CHAPTER XXI
ONE clear, warm evening Hoag rode along the side of the mountain. The sun had been down for an hour, and the valley lay beneath the soft folds of a twilight which, ever creeping from west to east, seemed gradually to thicken under the increasing rays of the constantly appearing stars. He saw the village lights, and from their locations knew where the main buildings stood—the hotel, the post-office, and the wagon-yard, marked by the red glow of the camp-fires. He could see, also, his own home at the end of the road up which he had ascended.
The incline was growing steeper and his horse was stepping cautiously, and shying here and there at real or fancied objects in the underbrush on each side of the densely shaded road. Presently a point was reached where the horse could not well advance further, and the rider dismounted, hitched his rein to a bush, and, on foot, took a narrow path which led down a steep incline into a canon of considerable depth and breadth. Finally gaining a sort of level at the bottom, he trudged on into a labyrinthian maze of brambles, lichen-coated boulders, and thorn-bushes, headed for a specter-like cliff which, now and then, loomed in the starlight.
Presently a firm cry of “Halt there!” greeted him, and a tall, lank form, topped by a mask of white cloth with jagged eye and mouth openings, stood in front of him.
“Halt yoreself, Joe Purvynes!” Hoag answered, facetiously.
“Halt, I say! That won't do,” and the figure raised a long-barreled gun and threateningly presented it. “What's the password?”
“Hold on, hold on!” Hoag laughed uneasily. “It's me, Joe!”
“Me! I don't know no me's in this business. You give me the proper password or I'll plug you full o'—”