Kelsey laughed to himself. “That’s the most talking I’ve done in a right smart bit of time. No charges, either.”
Johnny smiled, too. “Well, at least I’m obliged to you, Jim,” he drawled. “You’ve got my vote, anyhow.”
Scanlon, who had been riding ahead, drew up his horse and waited for the others to come abreast him. “We’d better spread out,” he suggested. “If they see us riding together it’s going to look suspicious. They don’t know we’re after them. If each man goes it alone one of us is sure to pick them up. Let the one that does string along until he meets another man. Between the two of them they ought to get the drop.”
“You always did know how to draw to a hand, Scanlon,” Johnny answered approvingly. “I say, break up right here.”
“All right,” Kelsey agreed. “Each of us understands what to do. I’ll take the eastern cañon; Scanlon, you go straight ahead; Doc and Johnny and Charlie Paul can spread out to the west and work north. We’ll meet at the Agency by evening.”
In pursuance of this plan they separated. In half an hour Johnny found himself alone, crossing a narrowing plain between two broken ranges. The Indian was on his left, Doc Ritter on his right. By noon time they were miles apart.
The plain which Johnny had traversed came to an end. Before him arose giant mountains. It was his intention to scale them and later on to cross a high plateau to his north, eventually coming to the trail which led to the post trader’s store.
The boy’s horse made slow progress during the next hour. Every foot of the way was an uphill climb. On reaching a fairly level basin in the mountainside Johnny stopped to let his pony get his wind. Reaching for his tobacco and papers, Johnny began rolling a cigarette.
The zing-g-g-g of a bullet terminated the operation very abruptly. With a backward lunge the boy threw himself out of his saddle, and, hugging the ground, wriggled to the cover of a giant bowlder. Ten yards away he could see his hat, a neat little hole showing where the bullet had passed through.
Not more than a second later, it seemed, another shot sounded. Johnny’s head swung around to find the source of it. As he stared above him he saw a man rise to his feet, sway for an instant as his gun dropped from his hands, and sink back out of sight.