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These men were, as was their custom, merely utilizing the chance finding as an added comfort in their strenuous lives. Fyles lit his pipe, and, for some moments, smoked thoughtfully, while McBain's pen scratched a series of entries in his diary. Fyles watched him through a cloud of smoke, and when his subordinate returned his pen to the home-made rack on the table, he began to talk.
Peter had been paying a flying week-end visit to the Seymours, and Sandy had taken a boy's instinctive liking to the brilliant writer who never "swanked," as the lad put it, but who understood so well the bitter disappointment of which Duncan McBain's uncompromising attitude towards music had been the cause. And this was the man Nan loved and who loved her!
"Evenin', sergeant," cried the teamster, with deliberate cheeriness. "Makin' Rocky Springs?" McBain's hard blue eyes looked straight into the half-breed's face. He was endeavoring to fix and hold those dark, furtive eyes. But it was not easy. "Maybe," he said curtly. Then he glanced swiftly over the outfit. The sweat-streaked horses interested him. The nature of the wagon.
He gave it up; but there was a way of knowing he could call out that smile again. The idle women of the Gunsight Hotel, sitting in their rockers on the upper porch, were rewarded on that day for many a wasted hour. For long months they had watched McBain's typist, with her proud way of ignoring them all; and at last they had something to talk about.
Yes, he was glad for McBain's Suddenly he checked the willing Peter, and drew him down to a walk. There was a horseman on the trail, some thirty or forty yards ahead. He had just caught sight of his dim outline against the starlit sky line. It was only for a moment. But it was sufficient for his trained eyes.
Maybe it's a despatch." Fyles's brows drew sharply together in a frown of annoyance. "If the chief's sent me the word I'm waiting for that way he's a damn fool. I asked him for cipher mail." "Mr. Jason don't ever reckon on what those who do the work want. If that feller's riding despatch, the whole valley will know it." McBain's disgust was no less than that of Fyles.
And you'll be kept busy all day to I was going to say to-morrow. I mean to-day." McBain sat down again. "Yes, sir. A couple of hours' sleep'll do me, though. We daren't spare ourselves. It's sort of life and death to us." Fyles shot a keen look into the other's face. "I shouldn't be surprised if it were literally so." "You think, sir ?" McBain's voice was sharply questioning.
There it was. To the east. They were coming on over the southern trail, and that was in McBain's section! He lifted his reins, and Peter promptly laid his swift heels to the ground. Three shots. Fyles hoped the fourth would not be fired until he was within striking distance of the spot. Four horsemen were converging upon the bluff whence the shots had proceeded.
Three uniformed men rode hard across the tawny plains. They rode abreast. Their horses were a-lather; their lean sides tuckered, but their gait remained unslackening. It was a gait they would keep as long as daylight lasted. Sergeant McBain's horse kept its nose just ahead of the others. It was as though the big, rawboned animal appreciated its rider's rank.
These were some of the endless pros and cons he debated with his lieutenant, Sergeant McBain, when they sat together planning their next campaign, while awaiting Amberley's reply to both the report of failure, and plea for the future. But Fyles's anxieties were far deeper than McBain's, who was equally involved in the failure. He had far more at stake.
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