“I swear . . .” Harley muttered again, shaking his head slowly. “What in the world was they doin’ out here in the middle of nowhere, all alone?” He looked around him as if searching for another body.

Sharing the same thought, both men began a scout of the clearing, hoping to find the woman still alive. After a thorough search, they concluded that she had been taken by the men who had killed her husband.

“They headed out this way,” Harley called from the opposite end of the clearing. When Cole joined him, Harley added, “Yonder,” and pointed toward a line of low hills to the southeast.

Cole studied the line of tracks that led into the river. “Might be three men, but I’d bet there was just two of ’em and the woman, and maybe two packhorses, with the woman ridin’ a mule.” He pointed to the smaller hoofprints mixed in with the others. He stepped up in the saddle then and forded the river to see if they had continued in the same direction once they crossed.

He returned to join Harley, shrugged, and said, “I reckon we’d best find out what happened to the woman.” His comment seemed almost casual, but the picture of what the woman might be enduring was not something he could ignore. Her husband looked to be a fairly young man, causing Cole to speculate on the woman’s fate. Had she been older, she would more than likely be lying dead beside her husband. “I can’t waste any more time,” he said to Harley. “I don’t know how much head start they’ve got, but there ain’t much daylight left before they’ll be thinkin’ about making camp.”

Harley understood what Cole was about to say. He was thinking the same thing, so he cut him off. “That feller layin’ over there is just startin’ to get real stiff, so maybe they ain’t got too much of a lead. I figure it’d be best if you was to go on after ’em, and I’ll come behind you with the horses. If they hold to that line the tracks started out on, they’re pretty much headin’ the same way we are. I hope I won’t be that far behind you.” He knew what Cole was capable of on his own and that he would just slow him down. “You just be careful you don’t go ridin’ into no ambush.”

“Right.” Cole turned the big Morgan back toward the other side again. “It ain’t gonna be a hard trail to follow,” he called back over his shoulder. He hated to leave his friend with the job of protecting their horses, but in good conscience, he had no choice. He just hoped that he could find the woman before she was harmed too badly.