into a deal of this kind. Their cattle and range on the Canadian had a
gold-mine beat to death for money-making; old men like them don't jump
two thousand miles from home without mighty strong reasons."

"They probably had, if we only knew," MacRae muttered. "I reckon we'd
better start; we can't do any good here."

Mac led the way. The four of us slipped through the brushy bottom as
silently as men unaccustomed to walking might go, for we had no
hankering, unarmed as we were, to bring those red-handed marauders after
us again, if they happened to be lurking in that canyon. Rutter's body
we had no choice but to leave undisturbed by the blackening fire. In the
morning we would come back and bury him, but for that night--well, he
was beyond any man's power to aid or injure, lying there alone in the
dark.




CHAPTER V.

MOUNTED AGAIN.


We stumbled along, close up, for the thick-piled clouds still hung their
light-obscuring banners over the sky. Three yards apart we became
invisible to each other. I followed behind MacRae more or less
mechanically, though I was, in a way, acutely conscious of the necessity
for stealthy going, one part of my mind busy turning over the quick
march of events and guessing haphazard at the future.