After hanging the deer and gutting it, he returned to the crossing to find a place to wait for Booth and his men. After almost three hours waiting on the side of the mountain, watching Blue’s body, he decided they were not planning to come after him. It was hard to imagine they wouldn’t come back to look for one of their gang, but apparently, they had no interest in that. He still found it hard to believe that, if the two were part of the gang, they wouldn’t come looking for him. He reminded himself then of the obvious disregard the gang had for human life and the strong probability that there was no concern even for the loss of one of their number. So, it was beginning to look like he was going to be searching every stream and gully after all, a conclusion he had reached before he shot the deer. Being a practical man, he decided he would go ahead and spend the rest of the day taking care of his meat supply and start his search in the morning. He had the feeling he might be quite some time in finding their hideout.

* * *

He decided the place to start his search was at the stream where he had lost Tater the day before. His plan was simple, knowing the cabin he looked for was going to be on a stream, because they had to have water. So, to start, he rode Rascal up the stream, past the point where he had lost Tater’s tracks before. He climbed only a couple hundred feet before reaching a rock-faced cliff with a hole where the stream came from underground. He dismounted and examined the ground up to the rocky opening. There was no evidence hinting that Tater had come out of the water there to continue up the mountain. And there would have been plenty of sign left by the two horses had that been the case. There was bare ground on both sides of the stream—their tracks would have been difficult to hide. He stood for a few moments, gazing at the cliff, and he knew for sure the two horses didn’t jump thirty feet from the water to the rocky face of the cliff. He turned around and went back down the stream. After riding down the stream until it reached the valley, he gave up on it and continued on around the mountain, looking for another stream.