Sautee grinned in triumph.

"How do you know I won't beat it with the money?" asked Rathburn.

"I don't," said Sautee quickly. "But I'm taking a chance on it that you won't. I don't care who you are, what you are now, or what you've been; I don't care if you're an outlaw! I figure, Rathburn, that if I come out square and trust you with this mission and depend upon you to carry it out, that you'll play square with me. That's what I'm banking on—your own sense of squareness. You've got it, for I can see it in your eyes."

"Who's Carlisle?" Rathburn asked dryly.

Sautee frowned. "He's a—well, I guess you'd call him a sort of adventurer. I knew him down in Arizona. He follows the camps when they're good, and this one happens to be good right now, for we're improving the property. That's how he happened to come up here about a year ago. Then, when the first robbery occurred, I engaged him as a sort of special agent. He didn't make any progress, so I let him go. Since then he's been out and in, gambling, prospecting, anything—he's a fast man with his gun, and he has some claims here which he is developing on a small scale and trying to sell."

Rathburn nodded but made no comment.

"Will you take the job?" Sautee asked anxiously.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to carry a sum of money to the mine. I'm not going to tell you how much, but it will be considerable. The money which was stolen yesterday was for the pay-off to-day. I've got to get the cash for the men up there quick. They all know about the holdup, so there's no grumbling—yet. But there will be if they don't have their money pretty quick. We want to pay off to-morrow. I could go with a guard, but to tell you the truth, Rathburn, it's got to a point where I can't trust a soul."

"Why not Mannix?" asked Rathburn sharply.

Sautee shook his head; his beady, black eyes glowed, and he stroked his chin.

"There's another sorrowful point," he explained. "I tell you we're up against it here, Rathburn. The Dixie Queen people and most of the other mines are fighting the present county administration as a matter of policy. They want certain changes, and—well, keep this to yourself—privileges. Mannix has been instructed by the sheriff of this county that he is not here to act as a guard for the Dixie Queen. See?"

Rathburn frowned and built another cigarette.

"If you'll carry this package of money up to the Dixie Queen for me, Rathburn, I'll pay you five hundred dollars. Then, if you want to stay and act as our messenger right along, we'll make a deal. But I'd like to have you do this this time—make this one trip, anyway, I mean. They may try to stop you. If they do I don't believe they can get away with it. I'm banking on your ability to get through, and I think the proposition will appeal to you in a sporting way if for no other reason. Will you do it?" Sautee's eyes were eager.

"Yes," said Rathburn shortly, tossing away his cigarette.

Sautee held out his hand. "Go to the hotel and engage a room," he instructed. "Be in your room at nine o'clock to-night. Do not tell any one of our deal. I'll get your room number from the register. I'll bring the package of money to you between nine o'clock and midnight. Now, Rathburn, maybe I'm mistaken in you; but I go a whole lot by what I see in a man's eyes. You may have a hard record, but I'm staking my faith in men on you!"

"I'll be there," Rathburn promised.

He left Sautee at the entrance to the restaurant and strolled around the hotel barn to see that his horse was being taken care of properly. He found that the barn man was indeed looking after the dun in excellent shape. Rathburn spent a short time with his mount, petting him and rubbing his glossy coat with his hands. Then he took his slicker pack and started for the hotel.

As he reached the street he saw a girl on a horse talking with a man on the sidewalk. The girl was leaning over, and the man evidently was delivering a harangue. He was gesticulating wildly, and Rathburn could see that the girl was cowering. He paused on the hotel porch as the man stepped away from the horse and looked his way. He recognized Carlisle.

Then the girl rode down the street and Rathburn started with surprise as he saw she was the girl from the cabin up the road who had directed him to town the day before. He remembered the two objects he had picked up in the road after the holdup and felt in his pocket to make sure they were there. Then he entered the hotel.

"Have you a room?" he asked the clerk pleasantly.

"Yes. More rooms than anything else to-day since the Sunday crowd's gone."

Rathburn wrote his name upon the register.



CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE NIGHT

Rathburn avoided the Red Feather resort during the morning. Instead of walking about the streets or sitting in the hotel lobby or his room, he cultivated the acquaintance of the barn man, and because he knew horses—all about horses—he soon had the man's attention and respect.

Although Rathburn suspected that he already had a reputation in the town, he did not know that Carlisle was steadily adding to that reputation through the medium of veiled hints dropped here and there until a majority of the population was convinced that a desperate man was in their midst, and that Mannix had permitted him to go free for certain secret reasons.

Thus a web of mystery and suspicion was cleverly woven about Rathburn's movements.

It was not until afternoon, however, that Rathburn began to realize on his intimacy with the barn man. Then they began to talk of trails, and for more than an hour the barn man, caught in the spell of Rathburn's personality, divulged the secret of the trails leading to and from the Dixie Queen.

"The best trail, an' the straightest, if you should ever want to go up there an' look at the mine like you say," said the barn man, "hits into the timber behind the first cabin to the left above town."

Rathburn nodded smilingly. It was the cabin where he had first seen the girl.

"It's 'bout twenty-nine miles to the mine by the road," the man explained; "but that trail will take you there in less'n twenty. Well, maybe twenty or twenty-one. Or you can go up the road till you get to the big hogback—that's where they held up the truck driver yesterday—and cut straight up the hill from the south end."

"I guess those are the best trails from what you say," was Rathburn's yawning comment.

"Them's the best," the other added. "There's another trail going out below town that follows southeast along a big ridge, but that trail's as far as the road. When you goin' up?"

"I dunno," replied Rathburn noncommittally. "Say, I guess I know where that cabin is on the left side of the road going up. I stopped at a cabin up there coming down an' asked a gal how far it was to town——"

"That's it," said the barn man. "That's the one. Trail starts right back of that cabin."

Rathburn yawned again. "Smart-lookin' gal," he observed, digging for his tobacco and papers. "Who is she?"

"That's Joe Carlisle's sister. Anyway, he says she is. There's been some talk. Carlisle lives there when he ain't out in the hills or on a gamblin' trip to some other town."

"I see. Well, old-timer, I ain't hung on the feed bag since morning, an' I'm going on a still hunt for some grub."

Rathburn went to the Red Feather for his dinner. He was thoughtful through the meal and kept an eye out for Carlisle, but didn't see him. During the remainder of the afternoon he hung about the Red Feather and other resorts, but did not see Carlisle.

That evening, as he was returning to the hotel, he met Mannix. The deputy looked at him with a scowl in which there was a mixture of curiosity. Rathburn suddenly remembered what Sautee had said about his company being on the outs with the county administration. If such was the case, Rathburn reflected, how did it come that Sautee had been able to effect his release so easily?

He stopped as he drew alongside of the deputy. "This man Sautee," he drawled, looking Mannix square in the eye; "he must have a good drag with the county seat, eh?"

The deputy's scowl deepened. "He didn't get you out by word of mouth alone," he said sharply. "I haven't got anything on you, Rathburn—yet."

Rathburn smiled. "I reckon you're a sheriff after my own heart," he said enigmatically, and moved on.

Mannix looked back after him for a moment, then continued on his way.

Rathburn had dinner that night at the hotel, and it was during the course of a number of pleasantries with the waitress, who thought he was looking for work, that he ascertained that Sautee had a little two-room building at the lower end of the street, the front half of which served as an office and the rear half as living quarters.

At nine o'clock he went to his room. He lighted the oil lamp, pulled down the window shade, sat down in a chair to one side of the door to wait. An hour passed with no sound save occasional footfalls in the hall and the drone of the wind in the trees outside.

Another hour had nearly been consumed in waiting when Rathburn heard some one coming up the stairs. The footfalls were soft, catlike. He could hardly hear them, and it was this fact which made him instantly alert. The footfalls now sounded in the hallway. They were nearer his room. He rose; stepped close to the side of the door. Then came a soft knock.

Rathburn suddenly opened the door, and Sautee started back, blinking his eyes. The mines manager peered about the room, then entered swiftly.

"You rather startled me," he accused with a forced smile.

Rathburn closed the door softly and turned the key in the lock.

"I'm just taking natural precautions," he explained.

Sautee shook his head and put a finger to his lips. "Not so loud," he warned. "These walls"—he waved a hand about—"are all ears."

He took a package from beneath his coat and handed it to Rathburn. "Put it in your shirt," he instructed. "Deliver it to the office at the mine and take the bookkeeper's receipt. Then report to my office here in town. I wish you luck, and I want you to know that I have the utmost confidence in you."

"You keep such large sums on hand all the time?" Rathburn asked, putting the package in his shirt. He was mindful of the fact that a similar sum had been stolen the day before from the truck driver.

"There's a private bank here," answered Sautee frowningly. "He let me have it, but he's already sent to the county seat for more cash which will come by auto express to-morrow, probably. Anyway, the bank'll get most of this back, so their cash won't be short long."

Rathburn nodded. "Let's see," he suggested. "There was a little item of five hundred between us for my serving—am I right?"

"There is such an item," snapped out Sautee; "when you've delivered."

"Of course," replied Rathburn. "I couldn't expect to be paid in advance. I'm to deliver the money at the mine and report to you for the five hundred."

"Exactly," said Sautee. "Which way you figure on going up?" he asked curiously.

"Don't know much about the trails," Rathburn answered. "An' it mightn't attract suspicion if I just struck right out on the road."

Sautee shrugged. "Well, that's up to you," he said. "Keep your eye peeled. I don't think any one knows I drew that money from the bank, but I didn't think any one knew I stuck that package under the truck driver's seat, either."

He turned toward the door.

