“Heading this way?” she inquired, reddening.
“So Nick said,” declared Sonora, looking towards that individual for proof of his words.
But Nick had caught the Girl’s lightning glance imposing silence upon him; in some embarrassment he stammered out:
“That is, he was—Sid said he saw ’im take the trail, too.”
“But the trail ends here,” pointed out Rance, at the same time looking hard at the Girl. “And if she hasn’t seen him, where was he going?”
At this juncture Nick espied a cigar butt on the floor; unseen by the others, he hurriedly picked it up and threw it in the fire.
“One o’ our dollar Havanas! Good Lord, he’s here!” he muttered to himself.
“Rance is right. Where was he goin’?” was the question with which he was confronted by Sonora when about to return to the others.
“Well, I tho’t I seen him,” evaded Nick with considerable uneasiness. “I couldn’t swear to it. You see it was dark, an’—Moses but the Sidney Duck’s a liar!”
At length, Ashby decided that the man had in all probability been snowed under, ending confidently with: