Here the yellow dust was rather deep in the road, which was masked from the ranch-house by a clump of mesquite. As Cultus sat there he noticed a number of horse tracks in the dust. It appeared as though two horses had milled around there considerable, and among the horse tracks was the boot print of a man.
Cultus studied them rather impersonally for a while, but finally swung out of his saddle and examined them more closely. The man had dismounted and taken three steps towards the mesquite clump. At the edge of the road Cultus discovered another track. Finally he walked over to the mesquite to a point where he could look through at the ranch-house below the mesa, and here he found the butts of a number of cigarettes, evidently only recently smoked. The ground was also scored from bootheels, where two men had sat.
It was clear as print that some one had been watching the Circle M ranch-house, and, judging from the number of cigarette butts, they had been there quite a while. He went back along the road and found where they had ridden back toward Medicine Tree.
Whether they were spying on him or on some one else at the Circle M was a question, but Cultus had the feeling that they were watching him. He rode slowly back to the forks, where he lost the tracks. They either went toward the Bar Anchor or headed across country, he was not able to determine which, as the road to the Bar Anchor was too hard to show a track, and he did not feel that it was worth his time to follow it to softer ground. He rode back to Medicine Tree and stabled his horse.
It was about thirty minutes after Cultus left the Circle M, when Mac Rawls rode in from the Triangle X. Rawls was a lean, bony-faced cowboy, with a shifty eye and a mop of roan-coloured hair, which hung low over his eyes. In any country he would be labelled a dangerous person, from his appearance alone.
Blaze had never seen Rawls, but he was sure Rawls was from the Triangle X. Blaze went out to him when Rawls drew up in front of the ranch-house.
“Marsh wants yuh to come to the Triangle X to-night,” said Rawls. “Said it was important.”
“Wants me to come, eh?”
“Yo’re Blaze Nolan, ain’tcha?”
“Yeah.”