Return of the Outlaw by C. M. Curtis Page B

his eyes and let go.  

Chapter 4
     
    The old man trod lightly and kept to the shadows. He knew he was on Rafter 8 land and it was a dangerous place for him to be. He stopped often to scan the moonlight-bathed desert and then moved on followed by a horse, which he led by a rope hackamore.  On a darker night he would have ridden, but in this bright moonlight a mounted man would make a tall profile. He was within a hundred yards of the river, which at this point marked the western border of the Rafter 8 Ranch, or the T. S., as it was now called. When he had crossed the river he would ride.
    Dressed in the garb of the local Mexican f armers, the old man did not have the appearance of a horse thief, but the horse he led wore the T. S. brand and had, several hours before, been removed from the horse corral behind the ranch house itself—a dangerous thing to do on a bright night like this.
    He was following a trail on the dark side of a low hill when he heard a sound coming from beyond a bend in the trail. It was not one of the normal sounds of the desert night. ”Probably a cow,” he thought.
    The horse he was leading was a crack cow pony and the old man dropped the hackamore rope knowing the animal would not move from that spot. Soundlessly he slipped around the curve in the trail where he located the source of the sounds. At first, all he saw was a saddled horse, head down, grazing on the side of the trail, but as he drew nearer he realized there was a man lying in the trail.
    The old man pulled a pistol from his belt and spent a full three minutes observing every detail, near or distant, available to his senses. A coyote sent its ululating cry into the still night and was answered from afar; a soft breeze lightly rustled the thorny branches of the desert trees, and the plangent lowing of cattle came to him from a distance, but no other sounds reached his ears. Now and then a small nocturnal rodent scurried across his view, but aside from these the old man saw nothing that moved and nothing that resembled human life.
    He moved across to where the horse was standing and knelt down to examine the man. The features were swollen and smeared with blood, the clothes were torn and disheveled but there were no bullet wounds. The man appeared to have been badly beaten, but where and by whom? And how did he get here on this trail that came from the Rafter 8? Maybe this man was an outlaw too. But if that was the case, why was he riding a horse wearing Ollie Shepard’s brand?
    The old man squatted beside the injured man for a moment, considering what to do. Abruptly, he sensed the desert sounds were changing. Ever alert to the sound and feel of his surroundings he now felt a prickling of danger. Moving with cautious speed, he climbed to the top of the hill behind him, crawling the last few feet and easing himself over the crown to the other side. There, he turned around, and flattened against the hill, scanned the desert. Immediately he caught sight of movement in the distance, to the north—the direction of the Rafter 8 headquarters. As he slid back down the hill he began working out a plan in his mind. He was, despite his age, a strong man but not strong enough to lift the unconscious man onto a horse. And even if he could, it would take too much time to secure the man to the saddle and then go back for his own stolen horse. No, he would have to do it another way and he would have to do it fast.
     
     
    Rand Fogarty did not find it difficult to follow Jeff ’s trail in the bright light of the moon. Jeff had intended to avoid established trails but in his clouded mental state he had not noticed that the mare had found a trail and stuck to it.
    The trail led the four outlaws through an area broken by shallow washes and low, gentle hills, which opened onto a broad flat area dotted with creo sote bush, mesquite, and cactus. Fogarty saw the movement first and his gun leaped into his hand like a living thing. The other men followed