Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/19



checked his sorrel as Jackson first held up his hand in sign of caution and then changed the gesture, pointing at something beyond the brow of the hill. The cowboy slid lithely from his saddle and the owner of the Circle S followed suit, anchoring the sorrel mare with reins he let trail from bit to ground, joining his foreman, who had drawn back his pinto mount from the top of the rise.

"What is it, Red?" asked Sheridan, instinctively lowering his voice.

"Smoke, down the draw a ways. 'T aint grub-time. Someone's heatin' a runnin' iron."

Sheridan followed the direction of Jackson's finger, finding it hard to differentiate the faint plume of blue smoke from the mid-afternoon haze that shimmered over all the foothills. He located it and his lips tightened, his eyebrows lowered to a straight line above his eyes in which danced a sudden sparkle of excitement and resolution. His right hand dropped automatically to his gun holster and eased the weapon in its smooth leather sheath. Jackson had already shifted his own gun farther back on his 1