thing for me to do, he decided, is to swing off and double back until I get in the rear of that bunch of thieves. They'll never suspect me of trailing them. Which is exactly the right course for me to follow. I can't accomplish much until I know how many's in that gang. If they should split up in bunches I might get somewhere.
On he went. To the right of him, a quarter mile, he saw the glimmer of W. W. Offut's ranch lights. Another hour of this steady gait passed and he swung to miss Lestrade's home fences. Still onward he proceeded until he saw, looming up in the dark like a misshapen ghost of the desert, the old, abandoned Twenty Mile homestead shacks. The land here began to swell and fall in sharper, more abrupt folds, affording him a greater measure of protection. Going fifty yards beyond the shanty he stopped the pony in a convenient hollow and left it. Then he climbed up to a commanding piece of ground and lay flat on his stomach.
The faint reverberation rose to a distinct thrumming and then died away entirely. In the silver gray shadows he saw three horesmen walking their animals around the corner of the shanty. The rest of the posse was nowhere to be seen or heard. At some point back on the trail they had turned off. The trio in front of him stopped. Two of them dismounted and seemed to hold a parley. Ballou could hear the rise and fall of their speech, but nothing else. A match flared and made a short, gleaming curve upward. By that instant's light he recognized the man in the saddle.
Lestrade.
He crawled forward, maneuvering so that he presently had the shack between him and the three. This accomplished, he rose and boldly walked forward until he stood in the protection of a wall. As he arrived, he heard Beauty Chatto's voice rumbling along, irate and threatening.
"Fine mess, ain't it? Long as this yahoo's floating free around these parts you and us has got trouble a-plenty and no mistake. What was all the delay about? You had him right where you wanted him. Why didn't you organize a necktie bee and yank him out of jail?"
"Violence," Lestrade responded, "ain't the best policy unless a man's got to come to it. Any jury would have took care of him proper. Even so, I did have it all planned to have the boys pull him out and get rid of him. But there was a little accident. I don't know exactly what Offut's got to do with Lin Ballou, but he's the man that helped him get away."
"Well, if old man Offut's stringing along with Ballou, you can bet your neck Ballou is exactly what I thought he was in the first place. A spy of the committee's. I wish I'd kept that hunch. Instead, he plays me for a sucker and I bite. Then you arrange that damnfool idea, and now we're all in a jackpot. Why, say, Nig and me is liable to get picked off the minute we put a foot in the mesa. Fine fix, ain't it?"
"He's got to be stopped," Lestrade announced decisively.
"Well, why didn't you stop him when you had it in your hands?" Beauty demanded, more and more belligerent.
"Hold onto yourself," Lestrade countered coldly. "If you boys won't do it, I'll go and fetch the crew from the ranch and we'll get a whole posse on his tracks again."
'"Now," Chatto growled, "that ain't a bright idea either. You know nothing about trailing. Want to scare him clean across the state line? Nig and me knows where he holes in. We'll get him. But just bear in mind that we won't fiddle around. We'll get him cold. That'll be an end of the trouble. If you'd give me the office to put him away in the first place all this'd been avoided. The trouble is, you want Ballou killed but you ain't never had the gizzard to come out and say so."
"I don't know as I'll take that, Beauty," Lestrade said, turning in the saddle. "Keep your talk to yourself."
"Keep hell!" Beauty retorted. "I'll talk how I please. You better sing low to me."
"Yes, listen, my friend, I can put you where you'll have a long time to think about your words."
Beauty's body swayed forward. "Don't you threaten me! I got a few secrets I could tell myself."
"Secrets!" Lestrade cried. "Why, you fool, do you think I'm a man to leave evidence against me in the hands of such scum as you? Oh, no! There's not a single scrap of paper or a single pen mark you've got to bind me with."
"Huh. There's other things besides paper. If Nig and me was ever caught we'd turn evidence. Two witnesses is enough to tie you in a knot. But I've had you figured as a double-crosser for a long spell. What about the brand irons that's hid away up by the six pines? And here's something else: Your foreman knows how many cows you shipped each time. I know how many I added to the East Flats pens each time. The stockyard man at Portland knows how many you sold him. Well, if it comes to a showdown, these things could be checked up by the cattle committee. That foreman of yours is a squealer for certain. He'd cross his grandma if he thought it'd save his hide."
"Figured it out to a fraction, didn't you," Lestrade said. '"Well, Beauty, you'll never squeal. It means your neck if you do."
"No more will you," Beauty said. "I'm just showing you where to head in. Don't try to hush me."
Nig, who seldom spoke, broke in at this point to act as peacemaker. "'Tain't no time for a quarrel. We got a job to do."
"Right," Lestrade said, turning to his horse. "Get it done. I'll see you boys taken care of. But don't come to town in company with any of the Double Jay outfit. I got to warn you on that." He started away.
Beauty had not yet got the whole of his grievance stated and he moved into the night, one hand on Lestrade's stirrup. "There's another matter I want to—" His words were lost as he strode off. Nig, as if fearful of trouble, followed.
Here was the golden opportunity Lin Ballou wished for. Slipping around the shanty, he stepped through the open door and into the ink-black room. He knew his way perfectly in these quarters, for he had spent many nights under the shelter of the battered, half-caved-in roof. To itinerant travelers or ranch hands bent on long journeys, it was a well known refuge when darkness found them short of their destination. Built many years ago by a homesteader with more courage than resources, it had been soon abandoned to its fate—a single-room stopover shelter with a few rough pieces of furniture, two bunks and an old cast-iron stove.
Once upon a time there had been an attic, but wayfarers in want of fuel had stripped most of the boards away from the rafters. A few still remained, however, and Lin, casting about for a means of hiding himself, struck upon this place as the best. He found a chair and stood on it, at the same time gripping a rafter. Swinging upward, he crawled over to a corner of the place and lay flat on the boards. It was concealment, but not much more.
He had no more than reached this vantage point when he heard the Chatto brothers moving back into the shanty, talking. One of them came cautiously through the door, silhouetted against the gray shadows.
"You suppose we can light up?" queried a voice which he recognized as Nig's.
Beauty, unsaddling the horses, thought it was safe enough and said so. "Lin, he's ten miles east of here by now. That boy likes the mesa. We'll follow his tracks in the morning till we hit rock. After that I got a good idea."
"You're always full of ideas," Nig muttered. He was the milder and more practical of the two. Standing directly under Ballou, he lit a match and applied it to the wick of a lamp that from time to time had been supplied with kerosene by thoughtful ranch hands. The dim rays flared out, doing little more than cast the upper half of the shanty into a still blacker gloom. Beauty tramped in with the gear and threw it on the floor.
"Light a fire, Nig. It's getting chilly."
"What with? Ain't nothing to bum unless we take the table."
