with the plunder. Some of the troopers grabbed up their guns and cut
loose at random, and these hold-up people returned the compliment with
deadly effect.

"That isn't all," he continued moodily. "I stayed there till daylight,
and then gathered up their stock. All the thieves wanted of the horses
was to set the outfit afoot for the time being--a trick which bears the
earmarks of the bunch that got in their work on us. They had turned the
horses loose a mile or so away, and I found them grazing together. When
I'd brought them in I got a bite to eat and came on about my own
business.

"Up on the ridge, close by the spring I had stopped at, I came slap on
their track; the four horses had pounded a trail in the wet sod that a
kid could follow. I tore back to the paymaster's camp and begged him to
get his men mounted and we would follow it up. But he wouldn't listen to
such a thing. I don't know why, unless he had some money they had
overlooked and was afraid they might come back for another try at him.
So I went back and hit the trail alone. It led south for a while, and
then east to Sage Creek. This was day before yesterday, you _sabe_. Near
noon I found a place where they'd _cached_ two extra horses in the brush
on Sage Creek. After that their track turned straight west again, and it
was hard to follow, for the ground was drying fast. Finally I had to
quit--couldn't make out hoof-marks any more. And it was so late I had to
lie out that night. I got to Pend d' Oreille yesterday morning two or
three hours after you fellows left for the crossing."

I haven't quite got a gambler's faith in a hunch, or presentiment, or
intuitive conclusion--whatever term one chooses to apply--but from the
moment he spoke of seeing four riders on a ridge during that frolic of