"What is your idea, Dan?"
The marshal rode steadily, humped up over his saddle-horn, his eyes on the uncertainties in front.
"I ain't really got none," he admitted doggedly, "less it be a blind trust in Divine Providence; still I got a medium strong grip on a few things. That Capley girl told you that Matt Moore drove out on the ridge road?"
"Yes; I asked her about that twice."
"Well, he likely was headed for this yere Sunken Valley. That's point number one. But he never followed the ridge road very far, for it skirts the desert. He must have turned off south—but where?"
"Near the lone cottonwood is my guess."
"Why?"
"Because there is a swale there of hard sand, which is easily followed, and leaves no trail. On either side for miles the sand is in drifts, and no two horses would ever pull a wagon through it. This hard ridge, which is more rock than sand, goes straight south to Badger Springs, the only place to get water. I was there once, three years ago."
"You've hit it, old man," exclaimed the other confidently. "That's exactly how I had it doped out. He'd have to use that swale, or go ten miles farther east. I never was at Badger myself, but I've travelled that ridge road some, with my eyes open. Then, I take it, that our course is already laid out pretty straight as far as them springs. Beyond there the general lay of the land may help us, and I aim to reach that point along about daylight. Accordin' to Miss La Rue—she's that blond female I seen at the hotel, ain't she—Cassady was expected to reach this place where Mendez is about dawn, if he had to kill his hoss to do it. That would mean some considerable of a ride, I reckon."
"And yet," put in Westcott, with increasing interest, "would seem naturally to limit the spot to within a radius of ten miles from Badger Springs."