Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/195

Rh his eyes swiftly. It was a common enough sight, but to him, at that stage of the game, they seemed an omen. They were slowly nearing the ground in long spirals, sure sign that there was something dead, or dying, within their vision.

And it was Sheridan who first saw the tracks in the sand, tracks of a small foot, plain and sharp enough though the signs showed plainly that the maker was tired. They had cut this trail, that caused him to halt Jackson with a hoarse croak of excitement, crossing their own at a sharp tangent.

"Headin' straight to'ards ranch. Alone."

Jackson's voice rasped this out in a throaty whisper. Their tongues were badly mushroomed, their mucuous membranes shrunken. Their eyes were gummed, bloodshot, scorched. But this sight gave them new life and energy. Sheridan followed the trail, Jackson close behind and the mare last of all, torn between her belief in water close by and duty to her master. So they found Mary Burrows resting in the shade of a cactus thicket, her face pillowed on her elbow—asleep.

The joy that surged into her face changed as she saw the grey mask of his face, the steely strips of his half-closed eyes as they searched her features. Here was a Sheridan she had not known, a man worn to the very core of purpose.

"It's all right, Peter," she said. "Nothing has—happened."

Relief showed through the dust and in the eyes that hardened again.

"Where is he?" It was all he could do to articulate