ught us no nearer the breaking up of the
Goodell-Gregory combination or the recovery of the loot.

So for a third night we were compelled to seek sanctuary in the silent
canyons. And the third day brought us no better luck. At evening we were
constrained to admit that we were simply butting our heads against a
wall--with an ever-present possibility of the wall toppling over and
crushing us flat.

Altogether, we spent five consecutive days hovering around that
collection of law-enforcers, in imminent risk of capture. Each night in
the open was more cheerless than the preceding one, and each day brought
the same sense of futile effort at its close. Twice during that time the
Police camp moved, and we had to be wary, for they scoured the
surrounding territory with painstaking thoroughness. But we felt that
there was yet a chance for us to turn the tables, for Goodell was still
with the troop, and also Gregory; we saw them both the morning of the
fifth day.

"It beats me why they're pecking around over the same ground so much,"
Mac observed. "I suppose they're looking for us, but I'm pretty sure
they haven't had a glimpse of us for three days, and so I don't see why
they should think we're still hanging around. Logically, if we'd got
that bunch of money, we'd be getting out of the country. Lord, I do wish
those four would show their hand--make a move of some kind."

"So do I," I seconded. "We're not doing much good that I can see. And I
think I could play the game with a heap more enthusiasm if I had some
coffee and white bread under my belt once or twice a day. We'll go
hungry, and likewise get a devilish good soaking to-night, or I'm badly
mistaken."

We had checked our horses on the summit of the divide that ran down to
Lost River on one side and on the other sloped away to the southeast.
The wind that was merely a breath at sundown had gathered strength to
itself and now swept across the hill-tops with a resonant roar, piling
layer on layer of murky low-flying clouds into a dense mass overhead.
Night, black as the bottomless pit, walled us in. A fifty-mile breeze
lashed us spitefully, tugging at our shirt-sleeves and drowning our
voices, while we halted on that pinnacle. By the dank breath of the
wind, the ominous overcasting of the sky, all the little signs that a
prairie-wise man learns to read, we knew that a storm was close at hand.
Shelter there was none, nor food, and we stood in need of both.

"You're righ