“Yes, I’ll risk it,” he muttered, with grim emphasis. “Better a failure than to be wondering always if a good chance had slipped by.”
Now he stood upright, and still fearful lest other men should have remained in the vicinity of the house took a quick survey before venturing forth. Then he ran, silently and rapidly, to the front of the building, where his horse was tethered.
Fearing the loss of an instant’s time, he resisted a temptation to dash inside and tell his friends, and a moment later had jumped into the saddle and was on the move.
His work required the greatest care. Should he approach too close it meant danger of being seen; should he lag too far behind the risk of losing the other’s trail. The route which the cowpuncher had taken led directly up the hill; so Bob Somers followed.
The presence of the man in advance was occasionally betrayed by a crackling in the underbrush, as his horse plunged through. He was evidently traveling hard.
The Rambler took the precaution to keep intervening objects between, or to ride in the shadows now thickly falling about him in the deep woods. Steadily forging ahead, he only came to a halt when the top of the hill was reached.
Overlooking the trees and vegetation which covered the descending slope, Bob Somers could see a narrow valley, then, beyond, a succession of rolling ridges. It was a wild, desolate and silent scene, with no suggestion of either human or animal life in all its vast reaches.
He realized, however, that if the man kept straight ahead he must soon emerge into the open valley. So, sheltered behind a mass of scrubby cedars, he watched and waited.
“Hello—there he is now!”
The horseman, abruptly appearing in the field of vision, began to gallop at top speed over the level stretch; and Bob Somers, eagerly following his course, saw him heading for a wide break in the hills.