Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/123

105 At last Jackson sniffed at the air, pulling down his neckerchief from his mouth. Ahead of them stretched a battalion of chayas, another formation to their right.

"We're close on the desert," he said. "An' we ain't fur off the trail. I figger it to the right a bit." He turned in his saddle and sought certain notches in the range to fix his position. "Gawd!" he said with a sudden intake of his breath, "here comes the moon."

It sailed up like a great bubble of pearl, poising on the saw teeth of the far-away eastern crests. It seemed to leap from them into the air, blanching all the mesa, bringing color to the cactus, touching the blossoms to a faint semblance of their hues.

Sheridan struck off to the right between the cactus coliimns, Jackson following his tortuous trail. Suddenly Sheridan halted.

"I see their fire," he whispered. "Wait a minute."

He dismounted, passed his reins to Jackson and slid through the grove, gun in hand. Here and there he caught glimpses of an orange glow and could hear the careless talk of the raiders, feeling safe from pursuit, liquor-dulled to all but their intent.

Sheridan took his place behind a chaya that grew on the verge of a dry ravine, washed out by some long-dried and forgotten torrent. Down this ran the trail to the desert. He saw a group of twenty men, masked by bandannas, still wearing them for the devilish joy of the murderous masquerade. He saw horses standing in a little herd. Over the fire a pot