[CHAPTER XVI.]
SHORT RATIONS.
As soon as it grew daylight next morning the two fugitives, Jack Merrill and Coyote Pete, not to forget the one-eared mule, from the effects of whose stampede Pete was still limping, made a careful reconnaissance. From their lofty perch on a ledge of rock far up the cañon they could see behind them a thin thread of distant blue smoke, which still marked the scene of the destruction of the treacherous old hermit's hut.
A few bluejays hopped about here and there, eying the intruders inquisitively, a badger rushed grunting and grumbling through some nearby scrub. Otherwise the cañon, under a blinding blue sky, was still as a desert noon.
"Wa'al, all's quiet along the Potomac from the looks of things," commented Pete, "and now let's get down to the creek, and I'll wash off some of the dirt that one-eared Maud there plastered me with last night, and then we'll hit up that pocket chuck-wagon of yours."
"And after that?" asked Jack.
"Why, then, we'll keep right on going. Let's see, it was to-day that you was to have written home for money, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Jack, with a sigh, thinking of Ralph, who, if he had only known it, was at that moment beyond Black Ramon's reach.
"Wa'al, now, if that Easterner can only stick out, we'll win home yet," gritted out Pete, "and be back with help by day after to-morrow."
"Now, then, you one-eared, cock-eyed imp of Satan, if you want a morning drink quit pulling back on that halter and come down to the creek," went on the cow-puncher, addressing the mule, which by common consent had been christened Maud.