered a yawn and stood up. If she fell asleep now!
What was that? The gallop of hoofs? It was. And they were coming to the cabin here. Who was it? The outlaws coming back from their nightly marauding? Or could it, by some inconceivable magic, be Tom or Jim looking for her? Somehow she had not expected them to. At any rate not at night. Of course if she didn’t return to camp by the morning, no doubt they would go out to look for her. But she planned to be safely among them by morning. Meanwhile, those horses were drawing nearer. At last they came into the moonlight from the direction she herself had come early that afternoon.
There were two horses but it looked as though one horse was carrying a double load. Gale’s interest was aroused. Who was it? The horses were pulled up short in front of the cabin and Gale flattened herself against the wall. She did not have as good a view of the new arrivals as she might have wished for, but she could catch glimpses of them and she could hear their voices. Right now they seemed anything but pleased. They were having trouble with something--or someone.
“Let me go!”