nt roof of a makeshift shelter of boughs
through which the stars showed white and brilliant. For ten years and
more he had lain out on most nights under the open sky, with wind and
rain and snow working their will on him, and the bright stars, like
strange eyes, watching him. During the early years of his range life
he used to watch the stars in return and wonder what was their message.
And now, since his return home, he seemed so much closer to his beloved
boyhood. Tonight the stars haunted him. Over the ridge tops a few
miles, they were shining in the window of Lucy's tiny room, perhaps
lighting her fair face. It seemed that these stars were telling him
all was not well in Lucy's mind and heart. He could not shake the
insidious vague haunting thought, and longed for dawn, so that in the
sunlight he could dispel all morbid doubts and the shadows that came in
the night.

So for hours he lay there, absorbed in mind. It was not so silent a
night as usual. The horses were restless, as if some animal were
prowling about. He could hear the sudden trampling of hoofs as a
number of horses swiftly changed their location. The coyotes were in
full chorus out in the valley. A cold wind fitfully stirred the
branches, whipped across his face. One of his comrades, Blinky he
thought, was snoring heavily.

Pan grew unaccountably full of dread of unknown things. His sensitive
mind had magnified the menace hinted at by Mac New. It was a matter of
feeling which no intelligent reasoning could dispel. Midnight came
before he finally dropped into restless slumber.

At four o'clock Lying Juan called the men to get up. He had breakfast
almost ready. With groans and grunts and curses the hunters rolled
out, heavy with sleep, stiff of joints, vacant of mind. Blinky
required two calls.

They ate in the cold gray dawn, silent and glum. A hot breakfast acted
favorably upon their mental and physical make-ups, and some brisk
action in catching and saddling horses brought them back to normal.
Still there was not much time for talk.

The morning star was going down in an intense dark blue sky when the
seven men rode out upon their long-planned drive. The valley was a
great obscure void, gray, silent, betraying nothing of its treasure to
the hunters. They crossed the wash below the fence, where they had dug
entrance and exit, and turned west at a brisk trot. Daylight came
lingeringly. The valley cleared of opaque light. Lik