And as he looked at the hill and bethought him of what lay beyond it, he drew a Winchester from the scabbard under his left leg and made sure that he had not forgotten to load it.  For Racey laboured under no delusion as to the danger that menaced not only his own existence but that of his friend Swing.  He knew that their lives hung by a thread, and a thin thread at that.  They were but two against many, and their position had not been aided by the string of uneventful days succeeding their advent at the Bar S. For their enemies were taking their time in the launching of their enterprise.  And Racey had not expected this.  It threw him off his balance somewhat.  Certainly it worried him.

It was not humanly possible that Jack Harpe could be aware that Old Man Saltoun did not believe what Racey had told him.  But he was acting as if he knew.  Perhaps he was waiting till Nebraska Jones should be entirely well of his wound.  That was possible, but not probable.  Jack Harpe had not impressed Racey as a man who would allow his plans to be indefinitely held up for such a cause.  There was no telling when Nebraska would be up and about.  His recovery, thanks to past dissipations, had been exceedingly slow.

Again, perhaps the delay might be merely a detail of the plan Fat Jakey Pooley mentioned in his letter to Luke Tweezy, or it might be due to the more-than-watchful care the Dales and Morgans were taking of old Mr. Dale.  Wherever the old gentleman went, some one of his relations went with him.  Certainly no ill-wisher had been able to approach Mr. Dale (since his spree at McFluke’s) at any time.  Mr. Dale, to all intents and purposes, was impossible to isolate.

At any rate, whatever the reason, the fact remained that Harpe had not moved and showed no signs of moving.  Mr. Saltoun, every time he met Racey, took special pains to ask his puncher how much twice six times two hundred was.  Then Mr. Saltoun, without waiting for an answer, would walk off slapping his leg and cackling with laughter.  Even Tom London was beginning to take the view that perhaps his father-in-law was in the right, after all.

“You been here near two months now, Racey,” he had said that very morning, “and they ain’t anything happened yet.”

“I’ve got four months to go,” Racey had replied with a placidity he did not feel.

Now as he rode, his eyes closely scanning the various places in the landscape providing good cover for possible bushwhackers, he recalled what Loudon had said.

“I’ll show him all the happenstances he wants to see before I’m through,” he said, aloud.  “Something’s gonna happen.  Something’s got to happen.  Jack Harpe won’t let this slide.  Not by a jugful.”

The words were confident enough, but they were words that he had been in the habit of repeating to himself nearly every day for some time.  Perhaps they had lost some of their force.  Perhaps—­

“Twelve hundred dollars,” mused Racey.  “And the same for Swing.  Six months’ work for—­Hell, it can’t turn out different!  I know it can’t.  We’ll show ’em all yet, won’t we, Cuter old settler?”