"Yes, he got back day before yesterday," the young ranger replied; "but you won't find him there this morning. He walked over to the mill to see Welton. You'd probably get him there."
Oldham waited only until Elliott had rounded the next corner, then spurred his horse up the mountain. The significance of the detour was now no longer in doubt, for he remembered well how and where the wagon trail from headquarters joined the mill road. Saleratus Bill would leave his horse out of sight on the hog-back ridge, sneak forward afoot, and ambush his man at the forks of the road.
And now, in the clairvoyance of this guilty terror, Oldham saw as assured facts several further possibilities. Saleratus Bill was known to have ridden up the mill road; he, Oldham, was known to have been inquiring after both Saleratus Bill and Orde—in short, out of wild improbabilities, which to his ordinary calm judgment would have meant nothing at all, he now wove a tissue of danger. He wished he had thought to ask Elliott how long ago Orde had started out from headquarters.
The last pitch up the mountain was by necessity a fearful grade, for it had to surmount as best it could the ledge at the crest of the plateau. Horsemen here were accustomed to pause every fifty feet or so to allow their mounts a gulp of air. Oldham plied lash and spur. He came out from his frenzy of panic to find his horse, completely blown, lying down under him. The animal, already weary from its sixty-mile drive of yesterday, was quite done. After a futile effort to make it rise, Oldham realized this fact. He pursued his journey afoot.
Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this accident, Oldham trudged on as rapidly as his wind would allow. As he neared the crossroads he slackened his pace, for he saw that no living creature moved on the headquarters fork of the road. As a matter of fact, at that precise instant both Bob and Ware were within forty yards of him, standing still waiting for Amy to collect her dogwood leaves. A single small alder concealed them from the other road. If they had not happened to have stopped, two seconds would have brought them into sight in either direction. Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and himself came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.
As he replaced his hat, his eye caught a glimpse of a man crouching and gliding cautiously forward through the low concealment of the snowbush. His movements were quick, his head was craned forward, every muscle was taut, his eyes fixed on some object invisible to Oldham with an intensity that evidently excluded from the field of his vision everything but that toward which his lithe and snake-like advance was bringing him. In his hand he carried the worn and shining Colts 45 that was always his inseparable companion.
Oldham made a single step forward. At the same moment somewhere above him on the hill a woman screamed. The cry was instantly followed by two revolver shots.