from
within was still shining. A sound had caught and held his attention.
It came from within the hut, and there was no mistaking it. It was the
sound inspired by physical suffering, and the voice that uttered it was
a man's. He sprang out of the saddle and turned to hand his horse to
the man who had accompanied him. But he found himself standing alone.

With a shrug of the shoulders he left his horse and turned at once to
the hut. Just for an instant he hesitated once more. It was his
thought to look in through the window. The hesitation passed. The
next moment he passed along the lateral log walls to the far end of the
building where he knew the door to be situated.

The door was closed. He placed his hand on the heavy wooden latch. A
second passed. He glanced over his shoulder. It had occurred to him
to wonder at the sudden going of the youth who had accompanied him.

But there was neither sight nor sound of the vanished youth. He raised
the latch and swung the door open.

CHAPTER XXV

AN EPIC BATTLE

The station house was extensive. It was a bunkhouse of lesser
dimensions.

Jeff's eyes moved swiftly over the dim interior. The remoter corners
of the place were shadowed. But the light was sufficient to yield him
a view of four squalid bunks on which the many-hued blankets were
tumbled. The walls bore signs of personal effort at decoration. There
were photographs over each bunk, tacked up and disfigured by flies.
There were odd prints pasted on the rough log walls, the seams of which
were more or less adequately filled with mud to keep the weather out.

There were two rough window openings, one in each side wall. The only
entrance or exit was the door at the northern end, through which he had
approached. At the other end, directly opposite this, an oil lamp was
shedding its feeble rays through a well-smoked chimney glass. It was
standing on a small improvised table which divided two bunks set on
wooden trestles. The whole interior was perhaps thirty feet in length
and twelve feet wide, a roomy, unkempt shanty, which served its simple
purpose as a shelter for men unused to any of the comforts of life.

The object which caught and held Jeff's instant attention was the
figure of the man seated on the side of one of the bunks, beside the
table on which the lamp stood. It was the figure of Sikkem Bruce,
bearing no trace whatever of any mortal injury, and with a look of
wide-eyed surpr