Not turning once he passed swiftly down the street toward the stable, his meditative eyes upon the rocking stage sweeping on to the south-east, already drawing close to the first of the wooded foothills.  He waited ten minutes, watching his horse eating, and then saddled and rode out toward the hills.

CHAPTER VII

AN INVITATION TO SUPPER

It was hardly noon.  Here the county road, cutting straight through the rolling fields, was broad, wet and black, glistening under the sun.  Out yonder in front of him the stage, driven rapidly by Hap Smith that he might make up a little of the lost time, topped a gentle rise, stood out briefly against the sky line, shot down into the bed of Dry Creek and was lost to him.  A little puzzled frown crept into Thornton’s eyes.

“A man would almost say old Pop was right,” he told himself.  “This state is getting too settled up for this kind of game to be pulled off so all-fired regularly.  Cole Dalton must be blind in his off eye....  Oh, hell!  It is none of my business.  Any way ... not yet.”

He pulled his horse out into the trail paralleling the muddy road, jerked his hat down lower over his forehead, slumped forward a little in the saddle, and gave himself over to the sleepy thirty mile ride to Harte’s Camp.  He rode slowly now, allowing Hap Smith’s speeding horses to draw swiftly away ahead of him.  He saw the stage once more climbing a distant ridge; then it was lost to him in the steepening hills.  A little more than an hour later he turned off to the left, leaving the county road and entering the mouth of the canyon through which his trail led.  He would not see the road again although after a while he would parallel it with some dozen miles of rolling land between him and it.

Behind him lay the wide stretch of plain in which Dry Town was set; about him were the small shut-in valleys where the “little fellows” had their holdings and small herds of long horns and saddle ponies.  Before him were the mountains with Kemble’s place upon their far slope and his own home range lying still farther to the east.  There were many streams to ford in the country through which he was now riding, all muddy-watered, laced with white, frothing edgings, but none to rise higher than his horse’s belly.

Here there was a tiny valley, hardly more than a cup in the hills, but valuable for its rich feed and for the big spring set in the middle of it.  He dismounted, slipped the Spanish bit from his horse’s mouth, and waited for the animal to drink.  It was a still, sleepy afternoon.  The storm had left no trace in the deep blue of the sky; the hills were rapidly drying under the hot sun.  Man and horse seemed sleepy, slow moving figures to fit into a glowing landscape, harmoniously.  The horse drank slowly, shook its head in half tolerant protest at the flies singing before its eyes, and played with the water