He knew these rocks well and took no chances of exposing himself. He slunk from tree to boulder and from boulder to brush, always making nearer camp, always ready for an emergency. He attained a point where he could look down on the cabin below him and stood there a long time, half crouched, poised, scanning every corner, every shadow. The corral was hidden from him and Abe, lying under a spreading juniper tree, was out of his range of vision. He listened as he watched but no sound came to him. Then he went on, down the ragged way. At intervals of every few feet he halted and listened, repressing even his own breath that he might hear the slightest sound. But no movement, no vibration disturbed that crystal noontime until he had gone halfway to the red-roofed house below the dump. Then a bird fluttered from close beside him: a soft, abrupt, diminishing whirr of wings and the man shrank back against the rock, lifting his gun hand high, breath hissing as it slipped out between his teeth, the craven in him shaking his limbs, gripping his throat. Discovery of what had startled him brought only slow relief, and minutes elapsed before he straightened and laughed silently to shame his nerves to steadiness. A stone, loosened by his foot, rolled down before him to the next ledge, rattling as it went, and he squatted quickly, again afraid, yet alert. For he felt that noise emanating from his movements would precipitate developments. But nothing moved, no new sounds came to him. He was not certain that Bayard had seen them out on the valley. He did not know of his wife's message for help; in his confused consciousness he had supposed that the cowman had ridden to the mine on some covetous errand and that Bruce was ignorant of the fact that he and Ann had left the Circle A. He did not even stop to remember that Bayard had come into sight and disappeared through the timber on Abe, and that the stallion had slipped away from them before dawn. He had leaped to the conclusion that Bruce would be in the log house down yonder or somewhere about the property. So he stalked on, lips dry and hot with the desire to kill.... Lytton approached to within ten yards of the cabin without hearing more sounds. There he straightened to his toes and stretched his neck to look about, peering over the tops of oak brush that flourished in the scant soil, and, as he reached his full height, the sharp sound of a chair scraping on the floor sent him to a wilting, quivering squat, caused his breath to come in gasps, made his hands sweat until the pistol he held was slippery with their moisture. His head roared with excitement, but through it he thought he heard the sound of a man's voice lifted in speech.