et
watching, the tumult grew in his mind. He was afraid. He was mortally
in terror of something more than physical death, and, like the cornered
rat, he felt a sudden urge to go out and meet the danger halfway. A
dozen pictures came to him of Sinclair slipping into the town under
cover of the night, of the stealthy approach, of the gunplay that would
follow. Why not take the desperate chance of going out to find the
assailant and take him by surprise instead?

The mountains--that was the country of Sinclair. Instinctively his eye
fell and clung on the greatest height he could see, a flat-topped
mountain due west of Sour Creek. Sandersen swung into his saddle and
drove out of Sour Creek toward the goal and into the deepening gloom of
the evening.

22

In the darkness beneath the north windows of the hotel, Sinclair
consulted his watch, holding it close until he could make out the dim
position of the hands against the white dial. It was too early for
Cartwright to be in bed, unless he were a very long sleeper. So
Sinclair waited.

A continual danger lay beside him. The kitchen door constantly banged
open and shut, as the Chinese cook trotted out and back, carrying
scraps to the waste barrel, or bringing his new-washing tins to hang on
a rack in the open air, a resource on which he was forced to fall back
on account of his cramped quarters.

But the cook never left the bright shaft of light which fell through
the doorway behind and above him, and consequently he could not see
into the thick darkness where Sinclair crouched only a few yards away;
and the cowpuncher remained moveless. From time to time he looked up,
and still the windows were black.

After what seemed an eternity, there was a flicker, as when the wick of
a lamp is lighted, and then a steady glow as the chimney was put on
again. That glow brightened, decreased, became an unchanging light. The
wick had been trimmed, and Cartwright was in for the evening.

However, the cook had not ceased his pilgrimages. At the very moment
when Sinclair had straightened to attempt the climb up the side of the
house, the cook came out and crouched on the upper step, humming a
jangling tune and sucking audibly a long-stemmed pipe. The
queer-smelling smoke drifted across to Sinclair; for a moment he was on
the verge of attempting a quick leap and a tying and gagging of the
Oriental, but he desisted.

Instead, Sinclair flattened himself against the wall and wait