"Sure, I understand, friend," agreed the deputy. "Be on your way and the best of luck to you. My down-river hunch may be all wrong, so keep your eyes peeled for a horse that's shod in front and plain behind. The rider of him is the killer of Sergeant Seymour, or I'm a liar and as a deputy sheriff, not worth the powder to blow me to blazes!"
Half an hour later, a horse that was shod before and plain behind traveled north out of Gold. His rider was Sergeant Seymour himself, not his killer.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CLOSED CREEK
By noon, Seymour had his A-tent pitched on the hank of the Cheena, between the trail and the stream, a few rods below the point where Glacier Creek made its indigo-colored contribution. Above the scrubby timber spiralled the smoke of the hidden mission, to which the officer proposed to pay a neighborly call when he had finished the meal of bacon and beans which he was preparing.
Yesterday, O'Malley and his niece had made it plain that they wished a conference with him to be secret and under cover of night. His unexplained capture had made that impossible. Whether or not their caution was well founded, he was unwilling to await the fall of another night. He would need to make camp somewhere and felt it might better be near enough to excuse an open call. Hence he had pitched his tent here.
But Seymour had done more that morning than ride out from Gold five muddy miles and make camp. His years of detachment service had made him something of a jack-of-all-trades, and his cayuse-packed outfit was comprehensive. Kaw, grazing on the lush grass of the meadow, now was as neatly shod as he could have been at the hands of any blacksmith. No longer was the animal a fit subject for Deputy Hardley's suspicions.
The sergeant had scoured his tin dishes in the river bank sand and was returning to the tent when he saw a horseman observing him from the main trail. The man stared a moment longer, then rode toward him. Soon, Seymour recognized him and wondered at such curiosity from a man of affairs.
"You're my first visitor, Brewster!" he called as the cordial freighter drew near. "Welcome to camp. If you'd been fifteen minutes earlier, I'd have fed you. Now, if you're hungry, over there's the grub box."
"So it's really you?" The visitor's response was oddly halting, as if he was finding it difficult to believe his eyes.