He was given no time for conjecture. In a moment, it seemed, the flash of red came to him a few yards down the forest cutting. In another, two red-coated horsemen raced into the clearing, and almost flung their horses on their haunches as they reined them up.
The Wolf’s rifle was pressed hard against his shoulder. His finger was on the trigger, that deadly hair trigger that needed little more than a breath of wind to release.
But his finger remained unmoving, and a wave of panic swept over him. His stomach nauseated as he realized the thing that had so nearly been accomplished. Death! Another instant and his rifle would have spat death at one of those red-coats. And he knew it would have been murder. Cold, deliberate murder without the extenuation of a battle in self-defence.
He lowered his rifle as one of the men flung recklessly out of the saddle. Then it happened.
The crack of a rifle broke the stillness, and the Wolf knew whence it came. The policeman in the saddle pitched headlong, and his horse reared and flung its dead rider to the ground.
The Wolf gasped. His breath whistled in his throat. A queer horror looked out of his eyes.
The man who had dismounted ran. He had drawn a revolver and was charging in the direction of the hay store. His revolver rang out. Then came two shots in swift succession. And the sound of them was identical with that of the shot which had emptied the other policeman’s saddle.
The Wolf saw the second man crumple. He pitched headlong on the sweet-scented grass, clutching at it as he fell. Then, face downwards, he lay quite still.
CHAPTER V
THE WISDOM OF THE WOLF
THE Wolf was still in hiding with the screen of foliage sheltering him. There was not a movement in him beyond the tumultuous beating of his heart. He was thinking with all the rapidity of a mind driven to feverish activity. And the speed of his thought left his subconscious mind free to become aware of the glowing sunlight out there in the open, and the cloud of flies and mosquitoes besetting the restless cattle in the corrals.