"Snake, lemme take the girl back to Pine," said Jim Wilson.

Anson swore his amaze.

"It's sense," continued Wilson. "We've sh.o.r.e got our own troubles, an'

keepin' her 'll only add to them. I've a hunch. Now you know I ain't often givin' to buckin' your say-so. But this deal ain't tastin' good to me. Thet girl ought to be sent home."

"But mebbe there's somethin' in it for us. Her sister 'd pay to git her back."

"Wal, I sh.o.r.e hope you'll recollect I offered--thet's all," concluded Wilson.

"Jim, if we wanted to git rid of her we'd let Riggs take her off,"

remonstrated the outlaw leader. He was perturbed and undecided. Wilson worried him.

The long Texan veered around full faced. What subtle transformation in him!

"Like h.e.l.l we would!" he said.

It could not have been the tone that caused Anson to quail. He might have been leader here, but he was not the greater man. His face clouded.

"Break camp," he ordered.

Riggs had probably not heard that last exchange between Anson and Wilson, for he had walked a few rods aside to get his horse.

In a few moments when they started off, Burt, Jones, and Moze were in the lead driving the pack-horses, Anson rode next, the girl came between him and Riggs, and significantly, it seemed, Jim Wilson brought up the rear.

This start was made a little after the noon hour. They zigzagged up the slope, took to a deep ravine, and followed it up to where it headed in the level forest. From there travel was rapid, the pack-horses being driven at a jogtrot. Once when a troop of deer burst out of a thicket into a glade, to stand with ears high, young Burt halted the cavalcade.

His well-aimed shot brought down a deer. Then the men rode on, leaving him behind to dress and pack the meat. The only other halt made was at the crossing of the first water, a clear, swift brook, where both horses and men drank thirstily. Here Burt caught up with his comrades.

They traversed glade and park, and wended a crooked trail through the deepening forest, and climbed, bench after bench, to higher ground, while the sun sloped to the westward, lower and redder. Sunset had gone, and twilight was momentarily brightening to the afterglow when Anson, breaking his silence of the afternoon, ordered a halt.

The place was wild, dismal, a shallow vale between dark slopes of spruce. Gra.s.s, fire-wood, and water were there in abundance. All the men were off, throwing saddles and packs, before the tired girl made an effort to get down. Riggs, observing her, made a not ungentle move to pull her off. She gave him a sounding slap with her gloved hand.

"Keep your paws to yourself," she said. No evidence of exhaustion was there in her spirit.

Wilson had observed this by-play, but Anson had not.

"What come off?" he asked.

"Wal, the Honorable Gunman Riggs jest got caressed by the lady--as he was doin' the elegant," replied Moze, who stood nearest.

"Jim, was you watchin'?" queried Anson. His curiosity had held through the afternoon.

"He tried to yank her off an' she biffed him," replied Wilson.

"That Riggs is jest daffy or plain locoed," said Snake, in an aside to Moze.

"Boss, you mean plain cussed. Mark my words, he'll hoodoo this outfit.

Jim was figgerin' correct."

"Hoodoo--" cursed Anson, under his breath.

Many hands made quick work. In a few moments a fire was burning brightly, water was boiling, pots were steaming, the odor of venison permeated the cool air. The girl had at last slipped off her saddle to the ground, where she sat while Riggs led the horse away. She sat there apparently forgotten, a pathetic droop to her head.

Wilson had taken an ax and was vigorously wielding it among the spruces.

One by one they fell with swish and soft crash. Then the sliding ring of the ax told how he was slicing off the branches with long sweeps.

Presently he appeared in the semi-darkness, dragging half-trimmed spruces behind him. He made several trips, the last of which was to stagger under a huge burden of spruce boughs. These he spread under a low, projecting branch of an aspen. Then he leaned the bushy spruces slantingly against this branch on both sides, quickly 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."

"Sh.o.r.e 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'll do it, Jim. I seen that Carmichael at Magdalena some years ago.

Then he was only a youngster. But, whew! Mebbe he wasn't bad after toyin' with a little red liquor."

"Sh.o.r.e. He was from Texas, she said."