“Go to it,” nodded the sheriff. “If you don’t show up I’ll understand. At a pinch I reckon we could find the trail ourselves from your directions.”
As Stratton pulled off to the right, he waved his hand and swept onward with the posse. Buck reached the door and swung out of the saddle, flinging the reins over Pete’s head. Then he found that Bud had followed him.
“I’m goin’ to wait an’ hear what yuh find out,” the youngster stated resolutely. “I can catch up with ’em easy enough.”
“All right.”
Buck hastily entered the shack, which was almost 283 pitch-dark. A faint glint of metal came from the telephone, hanging beside one window; and as he swiftly crossed the room and fumbled for the bell, there stirred within him a sudden sense of apprehension that was almost dread.
CHAPTER XXIX
CREEPING SHADOWS
With her back against the veranda pillar, Mary Thorne watched the group of mounted men canter down the slope, splash across the creek, and file briskly through the gate leading to middle pasture. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, for the most part, her glance followed one of them, and when the erect, jaunty, broad-shouldered figure on the big roan had disappeared, she gave a little sigh.