The Sheriffs Son | Page 6

the ground in front of him. Occasionally he swung his long leg
across the rump of the horse and dismounted to stoop down for a closer
examination of the hoofprints he was following. They were not recent
tracks. He happened to know that they were about three days old. Plain
as a printed book was the story they told him.
The horses that had made these tracks had been ridden by men in a
desperate hurry. They had walked little and galloped much. Not once
had they fallen into the easy Spanish jog-trot used so much in the
casual travel of the South-west. The spur of some compelling motive
had driven this party at top speed.
Since Dingwell knew the reason for such haste he rode warily. His alert
caution suggested the panther. The eye of the man pounced surely upon

every bit of cactus or greasewood behind which a possible foe might be
hidden. His lean, sun-tanned face was an open letter of
recommendation as to his ability to take care of himself in a world that
had often glared at him wolfishly. A man in a temper to pick a quarrel
would have looked twice at Dave Dingwell before choosing him as the
object of it--and then would have passed on to a less competent citizen.
The trail grew stiffer. It circled into a draw down which tumbled a
jocund little stream. Trout, it might be safely guessed, lurked here in
the riffles and behind the big stones. An ideal camping-ground this, but
the rider rejected it apparently without consideration. He passed into
the cañon beyond, and so by a long uphill climb came to the higher
reaches of the hills.
He rode patiently, without any hurry, without any hesitation. Here
again a reader of character might have found something significant in
the steadiness of the man. Once on the trail, it would not be easy to
shake him off.
By the count of years Dingwell might be in the early forties. Many little
wrinkles radiated fanlike from the corners of his eyes. But whatever his
age time had not tamed him. In the cock of those same steel-blue eyes
was something jaunty, something almost debonair, that carried one
back to a youth of care-free rioting in a land of sunshine. Not that Mr.
Dingwell was given to futile dissipations. He had the reputation of a
responsible ranchman. But it is not to be denied that little devils of
mischief at times danced in those orbs.
Into the hills the trail wound across gulches and along the shoulders of
elephant humps. It brought him into a country of stunted pines and red
sandstone, and so to the summit of a ridge which formed part of the rim
of a saucer-shaped basin. He looked down into an open park hedged in
on the far side by mountains. Scrubby pines straggled up the slopes
from arroyos that cleft the hills. By divers unknown paths these led into
the range beyond.
A clump of quaking aspens was the chief landmark in the bed of the
park. Though this was the immediate destination of Mr. Dingwell,

since the hoofprints he was following plunged straight down toward the
grove, yet he took certain precautions before venturing nearer. He made
sure that the 45-70 Winchester that lay across the saddle was in
working order. Also he kept along the rim of the saucer-shaped park till
he came to a break where a creek tumbled down in a white foam
through a ravine.
"It's a heap better to be safe than to be sorry," he explained to himself
cheerfully. "They call this Lonesome Park, and maybe so it deserves its
name to-day. But you never can tell, Dave. We'll make haste slowly if
you don't mind."
Along the bank of the creek he descended, letting his sure-footed
cowpony pick its own way while he gave strict attention to the scenery.
At a bend of the stream he struck again the trail of the riders he had
been following and came from there directly to the edge of the aspen
clump.
Apparently his precautions were unnecessary. He was alone. There
could be no doubt of that. Only the tracks of feet and the ashes of a
dead fire showed that within a few days a party had camped here.
Dingwell threw his bridle to the ground and with his rifle tucked under
his arm examined the tracks carefully. Sometimes he was down on
hands and knees peering at the faint marks of which he was reading the
story. Foot by foot he quartered over the sand, entirely circling the
grove before he returned to the ashes of the dead fire. Certain facts he
had discovered. One was that the party which had camped here had
split up and