"Sure; looks like the half of a pear. He said it was powder under the
skin."
A new look of reviving determination swept into Hampton's gloomy
eyes--beyond doubt this must be his man.
"How many horses did he have?"
"Two."
"Did you overhear him say anything definite about his plans for the
trip?"
"What, him? He never talks, that fellow. He can't do nothing but
sputter if he tries. But I wrote out his orders, and they give him to
the twenty-fifth to make the Big Horn. That's maybe something like
fifty miles a day, and he's most likely to keep his horses fresh just
as long as possible, so as to be good for the last spurt through the
hostile country. That's how I figure it, and I know something about
scouting. You was n't planning to strike out after him, was you?"
"I might risk it if I only thought I could overtake him within two
days; my business is of some importance."
"Well, stranger, I should reckon you might do that with a dog-gone good
outfit. Murphy 's sure to take things pretty easy to-day, and he's
almost certain to follow the old mining trail as far as the ford over
the Belle Fourche, and that's plain enough to travel. Beyond that
point the devil only knows where he will go, for then is when his hard
ridin' begins."
The moment the operator mentioned that odd scar on Murphy's hand, every
vestige of hesitation vanished. Beyond any possibility of doubt he was
on the right scent this time. Murphy was riding north upon a mission
as desperate as ever man was called upon to perform. The chance of his
coming forth alive from that Indian-haunted land was, as the operator
truthfully said, barely one out of a hundred. Hampton thought of this.
He durst not venture all he was so earnestly striving after--love,
reputation, honor--to the chance of a stray Sioux bullet. No! and he
remembered Naida again, her dark, pleading eyes searching his face. To
the end, to the death if need were, he would follow!
The memory of his old plains craft would not permit any neglect of the
few necessaries for the trip. He bought without haggling over prices,
but insisted on the best. So it was four in the afternoon when he
finally struck into the trail leading northward. This proved at first
a broad, plainly marked path, across the alkali plain. He rode a
mettlesome, half-broken bronco, a wicked-eyed brute, which required to
be conquered twice within the first hour of travel; a second and more
quiet animal trailed behind at the end of a lariat, bearing the
necessary equipment. Hampton forced the two into a rapid lope,
striving to make the most possible out of the narrow margin of daylight
remaining.