man
thet done hit--an' ther reason, too. I reckon hit'll profit ye better
ter go on bein' friends with me."

Again long silence, then grudgingly the murderer-elect rose to his feet
and nodded reluctant assent.

"So be it," he grumbled. "I gives ye my hand ter deaden him whensoever
ye says ther word. But afore we parts company let's talk ther matter
over a leetle more. I wouldn't love ter hev ye censure me for makin' no
error."

"Ther main thing," came the instruction of the employer, "air this: I
wants ter be able ter get ye quick an' hev ye ack quick--ef so be I
needs ye, no matter when that be."

CHAPTER VII

When Cal Maggard closed and locked his cabin door late the next
afternoon he stood regarding with sombre eyes his message of defiance
which, it seemed, no one had come to read.

Yet, as he turned his back a smile replaced the scowl, for he was going
to see a girl.

At the bend where the trail crossed the shallow creek, and a stray
razor-back wallowed at the roadside, Maggard saw a figure leaning
indolently against the fence.

"I suspicioned ye'd be right likely ter happen along erbout this time,"
enlightened Bas Rowlett as he waved his hand in greeting. "So I 'lowed
I'd tarry an' santer along with ye."

"I'm beholden ter ye," responded Maggard, but he knew what the other had
been too polite to say: That this pretended casualness marked the kindly
motive of affording escort because of the danger under which he himself
was travelling unfamiliar roads.

Over the crests heavy banks of clouds were settling in ominous piles of
blackness and lying still-heaped in the breathlessness that precedes a
tempest, but the sun still shone and Rowlett who was leading the way
turned into a forest trail.

As they went, single file, through a gorge into which the sun never
struck save from the zenith; where the ferns grew lush and the great
leaves of the "cucumber tree" hung motionless, they halted without a
word and a comprehending glance shot between them.

When two setters, trained to perfect team work, come unexpectedly upon
the quail scent in stubble, that one which first catches the
nostril-warning becomes rigid as though a breath had petrified him--and
at once his fellow drops to the stiff posture of accord.

So now, as if one hand had pulled two strings, Cal Maggard and Bas
Rowlett ceased to be upright animals. The sound of a crackled twig off
to the right had come to their ears, and it was a sound