Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/185

 pivot and the other fitting down into a slot notched in the wall. Flash lifted the bar with his teeth and gave a backward wrench. The door gave toward him and the clatter of the heavy beam aroused the girl.

“Flash!” she called. But Flash was gone.

He was gliding silently down the slope, a gray shadow slipping through the trees. Without a pause he made straight for the spot where the men had camped on that other night. The vivid memory of the fight in the black, dripping fog was fresh in his mind and led him to that place as a starting point because he associated it with men.

He circled it swiftly. There was no taint of man. He rambled on, nose uplifted to catch the side currents of air that blew in from each opening gulch. Tiny streams trickled from the larger of these draws; a second creek forked in and the two plunged on together to the Thoroughfare. Still he held to the bottoms until he knew that he was too far west. A creek flowed in from the south and he turned and followed it upstream. It forked and he chose the eastern branch and eventually came out upon a ridge.

Below him lay another valley, a feather-veined network of streams. The ridge on which he stood