From where he sat, Westy could look down into the cosy little cleft and see Ed Carlyle standing clearly outlined in the first gray of twilight; standing like a statue, hopefully angling with his converted safety-pin and braided worsted. Warde was gathering sticks for their fire. Westy’s impulse was to call to them, but then he decided not to. He preferred not to call, nor even see them. For just a little while he wanted to be alone in the Rockies.
So he did not call. He looked in another direction and as he did so his heart jumped to his throat and he was conscious of a feeling of unspeakable gratitude to the saving impulse which had kept him silent. For approaching up the hill from the direction in which he now looked were the figures of two men. And one glimpse of them was enough to strike horror to Westy Martin’s soul.
CHAPTER XII
IN THE TWILIGHT
It required but one look at these two men to cause Westy devoutly to hope that they had not seen him. They were rough characters and of an altogether unpromising appearance.
One preceded the other and the leader was tall and lank and wore a mackinaw jacket and a large brimmed felt hat. But for the mackinaw jacket he might have suggested the adventurous western outlaw. But for the romantic hat with flowing brim he might have suggested an eastern thug. The man who followed him wore a sweater and a peaked cap, that dubious outfit which the movies have taught us to associate with prize fighters and metropolitan thugs.
But a more subtle difference distinguished these strangers from each other. The leader walked with a fine swinging stride, the other with that mean carriage effected by short strides and a certain tough swing of the arms. He had a street-corner demeanor about him and a way of looking behind him as if he were continually apprehending the proximity of “cops.” He had an East-Side, police-court, thirty-days-on-the-island look. His companion seemed far above all that.
WESTY MOVED NOT A MUSCLE, SCARCELY BREATHED.
Westy moved not a muscle, scarcely breathed. The tree was evidently the destination of these strangers for they approached with a kind of weary satisfaction, which in the smaller man bespoke a certain finality of exhaustion. The leader evidently sensed this without looking behind him, for he referred to it with a suggestion of disgust.
“Yer tired?”