The Mountain Fugitive by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2013-05-23T22:00:00+00:00

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XV. — IN HIDING

By this time, I despaired of getting any headway toward a safe flight until I was better acquainted with that country. It was far too bewildering. I never could tell from what direction men might be riding toward me. I did not know which were blind trails and which were well-traveled ones. I did not know the difficulties of short cuts or the advantages of them. In fact, I knew nothing except that I was tossed down in a ragged ocean of mountains. In the meantime, I would have to get my bearings and establish some sort of a mental chart of my surroundings.

There was sure to be a frightful stir. Such a man as Lawton, impatient and bold and strong and sure of himself, would go almost mad with the reflection that a youngster such as I had stopped him, shot down two of his men, and then bearded the villagers in his town a scant mile or two away!

He would make enough trouble to occupy the attention of an army, to say nothing of the fuss that the men of the town might make, because I had had the impudence to go into their town in broad daylight.

The fact was that I had had no intention of doing a dare-devil thing. Even after the sheriff had recognized me, I did not feel that every other man would be able to do so. I had felt quite secure during that adventure. But now I saw that I would be known instantly wherever I appeared.

All of this was enough to make me decide to lie as low as possible for a time until, by quiet excursions here and there, I had mapped the country for myself. But where was I to hide?

I had never forgotten how my father had hidden a book from me when he did not wish me to read it. He simply put it on a shelf in plain sight—except that the back was to the wall. I combed the house from top to bottom and hunted in every closet, through every old trunk in the attic, through every nook of the cellar. But it was six months before I found that volume—by purest accident.

I decided that I should do the same thing with the sheriff. Wits I could not match against him. I felt that the coolest place for me would be on the very edge of the danger itself! So I went right back up the creek until I saw the peaked roof of his house to my left. Then I rode up a trail where the path came down to a ford, so that the prints of my horse would be lost in a tangle of other signs.

In a hundred yards I dipped to the right into a thick wooded place. When I came to the first clearing I decided that this would have to be my home. There was forage here for my mare. I had my blankets and food.

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