not in any humor to meet him, and without attempting
to conceal himself he swung away from the river, as if to climb the
slope of the mountain on his right. No sooner had he clearly signified
the new direction he was taking, than the stranger deliberately altered
his course in a way to cut him off. Keith was irritated. Climbing up a
narrow terrace of shale, he headed straight up the slope, as if his
intention were to reach the higher terraces of the mountain, and then
he swung suddenly down into a coulee, where he was out of sight. Here
he waited for ten minutes, then struck deliberately and openly back
into the valley. He chuckled when he saw how cleverly his ruse had
worked. The stranger was a quarter of a mile up the mountain and still
climbing.

"Now what the devil is he taking all that trouble for?" Keith asked
himself.

An instant later the stranger saw him again. For perhaps a minute he
halted, and in that minute Keith fancied he was getting a round
cursing. Then the stranger headed for him, and this time there was no
escape, for the moment he struck the shelving slope of the valley, he
prodded his horse into a canter, swiftly diminishing the distance
between them. Keith unbuttoned the flap of his pistol holster and
maneuvered so that he would be partly concealed by his pack when the
horseman rode up. The persistence of the stranger suggested to him that
Mary Josephine had lost no time in telling McDowell where the law would
be most likely to find him.

Then he looked over the neck of his pack at the horseman, who was quite
near, and was convinced that he was not an officer. He was still
jogging at a canter and riding atrociously. One leg was napping as if
it had lost its stirrup-hold; the rider's arms were pumping, and his
hat was sailing behind at the end of a string.

"Whoa!" said Keith.

His heart stopped its action. He was staring at a big red beard and a
huge, shaggy head. The horseman reined in, floundered from his saddle,
and swayed forward as if seasick.

"Well, I'll be--"

"DUGGAN!"

"JOHNNY--JOHNNY KEITH!"

XXIV

For a matter of ten seconds neither of the two men moved. Keith was
stunned. Andy Duggan's eyes were fairly popping out from under his
bushy brows. And then unmistakably Keith caught the scent of bacon in
the air.

"Andy--Andy Duggan," he choked. "You know me--you know Johnny
Keith--you know me--you--"

Duggan answered with an inarticulate bellow and jumped at Keith a