He waited until the last of the lights had gone out, and the house stood out a mere black outline in the moonlight, then he disappeared within the barn again, and presently reappeared leading his fractious mare. A few moments later he rode quietly off. And the manner of his going brought a grim smile to his lips, for he thought of the ghostly movements of the night-riders as he had witnessed them. His way lay in a different direction from that of his comrades. Instead of taking the trail, as they had done, he skirted the upper corral and pastures, and plunged into the black pinewoods behind the house.
The Widow Dangley’s homestead looked much more extensive in the moonlight than it really was. Everything was shown up, endowed with a curious silvery burnish which dazzled the eyes till shadows became magnified into buildings, and the buildings themselves distorted out of all proportion. Hers was simply a comfortable place and quite unpretentious.
The ranch stood in a narrow valley, in the midst of which a small brook gurgled its way on to the Mosquito River, about four miles distant. The valley was one of those sharp cuttings in which the prairie abounds, quite hidden and unmarked from the land above, lying unsuspected until one chances directly upon it. It was much like a furrow of Nature’s ploughing, cut out to serve as a drainage for the surrounding plains. It wound its irregular course away east and west, a maze of undergrowth, larger bluff, low red-sand cut-banks and crumbling gravel cliffs, all scattered by a prodigal hand, with a profusion that seemed wanton amidst the surrounding wastes of grass-land.
The house stood on the northern slope, surrounded on three sides by a protecting bluff of pinewoods. Then to the right of it came the outbuildings, and last, at least one hundred and fifty yards from the rest, came the corrals, well hidden in the bluff, instead, as is usual, of being overlooked by the house. Certainly Widow Dangley was a confiding person.
And so Tresler, comparatively inexperienced as he was, thought, as he surveyed the prospect in the moonlight from the back of his mare. He was accompanied by Sheriff Fyles, and the two men were estimating the chances they were likely to have against possible invaders.
“How goes the time?” asked the sheriff, after a few moments’ silent contemplation of the scene.
“You’ve half an hour in which to dispose your forces. Ah! there’s one of your fellows riding down the opposite bank.” Tresler pointed across the valley.
“Yes, and there’s another lower down,” Fyles observed quietly. “And here’s one dropping down to your right. All on time. What of your men?”
“They should be in yonder bluff, backing the corrals.”