CHAPTER 23IT WAS AN HOUR after sunset, but there was still a lingering trace of light along the western sky. The country was much worse than it had been, chopped up with gullies, made treacherous by potholes. Ahead, hardly a couple of miles, the range of hills which Lefty James had mentioned showed against the still-light sky, and the trail wove in and out, seeming at times to loop back on itself.
Their first warning was a shot. The bullet, fired from a high bank to the left, screamed out over their heads. Sandson, in the lead, halted his horse, holding the nervous animal motionless as he stared at the distant bluff.
“Who is it?”
“You know who it is!” Que Layton’s voice rolled down to them like thunder. “I’ve got fifty guns covering you! Ride back!”.
Several of the men had pushed up ar
