"We are so near, Queenie, we may as well go farther," he added, not unmindful of his danger from those who were making such a hot search for him. He kept his horse on a walk, maintaining a keen watch between the dainty ears that were already pricked up as if she knew something was likely to happen quite soon.
Advancing in this deliberate fashion, the outline of one of those long, low wooden structures so common in the West was gradually defied in the moonlight, and he knew he was approaching the home of some ranchman.
But whose? was the question that perplexed him. He recalled that some of his travelling had been done at a high rate of speed, but the distance between the Whitney and Hawkridge ranches was fully a dozen miles, and he was sure that that space had not been covered by him since bidding his friends good-by earlier in the evening, especially as he had not followed a direct course.
"Can it be?" he exclaimed, with a sudden suspicion. "Yes, by gracious! What a blunder!"
The exclamation was caused by the sight of a young man, with one arm in a sling, who came forward to welcome him.
He had returned to the Whitney home, which he supposed was miles away, and this was his old friend Fred, who came smilingly forward and said, as he recognized him:
"I am glad, indeed, to see you, Mont; we heard the sound of the firing and feared that something had happened to you."
"Nothing at all, thank you, and nothing to Queenie—but that reminds me," he added, slipping out of the saddle; "she acted once as though she had been hit, though it wasn't bad enough to show itself in her gait."
The two made a hasty examination but discovered nothing; proof that, as her owner said, the wound, if any, was too slight to trouble her.
"Fred, what do you think of my coming back to you in this fashion?" abruptly asked Sterry, with a laugh, looking around in his friend's face.