"There's just one other little matter," said Rathburn softly. "You see nobody knows anything about this deal but you an' me. Maybe it would be best for my own protection that you scribbled something on a piece of paper to show what our arrangement is."

Sautee scowled again, hesitated, then smiled. He drew an envelope from a pocket, extracted its contents, tore it open at each end, and wrote on the blank side:

Due Rathburn five hundred dollars when he has delivered package intrusted to him by me at the Dixie Queen mine office.

GEORGE SAUTEE.

Rathburn nodded in satisfaction as he took the slip of paper and tucked it into his shirt pocket. The wording of the note was a bit complicated, but it bore Sautee's signature. It was at least evidence that there had been an agreement.

"Everything set?" asked Sautee.

"All cinched up an' ready to go," replied Rathburn.

"How soon you going to start?" asked Sautee as he unlocked the door.

"By midnight," Rathburn answered.

Sautee held out his hand before he slipped out of the door and was gone.

Rathburn quickly busied himself with his slicker pack. He took out a gun which he changed for the gun in his holster. Then he stuck his regular gun into his waistband on the left. He took out the package and examined it. It was sealed at each end. Then Rathburn did a queer thing. He cut the string and paper near the seals and removed the small box within. He next emptied the box of its paper-wrapped contents and substituted the first thing of equal weight which he could lay his hands on—a moleskin glove which was among the things in the slicker pack. He replaced the box in its wrappings and drew from one of his pockets a small bottle of glue.

"First time I ever stole anything from a hotel desk," he muttered to himself as he glued the paper back into place; "but I sure had the proper hunch when I grabbed this."

Next he retied the string, adding a piece from his slicker pack to offset the shortness where it had been cut. When he had finished the package looked exactly as it had in the first place. It would take a close inspection to learn that it had been tampered with. The original contents of the package he thrust into his hat and pulled the hat well down on his head.

Then he extinguished the light and made his way downstairs and out the lobby into the street. He went quickly around to the barn where he astonished the man in charge by saddling his horse and riding out without a word of explanation other than to toss him a five-dollar bill from the saddle.

"See you again to-morrow—maybe," he called, grinning, as he rode into the night.

When Rathburn had passed behind the hotel and several other buildings on the same side of the street and gained the road leading westward toward the hogback, a slim shadow darted out of the trees, mounted a horse concealed some distance behind the barn, and slipped into a worn trail which nearly paralleled the road going west.



CHAPTER XIX

QUICK TURNS

As he rode westward along the road at a swinging lope, Rathburn made no apparent effort to conceal his movements. The night sky was bright with stars, and, although the moon was not up, the road was clearly outlined through the marching stands of timber as he swung upward past the cabin where he had met the girl said to be Carlisle's sister.

Rathburn could not forget the look on the girl's face when she had asked him about the activities of the officer in the automobile. Nor could he forget the expression in her eyes during her altercation with Carlisle that day.

After he had passed the cabin, Rathburn checked his pace and proceeded more slowly up the long stretches of road to the hogback. On the hogback he began to take advantage of the screen of timber on the lower side of the road, and to ride more cautiously. However, to any one who might have been watching, his movements still would have been easily discernible, and it would have appeared that he wasn't quite sure of himself. Twice he turned off at what he appeared to think was the beginning of a trail, and both times he again turned back to the road.

Then, as he reached the south end of the hogback where the trail left the road and cut straight across to the mine, two horsemen broke from the timber, and Rathburn reined in his horse as the guns which covered him glinted.

The taller of the pair of night riders kept him covered with two guns while the other rode in close and jerked the weapon from his holster.

"C'mon with the package!" said this man in a hoarse voice. "We won't take a chance on you. If you make any kind of a break you'll get it where it'll do most good."

There was a sneering inflection in the voice.

Rathburn's hand, as it moved downward toward his shirt, hovered an instant above where his good gun was stuck in his waistband, out of sight under the skirt of his coat; then it moved to the open shirt at his throat. He drew out the package and held it out toward the other.

The man closed in and snatched the package, glancing at it in the dim starlight.

"Now back the way you came an' don't invite no shootin'!" was the brief command.

Rathburn whirled his horse and drove in his spurs. As he fled from the scene a harsh laugh came to his ears from behind. Then utter silence save for the pounding of his horse's hoofs in the hard road back down the hogback.

"Jog along, hoss," Rathburn crooned as he sped down the long slopes toward town; "maybe we're peggin' things wrong, an' if it turns out that way we've a powerful long ways to go."

It lacked a few minutes of being two hours after midnight when he reached the Carlisle cabin. There he reined in his horse, dismounted in the shadow of the timber, and crept to a window. The moon had risen and was bathing the hills in a ghostly light in which every object stood out clear-cut and easily distinguishable. Rathburn peered into the two front windows, but could see nothing. Then, from a side window into which the moonlight filtered, he made out a bedroom. It was not occupied. From the other side of the cabin he saw another bedroom, and it, too, was unoccupied.

"Nobody home," he muttered cheerfully as he ran for his horse.

In another minute he was again speeding down the road toward town. He slacked his pace as he reached the upper end of the short main street. The street was dark save for two beams of yellow light, one of which shone from a window of the jail office and the other from the front of the Red Feather resort.

He walked his horse down the street past the jail and the resort and almost to the end of the line of buildings where he arrived before the small, one-story, two-room structure which was Sautee's office and abode.

The place was dark. Rathburn dismounted and led his horse into the dark shadow at the side of the little building. Then he went around to the front, and, drawing his gun from his waistband, he rapped smartly on the door with its butt and dropped it into his holster.

There was no movement within, and Rathburn rapped again and tried the door. It was locked.

A match flared into flame somewhere beyond the front room. A glow of light followed. Rathburn, looking through the front window, saw a door open wide and made out the form of Sautee as the mines manager came forward to the front door.

"Who is it?" Sautee called cautiously.

"Rathburn."

After a moment a key turned in the lock and the door opened part way. Rathburn pushed his way in.

"Why—didn't you go?" asked Sautee in excited tones.

"Lock the door an' come in the other room," whispered Rathburn. "I've got something to tell you that'll knock you for a goal."

Sautee hurriedly locked the door, and, as he turned to lead the way into the other room, Rathburn deftly extracted the key.

In the light from the lamp in the bedroom Sautee swung on his visitor and looked at him keenly. The mines manager was fully dressed, and the bed was made. It was evident that he had merely dozed on top of the covers with his clothes on. These things Rathburn noted even as Sautee surveyed him with a frown.

"Well, what is it?" snapped out Sautee.

Rathburn blinked in the light. "I—I was held up," he said sheepishly.

The mines manager stared. First he stared into Rathburn's eyes, and then he glanced to the gun in the holster on his thigh.

"Couldn't have been very much afraid of you," he said sneeringly. "I see they didn't even take your gun."

"It all come from my not knowin' enough about the trails, I guess," Rathburn explained lamely. "Got me on the far end of the hogback. Two of 'em. Had their guns in my face before I knew it. Couldn't have drawed if I wanted to. They'd have shot me out of the saddle in a wink. All I could do was hand over the package an' beat it."

"And they said you were a gunman," said Sautee in derision. "How do I know anybody stopped you and robbed you? Maybe you've come back here with that story to cover up the theft of the money. I guess I made a mistake in ever thinking of trusting a man of your caliber."

"I was afraid of that," said Rathburn. "I was afraid if anything like this was to happen you might think I was lying and was taking the money myself. But I fooled 'em, Mr. Sautee," he finished in triumph.

"What's that?" Sautee asked sharply.

"Look here," cried Rathburn excitedly as he took off his hat and recovered the package he had put in it before starting toward the mine.

He held up the package. "I was scared they might get wise an' get the drop on me," he said. "So I opened the package an' took out what was in it and put it in my hat. They got the original package, all right, but it was stuffed with an old glove of mine. Here's the money. I didn't go right on to the mine for fear they'd find out their mistake an' pot me from the timber. This is the money you gave me, minus the seals an' the string an' box. I wanted you to see that I was on the square."

Sautee's eyes were bulging. "Give me that," he gulped out.

"Why—don't you want me to take it to the mine?" asked Rathburn in surprise.

"Hand that over," ordered Sautee, reaching for the package.

Rathburn drew away. "All right, Mr. Sautee," he said in a complaining voice. "If you don't want me to go through with the job you can back down, I guess. We'll just make sure the money's here, though."

Sautee leaped toward him.

"Give me that package!" he cried angrily. "Do you hear me?"

Rathburn warded him off, keeping the package at arm's length away.

"Just hold your horses," he said coldly. "I reckon I know what I'm doing. You don't trust me now, an' I ain't goin' to take any chances with you. I'm goin' to open this an' show you that the money's there, that's all; I'm goin' to show you that I'm giving you back what you gave me all fair an' square."

Sautee's face was ashen. His voice trembled as he spoke again: "Hand it over and get out of here. I've had enough trouble with you. I'll take your word for it."

But Rathburn was undoing the paper wrappings.

Again Sautee made a leap, but this time he met Rathburn's left fist and staggered back, dropping into a chair. Rathburn looked at him coldly.

"Funny you're so anxious to take my word for things now, when a minute ago you said you couldn't know but what I'd told that holdup story for a blind so's I could get away with—this!"

The wrappings fell away, revealing a wad of blank paper.

Rathburn's face froze. Sautee stared white-faced at what the other held in his hand. Then a peculiar glint came into his eyes and he looked at Rathburn narrowly.

"So that's the way of it," he said sarcastically.

Rathburn stuffed the paper into a pocket. Then he pulled a chair in front of the mines manager and sat down. He took out paper and tobacco from his shirt pocket and began to fashion a cigarette.

