occurred to him that it might be Bostil's
return. But then it might be the Creeches. Slone had an uneasy return
of puzzling thoughts. These, however, did not hinder drowsiness, and,
deciding that the first thing in the morning he would trail the
Creeches, just to see where they had gone, he fell asleep.

In the morning the bright, broad day, with its dispelling reality, made
Slone regard himself differently. Things that oppressed him in the dark
of night vanished in the light of the sun. Still, he was curious about
the Creeches, and after he had done his morning's work he strolled out
to take up their trail. It was not hard to follow in the lane, for no
other horses had gone in that direction since the Creeches had left.

Once up on the wide, windy slope the reach and color and fragrance
seemed to call to Slone irresistibly, and he fell to trailing these
tracks just for the love of a skill long unused. Half a mile out the
road turned toward Durango. But the Creeches did not continue on that
road. They entered the sage. Instantly Slone became curious.

He followed the tracks to a pile of rocks where the Creeches had made a
greasewood fire and had cooked a meal. This was strange--within a mile
of the Ford, where Brackton and others would have housed them. What was
stranger was the fact that the trail started south from there and swung
round toward the village.

Slone's heart began to thump. But he forced himself to think only of
these tracks and not any significance they might have. He trailed the
men down to a bench on the slope, a few hundred yards from Bostil's
grove, and here a trampled space marked where a halt had been made and
a wait.

And here Slone could no longer restrain conjecture and dread. He
searched and searched. He got on his knees. He crawled through the sage
all around the trampled space. Suddenly his heart seemed to receive a
stab. He had found prints of Lucy's boots in the soft earth! And he
leaped up, wild and fierce, needing to know no more.

He ran back to his cabin. He never thought of Bostil, of Holley, of
anything except the story revealed in those little boot-tracks. He
packed a saddle-bag with meat and biscuits, filled a canvas
water-bottle, and, taking them and his rifle, he hurried out to the
corral. First he took Nagger down to Brackton's pasture and let him in.
Then returning, he went at the fiery stallion as he had not gone in
many a day, roped him, saddled him, mounted him, and ro