"It's good and dark now," observed Billy Wingo, "and the moon will rise in another hour. We don't want it to be too high when we strike the Walton ranch. Why the smile, Judge? Oh, I know. You think we'll be seen by one of your friends when we're leaving, and he'll get to the ranch ahead of us. I doubt it, Judge. You know we ain't going by way of Main Street. No, we're going out back of the corral. The cottonwoods grow right up close to the back of the corral, and if we lead our horses and hug the posts, there ain't much chance of anybody seeing us. No. Come along, Judge, lessee how my clothes fit you."
Within the quarter-hour they rode out of a belt of cottonwoods into the Hillsville trail, three wooden-faced men and the wretched judge. The latter rode in front, with head bowed on hunched shoulders.
Where the snow permitted they trotted, but most of the time they were forced to walk their horses. Four times before they reached the draw leading to the Walton ranch they floundered through drifts that powdered the horse's shoulders.
At the mouth of the draw the trail to Walton's was clotted with the tracks of a few ridden horses.
"I guess," remarked Billy Wingo, "that Skinny Shindle came this way all right when he brought that note from Walton's."
The judge shivered, but not with cold. He was very miserable and looked it.
The moon lifted an inquiring face over the rim of the neighboring ridge and threw their shadows, thin and long, across the green-white snow.
"We turn here toward Walton's, Judge," suggested Billy, when the jurist continued to ride straight ahead.
The judge pulled up.
"I'm not going to Walton's!" he cried aloud. "I'm not going, I tell you! You can't make me! You can't."