"It sure looks bad for me, doesn't it, Mr. Sautee?" he asked as he snapped a match into flame.

"I thought you were going to return the money," Sautee said sneeringly.

"It looks bad two ways," Rathburn went on as if he hadn't heard the other's comment. "First, if that package the holdups got had contained the money you could have swore it was a put-up job. I'd have had to beat it fast. Now, when I find that the package you gave to me was full of blank paper, you can say that I framed the holdup story and changed the money for paper in the bargain."

Sautee's eyes were glowing. "An' you'll have to beat it, after all," he jeered.

"So it would seem," mused Rathburn. "I fooled 'em, an' to all appearances I fooled myself, although maybe I did take a peep into that package when I changed it in my room, Mr. Sautee."

The mines manager shifted in his chair; but he stared defiantly at Rathburn.

"You'd have a hard time proving anything," he said grimly.

"That's the trouble," Rathburn admitted. "I'd sort of have to depend on you. I was thinkin' maybe you double crossed me to make 'em think I was carrying the money while you sneaked it up some other way, Mr. Sautee."

"You can think what you want to," said Sautee. "But you better start moving. If I was you, I'd get as far away from this town and Mannix as I could by daylight."

Rathburn's manner underwent a lightning change as he threw away his partly finished cigarette.

"You're right," he said crisply. "It's time to start moving, Sautee."

He rose, and his right hand moved incredibly fast. Sautee gasped as he looked into the bore of Rathburn's gun. He could hardly realize that Rathburn had drawn.

"I fooled the night riders twice," explained Rathburn with a peculiar smile. "First, when I let 'em get the wrong package, an' again when I let 'em get the wrong gun. This gun an' I work together like clock ticks when necessary. I'll have to ask you to fork over the money that you drew from the bank an' that should have been in that package, Sautee."

Rathburn's eyes had narrowed and hardened; his words were cold and menacing—deadly in their absolute sincerity.

"What—what do you mean?" stammered the mines manager.

"I take it you're not deaf," snapped out Rathburn. "Maybe you don't know it, Sautee, but so help me, you're takin' a chance by acting like you didn't get me."

Sautee's thin face was twitching in a spasm of commingled rage and fear.

"The Coyote!" he breathed.

"Who told you that?" demanded Rathburn on the instant.

Sautee gripped the sides of his chair, and his face went a shade more pallid.

"Carlisle," he confessed in a strained voice.

Rathburn laughed, and the mines manager shivered as he heard.

"Now, Sautee, we'll quit beatin' around the bush," Rathburn said through his teeth. "We'll get down to business together, or I'll begin to search your place here. But if I have to search, I'll search alone. There ain't so much chance of a shot bein' heard way up the street; an' there ain't much chance of me bein' caught on that hoss of mine if I don't want to get caught. Also, I'm beginning to feel like I was in a hurry. Fork over that money!"

Sautee looked just an instant longer into the eyes of the man towering over him. Then he rose, shaking, dry-lipped, and knelt down by the head of the bed. He lifted a piece of the carpet, opened a small trapdoor, reached inside, and brought out a bundle of bank notes. Rathburn took the money from him.

Sautee still was kneeling as he heard Rathburn walk lightly to the front door and insert the key in the lock. He tried to cry out, but the effort resulted only in a croak in his throat. He heard the door close softly.

"The Coyote!" he mumbled, passing a hand across his forehead.

The echoes of galloping hoofs came to him as he scrambled to his feet and staggered toward the door.



CHAPTER XX

APPEAL TO THE LAW

For some moments Sautee stood in the darkened doorway staring up the moonlit street. The echoes of Rathburn's flight had died away. The town was still. Sautee did not cry out, although he had recovered a considerable measure of his composure. He listened intently and finally grunted with satisfaction.

"Up the road," he muttered. "That means he is making for the pass over the mountains."

He walked hurriedly through his office into the living room. There he stood for a spell beside the table on which burned the lamp. His brows were knit into a heavy frown. He seemed debating a question in his mind. He tapped with nervous fingers on the table top.

"Pshaw," he said aloud, his face darkening. "He's an outlaw."

He put on his coat and dropped an automatic pistol into a side pocket. After another moment of hesitation he blew out the light and walked quickly out of the place, locking the door after him.

He hurried up the street to the jail. He found the jailer dozing in the little front office and did not attempt to disturb him. From the jail he hurried another short distance up the street and turned in at a little house located some distance back from the sidewalk. He knocked loudly on the door, and after a brief wait repeated the performance.

A light showed, and the front door opened. Mannix, the deputy, looked out.

"Let me in," said Sautee briefly. "There's been another robbery."

Mannix swung the door wide and stepped aside. He wore an ulster over his night clothes, and his bare feet were thrust into slippers. He scowled at the mines manager as he shut the door.

"More of the company's money gone?" he asked with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

Sautee nodded. "Some twenty-odd thousand," he said soberly; "and I believe the man that got it is responsible for the holdups that have been pulled off around here."

"Who got it?" Mannix asked quickly.

"Rathburn," Sautee announced.

Mannix smiled in undisgusted contempt. "Your own fault," he pointed out. "Wouldn't give me a chance to investigate. Said you had a scheme that would show him up one way or the other. Wouldn't let me in on it, an' I was fool enough to let you have a try, although I don't believe I could have held him anyhow."

"Just it," said Sautee. "Wouldn't have done any good to keep him in jail, and I thought I had a two-way scheme that would either show him up, as you say, or get me an excellent messenger. I intrusted Rathburn with a package to carry to the mines office. He's a gunman, a desperado, probably a killer, and I thought it would appeal to him to be put in a place of trust. If he fell down—then I figured you'd be able to get him like you said you could."

Mannix snorted. "After tryin' a fool scheme you want to shift the business on my shoulders, eh? Well, Sautee, you've never shown much confidence in my ability, an' you don't have to show any now. It looks to me as if the finishing of this play is all up to you."

"Oh, no, it isn't," said Sautee confidently. "You'll be most mighty glad to take out after him."

"Suppose you wait an' see how quick I start," Mannix retorted angrily. "What's the matter? Didn't he carry out your orders? I suppose you gave him a bundle of money to make off with. Sautee, I believe you're a fool!"

The mines manager winced and then frowned. "I gave him the money to carry to the mine," he confessed without flinching. "He came back with a story about being held up, and when he saw that I didn't believe him and intended to turn him back to you, he pulled a gun on me and made his get-away. He lit out through town for the road to the hogback and the pass over the mountains."

Mannix laughed harshly. "You're clever, Sautee; there's no getting away from how clever you are. Now you want me to go chasing up to the hogback to head him off. Well, I'm tellin' you that I don't know where he's gone, an' I ain't starting out after him at any two o'clock in the morning. If you'd have kept your nose out of this he'd still be all safe an' quiet in jail. That's final, so you might as well clear out an' give me a chance to get some sleep."

Sautee merely smiled after this speech from the disgusted deputy.

"Since I intrusted Rathburn with that job I've found out something about him which takes the case out of my hands entirely," he said with a smirk. "I don't care if you don't start after him till day after to-morrow. But if your chief—the sheriff—finds out that you didn't hit the trail to-night he'll likely ask you for your badge!"

"Are you threatening me?" Mannix demanded loudly.

"No, I'm only stating facts," Sautee replied stoutly. "That man who calls himself Rathburn is The Coyote!"

Mannix didn't start. He appeared hardly interested. Only the keen, penetrating quality of the steady gaze he directed at the mines manager betrayed the fact that his faculties were aroused.

"The Coyote hit back for Arizona after that deal he was mixed up in over in Dry Lake, across the range," he said with conviction.

"Oh, he did?" Sautee sneered openly. "Well, you had him in jail last night, and you can probably get him again, if you start right out after him."

"What makes you think this fellow Rathburn is The Coyote?" demanded Mannix.

"Carlisle knows him by sight, and he told me."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" the deputy asked sternly.

"Because Carlisle didn't tell me until after I told him what I'd done," Sautee evaded. "Then I didn't have the—ah—nerve, under the circumstances, to come to you with the news. At that, I thought he might go through with it."

Mannix swore softly. "Giving a pay-roll messenger's job to a man who's got a price on his head a mile long!" he exclaimed savagely. "Why didn't Carlisle come to me?"

Sautee shrugged. "I'm not responsible for Carlisle. Maybe he didn't feel sure of it, and maybe he's just naturally jealous of The Coyote and wants to bring him in himself. Carlisle is a gunman, as you know, and a good one."

"I know it," snapped out Mannix; "and I know both Carlisle an' you are a pair of bunglers. I guess you wanted to show me up, but you've gone about it in a way that won't get you anything nor hurt me, I'll see to that."

Sautee smiled as the deputy hurried out of the room.

In a few minutes Mannix returned fully dressed and carrying a rifle. The deputy's face was severe, and his eyes burned with the fire of the man hunt. He signaled impatiently to the mine manager to follow him. As they walked across the little porch and around to the rear of the house where Mannix kept his car the deputy talked fast.

"I'm goin' up to the hogback. He ain't had start enough to get up there yet on a horse, an' I'll beat him to it. It'll be daylight in about two hours, an' I'll be there till daylight. If you think you can do it, get out some of the men an' cover the trails to the mine on horses. He might try to get over that way. Then you better take your car and go up to the mine by the road as fast as you can to tell 'em to be on the lookout. Watch out on the hogback, for I'll be up there, parked with my lights out."

He had reached his small garage when he finished giving his instructions, and Sautee, with a promise to do as he had been told as quickly as possible, ran down the street toward the Red Feather, where a light still shone.

