dn't have to go through to-day, and
the three of us could get to the Gap before daylight to-morrow
morning, I would give Sassoon a run for his money in spite of the
other fellows."

"Don't take your run this afternoon," directed de Spain. "Telephone
Sleepy Cat for a substitute. Suppose we go back, get something to eat,
and you two ride singly over toward the Gap this afternoon; lie
outside under cover to see whether Sassoon or his friends leave before
night--there's only one way out of the place, they tell me. Then I
will join you, and we'll ride in before daylight, and perhaps catch
him while everybody is asleep."

"If you do," predicted Scott, in his deliberate way of expressing a
conclusion, "I think you'll get him."

It was so arranged.

CHAPTER V

ROUNDING UP SASSOON

De Spain joined his associates at dark outside the Gap. Neither
Sassoon nor his friends had been seen. The night was still, the sky
cloudless, and as the three men with a led horse rode at midnight into
the mountains, the great red heart of the Scorpion shone afire in the
southern sky. Spreading out when they rode between the mountain walls,
they made their way without interruption silently toward their
rendezvous, an aspen grove near which Purgatoire Creek makes its way
out of the Gap and, cutting a deep gash along the edge of the range
for a hundred miles, empties into the Thief.

Scott was the first to reach the trees. The little grove spreads
across a slope half a mile wide between the base of one towering
cliff, still bearing its Spanish name, El Capitan, and the gorge of
the Purgatoire. To the east of this point the trails to Calabasas and
to Sleepy Cat divide, and here Scott and Lefever received de Spain,
who had ridden slowly and followed Scott's injunctions to keep the
red star to the right of El Capitan all the way across the Sinks.

Securing their horses, the three stretched out on the open ground to
wait for daylight. De Spain was wakeful, and his eyes rested with
curiosity on the huge bulk of Music Mountain, rising overwhelmingly
above him. Through the Gap that divided the great, sentinel-like front
of El Capitan, marking the northern face of the mountain rift, from
Round Top, the south wall of the opening, stars shone vividly, as if
lighting the way into the silent range beyond.

The breathing of his companions soon assured de Spain that both were
asleep. The horses were quiet, and the night gave no sound save that
v