“Dead, I reckon, by this time.”
“Where’s his body?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do you think he is dead?”
“Sassoon said he was hit in the head.”
“Yet he got away on horseback!”
“I’m telling you what Sassoon said; I didn’t see him.”
Lefever and Pardaloe rode back to the stage barn. “Certainly looks blue for Henry,” muttered Lefever, after he had gone over with Pardaloe and McAlpin all of the scant information that could be gathered. “Bob Scott,” he added gloomily, “may find him somewhere on the Sinks.”
At Sleepy Cat, Jeffries, wild with impatience, was on the telephone. Lefever, with McAlpin and Pardaloe standing at his side, reported to the superintendent all he could learn. “He rode away––without help, of course,” explained Lefever to Jeffries in conclusion. “What shape he is in, it’s pretty hard to say, Jeffries. Three more of the bunch, Vance Morgan, Bull Page, and a lame man that works for Bill Morgan, were waiting in the saddle at the head of the draw between the barn and the hotel for him if he should get away from the inn. Somehow, he went the other way and nobody saw hide nor hair of him, so far 146 as I can learn. If he was able to make it, Jeff, he would naturally try for Sleepy Cat. But that’s a pretty fair ride for a sound man, let alone a man that’s hit––and everybody claims he was hit. If he wasn’t hit he should have been in Sleepy Cat long before this. You say you’ve had men out across the river?”