“If they suspect a thing it’s all up with the plan.”
“Gotta take a chance.”
“Yes.”
They lay in the sage for hours, the multitudinous voices of the night all about them in whispers of the wind, rustlings of furtive desert dwellers, the stirring of foliage under the caress of the breeze.
McClintock read midnight on the face of his watch and murmured to his companion, “Time to get the men up.”
Byers rose without a word and disappeared in the darkness.
Far away toward the north a faint pink began to paint the sky. The colour deepened till the whole sky above Piodie took on a rose-coloured tint.
The men from the camp below joined Scot. One whispered to another, “Look at the sky, Ben.”
“Fire, looks like. Bet it’s Piodie,” the other said, startled.
“No, it’s not Piodie. It’s the valley back of the big hill north of town,” McClintock told them.