CHAPTER X

THE STORM

Will Corliss, riding through the timberlands toward the west, shivered
as a drop of rain touched his hand. He glanced up through the trees.
The sky seemed clouded to the level of the pine-tops. He spurred his
horse as he again felt a spatter of rain. Before him lay several miles
of rugged trail leading to an open stretch across which he would again
enter the timber on the edge of the hollow where Soper's cabin was
concealed. When Corliss had suggested Soper's place as a rendezvous,
Fadeaway had laughed to himself, knowing that old man Soper had been
driven from the country by a committee of irate ranchers. The illicit
sale of whiskey to the cowboys of the Concho Valley had been the cause
of Soper's hurried evacuation. The cabin had been burned to the
ground. Fadeaway knew that without Soper's assistance Corliss would be
unable to get to the railroad--would be obliged either to return to the
Concho or starve on the empty mesas.

Corliss bent his head as the rain drove faster. When he arrived at the
edge of the mesa, the storm had increased to a steady dull roar of
rushing rain. He hesitated to face the open and reined up beneath a
spruce. He was drenched and shivered. The fever of drink had died out
leaving him unstrung and strangely fearful of the night. His horse
stood with lowered head, its storm-blown mane whipping in the wind like
a wet cloth. A branch riven from a giant pine crashed down behind him.
Corliss jerked upright in the saddle, and the horse, obeying the