Chapter XI

Seeking

Alan Howard got a lantern from the wagon and said briefly to Sandy Weaver:  ‘Show me the place.’  For he knew that for once Weaver was not lying.  When together they came to the hollow where the dead calf lay he dismounted, made a light and verified all that had been told him.  He saw dimly the track of the bare human foot where Sandy had left it undisturbed; he passed from that to the other tracks.  As his cowboy had said, they resembled a wolf’s but were unusually large.  As Howard noted for himself, the front feet had made the larger, deeper imprint; the hind tracks were narrower, longer, less clearly defined.

‘It carries the bulk of its weight up forward,’ he said thoughtfully.  ’It would be heavy-chested, big-shouldered, slim in the barrel and small in the hips.  And it is the same It that made those other tracks by Superstition Pool—­where some gent was scared half out of his hide and clean out of any desire to linger or eat supper.’

‘What’s all that?’ demanded Sandy.  ‘Seen tracks like that before?’

Howard nodded and went back to his horse in silence.  And silent he remained during the ride back to camp, despite Sandy’s chatter.  For already he had a vague theory and he was seeking stubbornly to render that theory less vague.  When they had ridden back to the herd he singled out Chuck Evans and moved with him out of hearing of the others.

‘Chuck,’ he said soberly, ’I’ve got a job for you.  I’ve got to go on with the herd to San Juan and I don’t know just when I’ll be back.  To-morrow you move the extra horses up into the hills; it’s time, anyway, to feed off the grass in the canons.  And I want you to keep in touch with the Longstreets.  At night-time make your camp within calling distance of theirs.  And keep your eyes and ears open.’

‘I get you,’ said Chuck, ‘only I don’t.  What’s going to hurt them?’

’Nothing that I know of.  But I want you on the job.  I don’t quite like the idea of the old professor and his daughter being out there alone.’  And that was all the explanation he gave.

The next afternoon the drive began.  Sitting a little aside as his men started the slow procession toward the San Juan trail, Howard watched his carefully bred cattle go by and drew from the moment a full sense of success achieved.  As they crowded by in bellowing scores he estimated that they were going to net him above ten thousand dollars, and that every cent of that ten thousand was going to John Carr as a worth-while payment upon Desert Valley.  From his own funds in the bank Howard would draw for the purchase of his calves and for running expenses.  He would be close-hauled again, but he would have earned a long breathing spell.  As the tail-enders pushed by him he dropped in behind them to be engulfed in the rising clouds of dust and to do his own part of his own work.