“Barkin’ that yet, eh!” retorted Doc, sharply. “Say, boy,” he went on with a great contempt, “you’re dirty. Jim Thorpe ain’t the man we’re after. Leastways I won’t believe it till we git him red-handed. I wouldn’t be out to-night if I thought it was Jim Thorpe. We left him back ther’ in the village. He’s been out two days chasin’ for rustlers. See here, you’re mean on him ’bout this thing, because things are queer his way. An’ you ain’t got savvee to see that it’s ’cos things is queer his way is just the reason he ain’t the dogone rustler we’re chasin’. You need to think a sight more. Mebbe it hurts some, but it’s a heap good.”
Smallbones shot a swift, sidelong glance at the doctor, in which there was little enough friendliness. He probably had no friendliness for anybody.
“I’ll hand you a noo buggy to a three-year-old driver he’s our man,” he snapped.
“Done,” grinned the sporting doctor promptly. And Smallbones was the least bit sorry he had laid so generous odds.
By this time day was in its full early-morning glory, but they were passing from the dazzling light of the plains into the more sheltered atmosphere of the valley. Everywhere the hills rose about them, on either side and ahead. The gloomy woods on the vast slopes threw a marked shadow over the prospect. Ahead lay a wide vista of tremendous mountains, with their crowning, snow-bound peaks lost in a world of gray, fleecy cloud. In the heart of one distant rift lay the steely bed of a glacier, hoary with age and immovable as the very bedrocks of the mountains themselves. It sloped away into the distance, and lost itself in the heart of a mighty cañon. Even to these men on their trail of death, living, as they did, so adjacent to these mysterious wilds, the scene was not without its awe.
The doctor was watching the hills to the left. The first one seemed endless, and he sought a break in it in every shadowed indentation upon its face. He was feeling more anxious than his own words suggested. He was a shrewd man who had understood the ring of truth in Elia’s story at once, but now, in face of this stupendous world, he was wondering if he had been well advised in leaving the boy behind. He had only done so on the score of his crippled condition being a nuisance to them. However, his doubt found no further expression now, and his keen eyes watched for the landmarks in a way that left him little chance of missing them.
At last the first hill came to a distinct end, and the second rose higher and more rough. Its face was torn and barren, and what timber there was grew low down almost at its foot. The valley was narrowing, and the rich prairie grass was changing to a lank tangle of weedy tufts. There was a suspicion of moisture, too, in the spongy tread. The sun further lost power here, between these narrowing crags, and, although summer was well advanced, the ground still bore the moist traces of the mountain spring.
The second hill was passed quickly. It was merely a split of the original mountain, the result, no doubt, of a great volcanic upheaval in the early days of the world. And now, as they rode on, the third and last landmark before the two lone pines rapidly slipped away behind them.