If what Scottie had heard was true, and he had been proclaimed an outlaw, it would still be some time before the State could rush the posters from the printing press and distribute them through the countryside—the printed posters announcing the size of the reward and containing a minute description of Andrew Lanning, height, weight, color of eyes and hair. And in the interval before those posters came out, Andy must break out of the mountain desert and lose himself among the towns beyond the hills. There he could start to work, not as a blacksmith, but as a carpenter, and drift steadily east with his new profession of a builder until he was lost in the multitude of some great city. And after that it would be a long road indeed—but after that there was the back trail to Anne Withero. And no matter how long, she had promised that she would never forget.
The first goal, then, was the big blue cloud on the northern horizon—a good week's journey ahead of him—the Little Canover Mountains. Among the foothills lay the cordon of small towns which it would be his chief difficulty to pass. For, if the printed notices describing him were circulated among them, the countryside would be up in arms, prepared to intercept his flight. Otherwise, there would be nothing but telephoned and telegraphed descriptions of him, which, at best, could only come to the ears of a few, and these few would be necessarily put out by the slightest difference between him and the description. Such a vital difference, for instance, as the fact that he now rode a chestnut, while the instructions called for a man on a pinto.
Moreover, it was by no means certain that Hal Dozier, great trailer though he was, would know that the fugitive was making for the northern mountains. With all these things in mind, in spite of the pessimism of Henry
