Not another sound came from the bushes across the road.
“Confound them!” thought Nick, who was not scratched, except for the slight mark on his forehead. “Why don’t they come out to make sure of their business?”
It was clearly a case of intended murder, for, if the unseen villains had been robbers they would have crept forward to go through the pockets of the supposed dead man.[{19}]
And, of course, it was plain that they knew whom they were firing at, for nobody would have shot at a stranger like that.
“This,” muttered Nick, “is what comes of starting on a case with a brass band at the head of the procession.”
He meant by this that he believed the attempt to kill him was connected with the death of Judson.
“It’s only too easy to see how it happened,” he thought. “Everybody knew I was sent for, and there isn’t a doubt that my arrival was spotted.
“Then it was easy to guess that I would go out to look up Hank Low, and, as this is the only way to his place, they were sure of having a shot at me.”
Nick listened as he lay there, but could hear no sound of steps on the other side of the road.
The rushing of the stream a little beyond would have drowned ordinary noises so that the would-be murderers could have got away without being noticed.