They were traveling 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 jack-pine 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.
“No! What do yuh make of it?”
“Queer thing to do, Sleepy.”
They got back to their feet.
“How’s the tooth?” asked Hashknife.