The ranger nodded.
“He’s traveling light and fast, and he knows the mountains,” the sheriff went on. “He can move as silent as a cat, and he’s broken into a cabin and stolen a few provisions and a rifle.”
“A rifle?” Olney asked.
“Sure,” the sheriff told him. “Come on over here and I’ll show you.”
In the fading light, the sheriff took the ranger back to the place where a pine tree was growing straight and slim within some twenty feet of the place where the fire had been made.
“He put the rifle down here,” Bill Eldon said, “while he was cutting the branches for his bed. You can see where the butt of the rifle rested in the ground. Now, John, just as sure as shooting that was after it had quit raining. You can still see the little cross-checks from the shoulder plate on the stock. The ground was soft and — well, that’s the way it is.”
“You don’t suppose he could have made camp before it started to rain and then put the rifle here while he was getting breakfast, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” Eldon said. “This is the place where he would naturally have propped the rifle while he was getting those fir boughs. It’s just about the right distance from the fire and a nice place to stand the rifle. When he was getting breakfast he’d let the fire get down to coals — of course, he could have had the canned beans for supper instead of breakfast. Anyhow, it was after it’d quit raining. I’ve had a hunch he made this camp after the rain had quit.
“Now, the rain didn’t quit until after dark. A man wouldn’t have blundered onto this little spring here in the dark, particularly on a rainy night. No, John, this is some fellow that not only knows the mountains, but he knows this particular section of the country. He’s able to move around pretty well at night and when he left here early this morning he was smart enough to try and cover his tracks as much as possible. You see, he took off up that rocky ridge. My best guess is he kept to the rocks and the timber all day and kept holed up where he could watch, while he was waiting for dark.”
The sheriff pursed his lips thoughtfully, looked at the streak of fading daylight over the Western mountains, said, “He’s probably trying to get out of the mountains. But there just ain’t any telling just what he has in mind. If he’s the one that killed the detective, he planted that evidence by Ames’ cabin. He might be intending to do another job or two before he gets out of the mountains — and he may be sort of hard to stop. Let’s see if we can look around a bit before it gets slap dark.”
The men reined their horses down the trail. Suddenly, Bill Eldon pulled up and urged his horse into the fringe of light brush. “Take a look at that, John.”
The ranger peered down at a light-brown pile on the ground. “That’s the beans,” he said in astonishment.
Eldon nodded.
“Why did he open a can of beans, cook ’em over a campfire and then dump ’em all out?” the ranger asked.
Bill Eldon considered that question for a space of seconds, then said, “There has to be only one answer, John. He didn’t want to cat ’em.”
“But why?”
Bill Eldon touched the reins. “Now,” the sheriff said, “we know where we’re going. But we’re going to have to sort of wait around after we get there, until this man we want makes the first move. Come on, John.”
Trying her best to make time, Roberta fled down the trail. Her lungs were laboring, her heart pounding, and the trail pulled at her feet, making each step an individual effort.
She realized this man behind her was not trying to catch her. He was running slowly, methodically, as though following some preconceived plan.
Roberta tried once more to scream, but her call for help sounded faint and puny, even to her own ears.
Her heavy feet failed to clear an outcropping of rock. She stumbled, tried in vain to catch herself, threw out her arms and at exactly that moment heard behind her the vicious crack of a rifle.
The wind made by the bullet fanned her hair as she went down in a huddled heap on the trail. Lying prone, she simply lacked the strength to struggle back to her feet. She knew that the man behind her could reach her long before she could get up, and this dispiriting knowledge drained the last of her strength.
She heard Frank Ames’ voice saying, “Drop that gun,” then the sound of another rifle crack arousing echoes through the mountain canyon.
Roberta got to her hands and knees, and seemed unable to get the strength to rise to her feet.
She heard Frank Ames saying, “Darling, are you all right? You’re not hurt? He didn’t get you?”
She heard voices from the direction of the camp, saw flashlights sending beams which crisscrossed in confusion, making lighted patches on the boulders and the pine trees.
She turned from her knees to a sitting position, laughed nervously, and felt a touch of hysteria in the laugh. She tried to talk, but was only able to say gaspingly,
“I’m — all right.”
She saw Frank Ames standing rigid, watchful, dimly silhouetted against a patch of starlit forest, then off to the left she saw an orange-red spit of flame, and another shot aroused reverberating echoes from the peaks. The bullet struck a tree within inches of Frank Ames’ head, and even in the dim gray of starlight, Roberta could see the swift streak on the trunk of the pine tree where the bullet ripped aside the bark.
Ames merely stood more closely behind the tree, his rifle at ready.
“Keep down, Roberta,” he warned, without even turning to look at her.
Roberta remained seated, her head slightly back so that she could get more oxygen into her starved lungs.
Lights were coming up the trail now, a procession of winding, jiggling fireflies, blazing momentarily into brilliance as the beam of some flashlight would strike her fairly in the eyes.
Frank Ames called, “Put out the lights, folks. He’ll shoot at them.”
The rifle barked again, twice, one bullet directed at the place where Frank Ames was standing, the other at Roberta Coe, crouched on the trail. Both bullets were wide of the mark, yet close enough so the cracking pathway of the high-power bullet held vicious menace.
Roberta heard the sound of galloping horses, realized suddenly the precariousness of her position on the trail, and scrambled slightly to one side. She saw Frank Ames move, a silent, shadowy figure gliding through the trees, noticed, also, that the procession of flashlights had ceased.
The sheriff’s horse, which was in the lead, shied violently, as it saw Roberta Coe crouched by the trail. Roberta saw the swift glint of starlight from metal, heard the sheriff’s voice, hard as a whiplash, saying, “Get ’em up!”
“No, no!” Roberta gasped. “He’s back there, over to the left. He—”
The man betrayed his location by another shot, the bullet going high through the trees, the roar of the gun for a moment drowning out all other sounds. Then, while the gun echoes were still reverberating from the crags, the dropping of small branches and pine needles dislodged by the bullet sounded startlingly clear.
“What the heck’s he shooting at?” the sheriff asked.
Frank Ames said cautiously, “I’m over here, sheriff, behind this tree.”
“Swing around. Olney,” the sheriff said. “Cut off his escape. He’s up against a sheer cliff in back. We can trap him in here.”