Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/20

2 lean flank. The two nodded at each other with grim satisfaction.

"Hollister," said Sheridan quietly. "If he's after that red and white heifer we'll get him with the goods."

"He'll likely hev' a Greaser along with him. We better split. Leave the hawses. I'll take the other side the draw."

They were in the lower hills, halfway between the mesa and timber line on the mountains. Where they stood, close to the crest of a rolling ridge, it was joined to the next by a sage- tufted buttress of rocky soil. To right and left the ground sloped sharply off from this junction. Jackson had pointed to the left, where the land drew down towards a little spring, favored by the strays they were seeking on the open range.

The cowpuncher dropped to all-fours, then flat wriggling on his stomach across the connecting spur under cover of the scanty brush. Sheridan gave him a minute or two, and followed his example, working down the draw towards the smoke, and the spring.

Cicadas whirred and leaped about him as he crawled on towards a heavy growth of mesquite that flourished in the deeper soil of the hollow. The lacy foliage, brown above, tender green beneath, quivered as he disappeared among the mahogany-colored trunks. A hawk, suspended high above him, spiraled down for a closer look at the disturbance and planed off again. Save for the cicadas' strident chirruping, there was silence, broken suddenly by the frightened blat of a calf.