Rathburn pointed toward the rift in the mountain on the left above them. Sautee looked and saw a man and a boy riding down the trail.
“That looks to me like the man that held me up last night,” said Rathburn. “He looks like one of the men, anyway. Maybe he’s found out he didn’t get much, eh? Maybe he’s coming back because he didn’t have enough to make a get-away with. Maybe he thinks he was double crossed or something.”
Sautee’s features were working in a spasm of fear and worry. Suddenly he turned on Rathburn.
“Why don’t you get away?” he asked in eager pleading. “That trail will take you out of the mountains and down into the desert country. You’re from the desert, aren’t you? You can make it. You’ve made a good haul. Go! It’ll be better for me and all of us!”
Rathburn laughed bitterly. “I can’t go because I’m a worse fool than you are,” he said acridly. “Get in there. Sneaking lizards, man, can’t you see I’m tempted to put a shot into one of them boxes and blow us both to kingdom come?”
Sautee shrank back into the powder house, and Rathburn slammed the door.
As Rathburn snapped the padlock and thrust the keys into his pocket his eyes again sought the trail to the left above him. No one was in sight. The man 159 and the boy had disappeared in a bend or depression in the trail.
But when he looked down toward the hogback he saw a car coming up the road toward the mine. A number of horsemen had taken its place on the hogback.
Rathburn ran for his horse.