Scott awoke in the morning with a feeling of expectancy like a boy who has promised himself when he went to sleep that he would go fishing at four o’clock. He lay there drowsily for a moment watching the western peaks catch fire from the rays of the rising sun, and wondering vaguely what it was that he was going to do. His eyes rested for an instant on the telephone and he sat up with a jerk, awake to the situation.
He looked cautiously out over the dam and the ca?on trail. It was not likely that Dawson would come so early in the morning. He did not know that Scott knew anything of his attempt to shoot him at the cabin and had no reason to believe that he would be expected at the dam. So there was no reason why he should come so early, but Scott intended to be prepared for him. He bridled Jed and led him over to the side of the meadow farthest from the trail and tied him back of a large clump of willows. He hid the saddle in a thicket near the trail.
He cooked his breakfast in the open with the receiver to his ear for he suspected that Baxter was on the lookout down below and might try to warn him. He was not nervous and excited as he had been that night at his own cabin, because he knew what was coming and felt prepared for it. Moreover, it was daylight and he was located so that he could see the only road of approach for some distance. There was no chance for an unexpected shot from an unseen foe.
It would have been easy enough to sneak back into the hills. He could elude an army up there among those crags where he had climbed the day before. But what good would it do? He could not wipe out the traces of his presence at the dam, he could not even make it appear that he had finished his business and left. He had made but a one way trail in the ca?on and it would be an easy matter to find Jed even if he was hidden from sight.
No, there was nothing to gain by taking to the hills. He had been hunted long enough. He would stay and fight it out. He realized that being unarmed he would be at a tremendous disadvantage, but he thought he could manage it if he had the chance to plan the meeting as he wanted it. It was a desperate chance, but after his past experience he felt that no chance would be too desperate to escape becoming a hunted creature again, uncertain what danger might be threatening him next. He planned just what he would do in every contingency he could think of and had worked out everything so nearly to his own satisfaction that he was not in the least rattled when the telephone rang his own call at his district headquarters. He answered it promptly.
“This is Baxter. Benny reported Dawson going your way at nine-thirty. Somebody must have spilled the beans. Are you ready for him?”
“Sure,” Scott answered with even more confidence than he really felt.
“Good. Then go to it. So long.”
Scott took off his head gear and laid it aside. He glanced at his watch. It was ten fifteen. His visitor ought to arrive about eleven-thirty or possibly a little earlier if he was in a hurry. Scott went carefully over his plans once more to see if he could think of anything that he had overlooked. Then he settled down to watch the trail.
He was not at all nervous. He was waiting for something definite; he knew what it was, where it was coming from, and approximately when it would arrive. Moreover, he felt prepared to meet it. There was the same tense feeling of expectancy that he had often experienced when he was waiting for the opening of a boxing match, but no nervous shivers and no trace of fear.
It was a beautiful day. There were a few small clouds high up and moving slowly that cast a patch of shadow here and there on the broad landscape, but for the most part the sun shone brightly. A strange day Scott thought for a man to start out to commit a murder. Murders had always been associated with storms in the books he had read, and it was hard for him to think seriously of it on such a day as this. As the sun rose higher the little streamlets on the other side of the reservoir began to increase in volume and babble a little louder. All seemed peaceful. There was no place in that valley for strife and violence; and yet he knew that every tick of the watch was bringing it nearer.
His eye followed the shadow of a cloud slowly up the ca?on slope till it disappeared over the ridge. When he looked back at the trail there was a horseman in full view. It did not startle him; it was what he had been waiting for, and he had a feeling of real satisfaction when he recognized Dawson. It would take him ten minutes more to arrive and he could watch him for at least half of that time.
Dawson did not act like a man who was bent on murder, at least he did not act as Dugan had that night at the cabin, and that was the only real experience that Scott had had. He was riding along the middle of the trail as he had always ridden about his work, with no pretense at secrecy and no attempt at silence. On he came in broad daylight as openly as he would have ridden to a wedding. Already the clatter of his horse’s iron-clad hoofs on the loose stones of the trail was plainly audible. Surely this man could be on no business of which he was ashamed.
When horse and rider disappeared in a willow thicket just beyond the lower end of the pasture Scott stepped quickly from his hiding place and took up his position behind a large rock which lay near the cabin and close beside the trail. He had no idea of avoiding this man, but he wanted to pick his own meeting place and have him within easy reach of his hand when he was discovered. Only in that way could he hope to have a fair chance with that revolver. He could see through a screen of brushes beside the rock and watch his visitor after he entered the meadow.
The horse stopped on the edge of the meadow and breathed in the smell of the lush grass with deep noisy breaths through wide distended nostrils. It was something to which he was little accustomed. The delay seemed to suit the master’s mood. He sat idly in his saddle, apparently fascinated as Scott had been by the grandeur and peaceful beauty of the scene.
His eyes were not searching the cabin and the immediate vicinity for a hunted man. He was gazing dreamily back into those encircling peaks and rugged, picturesque ca?ons. Even at that distance Scott could see a pensive sadness in his expression. Any one who had ever had business dealings with him in the past would have been amazed to know that at that moment he would have been willing to trade all his ill gotten gains to be freed from the burden of his crimes and be able to roam those mountains once again as an honest man. He loved those barren peaks and rocky ca?ons. He knew every rock and tree and bunch of grass in all that countryside. They had been his life. And now he realized too late that he had risked and maybe lost it all for the sake of something he did not need.
He sat still so long that even his horse stopped cropping the luscious grass and turned his head to look at him inquiringly. Scott, too, was becoming uneasy. Could he have anything to fear from a man who gazed at the beauty of the hills like that? It did not seem possible, but he could not afford to take any chances and determined to be on his guard just as he had planned.
Dawson seemed to be coming slowly to himself. He had been dreaming of what might have been. He was more of a sentimentalist than even his friends had ever realized but was also somewhat of a philosopher. What was gone was gone and he must make the best of what was left. Nor would he let any one interfere with his success. The dreamy pensive look was gone now and in its place was the gleam of a hard determination which had made men say that when Dawson wanted anything bad enough he always got it.
He looked sharply about him, shook himself together and rode straight across the meadow to the foot of the dam. He dismounted and climbed the foot trail which led up past the end of the cabin. Scott tried to forget the man he had seen a moment before. He thought only of the look of hatred that this man had given him when he had accused him by the valley cliffs, and that he was the self-confessed companion of Dugan on that horrible night visit to the cabin. He thought of that man and waited for him with every sense alive to the danger of the situation, and prepared for immediate action.
Dawson came on straight up the trail and headed for the cabin without the slightest hesitation. Whatever might be his own intentions he did not seem to have the slightest misgiving about the other fellow’s. When he passed the big rock Scott stepped quickly into the trail immediately behind him.
“Looking for me?” he asked sharply. He was ready to spring upon the man at the first sign of a hostile move.
Dawson turned quickly. “So there you are,” he ............