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tailored, not a ready-made.
"Tailored," he said aloud, "but not for me." He knew he would never have
accepted a coat that fitted so badly. If the coat was not his, it must be
DeanCullane's , for the letters were addressed to him. ... Or could the coat
belong to Ruble Noon? For the deed had been there, too.
Was there any way in which he could discover who Ruble Noon was?Or
DeanCullane ?OrMatherbee ?
He looked again at the map. Only a few lines on a bit of paper, but that X
might be this very ranch, and the dotted line could be that faint trail he had
discovered.
Why had Ruble Noon a ranch in the area? What was his connection with
TomDavidge ? He had no answers -nothing but questions.
He was hungry, and he had not thought to bring food with him. But he did not
want to go back now. There was too much to think about, too much to decide.
And he did not know what awaited him back at the ranch ... BenJanish might
have returned, and it was BenJanish who had tried to kill him.
He swung his horse around, returned to the trail, and turned the dun up the
mountain. After a dozen quick, tight turns they began to wind through the
forest, climbing steadily. The mountain was steep, but the deer had found a
way to the meadows below. There were no horse tracks on the trail, only those
of deer.
He kept on, studying the country as he rode. The growth was so thick that
only occasionally could he see the ranch or the valley below him. He followed
the dim, narrow trail back and forth up the steep scarp until suddenly a notch
in the mountain, invisible from below, opened before him.
The dun went forward slowly, ears pricked with curiosity. The notch opened
after some hundred yards into a long trough down which a stream ran. It was
high grassland, the slopes covered with pines, and about a quarter of a mile
away he could see a small cabin, perched on a shelf among the trees.
There was no sound, nor any sign of life there.
Above on the mountain a rock cropped out, bare and cold against the sky;
below it only a few straggling pines, wind-torn and twisted, stretched black,
thin arms against the sky.
It was a lonely place where the shadows came early and where cold winds blew
off the ridges. Who had found this spot? Above all, who had thought to build
here, under the bleak sky? On any cloudy day the place must berilled with
damp, clinging gray clouds, and thunder must roll down this narrow valley,
leaving the air charged and smelling of brimstone. It was a place of
bittersolitude .. .yet somehow it appealed to him, somehow he knew this was
his place, where he belonged.
The only sound was that of the dun's hoofs in the tall grass, and
occasionally the click of a hoof against stone.
Page 27
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He went up the trail to the shelf and stopped before the cabin.
It was built against a wall of rock, sheltered half beneath the overhang, and
was of native stone, the cold gray rocks gathered from the foot of the cliff.
It had been built a long time ago.
No mortar had been used, only stone wedded to stone, but cunningly,
skillfully done by the hands of a master. The stones had taken on the patina
of years, and the heavy wooden bench made of a split log was polished as if
from much use. A stable backed against the wall where the fireplace stood so
heat from the fire would help to warm the stable. A passage led from the house
into the stable, and a stack of wood stood high against the stable walls.
Dismounting, he tied the dun to a post and went up to the door. It opened
under his hand, and he stepped in.
He had expected nothing like this. The floor was carpeted with skins, the
skins of bear and mountain lion. There was a wall of books, a writing table,
and agunrack holding a dozen rifles and shotguns.
In another smaller room there was a store of canned goods and other supplies.
These things had never arrived over the trail by which he had come; therefore
there must be another and better route.
Somebody had lived here, perhaps lived here still, and that somebody was
probably Ruble Noon, for this must be the cabin deeded to Noon by the document
he carried.
He walked to the windows. The view from them coveredall the valley below. The
only blind spot lay on the steep mountainside above the cabin, a place from
which one might come to the cabin unseen. Otherwise the only access to it was
by coming up from the front.
After studying the view he sat down in the chair at the desk. It was a
comfortable chair and felt right to him, and the cabin felt right, too. In the
winter this valley would be snowed in, closed off to the world, but in the
summer it was a haven, a secure place.
He got up suddenly. He must be getting back. In actual distance he was not
far from the Rafter D, but at the pace he would have to travel it would
probably take almost two hours to return.
But first he must discover the other way into the high valley. A careful
search proved only one thing: there was no easy way out of the valley, and in
fact no way at all that he could find. Yet there had to be such a route.
Nothing that was in the cabin could have been brought up the way he had come.
For the first time he stood back and studied the rock-built cabin itself.
Immediately he was aware that a part of it was much older than the rest. The
stable and part of the cabin had been added at a later date, but that part of
the stable that adjoined the house was older.
But he realized that he could spend no more time here at present. Mounting
his horse, he went back the way he had come, pondering the problem of the
access route. When he had once more come to the bottom of the steep
mountainside he remained under cover for some time, studying the surrounding
area to be sure that nobody saw him emerge from the trees. Then he swung down
and carefully removed as many traces of his passage as possible.
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