“He sure is.” Jim Wright, the oldest miner in the camp, blinked his red-rimmed eyes as they watered with the strain of watching, “It’s trouble that’s chasin’ him,” he added, with conviction. “Trouble o’ some kind.”
“What sort o’ trouble?” Minky spoke half to himself. Just now there was only one idea of trouble in his mind.
Somebody laughed foolishly.
“There ain’t many sorts o’ trouble sets a man chasin’ like that,” said a voice in the background.
Minky glanced round.
“What are they, Van?” he inquired, and turned back again to his scrutiny of the on-coming horseman.
“Sickness, an’––guns,” replied the man addressed as Van, with another foolish laugh. “If it’s Sid he ain’t got anybody out on his ranch to be sick, ’cep’ his two ’punchers. An’ I don’t guess he’d chase for them. Must be ‘guns.’”
No one answered him. Everybody was too intent on the extraordinary phenomenon. The man was nearing the creek. In a few seconds he would be hidden from view, for the opposite bank lay far below them, cut off from sight by the height of the rising ground intervening on the hither side.
A moment later a distinct movement amongst the watchers, which had something almost of relief in it, told that this had happened. Minky turned to Jim Wright, who chanced to be nearest him.
“It’s Sid,” he declared definitely.