“If he was needin’ yuh tuh help out ary gun scrap, there’d be more shots. If that shootin’ was sign of a fight, the fight’s done fit and won long ago. Best let me go on alone. Iffen I gits in a tight, I’ll shoot and you kin come a foggin’. Gimme half a hour. Then come on keerful.”
If Kipp was bent on leading him into a trap, thought Tad, he would have done so before they quit the narrow trail.
“I’ll chance it, Sheriff,” he replied.
Kipp nodded briefly and in a moment was lost to sight along the trail that faded into the tall trees.
The sheriff’s horse made but little noise as it traveled along the trail. Minutes passed and his coming was not challenged. Then without warning, a sickening crash of breaking timber under the horse. Kipp and his mount dropped out of sight in the thinly covered pit. Snorting with fear, the horse went down, Kipp striving desperately to free himself from the falling animal. The sheriff’s head struck something solid and he lost consciousness.
Two heavily armed men stepped from a clump of choke-cherry brush.
“I’m right glad that —— deadfall ketched somethin’,” grinned one of them. “I shore sweat a plenty diggin’ her. Wonder how this gent got past the guard.”
“I ketched sight uh his face as he dropped in,” growled the other. “It was Kipp. That’s how-come he got down the trail without bein’ drilled. Hope it didn’t bust the hoss’s leg.”
“Ner Kipp’s neck. Black Jack’ll raise —— if he gits killed and a stranger gits put in the sheriff office. Fox’d have a shore tough time of it if a hard man was put in Kipp’s place. Lower the ladder and we’ll look over the damage.”
“I’d give somethin’ tuh know what they got on old Kipp,” muttered the other as he lowered a ladder into the pit.