In answer to his question she told him that there were no passengers in the coach. "It was the inbound baggage wagon they held up, you see—doubtless by mistake."
As he pondered the unusual circumstance of road agents mistaking a baggage wagon for a passenger-carrying coach, they were startled by gun fire. Seymour's expert ears placed it a short distance ahead and to the right of them—a bit nearer town. He recognized the snarl of a rifle and, a moment later, the bark of a pistol. Unquestionably, the reports had come from different weapons.
A half-stifled scream drew his attention to the girl at his side. The effect on her was surprising. She could not have showed greater alarm if one of the bullets had perforated her hat. Every trace of color had fled her cheeks.
"Oh, that it's just some hunter and not——"
If she finished her prayerful expression, Seymour did not hear it, for she had dug heels into her horse and the animal was skimming the trail.
Kaw took after the cayuse full tilt; his rider, the while, listening for other shots, but heard none. Ahead, he saw the girl round a sharp turn into what seemed to be a through road into town. If she was seeking the source of the shots they had heard, he knew she need not go far.
When his black negotiated the turn and the road was spread out before him, he saw that she had arrived. Her horse stood nosing another and she was kneeling in the trail beside an indistinct figure. In a moment he had dismounted and stood beside her.
"Too late," she cried, looking up at him with a terrified expression. "If only I hadn't slowed to chat with you—I feared they would get him and was riding to warn him. I thought there was plenty of time to get to town before he started."
She did not blame him for the delay; seemed only to accuse herself. For the sergeant, there was enough of surprise in the figure of the slain man to occupy his mind and eyes.
"Who—who is he?" he asked after staring a moment.