The news that The Coyote and Rathburn were one and the same, and that he had robbed the mining company that night and was probably responsible for the other holdups, created an immediate sensation among the few gamblers in the resort. Sautee added to the excitement by quoting rewards at random, and the forming of two posses to comb the trails to the mine and beyond was under way at once.

Sautee ran to his office and got out his small car. He stopped at the Red Feather and took one of the men from the mine with him. He stopped again when he reached the Carlisle cabin, pounded on the doors, and looked in the windows. But the place was deserted, and Sautee's features were wreathed in perplexity as he went back to his car.

"That's queer," he said as he climbed into his seat.

"What's that?" asked the man beside him.

But Sautee's answer was drowned in the roar of the motor as he sped up the road toward the hogback and the mine.



CHAPTER XXI

A CAPTURE

When Rathburn rode away from Sautee's quarters he galloped up the street straight for the road which led west out of town. He pulled his horse down to a trot when he reached the Carlisle cabin and made another brief inspection which showed that the place was deserted. Then he struck into the trail behind the cabin and began the ascent toward the Dixie Queen.

He rode slowly through the timber, depending upon his mount to keep to the dim trail, but in the open stretches in meadows and on the crest of ridges where the timber thinned, he made better time. On this occasion one would not have noted an attitude of uncertainty about his manner or movements. He had paid strict attention to the barn man's description of this trail, and he had determined general directions the day before. Rathburn was not a stranger to the art of following new trails; nor was he the kind to become confused in a locality with which he was not familiar unless he became absolutely lost. In this instance it would be a hard matter to become lost, for the ridges rose steadily upward toward the summits of the high mountains, the town was in the narrow valley below, and the foothills ranged down to the desert in the east.

He was halfway to the mine when he saw the gleam of an automobile's lights in the road far below.

"Sautee got busy right quick," he said aloud. "I 'spect they're hustlin' up to head me off at the hogback. They're figuring I'd try to go back the way I come in."

He smiled grimly in the soft moonlight, and his gaze turned toward the east, where the stars glowed over the shadowy reaches of desert which he could not see, but the very thought of which stirred something in his soul.

Then he pushed on up the trail toward the mine. For more than an hour he rode, and then, when he came to the crest of a ridge just below the Dixie Queen, he saw the lights of an automobile in the road to the right of him.

"Now what?" he ejaculated. "They ain't figurin' I'd come up here!"

He sat his horse with features again wreathed in perplexity. He scowled at the approaching gleam of light. In the direction of the hogback he could see nothing. Nor could he see the horsemen already on the trail below him and on the ridge trail to eastward.

The little mine village was directly below him. The few buildings huddled together below the big mine dump were dark. The mine buildings, too, were dark. A faint glow showed in the east—harbinger of the dawn.

The left side of the automobile was toward him when it stopped in the little street below. A man climbed out and walked around in front of the car, and Rathburn grunted in recognition as he made out the familiar form of Sautee, the mine manager.

He saw Sautee and another leave the car and walk toward a building at the lower end of the street. He could see them fairly well in the moonlight and realized that in a comparatively short time it would be daylight. He turned his horse down the slope.

When he reached the rear of the few buildings which formed the mining village, catering to the wants of the Dixie Queen workers, Rathburn edged along to the lower end where he left his horse in the shadow of a building directly across from the one which Sautee and his companion had entered, and in the windows of which a light now shone.

He stole across the street. Peering in one of the windows he saw that the room was an office. Sautee was standing before a desk, talking to another man. Rathburn quickly surmised that this man had accompanied Sautee from the town. Even as he looked, Sautee finished his speech by striking a palm with his fist, and his companion strode toward the door.

Rathburn darted around the side of the building into the shadow as the man came out and hurried up a wide road toward the mine buildings above. Then Rathburn ran around to the front of the building and quietly opened the door.

Sautee had seated himself at the desk, and he swung about in his chair as he heard the door open. He looked again into the black bore of Rathburn's gun. His eyes bulged, and this time they shone with genuine terror.

"It was sure in the pictures for us to meet again, Sautee," said Rathburn easily. "Our business wasn't finished. We ain't through yet."

"There isn't any more money," Sautee gasped out. "There's no money up here at all."

"Oh, yes, there is," said Rathburn with a mirthless smile. "There's twenty-odd thousand dollars in my right-hand coat pocket. Now I wonder what you've got in yours. It don't stand to reason you'd start out this time without a gun. Stand up!"

Sautee rose. His face was ashen. He held his hands high as Rathburn pressed his weapon against his chest and relieved him of the automatic which he carried. Rathburn felt his other pockets and then smiled agreeably. He tossed the automatic on the desk.

"All right, we'll get goin'," he announced, indicating the open door. "We'll have to hurry, for I take it you've sent for somebody from the mine."

"Where are we going?" asked Sautee without moving.

"We're goin' for a little mornin' walk, if you act reasonable," replied Rathburn. "That was my intention. But if you don't want to go——"

He shrugged, and as Sautee looked fixedly at him, he cocked his gun.

Sautee hurried toward the door with Rathburn following him closely. When they were outside Rathburn directed Sautee across the street. When they reached Rathburn's horse Rathburn quickly mounted and motioned to the mines manager to precede him into the timber behind the little village. When they gained the shelter of the timber they gradually circled around until they struck a trail which led up above the mine. They started up this, Sautee leading the way on foot with Rathburn following on his horse and keeping his gun trained on the mines manager's back.

"Don't worry," Rathburn crooned. "I won't shoot you in the back, Sautee. That wouldn't be accordin' to my ethics. But I'd have to stop you if you made a break to leave the present company."

Sautee plodded on, his breath coming in gasps, the perspiration standing out on his forehead.

The trail joined with another well-worn path a short distance above the mine. The eastern sky now was light, and Rathburn saw a stone building above them. He also saw that they were on the steep slope of the big mountain on which the Dixie Queen was located, and that there was a rift in this mountain to the left which indicated the presence of a pass there.

In a few minutes they reached the stone building. It had an iron door across which was painted the legend:

DANGER POWDER—DYNAMITE KEEP AWAY

Rathburn dismounted and tossed the reins over his horse's head so the animal would stand.

"That place looks like a natural jail," he commented.

"It's the mine's powder house," said Sautee, wiping his wet forehead.

"Sure," Rathburn rejoined, "that's just what it is. I expect there's enough powder in there to blow half this mountain off."

He walked to the door and took out his gun as he examined the padlock.

"What are you going to do?" asked Sautee excitedly.

"I'm goin' to blow the lock off," said Rathburn coolly.

"Don't do it!" cried Sautee. "There's high-percentage dynamite in there and T N T caps that we use on road work—dozens of boxes of it. You might set it off!"

Rathburn looked at the quaking mine manager speculatively. "That's right," he said finally, turning aside to grin to himself. "I guess any little jar might start it workin'. It goes off easy, I've heard."

"There are caps and detonators in there, too," said Sautee quickly. "You might shoot into them some way, you never can tell. Well, it would be as bad for you as for me." He uttered the last sentence in a note of triumph.

Rathburn was looking at the far-flung view below. He turned a hard gaze on Sautee. "What difference do you suppose it would make to me if that stuff in there goes off?" he demanded in a harsh voice. "Look down there!"

Sautee looked and drew in his breath with a gasp.

In the clear light of the blossoming dawn the whole panorama of the lower mountain country was spread out before them. To the left, under the towering peaks of the divide, the rounded crest of the hogback was discernible, and a black spot marked the location of Mannix's automobile.

"There's a car over there," said Rathburn, noting the direction of Sautee's gaze.

Almost directly below them a number of mounted men filed over a ridge and again disappeared in the timber. Off to the right more horsemen were to be seen.

"Looks like there was a posse or two out this morning," said Rathburn in a forbidding voice. "I reckon I ain't such a fool as not to know who they're lookin' for, Sautee. Now maybe you can figure out why I ain't as scared of that powder house as you are."

"I can stop them!" cried Sautee in a shaking voice.

"Sure," Rathburn agreed. "You can say you lied about me takin' the money——"

"I'll tell 'em you gave it back!" said Sautee hoarsely. "I'll tell 'em you brought it on up to the mine and that it's in the safe. I'll square it——"

"But you can't square the rewards that are out for The Coyote," said Rathburn sternly. "You've stepped into a bigger game than you thought, Sautee, an' it's got plumb out of your hands."

He turned on the mine manager fiercely. "Whatever happens, remember this: Once a man gets a bad reputation in a country like this or the country I come from, he's got it for keeps. He can't get away from it no matter how he acts or what he does. Mine has drove me away from the place where I belong; it's followed me here; I can't lose it; an' the way things has been going, by glory, I don't know if I want to lose it!"

Sautee cowered back under the fierceness in Rathburn's manner.

"An' you can tell 'em, if you ever have a chance to talk again, that I earned my reputation square! I ain't involved nobody else, an' I ain't stole from any poor people, an' I never threw my gun down on a man who didn't start for his first."

The deadly earnestness and the note of regret in Rathburn's tone caused Sautee to forget his uneasiness temporarily and stare at the man in wonder. Rathburn's eyes were narrowed, his gaze was steel blue, and his face was drawn into hard, grim lines as he looked out upon the far-flung, glorious vista below them, broken here and there by the movement of mounted men.

"Maybe I—I——" Sautee faltered in his speech. His words seemed impotent in the face of Rathburn's deadly seriousness.

Rathburn turned abruptly to the powder house door.

"Wait!" cried Sautee.

The mines manager dug frantically into his pockets and drew out a bunch of keys.

"There are some locks on this property to which there are only two keys," he explained nervously. "This is one of them, and I carry the second key. Here!"

