As Andrew went down the stairs and through the entrance hall he noticed
it was filled with armed men. At the door he paused for the least
fraction of a second, and during that breathing space he had seen every
face in the room. Then he walked carelessly across to the desk and asked
for his bill.
Someone, as he crossed the room, whirled to follow him with a glance.
Andy heard, for his ears were sharpened: "I thought for a minute--But it
does look like him!"
"Aw, Mike, I seen that gent in the barroom the other day. Besides, he's
just a kid."
"So's this Lanning. I'm going out to look at the poster again. You hold
this gent here."
"All right. I'll talk to him while you're gone. But be quick. I'll be
holdin' a laugh for you, Mike."
Andrew paid his bill, but as he reached the door a short man with legs
bowed by a life in the saddle waddled out to him and said: "Just a
minute, partner. Are you one of us?"
"One of who?" asked Andrew.
"One of the posse Hal is getting together? Well, come to think of it, I
guess you're a stranger around here, ain't you?"
"Me?" asked Andrew. "Why, I've just been talking to Hal."
"About young Lanning?"
"Yes."
"By the way, if you're out of Hal's country, maybe you know Lanning,
too?"
"Sure. I've stood as close to him as I am to you."
"You don't say so! What sort of a looking fellow is he?"
"Well, I'll tell you," said Andrew, and he smiled in an embarrassed
manner. "They say he's a ringer for me. Not much of a compliment,
is it?"
The other gasped, and then laughed heartily. "No, it ain't, at that," he
replied. "Say, I got a pal that wants to talk to you. Sort of a job on
him, at that."
"I'll tell you what," said Andy calmly. "Take him in to the bar, and
I'll come in and have a drink with him and you in about two
minutes. S'long."
He was gone through the door while the other half reached a hand toward
him. But that was all.
In the stables he had the saddle on the chestnut in twenty seconds, and
brought him to the watering trough before the barroom.
He found his short, bow-legged friend in the barroom in the midst of
excited talk with a big, blond man. He looked a German, with his parted
beard and his imposing front and he had the stern blue eye of a fighter.
"Is this your friend?" asked Andrew, and walked straight up to them. He
watched the eyes of the big man expand and then narrow; his hand even
fumbled at his hip, but then he shook his head. He was too bewildered
to act.
At that moment there was an uproar from the upper part of the hotel.
With a casual wave of his hand, Andy wandered out of the barroom and
then raced for the street. He heard men shouting in the lobby.
A fighting mass jammed its way into the open, and there, in the middle
of the square, sat Hal Dozier on his gray stallion. He was giving orders
in a voice that rang above the crowd, and made voices hush in whispers
as they heard him. Under his direction the crowd split into groups of
four and five and six and rode at full speed in three directions out of
the town. In the meantime there were two trusted friends of Hal Dozier
busy at telephones in the hotel. They were calling little towns among
the mountains. The red alarm was spreading like wildfire, and faster
than the fastest horse could gallop.
But Andrew, with the chestnut running like a red flash beneath him, had
vanished.
Buried away in the mountains, one stiff day's march, was a trapper whom
Uncle Jasper had once befriended. That was many a day long since, but
Uncle Jasper had saved the man's life, and he had often told Andrew
that, sooner or later, he must come to that trapper's cabin to talk of
the old times.
He was bound there now. For, if he could get shelter for three days, the
hue and cry would subside. When the mountaineers were certain that he
must have gone past them to other places and slipped through their
greedy fingers he could ride on in comparative safety. It was an
excellent plan. It gave Andrew such a sense of safety, as he trotted the
chestnut up a steep grade, that he did not hear another horse, coming in
the opposite direction, until the latter was almost upon him. Then,
coming about a sharp shoulder of the hill, he almost ran upon a
bare-legged boy, who rode without saddle upon the back of a bay mare.
The mare leaped catlike to one side, and her little rider clung like a
piece of her hide. "You might holler, comin' around a turn," shrilled
the boy. And he brought the mare to a halt by jerking the rope around
her neck. He had no other means of guiding her, no sign of a bridle.
But Andrew looked with hungry eyes. He knew something of horses, and
this bay fitted into his dreams of an ideal perfectly. She was
beautiful, quite heavily built in the body, with a great spread of
breast that surely told of an honest heart beneath a glorious head, legs
that fairly shouted to Andrew of good blood, and, above all, she had
that indescribable thing which is to a horse what personality is to a
man. She did not win admiration, she commanded it. And she stood alert
at the side of the road, looking at Andrew like a queen. Horse stealing
is the cardinal sin in the mountain desert, but Andrew felt the moment
he saw her that she must be his. At least he would first try to buy her
honorably.
"Son," he said to the urchin, "how much for that horse?"
"Why," said the boy, "anything you'll give."
"Don't laugh at me," said Andrew sternly. "I like her looks and I'll buy
her. I'll trade this chestnut--and he's a fine traveler--with a good
price to boot. If your father lives up the road and not down, turn back
with me and I'll see if I can't make a trade."
"You don't have to see him," said the boy. "I can tell you that he'll
sell her. You throw in the chestnut and you won't have to give any
boot." And he grinned.
"But there's the house." He pointed across the ravine at a little
green-roofed shack buried in the rocks. "You can come over if you
want to."
"Is there something wrong with her?"
"Nothin' much. Pop says she's the best hoss that ever run in these
parts. And he knows, I'll tell a man!"
"Son, I've got to have that horse!"
"Mister," said the boy suddenly, "I know how you feel. Lots feel the
same way. You want her bad, but she ain't worth her feed. A skunk put a
bur under the saddle when she was bein' broke, and since then anybody
can ride her bareback, but nothin' in the mountains can sit a saddle
on her."
Andrew cast one more long, sad look at the horse. He had never seen a
horse that went so straight to his heart, and then he straightened the
chestnut up the road and went ahead.