Help had
been that close, and she had not known it, unless----
"If anything happened there last night, she could have seen it from
here," he decided, and immediately put the thought away from him.
"But nothing happened," he added, "unless maybe she saw him ride out and
go on down the road. She was out of her head and just imagined things."
He slipped the soaked purse into his coat pocket, remounted and rode on
slowly, looking for the grip and half-believing she had not been
carrying one, but had dreamed it just as she had dreamed that a man had
been shot.
He rode past the bag without seeing it, for Lorraine had thrust it far
back under a stocky bush whose scraggly branches nearly touched the
ground. So he came at last to the creek, swollen with the night's storm
so that it was swift and dangerous. Lone was turning back when John Doe
threw up his head, stared up the creek for a moment and whinnied
shrilly. Lone stood in the stirrups and looked.
A blaze-faced horse was standing a short rifle-shot away, bridled and
with an empty saddle. Whether he was tied or not Lone could not tell at
that distance, but he knew the horse by its banged forelock and its
white face and sorrel ears, and he knew the owner of the horse.
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