Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/30

18 huge rock to rest. As he sat there, he thought he heard a sound like that produced by horses stepping about on a stone floor. Presently the cloud rolled away, and although the valley below was still obscured, the stars were bright above and the crags of the main range, stood out clean cut against the western sky. Before him he saw Pike's Peak and knew that a little way below him, hid in the mist, lay the junction.

The Sheriff and his posse, lost in the fog, had halted in a small basin and were waiting for the clouds to clear away. The Sheriff insisted that he had heard a man cough, and now the little party were sitting their horses in silence, which was broken only by the nervous tramping of a broncho. "What's that?" asked the Sheriff, pointing to the rock above them. "I should say it was a bear sitting on his haunches," said one of the men. "I'll just tap it with a cartridge," continued the last speaker, but at that moment one of the horses gave a snort, and instantly the figure of the big messenger rose from the rock and stood out against the dark blue sky. Until now he had