Ghost looked back and saw the master coming swiftly.
“Good boy!” said Bull kindly, when he came up. “Find ‘em again.”
The Ghost darted ahead in obedience to the forward wave of the arm. Obviously the thing for him to do was to act as a halfway point, keeping sight of the two horsemen himself and remaining in view of the master, who was thus in touch with the two at second hand, so to speak. Had not The Ghost seen the coyotes hunt in packs in this manner, one clever scout bringing on the rest of the pack?
He loved the game and played it perfectly, and while he easily kept the horsemen from catching a glimpse of him, it was easy also for Bull Hunter to keep in view the gray body of the wolf, like a ghost indeed through the starlight and in the clear mountain air.
At length The Ghost halted and waited for the master again, and Bull came up in time to see the two indistinct figures pause before a house and then dismount.
Every doubt left him when he saw that the windows in the big house were blank, unlighted. They had come to rob. Bull slid from the saddle and leaned against Diablo in an agony of suspense. But what could he do? He would never be forgiven if he interrupted his partner at work, and yet in some manner he must intervene.
A low growl from The Ghost made him aware that the wolf dog was running back and forth, heading slowly up wind, his nose held high to catch some blowing scent; and the sound of the growl distinctly meant “man.”
Bull peered in that direction, and finally he saw, drawing swiftly out of the night, a group of a round dozen riders. He called The Ghost back with a soft whistle, and with the wolf dog beside him, an interested onlooker, he watched the proceeding of the newcomers. Strange proceedings, indeed, for they left their horses with one man, near a group of cottonwoods, and began to spread on foot in a loose circle around the house. More than a dozen. There were fifteen or twenty of these silent hunters, and there could be only one thing they hunted - Pete Reeve!
How could he reach him? To try to charge through the line was the worst sort of folly. He might indeed break through, but that would only mean that he would be cooped up with his partner. He could act better as a rear guard, and strike at the critical moment by surprise.
Below the hill he could see the cordon spread. Odd that they should have arrived so pat after the two disappeared inside the house. Was it not possible that this Fuller had played the part of traitor? He had hated the man’s twisted smile; instantly he was sure. But while his blood grew hot, he was still thinking. There must be a warning given to Pete. Perhaps by discharging his revolver? No, that was a clumsy method.
Then the idea came to him. He took out an envelope, and, with a stub of a pencil, he wrote blindly in the dark a few words. This he wrapped in the red handkerchief of Pete Reeve and placed it in the mouth of The Ghost. The big animal snarled with anger, but Bull hushed him.
“Quick!” he said, and, as The Ghost started off toward the house, Bull struck him on the flank sharply.
It turned The Ghost into a running streak, but in spite of his speed, he was using cunning, also. He had seen the glint of metal in the hands of that spreading cordon, and he was of no mind to come in sight of one of those stealthy hunters. Bull, grinning with pleasure, watched The Ghost fade into a gully and disappear. The gray streak appeared again directly before the house and was blotted out in the dark of the interior.
It was not difficult for The Ghost to find Pete Reeve. The scent was as plain to him as pointing arrows to a man. It led through the open door and up the stairs, then down the upper hall; The Ghost twisted into a dark room on the third floor.
A single lantern light showed Bud Fuller at the window and Pete working busily before the safe. It was the exclamation of Fuller that called Reeve’s attention to the big wolf dog. He turned as The Ghost crouched, for Bud Fuller had made that inevitable movement toward his gun which, to The Ghost, meant battle instantly. But the movement was not completed, and The Ghost rose from the floor and slipped to Reeve. At his feet he deposited the red handkerchief.
“Well,” muttered Pete, “the fool dog has got in the habit of chasing me with that red rag.”
He picked it up gingerly from under the snarling nose of The Ghost, who began to back slowly toward the door. No sooner had Pete’s hand touched the handkerchief than he felt the stiff paper beneath. He took it out, and at once the sprawling, heavy, almost illegible handwriting of Bull stared him in the face.
“House surrounded. Fuller crooked. Break for high hill in front of house. I’m there.”
That was all. Pete, crunching the paper slowly in his hand, turned on his companion. He said nothing. He was too dazed to show even a great wonder, but Bud Fuller knew instantly that his hand had been shown in some mysterious way, and he went for his gun like a flash. In the stupefaction of the moment the hand of Pete Reeve was chained. That would have been his last battle had there not been help from another quarter, and that help came.
The telltale move of Fuller’s hand had caught the eye of the wolf from the door, and instantly he leaped. Already the gun was clear of the holster when he shot into range of Bud’s vision, and with a startled cry the latter turned and threw up his shoulder to save his throat from the fangs. His throat was saved, but the fangs of The Ghost crushed in his shoulder, and the next instant the weight of the big animal, lurching around, whirled Bud and flung him against the wall. His head struck the sill of the window, and he slipped, an inert pile, to the floor.
The Ghost released his grip and leaped back into the middle of the room, ready for a second attack.
But Pete Reeve was already at the door. To kill Bud meant a pistol shot, and a shot would be warning to the men outside. Silence was his most valuable ally now.
As he ran down the stairs The Ghost rushed by him, with paws that scratched on the floor below, and then disappeared outside the house.
Pete followed more slowly, and venturing cautiously out onto the veranda, he scanned the ground about the house. The cordon of the watchers had taken shelter here and there behind small mounds of earth, and not one was in view, not even a glint of metal from their guns. There was nothing for it save to spring from the veranda onto the saddle and send home his spurs in vague hope that he might take them by surprise before they could enter an effectual fire upon him. As he slipped toward his mount a faint voice cried from the upper part of the house: “Help! Help!”
It was Bud, regaining his senses, and his shout was what saved Pete Reeve, for it started the cordon on a run for the house, expecting to find their quarry already engaged in battle with Bud. To their amazement a figure leaped from the veranda onto a horse.
There were three men of the cordon directly before the house. Before they could halt in the middle of their run and turn their guns on the fugitive he was through their lines, riding low over the pommel of his saddle. They sent a scattered volley, which failed to bring him down, and then dropped to their knees for steady rifle work.
As they did so, a gun spoke from the hill before the house, and bullets crashed into the wall behind them. They took to shelter before they tried another shot; and by the time they were in shelter they could hear the beat of Reeve’s galloping horse, but the man himself was a shadow bobbing against the sky line over the hill.
Bull Hunter was swinging into place on Diablo as his comrade shot past him; but twenty of the black stallion’s long strides carried him to the side of Pete. He saw Reeve’s head turned toward him; but not a word was spoken, and as soon as they were beyond the next ridge of hills they turned north, away from the shack where they had lived so many months.