n' there are liable to be
people. You'll have to look out for yourself after that. It's not more
than two hundred yards to the sagebrush."

"I'm ready whenever you are," he said.

June put on her shoes and did up her hair.

She made him wait there while she scouted to make sure nobody was in the
corridor outside the room.

They passed out of the back door of the hotel.

Chung met them. He grunted "Glood-eveling" with a grin at June, but he
did not glance twice at her companion.

The two passed across a vacant lot and into the park. They saw one or two
people--a woman with a basket of eggs, a barefoot boy returning home from
after-supper play. June carried the burden of the talk because she was
quicker-witted than Houck. Its purpose was to deceive anybody who might
happen to be looking at them.

It chanced that some one _was_ looking at them. He was a young man who
had been lying on the grass stargazing. They passed close to him and he
recognized June by her walk. That was not what brought him to his feet a
moment later with a gasp of amazement. He had recognized her companion,
too, or he thought he had. It was not credible, of course. He must be
mistaken. And yet--if that was not Jake Houck's straddling slouch his
eyes were playing tricks. The fellow limped, too, just a trifle, as he
had heard the Brown's Park man did from the effects of his wounds in the
Ute campaign.

But how could Houck be with June, strolling across the park in intimate
talk with her, leaning toward her in that confidential, lover-like
attitude--Jake Houck, who had robbed the bank a few hours earlier and was
being hunted up and down the river by armed posses ready to shoot him
like a wolf? June was a good hater. She had no use whatever for this
fellow. Why, then, would she be with him, laughing lightly and talking
with animation?

Bob followed them, as noiselessly as possible. And momentarily the
conviction grew in him that this was Houck. It was puzzling, but he could
not escape the conclusion. There was a trick in the fellow's stride, a
peculiarity of the swinging shoulders that made for identification of the
man.

If he could have heard the talk between them, Bob would have better
understood the situation.

Ever since that memorable evening when Bear Cat had driven him away in
disgrace, Houck had let loose the worse impulses of his nature. He had
gone bad, to use the phrase of the West. Something in him had snapped
that hitherto ha