r.

They wound up a rising valley, entering from it a canon with precipitous
walls that shut out the late sun. It was by this time past eleven
o'clock and dusk was gathering closer. The winding trail ran parallel
with the creek, sometimes through thickets of young fir and sometimes
across boulder beds that made traveling difficult and slow. They went in
single file, each of them with a swarm of mosquitoes about his head.

Macy had released the hands of his prisoner so that he might have a
chance to fight the singing pests, but he kept a wary eye upon him and
never let him move more than a few feet from him. The trail grew steeper
as it neared the head of the canon till at last it climbed the left wall
and emerged from the gulch to an uneven mesa.

The leader of the party looked at his watch. "Past midnight. We'll camp
here, George, and see if we can't get rid of the 'skeeters."

They built smudge fires of green wood and on the lee side of these
another one of dry sticks. Dud made coffee upon this and cooked bacon
to eat with the fresh bread they had taken from the oven of Holt. While
George chopped wood for the fires and boughs of small firs for bedding,
Big Bill sat with a rifle across his knees just back of the prisoner.

"Gid's a shifty old cuss, and I ain't taking any chances," he explained
aloud to Dud.

Holt was beginning to take the outrage philosophically. He sat close to
a smudge and smoked his pipe.

"I wouldn't either if I were you. Sometime when you ain't watching, I'm
liable to grab that gun and shoot a hole in the place where your brains
would be if you had any," countered the old man.

He slept peacefully while they took turns watching him. Just now there
would be no chance to escape, but in a few days they would become
careless. The habit of feeling that they had him securely would grow
upon them. Then, reasoned Holt, his opportunity would come. One of the
guards would take a chance. Perhaps he might even fall asleep on duty.
It was not reasonable to suppose that in the next week or two he would
not catch them napping once for a short ten seconds.

There was, of course, just the possibility that they intended to murder
him, but Holt could not associate Selfridge with anything so lawless.
The man was too soft of fiber to carry through such a programme, and as
yet there was need of nothing so drastic. No, this little kidnapping
expedition would not run to murder. He would be set free in a few week