Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/289

Rh It was rather slow work to stalk that camp-fire, for the big boulders cut off the sight of the red eye time and again, and she had to make little, cautious détours before she found it again, but she kept steadily at her work. Once she stopped, her blood running cold, for she thought that she heard a faint voice blown up the cañon on the wind: "McGurk!"

For half a minute she stood frozen, listening, but the sound was not repeated, and she went on again with greater haste. So she came at last in view of a hollow in the side of the gorge. Here there were a few trees, growing in the cove, and here, she knew, there was a small spring of clear water. Many a time she had made a cup of her hands and drunk here.

Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokes of shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook with the flare of the small fire beyond them. She dropped to her hands and knees and, parting the dense underbrush, began the last stealthy approach.