“No, sir. No one has passed here, so far as I know, since daylight. I don’t know who passed before that. Why do you ask?”
“We’re a posse on the track of a hoss thief. The bay mare he rode was stole, and some gold he had was stole, too.”
“Indeed!” observed Elfreda.
“We trailed the thief this way, but back a piece we kind of lost the trail,” volunteered the Hawk, grinning apologetically. “Be ye alone?”
“Oh, no. I am with a party. They are not here now, but I look for them to arrive shortly,” she answered, trying hard not to appear disturbed.
“Well, so long. We’ll be on our way.” The man swung off his hat and, wheeling his horse about, jogged along. Her heart sank as she saw that the riders were taking a direction, which, if followed on, would lead perilously close to the spot at which she had secreted Sam Petersen’s horse. She regarded each man keenly as they passed her, and theirs she saw on close inspection were hard, callous, reckless faces. There was coldness, there was daring, in them.
The last man in the line, younger than his companions, while his face was also cold, appeared to be of a character different from the others. There was a poise of the head, a grace in riding, and in the manner with which he bowed as he swung his hat low, that singled him out as a man somewhat above his fellows, in intelligence at least.
The riders were out of sight in a moment, and, with their passing, Elfreda Briggs’ knees grew suddenly weak. She staggered into the cabin and sat down heavily.
“Had they come in I don’t know what I should have done,” murmured the girl, placing a hand on the diary that she had hidden in her blouse. The bag of nuggets and “dust” lay in plain sight near the bunk on which Sam Petersen lay. Elfreda hurriedly sprang up and secreted the bag under the blankets. Then a sudden thought came to her. She recalled that the old prospector wore a holster, and that she had noticed the size of the revolver butt that protruded from it. Instant determination to possess herself of the weapon seized her.
“They will return! I feel it!” she cried.