“She seems perfectly contented,” Scott replied. “The horse would not let me ride with her and she has been playing with him over my shoulder all the way home.”
“It was awfully kind of you to carry her up and I can never thank you enough.” She seemed rather embarrassed, hesitated a moment as though about to say something, but was silent.
“It was pleasure enough to have found her,” Scott said as he swung into the saddle, “please don’t say anything more about it.”
“Do be careful,” she called after him excitedly.
“Oh, he’s all right now,” Scott laughed over his shoulder, thinking she referred to Jed.
He followed the trail down to the chute. Not a track. Not a single sheep track had he seen since he left the valley cliffs. He had made a complete circuit of his boundaries and was absolutely certain that no sheep had entered his district except at the chute. He rode slowly up the trail to his cabin in the gathering darkness trying to analyze the situation. There seemed to be only one solution and yet he hesitated to accept that without even more definite proof than he already had.
As he approached the cabin he thought he saw some one moving about it and he wondered what Heth would have to say for himself, but there was no one there. He put Jed into the corral, ate his lonely supper and settled down to write up a detailed account of the day’s work in his diary. He became very much absorbed in the task because he felt that it was extremely important under the circumstances.
Suddenly there was the bark of a revolver and a bullet shattered the window pane above his head. The shock dazed him for a second, but the next instant the angry blood boiled through his veins and sent him tearing out of the cabin to find the coward. He searched the surrounding woods without finding any trace or hearing a sound. He was unarmed and it would have been an easy matter for his assailant to have shot him, but there were no more shots. Scott realized that no man in that country could have missed such a target as he must have presented at the lighted window except intentionally.
“Think you can scare me out of the country, do you? Well, you have another guess coming,” and he went doggedly back to the table determined to finish his report.