Ready to ride again, he was pouring water on his fire when he was startled to hear the sound of voices. At once alert, he pulled his rifle from the saddle sling and listened. In a matter of minutes, he heard the voices again, and he was sure they came from the road. His first thought was that Lige and his friends had gotten on his trail, after all. So, leaving his horse where it was, he made his way back down the creek bank on foot in case they were following his trail from the road. When about thirty yards from the road, he could see the source of the voices. It was not Lige and his friends at all. It was a wagon, with one man driving, stopped at the edge of the creek while the horses were drinking.

Thinking he might get a closer look, Hawk moved up behind a bank of berry bushes and stopped to decide if he was going to announce his presence or simply return to get his horse. While he was deciding, he was distracted by a movement in the bushes several yards ahead of him. A moment later he was surprised by a man’s voice. “If you’re fixin’ to shoot me, just let me finish takin’ this dump, will ya? I ain’t been able to get my bowels to move nothin’ more’n deer pellets for a week, and I’d surely appreciate the time to enjoy this’un when I finally got an honest-to-God call.”

Hawk couldn’t think how to reply for a second. When he did, he found it hard not to laugh. “I didn’t know you were squattin’ there in the bushes. I just came to see who was talkin’ over here ’cause I didn’t hear you when you first drove up. If you’re just takin’ a dump, I ain’t ever shot anybody for that, so you go ahead and take your time. I’ll go back and get my horse.”

“Much obliged,” the man in the bushes said. Hawk turned around and went back to get Rascal.

When he returned, the two men were waiting for him beside the wagon, so he rode up before them and stepped down. The one who had been watering the horses was a young man, hardly more than a boy, Hawk decided. The other one, the one in the bushes, was a gray-haired old man whom Hawk guessed to be the boy’s grandfather. “I wanna beg your pardon for walkin’ in on your privacy, but damned if I knew you were there.”

“No harm done,” the old man replied. “I finished her off fine and dandy.” He gave Hawk a good looking over, then asked, “What was you doin’ back up the creek?”