Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/197

 The End of a Trail He sprinted to Ackerman's horse, released it and stripped it of saddle and bridle, turning it loose to freedom and good grass; and then, slinging the pack of supplies on his back, hastened to his own horse and rode away.

All day long Pepper moved ahead as fast as the country would permit, first north, then east, and finally south; and when she was stopped in mid-afternoon she was under the frowning wall of the southern Twin, three miles east of Quigley's stone houses and less than half a mile from the trail used by the rustlers when they rode abroad.

The very audacity of his choice of a camp site tended to make it secure; and it was in the section combed by the rustlers only the day before; it was under the most prominent landmark for miles around and practically under the nose of the QE outfit. His camp-fire and its almost invisible streamer of smoke from carefully selected dry wood was screened on the south and east by the great side of the southern Twin, and on the north and west by the bulk of the northern Twin; and by the time the filmy vapor reached the tops of those towering walls it would have become as invisible as the air of which it was a part. And because of the tumbled chaos of rock, ridge, arroyos, bowlders, shrubs, and trees, the little tent easily could be overlooked by anyone passing within twenty feet. 185