Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/352

 Big Cloud—a trail still called, but now a passable road due to the traffic incident to the building of the Hill Division, whose right of way it paralleled from Big Cloud to the ford at Twin Bear Creek. At the end of a quarter of a mile the two men sat down on a felled tree by the side of the trail to talk. Some ten minutes had passed when McGuire, in the midst of a graphic description of what they would do to Pete McGonigle and the rest, suddenly stopped and gripped Munford tightly by the shoulder.

"Keep mum," he cautioned. "There's someone comin'!"

In the bright moonlight they could make out the figure of a man about a hundred yards down the road coming toward them from the camp.

"He walks like Burton," whispered McGuire.

"What the devil is he followin' us for? Get back into the trees and let him pass."

They moved noiselessly a little deeper into the wood that fringed the road, and lying flat, watched the man who was approaching.

"It's Burton," McGuire announced at last.

Munford grunted assent.

"He's been followin' us all right, and now he's goin' to wait for us to come back," continued McGuire, as Burton halted within a few yards of them and sat down to smoke. "Well, we'll give him a run for his money. He can wait a while, I'm thinkin'."

Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed. McGuire began to tire of his self-selected game of hide and seek.