“No. They wore masks.”
“How many were there?”
“About twenty; maybe twenty-five.”
“You’re sure they killed Tait and Gilroy?”
“Don’t I tell you I saw them dead?” quavered the unstrung man with weak irritability.
The cool, hard eyes of the sheriff narrowed to slits. Matson belonged to the class of frontier man hunter which sleeps on the trail of a criminal until he is captured. Not hardship nor discouragement nor friendship would stand in his way. He had a fondness for his work that amounted to a passion and an uncanny capacity for it.
With the news that had just come to him he was a changed man. The careless good nature was sponged from his face. His features seemed to have sharpened. His body had grown tense like a coiled spring. There was in his motions the lithe wariness of the panther stalking its prey for the kill.
A few more sharp, incisive questions told him all Purdy knew. He ordered his horse to be saddled and asked for breakfast at once. Meanwhile he got Wagon Wheel on the long-distance, and rang his deputy up from sleep.
“There has been a big killing at Bald Knob, Lute. Drop everything else. Get together half a dozen good men and ride up to Bovier’s Camp. Bring with you supplies enough for several days. Wait at the camp until you hear from me. Tait and Gilroy killed. By cattlemen, looks like. I’ll know more about that later.”
He ate a hurried breakfast, gathered together a couple of sandwiches for lunch, and struck across country for the raided sheep camp. He plunged into the gray desert, keeping the rampart of hills at his left. In the early-morning light the atmosphere gave to the panorama in front of him an extraordinary effect of space.