Matt’s eyes narrowed. It was still too new a trail to have been made in daylight, so that meant that Bain could not have been looking back over his own trail. He would know he could not be followed until daylight made his tracks visible. What then had he been looking at?
It had to be a fire. Nothing else would have been visible at that distance, at night. Yet what distance? Where had the fire been? Suddenly, Matt recalled the light wagon and the two men who had been following the train, the two men he suspected Tolliver of knowing. Were they instead, friends of Bain?
Bain had remained here for some time, watching that fire. Three cigarette stubs lay on the ground among the rocks. Bain had been in Texas and like most of the men who had picked up cigarette smoking from across the border, he had. Anyway, the butts were fresh and had obviously lain there but a short time.
From the position of the stubs, Matt deduced the approximate location of the fire Abel Bain must have watched. Mounting once more, he started out over the prairie, riding back and forth to find that fire.
He found it a half mile from the rocks. A few charred bits of wood and some still smouldering buffalo chips. Nearby were the narrow wheel tracks of the light wagon, and the tracks of the mules. There were the tracks of three persons, but those of the last man, and Bardoul recognized them as the tracks he had followed from the rim, were those of Abel Bain.
Had Bain come to the fire during the night? Or the following morning?
The wagon had moved out, probably at daybreak. Scouting the area carefully, Bardoul could find no way of determining whether Abel Bain had stayed with the wagon or gone on, for here a number of tracks merged, part of them being the trail left by one column of wagons on the previous day.
Disgusted, he rode his horse under cover of some trees and rested, after loosening the cinch and removing the bit from the dun’s mouth. After an hour, he mounted and started on the trail of the wagons, moving very cautiously now.
If Bain was with that wagon, he would most certainly be keeping a sharp lookout, and if he was not, he might be trailing it at a safe distance.
Here was a confusing situation. Who were the two men in the light wagon? Were they friends of Tolliver? If so, what was Bain’s connection with them? And if Tolliver’s friends, why had not the young mountaineer approached him on the subject of their joining his company?
The trail now was following the Belle Fourche, and within a short time, Matt came within sight of the wagon train. The long hill ahead was a hard pull, but apparently the system adopted by Murphy at his suggestion was being followed by both Coyle and Reutz, for he could see most of them were doubling their teams for the long haul. Yet the absence of the light wagon worried him. Somehow he had missed it, and the wagon must have been concealed in the brakes near the river.
For a time he debated returning to search the wagon out, then decided to wait, riding back to his own company.
They had surmounted the hill. Barney Coyle was there, sitting his horse near Murphy, and his face broke into a grin as he saw Matt. “Find him?”
Bardoul shook his head. He took out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his face. “No.” He offered no explanation except to add that he was quite sure where he was.
Later, beside Tolliver’s wagon, he said casually, “You ever know Bain before?”
Tolliver glanced up, surprised. “Me? No, I never knowed him. I ain’t been in this country no great time.”
Bardoul looked at him searchingly. If ever a man seemed without guile it was Tolliver. Yet he was connected in some way, Matt was sure, with the wagon trailing them.
When the column was lined out again … they followed a route a little to the right of the company ahead … he rode up alongside Murphy.
“We’ll make a long dry trip of it tomorrow unless he swings closer to the river,” Murphy suggested.
“I think he’ll change course a little. It looks to me like he was going to go north again, but that will leave the river to cross, maybe several times if we hold the route I think he’s figuring on.”
Colonel Pearson and Massey both avoided him, remaining away from the train. Once, he saw Jacquine. The girl was riding with Barney, and when they drew near him she rode closer.
“How is your shoulder?” she asked. It was impossible to tell whether she was really concerned or merely being polite.
“All right,” he said, “it wasn’t much. Just cut the skin.”
“Do you think it was somebody shooting at you?”
“Sure, and he made a good shot of it, too. I turned in my saddle just then or he would have had me. I must have been outlined against the sky, and he could hear my voice from where I sat.”
“Do you think it was Bain?” Barney wanted to know.
“I’m sure of it. I trailed him a good distance. I think I know where he is.”
“In the train?” Jacquine asked quickly. Matt thought he detected a little worry in her voice.
“Not exactly.” He avoided the subject, not wanting to go on with it.
“Has your father said anything more about the route?” he asked Barney.
The younger Coyle shrugged. “No, he hasn’t said much. I believe the general trend is northwest, however. Around the northern end of the mountains and then south to this Shell Creek.”
They forded the Belle Fourche three times during the day, and then turned into an abandoned Indian trail which led to a vacant Indian camp, only recently abandoned. Despite the long hill the wagons had done well, and they made eighteen miles more.
Matt saw supper started, and then he swung into the saddle and headed off along the wagon trail. Just before he dropped over the crest toward the river bottom he saw a horseman cut out from the wagon tram and start after him. His jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed with thought. It looked like Tolliver’s horse.
He smelled the smoke of a fire before he came up with the wagon. Instantly, he swung down, and loosening his guns in his holsters, he started moving carefully through the brush, leaving his horse standing. When he drew nearer, he heard voices. For an instant, he froze in place, sure that one of them was a woman. Then when they spoke again, he was sure he was mistaken.
The wagon had been drawn up in the trees near the stream, and one of the two men was bending over a fire. The other was gathering sticks. Seated on the ground, his back against a wheel, was Abel Bain.
Huge, hairy, and dirty, he lounged there with a rifle across his lap. His shirt was bloodstained, but from all appearances Matt’s shot had done no more damage, except in loss of blood, than Bain’s own bullet. His face bore the marks of the beating Bardoul had given him. There was a deep cut over one eye, and a blue swelling, two fingers wide, under the other. His lips were puffed and swollen, but there was a deep cut visible on one of them.
“Hey! You by the fire! Come over here!” Bain called abruptly.
Bardoul noticed the man picking up wood had straightened and turned toward Bain. Matt noticed that he wore no gun. From the look of things, Abel Bain was an uninvited guest.
The boy by the fire had not moved.
“Come here, I said!” Bain roared. Matt eased closer under cover of Bain’s diverted attention. He glanced quickly at the other fellow, and could see his face was white and tense.
The boy started a few steps toward Bain, then stopped. Bain got to his feet and put the rifle down. He stared hard at the boy. “Hell!” he exploded suddenly. “You don’t look like no boy! I think you’re a girl! Come here!”
“Don’t go!”
The man nearer Matt spoke sharply. “Don’t go any nearer!”
Bain turned and glared at him. “Keepin’ her all for yourself, huh?” he said. “Purty smart, dressin” her like a man! Well, by… !”
The remark lost itself for Abel Bain was face to face with death. He had shifted his eyes to see Matt Bardoul standing just on the edge of the brush, feet apart, facing him.
Bain’s face lost the sudden look of triumph. He looked now like a trapped wolf, but one still full of viciousness and fight. He crouched a little. “So you trailed me, huh? I was a watchin’ for you!”