CHAPTER VI

BY WAY OF A WINDOW


The trail of rice led down Mission Street, turned at Junipero, crossed
into an alley, and trickled along a dusty road to the outskirts of the
frontier town.

The responsibility Joyce had put upon him uplifted Dave. He had followed
the horse-race gamblers to town on a purely selfish undertaking. But he
had been caught in a cross-current of fate and was being swept into
dangerous waters for the sake of another.

Doble and Miller were small fish in the swirl of this more desperate
venture. He knew Brad Steelman by sight and by reputation. The man's
coffee-brown, hatchet face, his restless, black eyes, the high, narrow
shoulders, the slope of nose and chin, combined somehow to give him the
look of a wily and predacious wolf. The boy had never met any one who so
impressed him with a sense of ruthless rapacity. He was audacious and
deadly in attack, but always he covered his tracks cunningly. Suspected
of many crimes, he had been proved guilty of none. It was a safe bet that
now he had a line of retreat worked out in case his plans went awry.

A soft, low whistle stayed his feet. From behind a greasewood bush Bob
rose and beckoned him. Dave tiptoed to him. Both of them crouched behind