“Good,” Trip commented, and nodded to show his agreement. “And I’ll bet ol’ Dinner Bell is cookin’ up some breakfast. I don’t know about you boys, but I could use some coffee and biscuits right about now.”

“Let’s get our possibles outta that cabin first,” Booth said. “Then there won’t be no need to go back after breakfast.”

Since they had not gotten very far before losing Hawk’s trail, it was a short ride back to the cabins. Even so, the three outlaws were not careless in approaching them, and once they were sure Hawk was not about, they quickly packed their things and were headed up the path to Bodine’s and the prospects of a hot breakfast. Behind them was the body of their late partner, Tater Thompson, dumped in a gully behind the second cabin to await his final reckoning.

Forty yards downstream from the cabins, Hawk reined Rascal up short when he thought he heard voices through the trees. He paused there for a minute or two, listening, then he was sure. The voices had come from the cabins, and they had to be outside the cabin for him to have heard them. He nudged Rascal with his heels and the big buckskin gelding started walking slowly ahead until a glimpse of the cabins came into sight and Hawk stopped him again. Dismounting with his rifle in hand, Hawk moved cautiously through the growth of pines close to the river. He made his way to a spot where he could see both cabins clearly, just in time to see the rear ends of the packhorses as they were swallowed up in the darkness of the narrow path that led to Bodine’s. They’re leaving, he thought, for good, if they’re taking their packhorses! He thought of his food and supplies hanging in a tree three and a half miles away. If Booth was heading out for who-knows-where, there was no time for Hawk to recover his supplies. He was going to have to survive on what he carried in his saddlebags, because he couldn’t afford to let the three of them leave without him on their trail.

He hurried back to his horse. “It’s your fault,” he said to the buckskin as he picked the reins up from the ground. “If I hadn’t tried to lighten your load, I wouldn’t have to worry about starvin’ to death.” He climbed up into the saddle and rode on through the trees to the clearing where the cabins stood. With no thought that anyone was left behind to take a shot at him, he held Rascal to a fast walk across the clearing and onto the path to Bodine’s. Once the trees enclosed on the narrow track, he slowed the horse down, so as not to catch up with the three men he knew were riding ahead of him, leading the horses.