He held out the key ring with one key extended.

Rathburn thrust his gun back into its holster and took the keys. In a moment he had unlocked the padlock and swung open the iron door, exposing case after case of high explosive within the stone structure.

Sautee was staring at him in dire apprehension.

Rathburn pointed toward the rift in the mountain on the left above them. Sautee looked and saw a man and a boy riding down the trail.

"That looks to me like the man that held me up last night," said Rathburn. "He looks like one of the men, anyway. Maybe he's found out he didn't get much, eh? Maybe he's coming back because he didn't have enough to make a get-away with. Maybe he thinks he was double crossed or something."

Sautee's features were working in a spasm of fear and worry. Suddenly he turned on Rathburn.

"Why don't you get away?" he asked in eager pleading. "That trail will take you out of the mountains and down into the desert country. You're from the desert, aren't you? You can make it. You've made a good haul. Go! It'll be better for me and all of us!"

Rathburn laughed bitterly. "I can't go because I'm a worse fool than you are," he said acridly. "Get in there. Sneaking lizards, man, can't you see I'm tempted to put a shot into one of them boxes and blow us both to kingdom come?"

Sautee shrank back into the powder house, and Rathburn slammed the door.

As Rathburn snapped the padlock and thrust the keys into his pocket his eyes again sought the trail to the left above him. No one was in sight. The man and the boy had disappeared in a bend or depression in the trail.

But when he looked down toward the hogback he saw a car coming up the road toward the mine. A number of horsemen had taken its place on the hogback.

Rathburn ran for his horse.



CHAPTER XXII

A SECOND CAPTURE

Rathburn rode straight up the trail which led from the powder house toward the pass over the big mountain. His eyes were gleaming with satisfaction, but several times they clouded with doubt, and he felt the bank notes in his coat pocket. Each time, however, he would shake his head and push on up the trail with renewed energy.

Looking backward and downward, he could see the posses gathering in the street of the mine village. He sensed the excitement which had followed the sudden disappearance of Sautee and smiled grimly. He saw that the automobile from the hogback had reached the village. Scores of men were clustered about it. He knew Mannix was taking personal charge of the man hunt; but there was a chance to get away!

He looked wistfully eastward. Somewhere off there, beyond the rolling foothills, was the desert. He thrilled. It had been there he had made his first mistake. Goaded by the loss of his small cattle ranch he had taken revenge on the man who had foreclosed on him and others in a similar predicament. He had held up the bank and restored a small measure of the losses. Even then the profit of the unscrupulous money lender had been enormous.

But the law had marked Rathburn. The gunmen who were jealous of his reputation as an expert at the draw had forced him to fall back upon that draw to protect his life. Thus he had been driven to obtain a living in the best way he could, and something in the dangerous, uncertain life of the outlaw had appealed to his wild blood.

Sautee had said the money in his pocket was a good haul. Why not? He looked again to eastward. Over the big mountain—into the timber—a circling back—a straight cut east——

He knew he could do it. He had evaded posses before—posses composed of trained men who were accustomed to take the man trail. It would actually be rare sport to play with the crowd below. His left hand dropped idly into his coat pocket, and he started as he fingered what was there. Then his brow became furrowed, and he scowled.

"Maybe I ain't such a good guesser after all," he muttered. "Maybe I'm just what I told Sautee—a fool."

He caught sight of a man and a boy above him. Another instant and they were lost to view.

Rathburn suddenly put the spurs to his horse, and the dun surged up the steep trail. As he rode, Rathburn took his rawhide lariat from its place on the saddle. At a point above where the trail twisted about a huge outcropping of rock he turned off, dismounted, and crept to the top of the rocks. Quickly he surveyed the trail above. Then he slipped back down to his horse, got in the saddle, and took up a position just at the lower end of the outcropping, some little distance back from the trail and above it. He held the lariat ready in his hands.

He sat his horse quietly—listening. The wind had died with the dawn, and there was no sound in the hills. The sun was mounting in the sky to eastward. Rathburn looked out over the timbered slopes below with wistful eyes. Suddenly his gaze became alert. The sound of horses upon the rocky trail above the outcropping came to his ears.

Gradually the sound became more and more distinct. He could hear the hoofs of the horses striking against the rock of the trail. He shook out the noose of his rope, and it sang as it whirled in the air.

The head of a horse had hardly pushed past the rock when Rathburn's noose went swirling downward and dropped true over its target. The man in the saddle loosed a string of curses as he felt the rawhide lariat tighten about his arms and chest. His horse shied, and he was dragged from the saddle, landing on his feet, but falling instantly.

The second horse reared back, and Rathburn's gun covered the boy in the saddle. Rathburn, keeping tight hold on the rope hand over hand, and retaining his gun in his right hand at the same time, ran down the short pitch. The boy's horse became still, and while the youth stared Rathburn trussed up the first rider and then stood off to look at him.

"Just takin' a mornin' ride, Carlisle?" he asked cheerfully. "Or did you forget something? Don't make any false moves, kid. I ain't in a playful mood."

The boy continued to stare, but Carlisle's face was black with rage, and curses flowed from his lips.

"That won't get you anything," Rathburn said coolly. "You might better be doin' some tall thinking instead of cussing. You ain't got the cards stacked for this deal, Carlisle."

"What's your game?" Carlisle managed to get out.

"It's a deep one," Rathburn replied dryly. "An' it's too complicated to tell you now. I'm goin' to give you a chance to do the thinking I mentioned a while back. I ain't takin' your gun or your horse. The only thing I'm takin' is a chance, an' I ain't takin' it on your account."

For an instant Rathburn's eyes burned with fury. Then he dragged Carlisle into the shelter of the rocks, to the side of the trail, and tied his horse near by. Mounting, he motioned to the boy to ride down the trail ahead of him. He looked at the big hat and the overalls the boy wore. The youth looked wildly about and then drove the spurs into his mount and dashed down the trail with Rathburn close behind, calling to him to take it easy.

Just as they reached a spot directly above the powder house the boy reined in his horse. Rathburn saw he was looking down at the turbulent scene in the street of the little village below the mine. Then the boy swayed in the saddle, and Rathburn had just time to fling himself to the ground and catch the senseless form in his arms as it toppled.

He put his burden down on the grass beside the trail and led his horse into the timber and tied him. Next he picked up the boy and made his way down to the powder house. The shouts of many men came to him from far below. He succeeded in getting out the keys and unlocking the padlock which secured the door of the powder house. Then he opened the door, covered the frightened mine manager with his gun, and carried his burden in with one arm.

"One of the accomplices," he said briefly to Sautee, as he put the lad down and loosened the shirt at the throat. "He'll come around in a minute."

Sautee's eyes were popping from his head. He leaned back upon the cases of dynamite and passed a clammy hand over his brow.

"I've got Carlisle, too," said Rathburn. "Takin' it all around from under it ain't a bad morning's haul."

Sautee now stared at him with a new look in his eyes—a look in which doubt struggled with terror.

"I don't believe you are The Coyote!" he blurted out.

"Who do you reckon I might be, if I ain't?" Rathburn asked quietly.

"You might be some kind of a deputy or something."

Rathburn laughed harshly. "It just happens I'm the man some folks call The Coyote," he said. "I don't like the name, but it was wished on me, an' I can't seem to shake it off. If I wasn't the man you think I am you wouldn't be in such a tight fix, Sautee."

Rathburn's words conveyed a subtle menace which was not lost on the mine manager. Sautee cringed and rubbed his hands in his nervous tension.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Listen!" exclaimed Rathburn.

From below came the echoes of shouts and other sounds which conveyed the intelligence that a large body of men was on the move up to the mine and the mountain slope above.

"They're after me," said Rathburn bitterly. "They think I stole the pay-rolls. They can't get me, Sautee—not alive. An' if they get me the other way I'm goin' to see to it somehow that I don't get blamed for these jobs up here. Now, do you begin to see daylight?"

Sautee wet his dry lips. The figure on the floor stirred. The shouts from below sounded more distinct.

Rathburn's gun leaped into his hand. "You better start hoping the shootin' don't begin till we understand each other, Sautee," he said grimly. "We've come to the show-down!"



CHAPTER XXIII

QUICK FACTS

Disregarding the sounds which continued to come from below, Rathburn stood, gun in hand, regarding Sautee with a grim countenance and a cold look in his keen, gray eyes.

"I saw that truck driver held up, Sautee. I was on a ridge below the divide. I saw the tall man in the black slicker, his pardner, an' the boy. I didn't figure it would do any good to tell Mannix I'd taken in the show, an' I was on my way to the desert. I'd be there now if Carlisle hadn't overstepped the mark in that Red Feather place."

Sautee pricked up his ears. "You let them arrest you," he said. "Why——"

"Because I knew Mannix didn't know who I was an' didn't have anything on me," said Rathburn quickly. "An' I got peevish at Carlisle an' plumb suspicious when he tried to make things look bad for me right there at the start. I began to wise up to the whole lay when you got me out of jail."

Sautee's face went white again.

"Your fine explanations of why you couldn't get that money up to the mine were thin as water, Sautee. You could get that money up there if you wanted to, an' when you asked me to carry the package to the mine it was a dead out-an'-out give-away. I reckon you didn't play me to have any sense, an' I don't think you gave Carlisle credit for havin' the brains of a jack rabbit, either."

Rathburn laughed as the mine manager stared at mention of Carlisle's name again.

"Don't worry," he said contemptuously. "I know it was Carlisle who held me up. I take it he figured that you'd actually put money in that package. Wouldn't be surprised if it was him that you got to try that stunt. An' he started away with the package as soon as he got it instead of sneakin' back home to split with you. He double crossed you an' you double crossed him an' me. Now I'm double crossing the two of you."

