Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/110

 The Man from Bar-20 to take advantage of cover, and as he proceeded the smoke became steadily stronger. A sudden suspicion made him set his jaws, for he was going straight up wind and toward his cabin. Stopping a moment to consider, he turned sharply to his left and went on again, a Colt swinging loosely in his left hand. Anything close enough to be seen plainly would be near enough for the Colt, and in such poor light the six-shooter was more accurate in his hands than a rifle.

The only things about him which he could hear were the holsters, which rubbed very softly as he walked, but the sound would not carry for any distance. Having gone around the little valley near his cabin, he crawled along below the ragged skyline of the ridge and reached a point close to the cabin, when he suddenly dropped to his stomach and flattened himself to the earth.

Some restless, gambling soul could not do without a cigarette and he had detected its faint odor in time. Turning his head slowly, he sniffed deeply and swore under his breath, for he was going partly with the wind, which meant that the smoker must be somewhere behind him. Then a gentle breeze, creeping along the ridge in a back-draft, brought to him the strong and pungent odor of the fire; and he nodded in quick understanding.

The back-draft told him that the smoker was in 98