Starr did not expect to come upon his man on the peak; indeed he would
have been surprised to find the fellow still there. But that peak was as
good as any for reconnoitering the surrounding country, was higher than
any other within several miles, in fact. What he did hope was to pick up
with his glasses the man's line of retreat after a deed he must believe
successfully accomplished. And there might be some betraying sign there
that would give him a clue.
There was always the possibility, however, that the fellow had lingered
to see what took place after the supposed killing. He must believe that
the girl who had been with Starr would take some action, and he might
want to know to a certainty what that action was. So Starr went
carefully, keeping behind boulders and rugged outcroppings and in the
bottom of deep, water-worn washes when nothing else served. He did not
think the fellow, even if he stayed on the peak, would be watching behind
him, but Starr did not take any chances, and climbed rather slowly.
He reached the summit at the left of where the man had stood when he
shot; very close to the spot where Helen May had stood and looked upon
Vic and the goats and the country she abhorred. Starr saw her tracks
there in a sheltered place beside a rock and knew that she had been up
there, though in that dry soil he could not, of course, tell when. When
that baked soil takes an imprint, it is apt to hold it for a long while
unless rain or a real sand-storm blots it out.
He hid there for a few minutes, craning as much as he dared to see if
there were any sign of the man he wanted. In a little he left that spot
and crept, foot by foot, over to the cairn, the "sheepherder's monument,"
behind which the fellow had stood. There again he found the prints of
Helen May's small, mountain boots, prints which he had come to know very
well. And close to them, looking as though the two had stood together,
were the larger, deeper tracks of a man.
Starr dared not rise and stand upright. He must keep always under cover
from any chance spying from below. He could not, therefore, trace the
footprints down the peak. But he got some idea of the man's direction
when he left, and he knew, of course, where to find Helen May. He did not
connect the two in his mind, beyond registering clearly in his memory the
two sets of tracks.
He crept closer to the Basin side of the peak and looked down, following
an impulse he did not try to analyze. Certainly he did not expect to see
any one, unless it were Vic, so he had a little shock of surprise when he
saw Helen May riding the pinto up past the spring, with a man walking
beside her and glancing up frequently into her face. Starr was human; I
have reminded you several times how perfectly human he was. He
immediately disliked that man. When he heard faintly the tones of Helen
May's laugh, he disliked the man more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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