From the valley below a rifle cracked. Pablo slid out of his saddle
with the ease of a youth and lay flat on the ground beside the trail.
But no bullet whined up the draw or struck near him, wherefore he knew
that he was not the object of an attack; yet there was wild pounding of
his heart when the rifle spoke again and again.
The thud of hoofs smote his ear sharply, so close was he to the ground.
Slowly Pablo raised his head. Over the hog's back which separated the
draw in which Pablo lay concealed from the draw down which Don Miguel
had ridden, the gray horse came galloping--riderless--and Pablo saw the
stock of the rifle projecting from the scabbard. The runaway plunged
into the draw some fifteen yards in front of Pablo, found a cow-trail
leading down it and disappeared into the valley.
Pablo's heart swelled with agony. "It has happened!" he murmured.
"Ah, Mother of God! It has happened!"
Two more shots in rapid succession sounded from the valley. "He makes
certain of his kill," thought Pablo. After a while he addressed the
off front foot of the black mare. "I will do likewise."
He started crawling on his belly up out of the draw to the crest of the
hog's back. He had an impression, amounting almost to a certainty,
that the assassin in the valley had not seen him riding down the draw,
otherwise he would not have opened fire on Don Miguel. He would have
bided his time and chosen an occasion when there would be no witnesses.
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