are think. I am only
recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, _nothing_, get away
from me. I don't want _you_ to think. I want you to do the thing that will
be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will _think_, that I
hesitate to assign you to the position."

The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face.
Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I
understand. You can depend upon me."

"Good boy!" came the hearty and instant approval. "If you see anything, go
to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find
it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and
then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will
stay over at Pine Glen."

Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb,
Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried
not to think.

It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a
long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light
in the blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian
Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the
search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied,
watched the point of light with momentary, idle interest.

Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity
in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of
the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he
watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one
flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause.
For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot
under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order:
--- -- - - -- ---.

At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain
peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the
Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another.
With an exclamation, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but
the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to
see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to
be the orange groves about Fairlands.

Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do?
W