Sautee's look had changed to one of anger. He glared at Rathburn, forgetting his predicament.

"You'd have a fine time proving any of this nonsense," he found the courage to say.

"I'm not only goin' to prove what I've said so far, but I'm goin' to prove that these robberies were a put-up job between you an' Carlisle, with somebody helping you," said Rathburn. "I've been in the mining game myself, Sautee, but in our country men spend their lives hunting metal to make some bunch of stockholders rich. Maybe they get something out of it themselves, an' maybe they don't; but they're square, an' the men that run the mines are square 'most always. Anyway they develop properties, an' that's more'n you're doing. You're not doing this camp any good. You're bleeding the mine an' the company, too."

"And I suppose you—The Coyote—are taking a hand in this business as a matter of principle," sneeringly replied Sautee.

"I didn't take a hand," Rathburn pointed out sternly. "You an' Carlisle forced a hand on me, an' I'm goin' to play it out. I've another reason, too," he added mysteriously.

"Did you say you had Carlisle?" Sautee asked in feigned anxiety.

"I've got him dead to rights," replied Rathburn shortly, taking some paper and a pencil from a pocket.

Sautee looked at him curiously as he started to write on the paper. "Going to write it all out and leave it?" he asked sneeringly.

"I'm going to put it outside the powder house in a place where Mannix or some of the others will be sure to find it," was the puzzling answer.

"I suppose they'll believe it quicker if it's in writing," said Sautee bravely.

Rathburn finished writing, folded the paper, and placed it in the left-hand pocket of his coat. He carefully put away the pencil. His next act caused Sautee real concern.

Using a drill which was there for the purpose, evidently, Rathburn broke open a box of dynamite caps and a box of dynamite. A single coil of fuse was lying on a box. He quickly affixed the cap to a stick of the dynamite and crimped on a two-foot length of fuse. Then he moved the opened box of dynamite to the doorway and struck the stick with cap and fuse attached into it.

"There," he said, evidently greatly satisfied with his work. "That fuse will burn about two minutes——" He paused. "That's too long," he concluded.

Perspiration again stood out on Sautee's forehead as he watched Rathburn cut off a foot of the fuse.

"That's better," said Rathburn with a queer smile. "That'll burn about a minute. Time enough."

Sautee stared in horrified fascination at the foot of fuse which stuck straight out from the box of dynamite in the doorway. "What—what are you going to do?" he gasped out.

"Listen, Sautee," said Rathburn coolly. "When that stick of powder explodes it'll set off the box an' the other boxes, an' instead of a powder house here there'll be a big hole in the side of the mountain."

"Man—man—you're not going to do—that!" Sautee's words came in a hoarse whisper.

"I reckon that's what I'm goin' to have to do," said Rathburn as he bent over the form on the floor of the powder house.

The boy's eyes were open and were staring into Rathburn's.

Rathburn lifted him to his feet, where he stood unsteadily. Again the gun was in Rathburn's hand.

"This party is goin' to leave us," he said to the frightened mine manager. "I'm goin' to step just outside for a minute. It's your chance to make a break, Sautee; but if you try it I'll send a bullet into that cap. Maybe you heard somewhere that I can shoot tolerably well," he concluded in his drawl.

Sautee gripped the sides of the boxes piled behind him.

Rathburn led the boy outside and said quickly: "Just what is this man Carlisle to you?"

A look of fear, remorse, dejection—all commingled and pleading—came into the dark eyes that looked up into his.

Rathburn didn't wait for a verbal answer.

"Your horse is just up the trail a piece," he said hurriedly. "Get up there—go up behind the powder house, so the men below can't see you. Swing off into the timber to the left and get down out of here. I'll keep their attention. Go home."

He waited a moment until he saw that his instructions were being carried out, then he leaped again to the doorway of the powder house.

Sautee's face was livid, and his teeth were chattering. Rathburn took a match from his shirt pocket.

"Stop!" screamed Sautee. "I'll talk. You were right. It was a frame-up. I'll tell everything—everything!"

The perspiration was streaming from his face, and his voice shook with terror.

"You'll have a chance to talk in less than a minute," said Rathburn calmly.

A chorus of shouts came from the trail just below the powder house as a number of men came into view.

Rathburn stepped in front of the door with the match in his left hand and his gun in his right.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE SHOW-DOWN

A wild chorus of yells greeted him. He had surmised that the men had seen him coming back down the trail to the powder house with his human burden. Now he called Sautee into view. They would most naturally assume that it was the mine manager he had been carrying.

"Come to the door where they can see you," he called to Sautee.

The ring in his voice brought Sautee, white-faced and shivering, to the doorway beside Rathburn.

Another round of yells followed the mine manager's appearance. Then there was a sudden stillness. Rathburn saw that the crowd was made up mostly of miners. They paused in the wide place in the trail just below the powder house, and Mannix pushed to the fore.

"I want you, Coyote," he called sternly.

"Now, don't you think I know it?" replied Rathburn in a voice which carried to all the members of the mob. "You don't want me for robbing this mine, Mannix; you want me for something you don't know anything about—because I've got a record. Wait a minute!"

He shot out the words as the mob pushed a step forward.

"If you fellows take a couple more steps in this direction I'll put a bullet into this box of dynamite!"

The movement stopped instantly. Men stared up at him breathlessly, for they realized that he meant what he said.

Mannix's face was pale, but his eyes glowed with determination.

"Do you think it's worth it, Coyote?" he asked.

"Step up here, Mannix, an' listen to what this fellow has to say," was Rathburn's reply. "Men," he called in a loud voice, "I'm lookin' to you to give your mine boss an' your deputy sheriff a fair deal."

There was a murmur among the men. Mannix, after a moment of hesitation, stepped forward.

Rathburn swung on Sautee. "Tell him!" he commanded in a voice which stung like the crack of a whip on still air.

"I—I had a hand in the business," said Sautee frantically. "It was Carlisle and me. We—we framed the robberies."

Mannix's eyes narrowed.

"Tell him where I got that money last night," Rathburn thundered. "Tell him, Sautee, or, so help me, I'll drill a hole through you!"

Sautee cowered before the deadly ferocity in Rathburn's voice. "I had it in the—office—downtown," he stammered. "There was blank paper in that package, Mannix. Let him go—let him go, Mannix, or we'll all be killed!" Sautee cried.

Rathburn was looking steadily at the deputy. "Carlisle is roped an' tied up the trail by the big rocks," he said. "Send up there for him an' bring him down here."

Several of the men who were mounted spurred their horses up the steep trail. There was utter silence now among the men. Mannix, too, was cool and collected. He had not drawn his gun. He surveyed the quaking Sautee with a look of extreme contempt. The mine manager's nerves had gone to pieces before Rathburn's menacing personality. All he cared for now was his life. The black reputation he had given to Rathburn led him to believe that the man could not be depended upon, and that he was liable to carry out his threat and blow them all to bits. He wet his lips with a feverish tongue.

"Where's the money you an' Carlisle got away with?" demanded Mannix.

"I've got all I took," whined Sautee. "I'll give it back. I don't know what Carlisle's done with his. It was his scheme, anyway; he proposed it when he hit this country a year ago."

"And the other man——" suggested Mannix.

"Mike Reynolds," cried Sautee. "But he was only in on the truck driver deal and—last night. Let The Coyote go, Mannix——"

Then Sautee, in a frenzy of fear, an easy prey to the seriousness of the situation and his shattered nerves, told everything. He explained how it had been Carlisle who proposed getting Rathburn out of jail and making him the goat. He told of the worthless contents of the package he had given Rathburn to carry to the mine, how they had planned to rob him on the way and thus put him in a situation where he would have to get out of the country. He explained how Carlisle had pointed out that they had a club over Rathburn's head in their knowledge of his real identity. He complained that Carlisle had intended to double cross him, and how he had double crossed Carlisle in turn. He ended with a whining plea for consideration at the hands of Mannix.

The men with Carlisle came down the trail. Carlisle was astride his own horse. His gun was in his holster.

"We've got you, you outlaw!" he cried as he flung himself from the saddle and strode up to Rathburn, Mannix, and Sautee.

Rathburn's eyes had narrowed until they were slits through which his cold, hard gaze centered upon Carlisle. His attitude had changed. Even his posture was suddenly different. There was a long breath from the men behind Mannix. It was a tense moment. They could see the menace in Rathburn's manner, and they could see that Carlisle was fighting mad.

"Ain't you a little free with your language, Carlisle?" drawled Rathburn.

"You know who he is?" Carlisle cried to Mannix. "He's The Coyote—an outlaw an' a killer with a price a mile long on his head——"

"But I ain't never sneaked any miners' pay-rolls, Carlisle," Rathburn broke in with a sneering inflection in his voice. "What'd you do with Mike Reynolds? He was with you last night, wasn't he?"

Carlisle's jaw snapped shut. He swung on Rathburn with eyes darting red. Then his gaze flashed to the cringing Sautee.

"You—you rat——"

Rathburn stepped before Sautee. "You haven't any quarrel with him, Carlisle," he said evenly; "your quarrel, if you've got one, is with me. I outguessed you, that's all. You ain't plumb clever, Carlisle. You ought to be in a more genteel business. I just naturally figured out the play an' made Sautee talk, that's all. I ain't the only gent Mannix is wanting—there's three of us here!"

Carlisle's face was purple and working in spasms of rage. He realized instantly that Rathburn had spoken the truth.

