“I ought to have known from the look of the north pasture that all the water goes the other way,” he grumbled. “Best thing I can do is to head for that trail Bud spoke of that cuts through to the T-T ranch. It can’t be so very far north.”
It wasn’t, as the crow flies, but Buck was no aviator. He was forced to take a most tortuous, roundabout route, and when he finally emerged on the first passable track heading approximately in the right direction, the sun was low and there seemed little chance of his accomplishing his purpose in the few hours of daylight remaining.
Still, he kept on. At least he was mapping out a route which would be easily and swiftly followed another time. And if darkness threatened, he could return to his little camp through the open Shoe-Bar pastures, where neither Lynch nor his men were at all likely to linger after dusk.
The trail followed a natural break in the hills and, though not especially difficult under foot, was twisting and irregular, full of sharp descents and equally steep upward slopes. Buck had covered about two 201 miles and was growing impatient when he came to the hardest climb he had yet encountered and swung himself out of the saddle.
“No use killing you, Pete, to save a little time,” he commented, giving the horse’s sweaty neck a slap. “I’d like to know how the devil those two ever drove a steer through here.”
It did seem as if this must have been uncommonly difficult. The trail curved steeply around the side of a hill, following a ledge similar to the one Buck had taken earlier in the afternoon with such interesting results. There was width enough for safety, but on one side the rocks rose sharply to the summit of the hill, while on the other there was a sheer drop into a gulch below, which, at the crown of the slope, must have been fifty or sixty feet at least.
Leading the horse, Buck plodded on in a rather discouraged fashion until he had covered about three-quarters of the distance to the top. Then of a sudden his pace quickened, as a bend in the trail revealed hopeful glimpses of open spaces ahead. It was nothing really definite—merely a falling away of the hills on either side and a wide expanse of unobstructed sky beyond, but it made him feel that he was at last coming out of this rocky wilderness. A moment or two later he gained the summit of the slope and his eyes brightened as they rested on the section of sandy, cactus-dotted country spread out below him. 202
A dozen feet ahead the trail curved sharply around a rocky buttress, which hid the remainder of it from view. In his eagerness to see what lay beyond, Stratton did not mount but led his horse over the short stretch of level rock. But as he turned the corner, he caught his breath and jerked back on Pete’s reins.
By one of those freaks of nature that are often so surprising, the trail led straight down to level ground with almost the regularity of some work of engineering. At the foot of it stood the gray motor-car—empty!
The sight of it, and especially that unnatural air of complete desertion, instantly aroused in Buck a sense of acute danger. He turned swiftly to retreat, and caught a glimpse of a figure crouching in a little rocky niche almost at his elbow.