Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/257

 This old strategist of the hills had pieced his bits of knowledge together and arrived at a conclusion of his own. The outlaws had retired to their hidden retreat as soon as the marshal’s posse had come in. They had undoubtedly spied upon his camp with glasses from some commanding point. Moran had discovered at once that Vermont’s party was no camp of hunters and he had known them for what they were. The men they trailed were no less keen. The signs which Moran had found the previous day had indicated that Brent usually held his horses on Atlantic Creek when here on his frequent trips. This time he had departed from the custom through fear that their presence would betray the spot. Instead he had held them in some distant pocket of the hills where their discovery would mean nothing at all. Except from urgent reasons he would not now have sent them back. In all probability some of the band had seen Harmon coming in the night before at the head of a dozen men. The signal flashes had been the call for Brent.

“They’re afraid the hunt will get too hot for them,” Kinney said. “They’ve got saddles cached up there. They could make thirty miles