His wound, a trivial injury, had confirmed his faith in the fact that the shooting was a game. Madeiras was too handy with a gun to have missed at that distance! Something had happened at the ranch—something which would be uncovered if certain parties thought him dead. It was plain enough to Johnny.
Feeling certain that soon some one would be searching for him, the boy had crawled over the loose rock and made his way down the cañon to where it opened on a high plateau.
There he had rested—and worried about Molly. What was to stop Gallup from marrying her now? Could he depend on Tony to prevent that? Surely the Basque would not have gone to this desperate measure unless he was prepared to protect the girl. The boy had to stand on something, and he chose to do it on this hypothesis. A sensible decision.
But Johnny proceeded to make a bad mistake. Believing as he did that Tony wanted the world to consider him dead he hoped to better accomplish the hoax by hiding from the Basque; never for a moment realizing that Madeiras on not finding the body would jump to the conclusion that Johnny was buried under the avalanche of rock.
The boy’s first need was a horse. Being afoot in this country rendered him almost helpless. Kent and his men would surely be watching for him, so Johnny had headed for the Reservation as his best refuge.
Half an hour back his trail had crossed that of the man out there in the blackness. It had stopped any further thought of Molly and Madeiras.
And now a very curious thing happened. A thud and the sound of crackling brush to his right made Johnny turn in that direction. As he did so some one whispered in back of him:
“Hands up!”
The other man had tossed a rock into the sage and the noise it made as it landed had claimed the boy’s attention and left him an easy target.
“You turn him around now,” the voice said.