Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/198

 his hand, and Nash went out into the night without another word.

Instead of turning up the game trail in the direction from which he had come, Nash turned downstream. He would find Brent camped where the next canyon to the south opened out into the bottoms below the junction of the two small streams. Nash knew of a dozen men within twenty miles who would kill a man for a thousand, or for half of that, with as little concern as most would feel over shooting down a deer. He would start in the morning for the place where these men held out.

Nash never knew that immediately after he left the two in the cabin they saved his life by a narrow margin; as he passed through the door Flash suddenly knew that Moran was allowing this man to escape. Unerringly he knew that this was a grave mistake and he sought to rectify it. He moved stealthily toward the door. If he had gained it Nash would never have reached Brent’s camp that night. Betty saw and understood.

“Flash!” she called. “Flash! Come here!”

For a single second he hesitated and that second gave Moran time to see and he shoved the door shut with his foot as Flash jumped for it.