Sleepy released his jaw long enough to buckle on his own armament, and swung the bag over his shoulder and they went out into the night. The train crew had left the caboose steps as the two cowboys swung down off the fill and stumbled their way to the barb-wire fence of the right-of-way.
“Blacker’n the inside of a cat,” declared Sleepy, after they were away from the lights of the train. “Look out yuh don’t fall off the river bank.”
“It shore is kinda vague,” said Hashknife. “Jist take it easy.”
“Ain’t nobody breakin’ into a gallop,” retorted Sleepy.
They were travelling through a thicket of jack-pines, which whipped them across the face and tangled their feet. The wind was still blowing furiously, and there was a spit of rain in the air.
Hashknife was surging ahead, one hand flung up to protect his face from the whipping branches, when he almost ran into some object. It flashed into his mind that it was a range animal, perhaps a horse. Sleepy bumped into Hashknife and stopped with a grunt.
Then came the flash of a gun, a streak of flame that licked out into the wind not over fifteen feet from them. The wind seemed fairly to blow the report away from them. It was little more than a sharp pop.
Hashknife stumbled over a little jackpine and went to his knees while Sleepy unceremoniously sat down. And then the animal was gone. Evidently it had borne a rider. The wind prevented them from hearing which way it went.
Hashknife crawled back and found one of Sleepy’s boots.
“Didn’t hit yuh, did it?” yelled Hashknife.