"Well, by ——!" exclaimed Doubleday, hugely annoyed at being thus forestalled. "You've got a nerve. You ought to be hung!"
"Any gent does who works for the Flying M," countered the cook. "But I'm quittin'. Do I get the hoss!"
"Yuh bet yuh do. An' yo're hittin' the trail to-night."
"The sooner the quicker."
Within half an hour Rufe Cutting, erstwhile cook at the Flying M, a bandage under his hat, mounted his horse and rode away toward Paradise Bend. As he vanished in the gathering dusk, Swing Tunstall laughed harshly.
"All yaller an' a yard wide!" observed Giant Morton, and spat contemptuously.
Loudon made no comment. He was working out a puzzle, and he was making very little headway.
In the morning he saddled Ranger and started for the Bend. He followed the trail for a mile or two, then, fording the Dogsoldier, he struck across the flats where a few of Mackenzie's horses grazed. He did not turn his horse's head toward Paradise Bend till the Dogsoldier was well out of rifle-range. Loudon's caution was pardonable. Rufe Cutting knew that he was to ride to the Bend, and Rufe had a rifle. Loudon had marked him tying it in his saddle-strings.
It was quite within the bounds of possibility that the cunning Rufe was at that very moment lying in wait somewhere among the cottonwoods on the bank of the Dogsoldier, for the trail in many places swung close to the creek. Decidedly, the trail was no fit route for any one at odds with a citizen of the Cutting stamp.
Loudon, when he drew near the Bend, circled back to the creek and entered the town by the Farewell trail.