Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/203

 Blindman's Buff ten feet of it when the shuffling sound again passed him, eastward bound.

"There!" grumbled Johnny. "I knowed it. He acts like a bobcat in a cage. All right, d—n you! I'll give you some music to shuffle to!"

Finding several pebbles, he threw them, one at a time, over the rim and about over the place where he had found shelter. A muttered expletive came from above and the shuffling went rapidly toward the sounds. Below him on the trail he heard a slight stir, but ignored it as he sprinted up the trail, silent as a ghost, and gained the shelter of a bowlder. Here he waited, grim and relentless, for the sentry's return.

Shuffle Foot was peeved, and cared not a whit who knew it. Just because he was hitched to a fool was no reason why he should endure asinine practical joking; so he peered over the canyon's rim and spoke softly:

"What th' h—l do you think yo're doin'?"

The silence below was unbroken; but the astonished Mr. Gates longed passionately for the power of thought transmission. It was all right for Nat Harrison to go wandering around and braying like a jackass; he wasn't lying almost nose to nose with the most capable two-gun man that had ever cursed the Twin Buttes country.

Sleep?" queried Harrison. "What did you shoot 191