"It was his scheme from the start!" shrilled Sautee from the protection of Rathburn's broad shoulders.

Then the mine manager, unable to longer stand the strain, collapsed on the ground, groaning.

"Underhanded!" Carlisle shot through his teeth as Mannix stepped back. "An' I heard The Coyote was a go-getter. By guns, I believe you're yellow!"

"You've got a chance to try an' finish what you started in the Red Feather the day I got here, Carlisle," said Rathburn in ringing tones. "If you think I'm yellow—draw!"

A second's hesitation—two figures in identical postures under the morning sun—a vagrant breeze murmuring in the timber.

Then two movements, quick as lightning—too fast for the eye to follow—and the roar of guns.

Rathburn stepped back, his weapon smoking at his hip, as Carlisle swayed for a moment and then crumpled upon the ground. Rathburn quickly drew the piece of paper from his left pocket and the roll of bills from his right. He put the note with the bills and tossed the roll to Mannix. Then he stepped back to the doorway.

"Join your men, Mannix," he said quietly.

Mannix thrust the money into a pocket and stood for several seconds looking directly into Rathburn's eyes. A curious expression was on the deputy's face, partly wonder, partly admiration, partly doubt. Then he turned abruptly upon his heel and walked back to the gaping men.

Sautee struggled to his feet. Rathburn motioned to him to join the others, and he staggered down to them.

Then Rathburn coolly lit a match and touched it to the fuse sticking out from the box of dynamite.

There was a wild yell of terror, and the mob tumbled down the trail as Rathburn ran for the trail above the powder house. The men had disappeared when he turned. His gun leaped into his hand and he fired—once, twice, three times—the fourth shot cut the burning fuse, and with a sharp intaking of breath, he ran for his horse, mounted, and rode into the timber along the trail.



CHAPTER XXV

FILED!

Rathburn picked his way slowly through the timber around to the southeast and then directly down toward the town. It was slow going, and the man seemed to relish this fact. His face was thoughtful, wistful, a bit grave. He occasionally patted his horse's neck.

"We're on our way home, old hoss," he said softly. "Seems like we just had to stop off here."

He fingered two small objects in his coat pocket.

"I wonder," he murmured. "I wonder if I could be mistaken."

He turned west after a time and rode carefully until he gained a worn trail. This he followed down toward town, and in half an hour he dismounted in the timber behind a small cabin at the side of the road to the hogback.

Rathburn went to the rear door and knocked. He received no answer, but sounds came to him through an open window. He opened the door softly and stole inside. There was no one in the kitchen. The sounds came from another room. He passed on into a bedroom and turned into another bedroom where he saw a figure in overalls lying on the bed. A great mass of dark hair covered the pillow. The form shook with sobs.

Rathburn laid a gentle hand upon the shoulder, and the face, which was quickly turned to him, was the face of a girl—the girl he had first seen when coming into the town, the girl who had been sitting the horse listening to Carlisle's tirade, the girl the barn man had said was supposed to be Carlisle's sister.

"They don't know you were up there," said Rathburn softly. "Your boy's clothes fooled them, if they saw you at all. They probably thought I was carrying Sautee down the trail, for they found Sautee up there in the powder house with me."

The girl sobbed again. Her eyes were red with weeping.

"Listen, ma'am," said Rathburn gently. "I picked these up from the road the day the truck driver was held up." He brought out two hairpins from his coat pocket.

"It set me to thinking, ma'am, an' was one reason why I stayed over here to find out what was goin' on. Maybe I've done wrong, ma'am, but I was hoping I'd be doin' you a favor. I saw the look in your eyes the day Carlisle was talkin' to you when you was on the hoss. I know you helped him in his holdups, dressed like a boy, but I figured you didn't do it because you wanted to."

"No—no—no!" sobbed the girl.

"All right; fine, little girl. No one knows anything about it but me, an' I'm goin' away. But, listen, girlie, just what was Carlisle to you?"

A spasm of weeping shook the girl. "Nothing I could help," she sobbed. "He—I had to do as he said—because—oh, I hate him. I hate him!"

"There, there," soothed Rathburn. "I suspected as much, girlie."

"He made my father a bad man," sobbed the girl; "an' made me go with him or my father would have to go—to—to go——"

"Never mind, girlie," Rathburn interrupted softly. "I don't want to hear the story. Just keep it to yourself an' start all over. It ain't a bad world, girlie, an' there's more good men in it than there's bad. Now, you can begin to live and be happy like you ought. Carlisle won't worry you no more."

She raised her head and looked at him out of startled eyes in which there was a ray of hope.

"You say—he won't—worry me——"

"Not at all, girlie. He walked into his own trap. I'm goin', girlie. So long, an' good luck."

He took her hand and pressed it, and under the spell of his smile the hope came into her welling eyes.

"Good-by," he called from the doorway.

She was smiling faintly through her tears when he slipped out.

* * * * *

Deputy Sheriff Mannix was sitting in his little office alone. It was nearly sunset. A faint glow of crimson shot across the carpet.

Mannix was scowling thoughtfully. On the desk before him were two pieces of paper. One of them was a reward notice publishing the fact that The Coyote was wanted and that five thousand dollars would be paid by the State of Arizona for his capture, dead or alive.

Mannix picked up the second piece of paper and again read the words penciled upon it:

I am taking out of this money belonging to the Dixie Queen the five hundred dollars Sautee promised me for carrying the money to the mine, and the two thousand dollars reward offered for the capture of those who had been robbing the Dixie Queen. I expect that shortly after this gets into the proper hands Sautee will be in jail, and he will be handy to tell you this is all O. K.

RATHBURN.

Mannix took up the reward notice, put it with the note, and jammed the two pieces of paper into an obscure pigeonhole in his desk.

"Filed!" he said aloud.

Then he rose with a peculiar smile, went out upon the little porch, and stared toward the east where the reflection of the sunset cast a rosy glow over the foothills leading down to the desert.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE PRODIGAL

With face upraised to the breath of air which stirred across the bare black lava hills, Rathburn leaned forward in the saddle eagerly, while his dun-colored horse stood patiently, seemingly in accord with his master's mood. A merciless sun beat down from a hot, cloudless sky.

Below, stretching in endless miles was the desert—a sinister, forbidding land of desolate distances, marked only by slender yucca palms, mesquite, dusty greasewood, an occasional clump of green palo verde, the slim fingers of the ocatilla, the high "forks" of the giant sahuara, and clumps of la cholla cactus, looking like apple orchards in full bloom.

Yet the man's gaze fell for a moment lovingly on each species of cactus and desert vegetation; his look was that which dwells in the homesick eyes of a traveler when he sees his native land from the deck of an inbound ship.

"Hoss, we're home!" he said aloud, while the animal pricked up its ears.

Then he looked off to the left, where the blue outlines of a low range of mountains wavered in the heat like a mirage.

"Imagination Range," he said moodily.

He tickled the dun with his spurs and trotted along the crest of the lava ridge. At its eastern terminus he swung down into the desert and struck straight east in the direction of Imagination Range. The desert's surface between the lava ridge and the higher hills of the range to eastward was cut by dry washes and arroyos and miniature ridges studded with giant cactus.

On the top of one of these high rises the horseman suddenly reined in his mount and stared into the south. "There's trouble—an' spelled with a capital T!" he ejaculated.

The gaze in his keen gray eyes centered upon a number of riders speeding their horses over the tumbled section of desert below him to his right. He made out two divisions of horsemen. One group was some distance ahead of the other. Even as he stared down at them, its group separated, and some rode for Imagination Range, while others hastened toward the lava hills, or due north in his direction. The second group halted for a brief spell, evidently for a conference, and then its members also divided and started in swift pursuit of the men ahead.

The watcher on the top of the rise frowned.

"Out of here, hoss," he said sharply. "This ain't our day for visitors."

He pushed on eastward, increasing its pace, but losing time in skirting the frequent bits of high ground. As he rode down into a deep arroyo, a horseman came galloping into its lower end and raced almost upon him before seeing him. His hand darted like lightning to his gun, and the weapon snapped into aim at his hip. The horseman came to a rearing halt, reins dangling, his hands held high, his eyes bulging from their sockets.

"Rathburn!" he exclaimed.

"The same," said the man with the gun. "What's all the disturbance down there?"

"Bob Long is chasing us," the other answered with a nervous grin.

"As I remember it," drawled Rathburn, "Bob Long is the sheriff of Mesquite County. You boys sure ain't been misbehaving?"

"It's worse than that," said the fugitive, staring doubtfully at his questioner. "The stage driver's dead. Had a notion the boss was foolin' when he told him to reach up for the bugs in the air."

"Who does the boss happen to be in this case?"

The man hesitated.

"Take your time," said Rathburn sarcastically; "there's nobody after you but the sheriff, an' he probably won't be along for a minute or two."

"It won't do you no good for him to find us here," said the other boldly.

Rathburn's eyes blazed. "I reckon you're forgettin' that Bob Long knows I travel alone," he said hotly. "He savvys I don't travel with a crowd. I ain't found it necessary so far, an' I ain't aiming to start. I counted eight in your gang—to hold up one stage, eh?" He concluded with a sneer, while the other shifted nervously in his saddle and cast a quick look back over his shoulder. There seemed no one there.

"You needn't be lookin' around," Rathburn said coldly. "You're goin' to stay here till you answer my question, if all the sheriffs in Arizona come ridin' up meanwhile. Who's headin' your gang?"

"That ain't professional," the fugitive grumbled. "You're just the same as one of us."

Then, seeing the look that came into Rathburn's eyes, he said hastily: "Mike Eagen planned the lay."

