Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/122

 dissolving of the last cobwebs of unconsciousness. He heard a yearning whinny and went to the opened door. Tige, his loyal little horse, companion of a thousand days and nights in the vastness of the Big Country, came trotting up, bridle dragging, to nuzzle under his master's arm and express through inarticulate burblings and squeakings all the horsy fear phantoms he had undergone.

Here again was a white man's restraint on the part of Zang Whistler, Original reflected. The outlaw might have taken Tige as booty of successful combat and left his owner here afoot in the wilderness.

It took but a cursory survey of the interior of the cabin to tell the story of what had followed the conclusion of the fight. Here the basin filled with reddened water and with scraps of rags lying near; there the blue zinc trunk, cover thrown back and contents tumbled.

So the girl had ridden off with Zang? Well As he cantered through the purpling twilight on the long road back to Two Moons Original let his thoughts idly dally round a head crowned with dandelion gold and eyes the