"Queer," he ruminated; "mighty queer. If those silly things had been laying there in the road before the rumpus they'd have been tracked into the dust. But they was on _top_ of a perfectly good hoss track.

An' it don't look like there's been anybody along here since."

He continued down the road, descending the steep slope, and came to the overturned truck. At a glance he saw it had been used for hauling supplies, doubtless to the mine he had glimpsed on the slope of the high mountain to southward. Several kegs of nails, some hardware, and some sacks of cement were scattered in the road. He remembered that the man who had climbed on the truck had only searched the driver and the cab. Anything he might have taken must have been in a small package or it would have been discernible even at that long distance.

"That outfit wasn't after no mine supplies," Rathburn reflected as he finished his brief inspection and again mounted. "An' they wasn't taking any chances on smoking anybody up or being followed too quick.

Pretty work all around. An' here's the committee, hoss!"

A touring car came careening around a turn in the road and raced toward him. He turned his horse to the side of the road and spoke to him as the animal, plainly unfamiliar with motor cars, snorted and shied.

The car drew to a stop with a screeching of brakes. The horseman raised his hands as he saw two rifles leveled at him from the rear seat. There were five men in the car besides the driver. One of the men, who had been sitting in the front with the driver, leaped from the machine and strode toward the rider.

"Calm that horse down an' climb out of that saddle," he commanded.

"If you make any motions toward that gun you're packing, it'll make things simpler, in a way."

The rider slipped from the saddle with a broad grin. "Right up to form," he sang cheerfully, although he kept his hands elevated while the other took his gun. "My hoss'll be calm enough now that that danged thing is shut off. You must be a sheriff to be flirting with the speed limit that way an' forgetting you've got a horn."

"Where are you from an' where was you going?" demanded the other.

"I'm from up in the mountains, but I'd never got where I was going if I hadn't seen you first the way you busted around that curve," was the cool reply.

"Stranger," was the next comment in a tone of satisfaction. "Look here, friend, I'm Mannix, deputy from High Point. You'll sail smoother if you answer my questions straight."

The deputy motioned to two men in the car. "Search him," he ordered.

Then he stood back, six-shooter in hand.

The stranger built a cigarette while the men were going through him.

He lighted the weed and smiled quizzically while they examined the meager contents of the slicker pack on the rear of his saddle.

"See you're packing a black slicker," said Mannix, pointing to the rough raincoat in which the pack was wrapped.

"That's in case of rain," was the ready answer.

"What's your name?" asked the deputy with a frown.

"Rathburn."

"Where was you heading?"

"I was aiming in a general eastern direction," Rathburn replied in a drawl. "Is there any law against ridin' hosses in this here part of the country?"

"Not at all," replied the deputy heartily. "An' there's no law against drivin' automobiles or trucks. But there's a law against stoppin' 'em with a gun."

"So," said Rathburn. "You stopped because you saw my gun? An' I'm to blame, for it? If I'd known you were touchy about guns down here I'd have worn mine in my shirt."

One of the other men from the car had joined the deputy. He was looking at Rathburn keenly. Mannix turned to him.

"Look like him?" he asked.

The man nodded. "About the same size and height."

"This man was drivin' a truck up here that was stopped this morning,"

said the deputy sternly to Rathburn. "He says you size up to one of the men that turned the trick--one of them that wore a black slicker like yours."

Rathburn nodded pleasantly. "Exactly," he said with a smile. "I happen to be in the country an' I've got a black slicker. There you are; everything all proved up. An' yet there was somebody once told me it took brains to be a sheriff!"

There was a glint in Rathburn's eyes as he uttered the last sentence.

Instead of flying into a rage, Mannix laughed.

"Don't kid yourself," he said grimly. "You're not the man who held up this truck driver."

He gave Rathburn back his gun, to the latter's surprise. Then he waved toward Rathburn's horse.

"Go ahead," he said, smiling. "General eastern direction, wasn't it?

This road will take you clean to the desert, if you want to go that far. So long."

He led the others back to the car which started off with a roar. It pa.s.sed the truck and continued on up the road.

Rathburn sat his horse and watched the automobile out of sight. His expression was one of deep perplexity.

"By all the rules of the game that fellow should have held me as a suspect," he soliloquized. "Now he don't know me from a hoss thief--or does he?"

He frowned and rode thoughtfully down the road in the direction from which the automobile had come.

CHAPTER XV

THE WELCOME

The afternoon wore on as Rathburn followed the road at an easy jog. He quickened his pace somewhat when he pa.s.sed through aisles in thick timber, and, despite his careless att.i.tude in the saddle, he kept a sharp lookout at all times. For Rathburn was carrying some gold and bills in a belt under his shirt--which had been examined and returned to him at the order of the deputy--and he had no intention of being waylaid. Moreover, the man's natural bearing was one of constant alertness. He rode for more than two hours without seeing any one.

"Strange," he observed aloud. "This road is used a lot, too. Maybe the morning's ceremonies has scared all the travelers into the brush."

But, as he turned the next bend in the road, he saw a small cabin in a little clearing to the right.

Spurred by a desire to obtain some much-needed information, he turned from the road into the clearing and rode up to the cabin. He doffed his broad-brimmed hat in haste as he saw a girl.

"Ma'am, I'm a stranger in these woods an' I'm looking for an honest man or woman to guide me on my way," he said with a flashing smile.

Instead of returning his smile with a gracious word of greeting, the girl regarded him gravely out of glowing, dark eyes.

"Pretty!" he thought to himself. "Limping lizards, but she's pretty!"

"Where are you from?" the girl asked soberly.