Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

tA to be hot on the trail of the old reprchate, but had been tricked again. Shanghai had left his companion to pay the price of his own escape, and, to make matters worse, had shot him instead of the deputy. Then he had left a faint streamer of dust to thin out in the air, and continued his flight. Mesquite turned from contemplation of the smoke columns, wheeled his horse, and pushed westward to find the tracks of the cunning fugitive, and to stick to them to a showdown. He located them easily, read that the fugitive was pressing his horse and depending on speed; and, risking a shot from ambush, the deputy followed, at times circling around clumps of brush and other cover which might contain a marksman. All that day he followed, studying not so much the tracks before his eyes as the gen- eral lay of the country; and every point was referred by him to the location of Split Top Mountain, which he believed to be the principal point of rendezvous. When twi- light deepened and made him reluctantly cease his trailing, he found a deep ravine where the light of his fire would not show, cooked a hurried supper, put out the fire, and rode a mile farther through the dark- ness before he was satisfied to picket the horse and roll up in his blankets. Dawn found him stamping out the breakiast fire, and the first rays of the sun warmed his back as he rode once more along the trail he was following. The forest growth grew steadily sparser, and the country was becoming more and -more broken by steep, low hills. He no- ticed that the trail was bearing steadily toward the south, gradually describing a circle; and more than that, it was taking on a peculiar characteristic. It led him time after time along the end of a ridge, to swing sharply up the farther side until within a few yards of the sum- mit: here it ran level for varying distances, then went down again, across the flats, and repeated the whole thing at the next ridge or hill. The tracks still indicated that the maker was pushing rapidly on, except where they led under the tops of the shel- tering ridges; and there the fugitive had slowed, and in some places had stopped al- together. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, Mesquite grinned, and then laughed aloud at the significance of this. He was not old in years, but he was richly endowed with the lore of the plainsman, thanks to the teachings of his father and to his own love for the study. He could picture the iugitive, doubling back to his friends, or to some agreed-upon rendezvous, working out this phase of his trail; he could see the old fox streaking across the low-lying level stretches toward the upper end of the next ridge or hill, around this, up the farther slope, and slowing as he neared the top. He could picture Shanghai riding hatless under the summit, now and then standing up in his stirrups to peer over it for a glimpse of his back trail; and occasionally checking his horse for a more careful study of the country he had just passed over. The fox was getting ready to play the réle of a more combative animal, to strike unex- pectedly against the persistent follower. Mesquite enjoyed this phase of the game and rede on at the same steady lope; but he was careful to estimate distance in the terms of rifle-range, and not to pass or ap- proach the ridges too closely. Imagination is a great gift, bestowing riches on its owner. With nothing to think about except that little matter of distance and the plain tracks before him, Mesquite put himself in the place of the fugitive. The constant repetition of this common trail trick was calculated to put a man’s mind in one groove, to center thought on the menace of the trick itself, and to make a pursuer careless, in time, of other things. It plainly indicated one danger and tended to discount caution in other perils. Mes- quite, enjoying his rdle as pursuer, found more enjoyment in assuming the role of the pursued, and cast about in his mind for ways to baffle pursuit, or to render it deadly. Suddenly he was struck by a thought that made him pull up involuntarily, scan the comparatively level plain between two ridges, and freeze from the intensity of his thoughts. For several moments he sat rigid in his saddle and then, with a profane ejacu- lation, turned abruptly from the innocent- looking trail to ride at right angles to it, along the front of the next ridge. CoOMmicbooolk< CO