completely blown, lying down
under him. The animal, already weary from its sixty-mile drive of
yesterday, was quite done. After a futile effort to make it rise, Oldham
realized this fact. He pursued his journey afoot.

Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this accident, Oldham
trudged on as rapidly as his wind would allow. As he neared the
crossroads he slackened his pace, for he saw that no living creature
moved on the headquarters fork of the road. As a matter of fact, at that
precise instant both Bob and Ware were within forty yards of him,
standing still waiting for Amy to collect her dogwood leaves. A single
small alder concealed them from the other road. If they had not
happened to have stopped, two seconds would have brought them into sight
in either direction. Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and
himself came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.

As he replaced his hat, his eye caught a glimpse of a man crouching and
gliding cautiously forward through the low concealment of the snowbush.
His movements were quick, his head was craned forward, every muscle was
taut, his eyes fixed on some object invisible to Oldham with an
intensity that evidently excluded from the field of his vision
everything but that toward which his lithe and snake-like advance was
bringing him. In his hand he carried the worn and shining Colts 45 that
was always his inseparable companion.

Oldham made a single step forward. At the same moment somewhere above
him on the hill a woman screamed. The cry was instantly followed by two
revolver shots.

XXXIV

Ware was an expert gun-man who had survived the early days of Arizona,
New Mexico, and the later ruffianism of the border on Old Mexico. His
habit was at all times alert. Now, in especial, behind his casual
conversation, he had been straining his finer senses for the first
intimations of danger. For perhaps six seconds before Amy cried out he
had been aware of an unusual faint sound heard beneath rather than above
the cheerful and accustomed noises of the forest. It baffled him. If he
had imposed silence on his companion, and had set himself to listening,
he might have been able to identify and localize it, but it really
presented nothing alarming enough. It might have been a squirrel
playfully spasmodic, or the leisurely step forward of some hidden and
distant cow browsing among the bushes. Ware lent an attentive ear to the
quiet sounds of the woodla