"I guessed it," said Rathburn in a tone of contempt. "Well, you better slope while you've still got a chance."

He motioned to the man to go, and the latter rode at a gallop up the arroyo and out of sight. Rathburn's face wore a worried scowl, as he slid his gun into its holster, whirled his horse, and speedily climbed the east side of the arroyo.

From a vantage point he caught sight again of the horsemen racing up from the south. They were much nearer, and he could readily make out the members of the sheriff's posse. He had had experience with posses before.

Striking around the crest of the high ground which formed the east side of the arroyo, he again raced toward the range of mountains in the east, taking advantage of every bit of cover which offered concealment from the riders approaching at top speed from the south.

Occasional glances made it plain that the sheriff was sending, or personally bringing, most of his posse east in the direction of the mountains, presumably in the hope of cutting off the outlaws from seeking refuge in the hills. But the mountains were Rathburn's goal as well as the goal of a majority of Mike Eagen's band, though for totally different reasons. He refused to change his direction, although by going north, the stout, speedy dun could doubtless outdistance the posse before the afternoon was spent.

Rathburn's teeth snapped shut, his jaw squared, and his eyes narrowed, as he saw indubitable signs that he had been detected. Two of the posse were waving their arms and dashing in his direction. At that distance they could not identify him, but under the circumstances such identification was unnecessary. His presence there, riding like mad, was certain to convince the pursuers that he was one of the gang responsible for the stage job. This was obvious.

For good reasons, Rathburn did not want it generally known that he was back in a country where he had spent most of his life, and where he was branded as a desperate outlaw with a big price on his head. Consequently, seeing that the sheriff's men were out to get him, he abandoned all attempt at concealment, drove in his spurs, gave the dun horse its head, and raced for the mountains.

Other members of the posse who were farther to the east caught the signals of the two who were in hot pursuit of Rathburn, and they dashed north to cut him off. The outlaws had disappeared, and Rathburn shook his head savagely, as he realized they had sought cover when they saw the chase was directed at one man. Without having had a hand in the holdup of the stage, he had arrived on the spot just in time to draw the fire of the authorities. And fire it was now; for the men behind him had begun shooting in the hope of a chance hit at the distance.

A scant mile separated him from his goal. He came to a level stretch which was almost a mass of green because of the clumps of palo verde. Here he urged the dun to its utmost, outdistanced the pair in his rear, and gained on the men riding from the south, almost ahead of him. He swerved a bit to the north and cut straight for a notch in the mountains. He smiled, as he approached it, and saw a narrow defile leading into the hills. He gained it in a final, heartbreaking burst of speed on the part of his mount. As he dashed into the canyon, bullets sang past him and over his head. Then a cry of amazement came to his ears.

"It's The Coyote!" a man was yelling. "Rathburn's back!"

He dashed into the shelter of the defile, a grim smile playing on his lips. He had been recognized. His face hardened. He rounded a huge boulder, checked his horse, and dismounted. He could hear the pound of hoofs in the entrance of the narrow canyon. A rider came into view below.

Rathburn leaned out from the protection of the boulder. His lips were pressed into a fine, white line, and there was a look of haunted worry in his eyes. His gun flashed in his hand. The rider saw him and yelled, spurring his horse. Then Rathburn's gun swung quickly upward. A sharp report sounded, like a crash of thunder in the narrow confines of the canyon, and its echoes reverberated through the hills.

The rider toppled in his saddle and fell to the floor of the canyon. His horse came to a snorting stop, reins dangling, all four legs braced. The hoof-beats instantly were stilled. A silence, complete and sinister, reigned in the defile.

Rathburn slipped his smoking gun into his holster and mounted noiselessly. Then he walked his horse slowly up the canyon, sitting sidewise in the saddle to keep a vigil on the trail behind. A minute later he heard a volley of shots below, the signal to all the scattered members of the posse to race to the entrance of the canyon. He increased his pace, broke his gun, extracted the empty shell, and inserted a fresh cartridge in its place.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE DESERT CODE

Keeping to the trail, Rathburn mounted higher and higher and spoke continually to his horse in a crooning tone of encouragement. His face was drawn in grim lines, his eyes were constantly alert, his very posture in the saddle showed that his nerves were at high tension.

He ignored dim paths which occasionally led off to the left or right in rifts in the sheer, black walls of the narrow canyon. No sound came to him from below. He knew the posse would have to proceed with the utmost caution, for the sheriff and his men could not be sure that they would not encounter him at some bend in the trail. They would be expecting shots from every boulder; for Rathburn had let them know he had no intention of being taken easily or alive.

The afternoon wore on, with Rathburn steadily penetrating the very heart of Imagination Range. Finally he swung out of the canyon trail and took a dim path to the right. He dismounted and walked back to rub off the scars left by his horse's shoes on the rock floor of the side trail. Satisfied that he would leave the members of the posse confused as to which side trail he had taken, he returned to his horse, mounted, and proceeded up the narrow trail leading to the top of the range to the south of the deep canyon.

In the western sky the sun was low when he rode down the crest of the range. The mountains were devoid of vegetation, bleak and bare and black. The lava rock seemed to absorb the heat of the sun and throw it in the rider's face. But Rathburn didn't appear to mind it.

He crossed the backbone of the range and began the descent on the eastern side. But he descended only a short distance before he swung out of the saddle. From the slicker pack on the rear of his saddle he took a pair of heavy leather gloves. He cut these open in the palms with his pocketknife and then tied them about the shoes on his horse's hind feet. The dun was only shod behind.

Again he mounted, and this time he turned to the south and rode down a long slope of lava rock. He grunted with satisfaction, as he looked behind and saw that the leather prevented the shoes on his mount's hind feet from leaving their mark. He was completely obliterating his trail—leaving nothing for the posse to follow, if they should trace him to the top of the range.

He walked his horse slowly, for the dun did not like the idea of the leather tied to its hoofs. In less than two miles the leather was worn through upon the hard rock, and he got down and removed the remnants. He straightened up and looked out over the vista of the desert.

The western sky was a sea of gold. Far to southward a curl of smoke rose upward, marking the course of a railroad and a town. Rathburn looked long in this direction, with a dreamy, wistful light in his eyes. Close at hand vegetation appeared upon the slopes of the hills. His gaze darted here and there along the ridges below him, and his parted lips and eager attitude showed unmistakably that he was familiar with every rod of the locality in which he found himself.

Again he climbed into the saddle and turned off to the left, entering a canyon. For better than half a mile he proceeded down this way, then he rode eastward again, winding in and out in a network of canyons until he came to the rock-ribbed crest of a ridge which overlooked an oasis in the desert hills. There was green vegetation where the water from a spring seeped into the floor of the canyon below him. The spring was nothing more than a huge cup in the rock which had caught the water from the spring rains and filled. Above the spring was a small cabin, and Rathburn saw that the cabin door was open.

Hurriedly he rode down a trail to the right which circled around into the canyon from its lower end. As he galloped toward the spring, a figure appeared in the doorway of the cabin. Rathburn waved an arm and dismounted at the spring. He led his horse to drink, as the man came walking toward him from the cabin. He compelled the dun to drink slowly; first a swallow, now two, then a few more; finally he drew the horse away from the water.

"You can have some more a little later," he said cheerfully. "Hello, Joe Price!"

The man walked up to him without a great show of surprise and held out his hand. He was bareheaded, and the hair which hung down to his shoulders was snow-white. The face was seamed and lined, burned by the sun of three score Arizona summers, and the small, blue eyes twinkled.

"Hang me with a busted shoe string if it ain't Rathburn," said the old man. "Why, boy, you're just in time for supper. Put your horse up behind the cabin an' get in at the table. She's a big country, all full of cactus; but the old man's got grub left!"

Rathburn laughed, rinsed his mouth out with water he dipped from the spring in a battered tin cup, and took a swallow before he replied.

"Joe, there's two things I want—grub an' gaff. I know you've got grub, or you wouldn't be here; but I don't know if you're any good at the gaff any more."

The old man scrutinized him. "You look some older," he said finally. "Not much of the wild, galootin' kid left in you, I 'spect. But don't go gettin' fresh with me, or I'll clout you one with my prospectin' pick. Go 'long now; put up your horse an' hustle inside. If you want to wash up, I guess you can—bein' a visitor."

Rathburn chuckled, as he led his horse around behind the cabin, where two burros were, and unsaddled him. Before he entered the cabin he stood for a moment looking up the ridge down which he had come. The old man watched him, but made no comment. As Rathburn sat down to the table, however, he spoke.

"I kin hear anybody comin' down that trail over the ridge, while they're a mile away," he said simply without looking up.

Rathburn flashed a look of admiration at the old man.

The glow of the sunset lit the hills with crimson fire, and a light breeze stirred with the advent of the long, colorful desert twilight. They ate in silence, washing down the hardy food with long drafts of strong coffee. The old man asked no questions of his friend. He knew that in time Rathburn would talk. A man's business in that desolate land of dreadful distances was his own, save such of it as he wanted to tell. It was the desert code.

Supper over, they went out to a little bench in front of the cabin. There Joe Price lit his pipe, and Rathburn rolled a cigarette.

For some time they smoked in silence. The purple twilight drifted over the hills, and the breeze freshened in welcome relief to the heat of the day.

"Joe, I just had to come back," said Rathburn softly. "Something's wrong with me. You wouldn't think I'd get homesick this way, after all the trouble I've had here, would you?"

The old man removed his pipe. "Anybody here in particular you want to see?" he asked slowly.

Rathburn shrugged. "You're always gettin' right down to cases first hand off an' running," he complained. "Of course there's folks I want to see. I want to see you, for instance."