Some two hours after dawn he sat on the crest of a high ridge watching a rider come up the winding trail from eastward. He had seen other riders going in both directions from his concealment behind a screen of cedar bushes. He had watched them with no interest other than that exhibited by a whimsical 95 smile. But he did not smile as he watched this rider. His eyes became keenly alert; his face was grim. His mind was made up.
When the rider was nearing his ambush, Rathburn quickly scanned the empty stretch of trail to westward, then leaped down and confronted the horseman.
Ed Lamy drew rein with an exclamation of surprise.
“There’s not much time, an’ I don’t hanker to be seen––afoot,” said Rathburn quickly. “Where’s my horse?”
“He’s in a pocket on a shale slope this side of the timber on a line from the house where you left him,” replied Lamy readily. “Or you can have mine.”
“Don’t want him,” said Rathburn curtly. “You going in to see the sheriff?”
Lamy nodded. “His orders. Say, Coyote–––”
“He’ll probably meet you on the way,” Rathburn interrupted with a sneer. “You can be figurin’ out what to say to him. My saddle with the horse?”
“It’s hanging from a tree where you go into the pocket. Big limestone cliffs there below the shale. Say, Coyote, my sister an’ kid brother was tellin’ me about your visit that morning, an’ I guess I understand–––”
“We can’t stand here talkin’,” Rathburn broke in, pulling the tobacco sack from his shirt pocket. He extracted a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a note I wrote you in jail before I left. Read it on the way in when there’s no one watching you. Maybe you’ll learn something from it; maybe you won’t. I expect you wanted money to fix that ranch up; but you’ll get further by doing a little irrigating from up that stream than by trying to be a bandit. You just naturally ain’t cut out for the part!”