would never
appear again, the Doubleday ranch--to get the cowboys started at poking
out the hiding places along the creek.

McAlpin, with much ado, enlisted every man with any sort of a claim to
being a tracker--and this included pretty much every loafer interested
in a drink or a fight. He assembled a noisy crew at the barn and
despatched them singly with orders to scatter and watch the trail
points outlying the town. But birds of this feather were hard to keep
scattered. Urged both by prudential and social reasons, they tended
continuously to flock together. They kept the barn boss busy by riding
back furiously in bunches to report nobody seen, to ask for further
orders and to get a drink before reestablishing a patrol.

Knowing the value of every moment in a long chase, and working with all
possible haste, Laramie had to throw out his dragnet carefully before
he could get away himself. He had told Kate to prepare at Belle's for
a hard ride and he would get her to the ranch.

With every minute lingering like an hour, both women, nervously
expectant, waited, talked, and watched for Laramie's return.

CHAPTER XLI

THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS

Divide lands north of Sleepy Cat lie high and over their broad spread,
trails open fan-like, north, northeast and northwest. Each of the
trails penetrates at a negotiable point the broken country running up
to the mountains that battle with the northern sky.

The first highways of the country followed the easiest travel lines.
Without fences or boundaries, their travelers, to escape washouts or
dust, were free to broaden them as they fancied. In this way older
ruts were gradually abandoned and new ones formed. And with heavy
travel these trails grew into sprawling avenues.

As settlers took up lands and fenced their claims, such pioneer roads
were blocked at intervals. To meet this difficulty new trails were
made around the gradually increasing obstacles and in the end roads
along section lines were laid out, with grading and bridging. But the
wagon and cattle trails of the early days, rut-cut, storm-washed, and
polished by sun and wind and sand to a shining smoothness, still
stretch across country, truncate and deserted. Under their
weather-beaten silence lies the story of other days and other men and
women.

Along one of the earliest and broadest of these trails running into the
north country, Laramie, an hour after Bradley's arrival, was galloping
wit