Read Pursuit Of The Mountain Man for Free Online Page B

they’d be some of us layin’ back yonder on the trail, dead from ambush. You real sure you want to go on with this so-called sporting e-vent, von Hausen?”
    “Of course, I do!”
    “Just checkin’.”
    “Mount up and let’s go,” von Hausen said.
    Smoke crossed and recrossed the Fontenelle several times, knowing that would slow up those behind him. He could have taken a much easier route, but he didn’t want to make things easy for his pursuers. He was hoping-knowing it was a slim chance-that if he took them over the roughest terrain he could find, they might decide to call off the chase.
    Maybe.
    He was going to ride straight north, up through the Salt River Range, have some fun with them up in Jim Bridger country-maybe get them good and lost for a time-and then head up the Snake Range, through the Teton Range, and then over the Divide. If they were still after him, and had proved hostile, there he would make his stand.
    He had considered talking to the German, but decided that probably wouldn’t do a bit of good. He had thought about leaving them a note, stuck to a tree, warning them off. But von Hausen might decide that was a challenge and really put on the pressure. Smoke had never been in any situation quite like this one and didn’t really know how to handle it.
    His rancher friend was not expecting him—Smoke had told him he’d be up sometime in the spring or summer-so his friend would not be worried about him.
    “Hell of a mess,” Smoke muttered, and headed north.
     
    “This is the goddamnest country I ever seen in my life,”
    * What is now Yellowstone National Park Marty Boswell griped. “The sun’s out now and it’s warm; tonight it’ll be so damned cold a body’s gotta jump up and down to keep his feet from freezin’.”
    “At least Jensen’s just as colds,” Paul Melham said.
    “No, he ain‘t,” John T. corrected. “He’s used to it and come prepared. He can build him a lean-to and a soft bed outta sweet smellin’ boughs near ’bouts as fast as you boys can unsaddle your horse.”
    “Why do you constantly try to discourage the men?” Marlene asked him.
    “I ain’t tryin’ to discourage ‘em. I just want the soft ones to quit and get long gone away from me ’fore we tangle with Jensen. I don’t want nobody but hardcases with me when that hombre decides to fight.”
    “Am I a hardcase, John T.?” she asked teasingly.
    “You-all are payin’ the bulldog, your ladyship. I just don’t want no little puppy dogs around me when push comes to shove.”
    “What do you have against Smoke Jensen, John T.?”
    “I don’t like him. He’s too damn high and mighty to suit me. Somebody needs to slap him down a time or two.”
    “And you think you’re that man?”
    “I might be. I do think that all of us-if we get real lucky and work real careful-can put an end to Smoke Jensen.”
    “Oh, I assure you, John T., that we are going to most definitely do that. Frederick has never failed- never.”
    He ain’t never run up on the likes of Smoke Jensen, neither, John T. thought, but didn’t put it into words.
     
     
    Smoke figured he was at least two full days ahead of his hunters, and perhaps even three. He was going to have to re-supply, and discard some gear while adding things more practical if this game turned deadly, as he feared it would.
    He knew of a tiny town located on the west side of the Salt River Range, not more than three or four miles from the Idaho border. He’d head there, but he’d do so carefully, and try to lose his pursuers—at least for a time.
    Smoke headed out and put Salt River Pass behind him, then he cut west and stayed on the east side of the Salt River, leaving plenty of tracks. He rode across a rocky flat, then stopped and tore a blanket up and tied squares of cloth over his horses’ hooves so they would not scar the rock, then doubled back to the river and stayed in it, as best he could, for several miles. He found another rocky flat and exited