ckly improvising a
V-shaped shelter with narrow aperture in front. Next from one of
the packs he took a blanket and threw that inside the shelter. Then,
touching the girl on the shoulder, he whispered:

"When you're ready, slip in there. An' don't lose no sleep by worryin',
fer I'll be layin' right here."

He made a motion to indicate his length across the front of the narrow
aperture.

"Oh, thank you! Maybe you really are a Texan," she whispered back.

"Mebbe," was his gloomy reply.

CHAPTER XXI

The girl refused to take food proffered her by Riggs, but she ate and
drank a little that Wilson brought her, then she disappeared in the
spruce lean-to.

Whatever loquacity and companionship had previously existed in
Snake Anson's gang were not manifest in this camp. Each man seemed
preoccupied, as if pondering the dawn in his mind of an ill omen not
clear to him yet and not yet dreamed of by his fellows. They all smoked.
Then Moze and Shady played cards awhile by the light of the fire, but it
was a dull game, in which either seldom spoke. Riggs sought his blanket
first, and the fact was significant that he lay down some distance from
the spruce shelter which contained Bo Rayner. Presently young Burt went
off grumbling to his bed. And not long afterward the card-players did
likewise.

Snake Anson and Jim Wilson were left brooding in silence beside the
dying camp-fire.

The night was dark, with only a few stars showing. A fitful wind moaned
unearthly through the spruce. An occasional thump of hoof sounded from
the dark woods. No cry of wolf or coyote or cat gave reality to the
wildness of forest-land.

By and by those men who had rolled in their blankets were breathing deep
and slow in heavy slumber.

"Jim, I take it this hyar Riggs has queered our deal," said Snake Anson,
in low voice.

"I reckon," replied Wilson.

"An' I'm feared he's queered this hyar White Mountain country fer us."

"Shore I 'ain't got so far as thet. What d' ye mean, Snake?"

"Damme if I savvy," was the gloomy reply. "I only know what was bad
looks growin' wuss. Last fall--an' winter--an' now it's near April.
We've got no outfit to make a long stand in the woods.... Jim, jest how
strong is thet Beasley down in the settlements?"

"I've a hunch he ain't half as strong as he bluffs."

"Me, too. I got thet idee yesterday. He was scared of the kid--when she
fired up an' sent thet hot-shot about her cowboy sweetheart killin' him.
He'