If the pony had been able to understand every word his master said to him, he could not have behaved with more circumspection.
He stood perfectly still, and there was nothing but the motion of his ears to indicate that he heard anything.
Oscar kept a close watch of the path through a convenient opening in the bushes, and presently the horseman passed across the range of his vision.
CHAPTER XIV.
LEFT IN THE SAGE-BRUSH.
The opening in the bushes was so small that Oscar was able to obtain but a momentary glimpse of the passing horseman, but that momentary glimpse was enough to satisfy him on two points. It was not the lieutenant, after all, but Lish, the Wolfer, and he had not been to the village for the purpose of getting drunk, as the colonel had intimated, but to lay in some necessary supplies in the way of provisions. The well-filled bags that were slung across his pony’s neck, and the side of bacon which hung from the muzzle of the long rifle he carried over his shoulder testified to this fact.
Oscar drew a long breath of relief when he saw the man ride down the path, and told himself that one thing was certain: If Tom was determined to go with the wolfer he would have something to eat during the journey to his hunting-grounds, and if he went hungry after that, it would be because his partner was too lazy to keep the larder supplied with meat.
As soon as the wolfer had passed out of hearing Oscar mounted his pony and rode down into the path. He made his way around the brow of the hill; and, when he had put a safe distance between himself and the mouth of the ravine, he checked his pony and proceeded to load his gun.
“Tom has got the matter in his own hands,” said he, as he rested the butt of the weapon on the toe of his boot and poured a charge of powder into each barrel. “If he had nothing to do with that ‘affair’ that happened last summer—I wish to goodness I knew what it was—and has any desire to turn over a new leaf and to go to work in earnest, he will come up to the fort as soon as he has read that note. If he does not come I shall have to look upon his absence either as a confession of guilt, or as a declaration that he prefers the companionship of such men as that wolfer to the society of honest folks. In either case I have done all I can, and the business ends right here so far as I am concerned.”
Oscar would have been very much surprised if anyone had told him that he had not seen the end of the business after all; that, in fact, he had seen only the beginning of it.
The note he had written, as well as the clothing he had purchased to keep Tom from freezing, were destined at no distant day to be produced as evidence against him.