She touched Patches lightly with the great spurs and raced along the trail toward the hill. It didn't seem possible that the man who had seemed so concerned when he came for her last night could be a rustler—but Sandy had seen him and the calves were missing. Her thoughts urged her on. She was the one person of authority within reach. She didn't know just what she intended to do, but she must do something. She only knew that a frenzied voice somewhere inside her head kept reiterating:
"He shan't get away with it! He shan't get away with it!"
Once as she climbed the hill she thought she saw a horse's head behind a tree. Her heart choked her with its pounding. The object proved to be nothing more intimidating than a black stump. When she reached the top of the slope she came upon a clump of dead trees standing spectral and white. She rode through them till she emerged in a clearing from which she could look down into the valley.
Below lay a trough of the hills. Heat waves pulsed above it. Over its surface, pockmarked with gopher holes, tumbleweed rolled and billowed and stacked against rocks and fallen timber in uncanny, shifting masses. Purple-gray and green sage-brush dotted it. Alkali whitened it in streaks. Beyond the hollow stretched a belt of upheaved ridges of brick-red sandstone. Between each ridge lay emerald green valleys with little streams cutting through at nearly right angles. Higher and higher rose the hills beyond till they loomed to mountains whose sides were clothed with forests that had never paid toll to the lumber-jack, whose snowy peaks, gold now in the sunshine, bared their jagged fangs to the soft blue of the sky. They lured and beckoned with their mysterious silences.
At the base of the slope on which Jerry stood was a circular hole perhaps three hundred feet in diameter and ten feet deep. At one side of it, near a pool, were the unmistakable traces of a camp. There were the ashes of a fire and beside them the mutilated body of a calf. The place gave an intangible sense of tragedy and terror.
Stepping as though the ground under her feet were a network of mines, any one of which might be jarred into disastrous activity by an inadvertent pressure of her foot, Jerry led Patches among the trees and fastened him. She stole back over the carpet of pine needles, her chaps flapping awkwardly at every step. She threw herself flat on the ground from which she could see the hollow and waited. From somewhere came the howl of a coyote; there seemed a million of them when the hills sent back the echo. High and motionless in the sky a great bird poised to reconnoiter then sailed and wheeled and dove. A gopher in front of his hole beat Jack-in-the-box at his disappearing trick.
Jerry shivered. Now she knew where she was, "Buzzard's Hollow." She hated the wailing coyote and she cared less, even less, for that horrible winged thing by the pool. Had the Bear Creek range-rider joined the campers? If she could only see the brand on that calf. But she couldn't; it would be madness to go down into the hollow. She must hurry back to the Double O and report. Slowman, the corral boss, would be there if no one else was. Someone should see that calf before the buzzards had obliterated all trace of the owner.
The girl sprang to her feet and ran to unloose Patches. Now that she had decided to go her courage was disappearing as rapidly as vapor in the sunshine. How terrifyingly empty of anything human the great spaces seemed. She saw a menace behind every bush, a lurking danger behind every tree. Apparently Patches' imagination was working overtime too. It was a nervous horse she mounted but, as she turned toward the trail which led to the Double O and safety, something drew her round. Perhaps it was a sound, perhaps the lazy blue sweep of the mountains hypnotized her. She guided Patches to the clearing from which she looked down into the hollow. She couldn't have explained why she did it; it might have been a morbid curiosity to see if the great bird was feasting on the carrion. Her horse showed increased nervousness with every step. He began to shake. Jerry slipped to the ground and laid her face against his soft nose.
"What is it, boy? We're going back——"
A howl, a hair-raising mixture of banshee-wail and wildcat scream, callioped behind them. Patches stood not upon the order of his going but went at once. Snorting with terror he jerked the bridle from the girl's hand and racketed down the hillside toward the hollow. For a moment Jerry was rigid with terror, then she gripped her stampeding senses.