that he must have approached it from the trail where they had previously
seen him, but which they now found crossed it at right angles. Barker
was right. He had really kept them at easy distance the whole length of
the journey.

But they were now reaching its end. When they issued at last from
the arroyo they came upon the outskirts of Boomville and the great
stage-road. Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer coach were just
panting along the last half mile of the steep upgrade as they
approached. They halted mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayed
and creaked by them. In their ordinary working dress, sunburnt with
exposure, covered with dust, and carrying their rifles still in their
hands, they, perhaps, presented a sufficiently characteristic appearance
to draw a few faces--some of them pretty and intelligent--to the windows
of the coach as it passed. The sensitive Barker was quickest to feel
that resentment with which the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed
criticism of the Eastern tourist or "greenhorn," and reddened under the
bold scrutiny of a pair of black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass.
That annoyance was communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the
bearded Demorest and Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with that great
world in which they were so soon to enter. They felt ashamed of
their appearance, and yet ashamed of that feeling. They felt a secret
satisfaction when Barker said, "They'd open their eyes wider if they
knew what was in that pack-saddle," and yet they corrected him for what
they were pleased to call his "snobbishness." They hurried a little
faster as the road became more frequented, as if eager to shorten their
distance to clean clothes and civilization.

Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. This contact with the
stagecoach had again brought him face to face with his buried past. He
felt his old dream revive, and occasionally turned to look back upon
the dark outlines of Black Spur, under whose shadow it had returned so
often, and wondered if he had left it there forever, and it were now
slowly exhaling with the thinned and dying smoke of their burning cabin.

His companions, knowing his silent moods, had preceded him at some
distance, when he heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on the thick
dust, and suddenly the light touch of Jack Hamlin's gauntlet on his
shoulder. The mustang Jack bestrode was reeking with grime and sweat,
but Jack himself was as immaculate and fresh a