Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/85

 A Council of War it up in the center of a cleared space, ready to be lit later on, and then removed the two saplings which made the gate to his rough fence and swung them aside so that they formed a V-shaped approach to the opening. Having performed these mysterious rites he passed the cabin, climbed up the crevice, recovered the rope, and returned. Carrying it into the house he carelessly closed the door behind him, went swiftly to the loose log in the rear wall and removed the things he had hidden behind it, rolling them up in the tarpaulin. Then he picked ravelings from an empty salt sack, tied them together and rolled them in the dirt on the floor until they matched it in color. After filling the water pails and chopping some firewood he took the gold pan and his rod and sought the creek, where he spent the rest of the day working and fishing.

Darkness found his supper dishes washed and put away, and, kneeling by the door, he stretched a string of weak ravelings across the opening, six inches above the sill. Cord not only would have been too prominent, but too strong; a foot would break the ravelings and never feel the contact. Whistling to Pepper, he took his saddle and the tarpaulin, stepped high over the door sill and in a few minutes was riding down the valley. Just before he came to the Hastings trail he threw the tarpaulin far into the brush without 73