Thus the party broke up in the morning. Sucatash, before departing, took his rifle and a full belt of ammunition and fastened it to the girl’s saddle.
“If Dave gets gay,” he said, with a grin, “just bust him where he looks biggest with this here 30-30.”
After assisting in packing the horses, he mounted and rode down the cañon while Solange and Dave resumed their journey in the opposite direction.
Sucatash, as soon as he had passed out of sight, quartered up the side of the cañon where sheep trails promised somewhat easier going than the irregular 212 floor of the gulch. Thus he was enabled to get an occasional glimpse of them by looking backward whenever favorable ground exposed the valley. But he was soon past all hope of further vision, and when the distraction was removed settled down to make the best speed on his journey.
He gave no heed to anything but the route ahead of him and that was soon a task that engrossed him. It had been snowing some all night, and it was now slithering down in great flakes which made the air a gray mystery and the ground a vague and shadowy puzzle. Sucatash did not care to linger. Without the girl to care for he was one who would take chances, and he rushed his horse rapidly, slogging steadily along the trails, without attention to anything but the ribbon of beaten path immediately ahead of him.
There was every reason to believe that the hills were empty of all humankind except for their own party and De Launay, who was ahead and not behind them. Sucatash was entirely ignorant of the fact that, among the rocky terraces of the cañon, Jim Banker camped, after having followed their trail as long as the light would allow him to do so.
The prospector was up and on the move as soon as Sucatash. He and his burros were trudging along among the rocks, the old man muttering and talking to himself and shaking his head from side to side as one whose brain has been affected by years of solitude 213 and unending search for gold. His eyes were never still, but swept the trail ahead of him or the slopes on either hand, back and forth, back and forth, restlessly and uneasily as though there were something here that he looked for and yet feared to see.
Far ahead of him and high on the slope he finally beheld Sucatash, riding alone and at a rapid trot along a sheep trail, his long, lean figure leaning forward, raised in his stirrups, and his hands on saddle horn. He was evidently riding in haste, for that gait and attitude on the part of a cow hand means that he is in a hurry and has a long way to go.
The prospector hurriedly unslung a field glass and focused it on Sucatash. When he was sure of the man and of his route he grinned evilly.
“One of ’em right into my hands,” he chuckled.