This was strange--within a mile of the
Ford, where Brackton and others would have housed them. What was stranger was
the fact that the trail started south from there and swung round toward the
village.
Slone's heart began to thump. But he forced himself to think only of these
tracks and not any significance they might have. He trailed the men down to a
bench on the slope, a few hundred yards from Bostil's grove, and here a
trampled space marked where a halt had been made and a wait.
And here Slone could no longer restrain conjecture and dread. He searched and
searched. He got on his knees. He crawled through the sage all around the
trampled space. Suddenly his heart seemed to receive a stab. He had found
prints of Lucy's boots in the soft earth! And he leaped up, wild and fierce,
needing to know no more.
He ran back to his cabin. He never thought of Bostil, of Holley, of anything
except the story revealed in those little boot-tracks. He packed a saddle-bag
with meat and biscuits, filled a canvas water-bottle, and, taking them and his
rifle, he hurried out to the corral.
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