Explore "The Furnace of Gold" by Philip Verrill Mighels on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Matt Barger, riding in the night, intent upon nothing save the chance to deal out his vengeance to Van Buren, had camped beside the river, at the turn where Van and Beth had skirted the bank to the regular fording below. The convict's horse, which Beth had lost, was tethered where the water-way had encouraged a meager growth of grass. Barger himself had eaten a snake and returned to a narrow defile in the range, where his ambush could be made.
To insure himself against all misadventure he rolled a mass of boulders down the hill, to block the trail. His barrier was crude but efficient. Neither man nor horse could have scaled it readily, and the slopes on either side were not only well-nigh perpendicular, they were also built of crumbling stone that broke beneath the smallest weight. He labored doggedly, persistently, despite his half-starved condition, and when he had finished he looked to his gun, proceeded down the trail some fifty yards or more, climbed the slope, and there in the rocks, where the walls gave way to a sandy acclivity, concealed himself to wait.