s cabin in the early
twilight. He waited patiently until the curtain of night had fallen,
and the stars had replaced the fading banners of the sunset, before he
slipped down a steep slope and walked his horse into the canyon below
the old miner's abode.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE COMPASS WAVERS

Joe Price regarded Rathburn with a curious look in his eyes when he
beheld him in the doorway of his cabin. He stepped swiftly to the one
window, which was over the table, and dropped the burlap shade. Then
he closed the door.

"So they've been here?" asked Rathburn.

"What else could you expect?" replied Price testily. "They're combin'
these hills for you." He looked at Rathburn keenly, but Rathburn only
smiled.

"That's not news to me," he said quietly; "I've percolated through
their lines twice."

"Stay here," said Price, "and I'll look after your horse--or were you
hidin' up all day?"

"No such luck," answered Rathburn grimly.

The old man looked at him curiously; then he went out of the door,
closing it carefully after him.

Rathburn found cold food, put it on the table, and sat down to eat.
When Price returned he had finished. The old miner sat down in a chair
opposite Rathburn.

"Now, out with it," he said. "Something has happened. I can see it in
the way you look an' act. What's up?"

Rathburn carefully rolled a brown-paper cigarette, snapped a match
into flame, and lit it before he replied. He was half smiling.

"I held up the State Bank of Hope this mornin' an' extracted a bag of
perfectedly good bills," he announced. "Didn't bother with the counter
money. Made 'em serve me from the vault."

Joe Price's eyelids did not even flicker.

"Any idear what you got?" he asked.

"Not whatsoever," replied Rathburn coolly; "but the smallest I saw on
top of the package was a fifty."

Price nodded. "You got plenty," he said.

Rathburn scowled. He had expected some kind of an outbreak--at least a
remonstrance from his old friend. He glanced about uneasily and then
glared defiance at Price.

"It had to come, Joe," he asserted. "There wasn't any way out of it.
What's more, I killed that greased pard of Eagen's, Gomez."

"How so?" queried Price.

"Well, I'll tell _you_, Joe, but I don't expect it to go any further.
He said something about Laura Mallory an' a man named Doane, an' I
didn't like it. I slapped him. Then he went for a knife he had in his
hat."

The old man nodded again. "I see," he said simp