You'll turn off this side the Poison Hole, huh?"
"I'll turn off right here, and right now. I've got a curiosity, John,"
and his voice was harder than Winifred Waverly had ever heard it, "to
know a thing or two about the way my horse went lame. I'm going to sling
my saddle on your roan and take a little ride back to Harte's. Maybe I
can pick up that other jasper's trail in the canon back there."
The two men went down to the stable, and while the rancher watered and
fed the pony Thornton roped the big roan in the fenced-in pasture. Ten
minutes after he had come to the Smith place he had saddled and ridden
back along the trail toward Harte's.
The two women in the cabin looked up as Smith came in.
"Where's Mr. Thornton?" his wife asked.
"He's gone back," Smith told her. He drew out his chair, sat down and
filled his pipe. Before Mrs. Smith's surprise could find words the girl
had started to her feet, crying quickly:
"Gone back! Where?"
"To Harte's. A man knifed his horse back there." He stopped, lighted
his pipe, and then said slowly, with much deep thoughtfulness, "If I
was that man I'd ride some tonight! I'd keep right on ridin' until
I'd put about seven thousand miles between me an' Buck Thornton.
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