The sun was swinging low and he was collecting wood down the gulch for a fire when, with a sudden thud of hoofs, a horseman rounded the point and came abruptly to a halt. It was Aragon, and he was spying on the camp.
For a full minute he scanned the house, tent, and mine with a look so snaky and sinister that Bud could read his heart like a book. Here was the man who had sent the assassins, and he had come to view their work!
Very slowly Bud's hand crept toward his six-shooter, but, slight as was the motion, Aragon caught it and sat frozen in his place. Then, with an inarticulate cry, he fell flat on his horse's neck and went spurring out of sight.
The answer to Bud's questions was very easy now. The Mexican who had led the attempt on his life was one of Aragon's bad men, one of the four gunmen whom Hooker had looked over so carefully when they came to drive him from the mine, and Aragon had fitted him out with new arms to make the result more sure. But with that question answered there came up another and another until, in a sudden clarity of vision, Bud saw through the hellish plot and beheld himself the master.
As man to man, Aragon would not dare to face him now, for he knew that he merited death. By his sly approach, by the look in his eyes and the dismay of his frenzied retreat, he had acknowledged more surely than by words his guilty knowledge of the raid. Coming to a camp where he expected to find all dead and still, he had found himself face to face with the very man he had sought to kill. How, then, had the American escaped destruction, and what had occurred to his men?
Perhaps, in his ignorance, Aragon was raging at his hirelings because they had shirked their task; perhaps, not knowing that they were dead, he was waiting in a fever of impatience for them to accomplish the deed. However it was, Bud saw that he held the high card, and he was not slow to act.
In the morning he saddled up Copper Bottom, who had been confined to the corral for weeks, and went galloping into town. There he lingered about the hotel until he saw his man and started boldly toward him. Surprise, alarm, and pitiful fear chased themselves across Aragon's face as he stood, but Bud walked proudly by.
