The telegraph operator had
altogether disappeared from the country, and his two immediate
confederates, who were "branch-water men" dwelling in some remote
pocket of the hills, had withdrawn to their thicketed abodes.
Bud Sellers had pieced two and two together, and though he kept a
Masonic silence on the point, he had reached a conclusion. The house
where Jase Mallows had been nursed back to health after his mysterious
wounding, was not far from the place where he and Brent had been
ambushed. The wound might have been the result of the volley he had
himself fired at the rifle-flash, and if that were true the balance of
that encounter lay in his favor. If it were not true, he had no means
of knowing to whom he owed an unpaid score for his "lay-wayin'."
Only, he must keep an eye on Jase--because if his inference were
correct, Jase would never forget.
Besides the telegraph man, the only other principal, actually or
definitely known to any of Alexander's friends had been Lute Brown, and
upon him they need spend no further thought. A long while after the
tragedy had been played out there by yellow lantern-light, a woodsman
passed the rotting cabin where Lute and his faithful partisan had died.
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