Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/191

 The End of a Trail Gaining Humpback Butte, the meeting place he had mentioned to Long Pete, he worked along its eastern base, noiselessly, cautiously, alertly; and he stopped suddenly as he caught sight of the ashes of a dead fire; stopped and looked and listened and sniffed. It did not smell like a fire that had been dead very long, he thought; and then a playful little whirlwind, simulating ferocity, spun across the partly covered ashes and caught up a bit of charcoal which glowed suddenly as if winking about what it knew and could tell. Ackerman flitted back into the brush and when he again reached the side of the butte he was north of the camp, and had viewed it from all angles. Pausing for a moment he started back again, on a longer radius, and soon found Pepper's newly made tracks in a moist patch of sand, and hurried along the trail until he saw where it entered the creek. No need for him to wonder which way the submerged and obliterated trail led; for it must lead north. Otherwise he would have met his enemy. Swearing in sudden exultation he whirled and ran at top speed to gain his horse.

Ackerman knew Humpback Butte and its surrounding valley and canyons as he knew the QE ranch, for he had spent days hunting all over that country; and he knew that the great slopes of the valley grew steadily steeper as they reached northward until they 179