Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/208

 was halfway to the girl. Experience in stalking all varieties of game helped Flash now and his coyote brain was working. A full-strain dog would have rushed valiantly at the first sign of menace to one he loved; and he would have defeated his own purpose as he died. This man Wore a gun at each hip and Flash knew well his danger; that his one chance of success was to wait until the man entered cover which was dense enough to screen his own close approach for one desperate spring.

He drew near enough so that he could slip into each bit of cover as the man left it but still he was not close enough to spring. When within thirty feet of the girl the man knelt behind a waist-high mass of fallen lodgepole trunks. Forty feet behind him Flash crouched flat behind a log. It was too far for a single spring but it was his last hope. When the man started to crawl over or through the logs would be his time to strike. For a space of minutes neither moved, the man seeming unable to decide on his next step. Then he leaned forward and Flash tensed his muscles for the rush—but both suddenly drew back, each behind his own log screen.

Flash’s every sense had been so absorbed by