"Bangs crossed over a mile below," Rile said. "We might pick him up."
"Any sign?" Harris asked as they moved down the divide.
"A bunch of shod horses went down through there a few days back," Rile said. "Three or four men likely, with a few pack horses along. There was a fresh track, made this morning, going up-country alone. He likely stayed at their camp all night, wherever it is. I worked across, thinking he might go back to it; but there was no down trail. He's pulled out."
"I saw him," Harris said. "He's gone."
They stopped in the saddle of the ridge where a fresh track showed the spot Bangs had crossed.
The girl was looking at Harris and saw a sudden pallor travel up under his tan and as she turned to see what had occasioned it he crowded his horse against her own.
"Don't look!" he ordered, and forced her horse over the far side of the ridge. "You'd better ride on back to the wagon," he urged. "There's been some sort of doings over across. Rile and I will ride down and look into it." Without a word she turned her horse toward the wagon.
"It's God's mercy she didn't see," Harris said, as the two crossed back over the ridge. "Isn't that a hell of a way for a man to die?"
But the girl had seen. Her one brief look had revealed a horse coming round a bend in a little box canyon below. A shapeless thing dragged from one stirrup and at every third or fourth jump the big blue horse side-slashed the limp bundle with his heels.
As the two men reached the bottoms the frenzied horse had stopped and was fighting to free himself of the thing that followed him. He moved away from it in a circle but it was always with him. He squealed and kicked it, then dashed off in a fresh panic, side-swiping his pursuer.