The latter nodded. Big Hal Dunbar was turning away gloomily when Jack Hood stopped him with a signal.
“Might get down and give the hosses a spell, chief, eh?” suggested Riley to Dunbar, and the latter, receiving the wink from Jack Hood, nodded. Instantly the crew was on the ground lolling at ease.
“Been long on the trail?” asked Riley, fixing his shoulders comfortably against the trunk of a tree.
“Tolerable long,” said Sam Dugan, steady in his role of the silent man.
“Been coming down from the north, maybe?”
“Yep, coming down from the north.”
“We’re up from the south,” volunteered Riley. “My name’s Riley. This is Jack Hood.”
He named all those present. Then he paused. The challenge was too direct to be passed.
“Glad to meet you gents,” returned Sam Dugan. “My name’s Sam Saunderson, and these two are my boys, Joe and Harry.”
The latter turned and grinned at the strangers.
“You been prospecting coming down, I figure,” said Riley, glancing at the packs.
“Nothing particular,” said Sam Dugan. “Raised color a couple of times. That was all. Nothing particular much to talk about.”
“What part you start from?”
“Might say I didn’t start from nowheres; me and the boys have been traveling for so long we don’t hardly stop much anywhere.”
It was dexterous fencing, and done, withal, with such consummate ease that Riley could not tell whether the old fellow was making a fool of him or telling the truth. He shrewdly suspected the former, but pinning down Sam Dugan was like pinning down another old man of the sea. He was slippery as oil.
“Mostly mining?” he suggested.
“Oh, I dunno. Ain’t much that I ain’t turned a hand to for a spell, take it all in all.”
“But liking to follow the rocks, I guess you been around the Twin River Mines, maybe?”
“Sure, I’ve dropped by ‘em.”
“How long back?”
“Oh, long about five year back, I guess, or maybe it was only three. I dunno. Dates and things like that get out of my head pretty easy.”
“If you was there five year back, I guess you knew Jud Chalmers, maybe?”
“Guess maybe I did. Think I remember having a drink with a gent by that name.”
“The Jud Chalmers I know don’t drink,” said Riley, his eyes brightening.
“Well, well, he don’t?” said mild Sam Dugan. “Come to think about it, I guess it was a gent named Jud Chambers I had that drink with.”
“Maybe you knew Cartwright up there?”
“Cartwright? Lemme see. Well, I’ll tell you a funny story about a gent by name of Cartwright. It was back in”
Riley sighed. He had thought a moment ago that he was cornering this ragged mountaineer, but Sam Dugan had skillfully wound out of a dangerous corner and come into the clear again. It was useless to try to corner a man who told stories. It was like trying to drink all the water in a lake to get at a bright pebble on the bottom of it. After all, the man was probably entirely innocent of having seen Mary Hood. Riley gave up, and in sign that he had surrendered he rose and yawned and stretched himself.
“I guess we’re fixed, ain’t we, Joe?” asked Sam Dugan.
Jack Hood’s eye had been caught by something beneath a dry log at one side of the clearing. He crossed to it.
“All fixed,” answered Joe Dugan.
“Sorry to leave you, gents,” went on Sam Dugan. “But I’m leaving you a right good camp. Got good water over yonder, and there’s all the wood and forage an army would want. Get my hoss for me, Harry. So long, gents. Sure hope you find the girl, stranger.”
So speaking, waving genially to each of them as he passed, Sam Dugan sauntered across the clearing, leading his horse. The call of Jack Hood stopped him as he was about to disappear among the trees. He turned and saw the foreman of the Dunbar ranch standing with his hands on his hips.
“You say you ain’t seen my daughter, eh?”
“That girl you was talking about? Well?”
“How long have you been in this here camp?”
“Oh, about a day.”
“Then,” said Jack Hood, “I got to tell you that my daughter has been here, and she sure has been here inside of twenty-four hours, and she sure couldn’t of come without being seen.”
“That’s kind of hard talk, ain’t it?” said Sam Dugan, feeling that a crisis had come.
“It sure is, but it’s straight talk. Maybe you got your own reasons for not talking. I dunno what they are, but they sure ain’t any good. Here’s all the sign I want that she was here.”
And he raised a hand in which fluttered a filmy bit of white, the handkerchief of a girl.
Chapter XXX
Hot Pursuit
With a triumphant yell, Hal Dunbar shot across the clearing and caught at the handkerchief as though it had been the girl herself. Then he turned furiously on Sam Dugan.
“Now,” he said, “will you talk?”
“It kind of looks like I’d been doing a lot of lying that got me nowheres in particular,” said Sam Dugan, grinning and quite unabashed. “But still I don’t figure any particular call I got to talk. Not by a pile. So long, gents.”
But as he turned, Hal Dunbar, with a leap, barred his way. It was a hard trial for Sam Dugan. It was not the first time he had been halted, but it was the first time the rash intruder had escaped unscathed. Now the odds were too greatly against him, and though Sam Dugan loved a fight above all things in the world, he loved best of all a fight which he had a chance of winning. Moreover, he guessed shrewdly that this man alone would be more than a match for him.
“Saunderson,” said Hal Dunbar grimly, “or whatever your name is, I’ve been on this trail for a long time, and there are twenty other men riding it with me. I’m going to keep them riding till the trail comes to an end. That girl is going to be found. Why not speak up like a man and tell me what way she went?”
“You got eyes to find that trail, ain’t you?” asked Dugan savagely.
“Mind your tongue,” said Hal Dunbar, his eyes instantly on fire. “Look around at these mountains. Chopped up like the waves in a wind. I could spend a month hunting over ten square miles unless I have a lead to follow with my men.”
“That sounds like sense,” said Sam Dugan, and he spoke more kindly now. He liked the fact that the big man had not yet threatened him with the power of numbers, and he liked the big, clean look of Hal Dunbar.
A moment later he was being tempted as he had never been tempted before.
“Why do you cover her trail?” asked Dunbar.
“Because she asked me to.”
“If a runaway child of six asked you not to tell where it had gone, would you keep the promise?”
“But she’s a pile more’n six, my friend.”
“She’s not more able to take care of herself.”
“That may be true, but she’s going to one who will.”
“An outlaw,” said Hal Dunbar hotly. “A fellow she’s only seen three times. It makes me turn cold when I think about it! Suppose she marries him - though Heaven knows how they can ever get to a minister - what would come of their life? What of their children?”
This blow shook Sam Dugan to the core. Hal Dunbar followed up his advantage.
“Saunderson, if that’s your name, you’re saving that girl if you tell me how I can follow her. I’ve an idea that in certain places you may be wanted, my friend. I think that the sheriffs, any of them, would be very much interested if I brought in you and your sons. Eh?”
Dugan watched him narrowly, decided that the big fellow could do it if he wished, and then determined that he would make his last stand here, rather than be so ignominiously captured. Yet he would avoid the blow as long as he could. He was greatly relieved by the next words of Hal Dunbar.