“Haven’t broken your level?”
“No. Ashton is laid up for the day with a scalp 235 wound. We were shot at this morning from up there––other side of the crest.”
“Shot at, and Lafe hit?”
“Not seriously, though it could not well have been a closer shave. He says he will be all right by tomorrow,” said Blake, and he gave the bald details of the occurrence in a few words.
Knowles listened without comment, his leathery face stolid, but his eyes glinting. When Blake had finished, he remarked shortly: “Must be the same man. Let’s see those shells.”
Blake handed over the two empty cartridge shells.
“Thirty-eight,” confirmed Knowles. “Same as were fired at Lafe before. Kid and Chuckie showed me how a thirty-eight fitted the hole in Lafe’s silver flask. About where did the snake crawl down the hill?”
“Not far from here. He could not have gone any considerable distance along the top or side. He was down and riding away when I reached the crags, and I had not lost much time coming up the other side.”
“It’ll take an Indian to make out his tracks on this dry ground,” remarked the cowman. “We’ll try a look, though, at his hawss’s hoof prints. Just keep behind, if you don’t mind.”
He threw the reins over the head of his horse, and dismounted, to walk slowly along the more level ground at the foot of the slope. Blake followed, as 236 he had requested, but scrutinizing the ground with a gaze no less keenly observant than that of his companion.