"Probably if he were not so new he wouldn’t have been so easily fooled."
"I can’t say," retorted Steele, "that he was easily fooled. Strikes me you were about as slow with him as greased lightning."
Ross flushed at the praise. It was balm to his wounds in his self-esteem.
Early the following morning, he started for Meadow Creek, and at the upper camp learned something for which he was unprepared and which was a source of temporary satisfaction to him.
Leslie had disappeared.
Until noon Ross lingered in camp watching the sheriff and Sandy pass and repass in their search for the runaway. Finally, just before noon, he saw them on snow-shoes striking out up Wood River cañon into the uninhabited wilderness beyond. Then he slowly mounted the dizzy trail leading to Weimer’s shack and the interrupted work.
"It must have been my note that warned him," Ross thought as he watched the figures toiling up Wood River cañon. "I hope they have the chase of their lives," he said aloud, "and then I can patronize Sandy and stroke him down as he did me at ’The Irma’–provided I dare!"
He found Weimer sitting beside the fire smoking and growling over the absence of both his assistants.
"Dot poy," he explained, "read dot paper you wrote and den vat does he do, hein? He says notings, aber he takes some tings and out he goes und leaves me mit der vork und mit mine eyes, und dey so pad!"
This was the extent of the information he was able to give Ross concerning Leslie. Many grievances he had against the sheriff and "dem McKenzies" that had ransacked the premises and had ridden to and fro, over to Wilson’s and round the mountains searching for traces of Leslie.