At the top of the bluff he looked back, but there was no sign of any one moving around the house. He swung to the left, heading in almost a direct line toward Marlin City, taking a chance that he would be able to strike the Big Elk grades about where they sloped down onto the lower ground.
Brick had never been through that part of the hills, but felt that it would be easier than going back to the Red Hill mine. The timber was fairly heavy and that side of the hill was grown up with jack-pine and willows, making it rather difficult traveling.
He had just skirted a willow thicket and was looking for a good place to cross a rocky swale, when he caught a glimpse of a rider skirting the side of the hill about an eighth of a mile beyond him. The heavy cover made it difficult for him to catch more than a glimpse.
Brick drew his horse into the cover of a willow bush and waited. His sorrel horse blended in well with the colors of the hillside, and he was curious to know who this rider might be.
But try as he might he could not locate him again. He felt that the rider was not coming toward him, because it would be impossible for a horse to travel silently. He scanned the hills in all directions. There was something further up on the hill—something that moved.
“Prob’ly a cow,” said Brick to himself. “That jigger couldn’t ’a’ got up there that quick.”
Then came the smashing report of a gun. The echoes clattered from hill to hill, dying away in diminishing echoes. Brick dropped out of his saddle, gun in hand. He had not heard the bullet. Whoever it was, they were not shooting at him.
Again the rifle awoke the echoes. Brick grinned to himself.
“Shootin’ cattle,” he told himself. “Somebody is killin’ a load of meat for the Red Hill mine, and here’s my chance to put the deadwood upon him.”
There was no more shooting. Brick squatted on his heels and waited. He intended to give the man a chance to get busy on his butchering before making a search. He knew that this man might wait quite a while after his kill, to make sure that no one was going to make an investigation of the shots. Brick was a good waiter.