“Them old desert rats knowed their biz, didn’t they? I’d set my clock by them, I would.”
At the corral the two young men saw at a glance that the girls’ ponies had not been returned by Cholo Sam. They went on toward the hotel in silence. Now the first needles of the ice-storm cut their faces. It was nothing like any storm Hunt had ever seen. And how fast it grew in volume and strength!
Cholo Sam and Maria were at the door of the hotel, looking down the street eagerly and anxiously.
“Which way did they go?” shouted Hurley, without any preamble.
“Oh, Señor Hurley!” cried Sam. “To the East. T’roo the East Fork.”
Already sight of the rugged path up the heights on that side of the canyon was blotted out by the driving ice particles.
“Shall we get horses and go after them?” panted Hunt.
“Horses won’t live in this. Maybe we can stir up some of the boys to go with us. Wish I had my roughnecks here.”
But there was not time to go back to the mine. The storm had come on so suddenly that the workers above the town might hole in until the first force of the blizzard was over.
Hunt ran up to his room to get his heavier coat and a couple of blankets. As he descended the stairs, Cholo Sam came from the barroom with a filled flask in his hand.