Keeping as much in the shadow as possible, he went his way. After a time he drew near to a hill, higher than any of those about it, from which he had more than once admired the ancient looking towers of Schwartzberg.
“I think I’d better top that,” he muttered, “and take an observation. If there’s any one moving around out here I’ll be able to spot him in the moonshine.”
Carefully he ascended the rather steep side of the hill; the lessons of his youth, when he trailed a Geronimo in the southwest or stalked “Billy-the-Kid” were as clear in his mind as ever.
“But the joints don’t work the same,” was the big man’s mental complaint. “They creak enough to waken any fairly light sleeper, if there were such camped in this vicinity.”
He came to the top of the hill, and standing in the shadow of a tree, looked about. The long, trailing moonbeams and the dusky shadows lay side by side, as far as he could see. There was a path which wound up the west side of the hill, down on the east and away toward the river; as Bat looked westward along this it disappeared in the shadows which clung to the slope. And he heard a sound.
“Voices,” said he. Then, after a moment, “Voices and wheels.”
Quietly he waited and listened. Away to the east he saw the ghostlike loom of Schwartzberg in the moonlight; the breeze stirred the bare limbs of the trees under which he stood.
Bat smiled as he looked up at the branches.
“Still from the northwest,” said he. “Well, hold to it. Maybe you’ll bring us something.”
Nearer and nearer came the sound of wheels—singularly light wheels. And the stumbling hoofs of the usual horse were absent.