Judith saw what he meant now. At this point Lee yesterday had heard the second bullet singing dangerously near. It had struck the fir, and plainly had been fired from some point off to the right of the cañon. Her eyes went swiftly, after his up the cliff walls.
"I doped it out while I was running," he went on. "Look at the way the trees grow here. If a man was on the cliffs shooting at me, and coming that close to winging me, why, he'd have to be off to the right. These big pines would shunt him off from the other side. It's open and shut there were two of them. And darn good shots," he added dryly.
Briefly he went on to give her the rest of the results of his two-hour seeking for something definite. If she'd ride on a little she'd come to the spot where his horse had been killed; she would see in the road the signs where, at Tripp's, orders, the carcass had been dragged away. From there, looking off to the left, up the cliffs, she would see the spot which Lee believed had harbored one of the riflemen. High above the cañon rose the rocky pinnacle he had marked yesterday, with brush standing tall in a little depression.
"Indian Head," broke in Judith, gazing upward. "Bud Lee, I'll bet a horse you're right.…"
"And," said Lee, swinging from the saddle, "I'm going up there to have a little look around."
In an instant the girl was at his side.
"I am going with you," she said simply.
He looked at her curiously. Then he shrugged his shoulders. An angry flush came to the girl's cheeks, but she went on with him. Not a word passed between them during the entire hour required to climb the steep side of the mountain and come under Indian Head cliffs. Here they stood together upon a narrow ledge panting, resting. Again Judith saw Lee glance at her curiously. He had not sought to accommodate his swift climbing to a girl's gait and yet he had not distanced her in the ascent. But in Lee's glance there was nothing of approval. There were two kinds of women, as he had said, and …
"Pretty steep climb from here up," he remarked bluntly.
"For a valley man or a cobble-pounder, maybe," was Judith's curt rejoinder.