Over On The Dry Side by Louis L'amour

Author:Louis L'amour
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10.

OWEN CHANTRY RODE his black horse north. Too much time would be lost in returning to the Kernohans to tell them of his intentions. It was better that he didn’t. It would be just like Doby to try to follow, and Owen wanted no interference. Big country it was, a vast and empty country.

He rode due east as the country would allow until he struck a north-south trail, the one he had first followed to the cabin on the rampart. Now he turned north. Frank’s tracks were in the trail dust, and Owen rode swiftly, noting by the tracks that Frank had also traveled fast.

Chantry was riding into enemy country, so he carried his rifle in his hand, ready for action—or, if need be, to leave the horse and take to the timber.

The tracks of another horse came off the mesa north of the box canyon and cut into the trail. This rider, whoever he was, had been just ahead of Frank.

The air was cool and very clear. During a pause to study the trail ahead, Chantry took a deep, long breath of the fresh mountain air. Judging by the growth about him, he must be almost ten thousand feet up.

High overhead, an eagle circled against the blue. In the distance thunder rumbled . . . the usual afternoon rain shower would be coming. Lightning hurled its flashing lance against the darker clouds. His black moved on, of its own volition, and Chantry let the gelding go, ears pricked, aware of its rider’s alertness.

He shifted the rifle in his hands. The trail he now rode was fresh.

The trail forked suddenly, and Chantry drew up. The trail dipped down and crossed a shallow river. The water was clear and cold, running swiftly over and among the rocks. He crossed over and went up the far bank. He rode up the trail, studying the tracks.

Five horses . . . and one that held to the outside of the trail, the prints clearly visible in the grass and wild flowers. He had seen the tracks of Marny’s horse before, and he believed he was looking at them again.

He moved swiftly, deeply worried now. He was in the bottom of the canyon, which at this point was close to a half mile wide. He forded another creek coming down from the high country and went up the canyon wall through a gap where the wall had fallen back from its usual line and was somewhat lower.

Suddenly the tracks changed. For an hour, Chantry examined them. All the horses had started to run. How long ago? An hour? Two hours? Longer, surely, than that. Apparently the rider of the first horse, the outside one, which he believed had been Marny, had sighted her pursuers and broken into a run. At a dead run, she had ridden a twisted, winding trail down through the trees toward a large clearing, and here and there her horse had actually leaped over deadfalls. Then, suddenly, at the crossing

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