Rathburn slipped his smoking gun into his holster and mounted noiselessly. Then he walked his horse slowly up the cañon, sitting sidewise in the saddle to keep a vigil on the trail behind. A minute later he heard a volley of shots below, the signal to all the scattered members of the posse to race to the entrance of the cañon. He increased his pace, broke his gun, extracted the empty shell, and inserted a fresh cartridge in its place.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE DESERT CODE
Keeping to the trail, Rathburn mounted higher and higher and spoke continually to his horse in a crooning tone of encouragement. His face was drawn in grim lines, his eyes were constantly alert, his very posture in the saddle showed that his nerves were at high tension.
He ignored dim paths which occasionally led off to the left or right in rifts in the sheer, black walls of the narrow cañon. No sound came to him from below. He knew the posse would have to proceed with the utmost caution, for the sheriff and his men could not be sure that they would not encounter him at some bend in the trail. They would be expecting shots from every boulder; for Rathburn had let them know he had no intention of being taken easily or alive.
The afternoon wore on, with Rathburn steadily penetrating the very heart of Imagination Range. Finally he swung out of the cañon trail and took a dim path to the right. He dismounted and walked back to rub off the scars left by his horse’s shoes on the rock floor of the side trail. Satisfied that he would leave the members of the posse confused as to which side trail he had taken, he returned to his horse, mounted, and proceeded up the narrow trail leading to the top of the range to the south of the deep cañon.
In the western sky the sun was low when he rode down the crest of the range. The mountains were devoid of vegetation, bleak and bare and black. The 186 lava rock seemed to absorb the heat of the sun and throw it in the rider’s face. But Rathburn didn’t appear to mind it.
He crossed the backbone of the range and began the descent on the eastern side. But he descended only a short distance before he swung out of the saddle. From the slicker pack on the rear of his saddle he took a pair of heavy leather gloves. He cut these open in the palms with his pocketknife and then tied them about the shoes on his horse’s hind feet. The dun was only shod behind.