ing the main body of the house only
a few feet under his window and sloping to what could not have been a
dangerous distance from the ground. He raised the window-sash.

Yet he waited, something as he had waited for Sally Fortune to speak
earlier in the night, with a sense of danger, but a danger which
thrilled and delighted him. No game of polo could match suspense like
this. Besides, he would be foolish to go before he was sure.

The walls were gaping with cracks that carried the sounds, and now he
heard a sibilant whisper with a perfect clearness.

"This is the room."

There was a click as the lock was tried.

"Locked, damn it!"

"Shut up, Butch. Jerry, have you got a bar, or anything? We'll pry it
down and break in on him before he can get in action."

"You're a fool, McNamara. That feller don't take a wink to get into
action. Sure he didn't hear you when you hollered out the window? That
was a fool move, Wood."

"I don't think he heard. There wasn't any sound from his room when I
passed it goin' downstairs. Think of the nerve of this bird comin' here
to roost after what he done."

"He didn't think we'd follow him so fast."

But Anthony waited for no more. He slipped out on the roof of the shed,
lowered himself hand below hand to the edge, and dropped lightly to the
ground.

The grey, at his coming, flattened back its ears, as though it knew that
more hard work was coming, but he saddled rapidly, led it outside, and
rode a short distance into the forest. There he stopped.

His course lay due north, and then a swerve to the side and a straight
course west for the ranch of William Drew. If the hounds of the law were
so close on his trace, they certainly would never suspect him of
doubling back in this manner, and he would have the rancher to himself
when he arrived.

Yet still he did not start the grey forward to the north. For to the
south lay Sally Fortune, and at the thought of her a singular hollowness
came about his heart, a loneliness, not for himself, but for her. Yes,
in a strange way all self was blotted from his emotion.

It would be a surrender to turn back--now.

And like a defeated man who rides in a lost cause, he swung the grey to
the south and rode back over the trail, his head bowed.

CHAPTER XXXVII

"TODO ES PERDO"

It was not long after the departure of Bard that Sally Fortune awoke.
For a step had creaked on the floor, and she looked up to find Steve
Nash standing in