"It's time," he said aloud, his voice reverberating hollowly in the place.
He put down his hammer quickly and rose from his squatting position as though he had neglected to perform some important duty. He took down the gun belt, slung it about his waist, and, making a reflector of his hollowed hand for the candle, started out along the tunnel, walking swiftly, intent on a definite end. When he reached the point where the darkness of the drift was dissipated by the white sunlight, he extinguished his feeble torch, jabbed the candlestick into the hanging-wall and reached for a pair of binoculars that, in their worn and battered case, hung from the timbering.
"This is 'n elegant day," he said aloud, as he walked out on to the dump, manipulating the focusing screw of the glass and looking cautiously around at the pine clad mountains which stretched away to right, left and behind him.
Evidently his mind was not on his words or on the idea; he was merely keeping up his game of pretense, while beneath the surface he was alert, expectant. Near the foot of the pile of waste rock was the log cabin with its red, iron roof and protruding stove pipe. Far below him and running outward like a great tinted carpet spread Manzanita Valley. Close in to the base of the hills on which he stood a range of bald, flat-topped, miniature buttes made, from his eminence, a low welt in its contour, but beyond that and except for an occasional island of knee-high oak brush it seemed to be without mar or blemish. Here and there patches of deeper color showed and the experienced eye knew that there the country swelled or was cut by washes, but, otherwise, it all seemed to be flat, unbroken.
On this immense stretch of country Benny trained the glass. His manner was intent, resolute. Each hour during daylight he had been making that observation for a fortnight; every time he had anticipated reward, action. Aided by the lenses he picked out the low buttes, saw a spot that he knew was a grazing horse, a distant shimmering blotch of mellow white canopied by a golden aura that meant sheep, turned his body from left to right in swift, sweeping inspection.
And stopped all movement with a jerk, while an inarticulate exclamation came from him.
For the first time his sight had encountered that for which he had been seeking. He was motionless an instant, then lowered the glass to his chest-level and stared hard with naked eyes. He wet his lips with his tongue and strained forward, used the glasses again, shifted his footing, looking about with a show of bright nervousness, and rubbed the lenses on his shirt briskly.
"He ain't even waitin' to take th' road," he said aloud. "He's in a powerful hurry!"
Once more the instrument picked out the moving dot under that vast dome of brilliant blue sky and, for a lengthy interval Benny held his aided gaze upon it, watching it disappear and come into sight again, ever holding toward him through wash and over swells, maintaining its steady crawling. He moved further out on the dump to obtain a better view and leaned against the rusty ore car on its track that he might be steadier; for sight of that purposeful life down yonder had started ever so slight tremors through his stalwart limbs.
He muttered to himself, and again looked alertly about, right and left and behind. His eye was brighter, harder. When he looked into the valley again, sweeping its expanse to find the horseman who had momentarily disappeared, he stood with gaze fixed in quite another direction and, when he had suppressed his breath an instant to make absolutely certain, he cried excitedly: