"When did you get in?" he asked Peter, abruptly.

"Just now."

"Been in the saddle all day?"

"Yep. But that's no con----"

"No. Only I was thinking."

Jim's eyes were still on Eve. The girl was looking straight before her at the stove. She could only wait. These men, she felt, were shouldering her burden. But she was anxious. Somehow she hadn't the same knowledge of Jim that Peter had. But then, how should she? Her point of view was so different.

Suddenly Jim started up.

"No, Peter, old friend, you can't have the horse--I need it."

Peter started forward. He was startled out of his belief in the man.

"What in----"

But Jim cut him short.

"Hold up, Peter. Eve's here," he said. Then he glanced at Elia. "I'll carry that warning. And I'll tell you why. Oh, no," as Eve suddenly started to protest, "I'm only going to speak common sense. Here's the facts which you, old friend, with all your wisdom, seem to have overlooked." He smiled up into Peter's face. "First, the man who goes must ride light. You can't be accused of that. You see, we've sure got to get there first. My plug's been out all day, and has only had about four hours' rest. I can get the most out of him the easiest. Then, you see, you're known to be in town, and if you pike the trail to-night folks'll get guessing. Then, you see, it's my business to be out--they expect it of me. Then--if things go wrong--which I don't guess they will--my name stinks a bit around here, and, well, a bit more or less don't cut any ice. Then there's another thing--Elia. You've got to keep a close eye on him, sure. If they get at him--well---- Anyway, that's what I can't do under the circ.u.mstances."

Peter's face grew almost stern as he listened to the marshaling of the man's arguments. Jim saw his look and understood. But he had clearly made up his mind.

"It's no use, Peter. You can't have that horse. I'm going to get the saddle on."

He rose to go. But the big man suddenly barred his way. His face was stern and set--something like a thunder-cloud seemed to have settled upon his kindly brow.

"Hold on. I'll allow your arguments are mostly clear. Guess you'll have to go. But I want to tell you this, Jim. If things go wrong, I'll--I'll shoot the man that lays hands on you. I'll shoot him dead!"

But Eve was on her feet at Jim's side, and her soft hands were gripping his arm with a nervous clutch.

"No, no, Jim," she cried, with tears in her eyes. "You--you mustn't go. I see it now. I didn't see it before. You--you are branded now, and--and you're going to help him. Oh, Jim, you mustn't! We had no right to ask for your horse. Indeed, indeed we hadn't. You mustn't go.

Neither of you must. No, please, please stay. It means hanging if you are----"

"Don't you say anything more, Eve," Jim said, gently but firmly releasing himself from her hold. "I've thought of all those things.

Besides, you must never forget that Will--is my cousin."

But Peter could stand no more.

"Come on," he said, almost roughly. "It's late enough already. Maybe they'll be starting directly. Here, Elia, you tell us just where Will's in hiding, and mind you don't miss anything."

It took barely five minutes for Elia to give the required directions again, which he did ungraciously enough. But Peter verified his account with the original story, and was satisfied.

Then the two men went out and saddled the horse. In three minutes Jim was in the saddle, and Peter gripped him by the hand.

"The good G.o.d'll help you out for this, Jim. So long."

"So long."

As the horseman pa.s.sed the hut Eve and Elia were standing before the closed door. Jim saw them, but he would not pause. However, his keen ears heard the whispered "G.o.d bless you" which the woman threw after him. And somehow he felt that nothing else in his life much mattered.

A few moments later Eve was at her gate, fumbling for the latch. Elia was at her side, looking out at the lights of the village. Suddenly he turned and raised his beautiful face to hers.

"Say, sis, you're a fule woman," he declared sharply. He was listening to the sounds of bustle down at the saloon. "Can't you hear? That's the boys. They've come in, and they're gettin' ready to start with Doc. If they get him--they'll hang him."

"Him? Who? What d'you mean?"

The terrified woman was staring down into his calm eyes.

"Why--Jim."

"Oh, G.o.d, no! They can't! They won't! He's too good--too brave! G.o.d will never let them. It would be too cruel."

"Say, I guess you'd be sorry some?"

"Sorry?"

But Eve was fumbling again at the gate. Nor could the boy extract another word from her.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TRAIL OF THE RUSTLERS

The blackness of night begins to stir. Ahead and above roll vague shadows, darkening, threatening, in the immensity of their wave-like shapes. Away behind the stars shine pitifully, for a dim gray light in the east heralds the coming of day. Slowly the shadows change from black to a faint gray, and their rolling becomes more p.r.o.nounced. Now, with each pa.s.sing moment, the eastern light grows, and the darkness of the west responds; now, too, the shadows show themselves for what they are. They stir and seethe like the churning of water nearly boiling, under the rising zephyrs of mountain air. They are the dense morning mists, a hazy curtain shutting out the mountain splendor beyond.

In less than half an hour a wonderful metamorphosis. A tinted fringe of cloud appears on the mists high up, and gives the impression of a beam of sunlight amidst the shadows. But no sun has broken the eastern sky-line, nor will it for another half-hour. Yet the light increases, and the swirling mists become a rosy cloudland, deep, ruddy, and exquisitely beautiful. The living fog rolls up, lifting, lifting, and every moment the picture grows in beauty and in its wonders of changing colors.

Eastward the horizon lights a glowing yellow, shot with feathery dashes of ruddy orange; yellow to green, and then the gray of the high starlit vault. But the stars are dimming, whimpering under their loss of power. Their archenemy of day is approaching, and they must shrink away and hide till the fiery path of the monarch of the universe cools, and they are left again to their own.

Doc Crombie was riding at the head of his men when the sun cleared the horizon. He was staring ahead at the still hazy foot-hills, the hiding-place of the criminal he sought. The light of battle was in his keen, quick, luminous eyes. His face was set and stern. There was no mercy in the set of his jaws, in the drawn s.h.a.ggy brows. He was out to rid the country, his country, of a scourge, a pestilence neither he nor his fellow townsmen would tolerate.

The rest of the vigilantes rode behind him, no less stern-faced than their leader. With fresh horses they had traveled long and hard that night. The journey had been chilly, and the trail rough. Their tempers were at a low ebb, and the condition only added to their determination to hang the man as soon as he was in their power.

Doc drew rein suddenly and called Smallbones to his side. The trail, which had now faded into something little better than a cattle track, was leading into the mouth of a narrow valley, bordered on either side by towering, forest-clad hills. He pointed ahead.

"That blamed kid said we'd keep right on down this cuttin' to the third hill on the left," he said. "It's nigh four miles. Then we'd find a clump of scrub with two lone pines standin' separate. Here we'd get a track of cattle marked plenty. Then we'd follow that for nigh two miles, and we'd drop into the rustlers' hollow."

"Sure. Don't sound a heap o' trouble," said Smallbones, cheerfully.

"Say, I'm not figgerin' the trouble. But we've traveled slow. We won't make it for an hour an' more, an' we're well past sun-up now. It was waitin' for the boys to git in. I sort o' wish I'd brought that kid along."

They were moving on again at a rapid canter, and Smallbones was riding at his side. The little man, like the rest, was armed liberally. But whereas the others were, for the most part, content with two guns, he had four. It would not be for lack of desire on his part if somebody did not die before noon.