Chapter 11
Finally convinced it would take a keen eye to expose my misdirection, I released the dead man’s pony to go where it would and made my way back to Patch and the mare. Then, keeping a keen eye out for the militia patrol, I crosscut the prairie toward the land James had bought. 4
I had no trouble finding James’s property, even in the dark. He had left a marker of stones to denote the exact center of the hundred sixty acres he’d claimed on Turtle Crick, a fair-sized tributary to the Yanube. The cairn rested in a small, lush meadow with a hillock to the north crowned by pines and oaks. Cottonwoods hugged the banks of the stream. This sheltered place would make a comfortable home.