"You
are captain to-night, Miss Dicksie, by Heaven. If you say the word
I'll lie here on a rug till morning. But that man will not be back
to-night. You are a queen. If I had a mountain girl that would do as
much as that for me I would----"

"What would you do?" asked Marion.

"Say good-by to this accursed country forever."

CHAPTER XLIII

CLOSING IN

In the morning the sun rose with a mountain smile. The storm had swept
the air till the ranges shone blue and the plain sparkled under a
cloudless sky. Bob Scott and Wickwire, riding at daybreak, picked up a
trail on the Fence River road. A consultation was held at the bridge,
and within half an hour Whispering Smith, with unshaken patience, was
in the saddle and following it.

With him were Kennedy and Bob Scott. Sinclair had ridden into the
lines, and Whispering Smith, with his best two men, meant to put it up
to him to ride out. They meant now to get him, with a trail or
without, and were putting horseflesh against horseflesh and craft
against craft.

At the forks of the Fence they picked up Wickwire, Kennedy taking him
on the up road, while Scott with Whispering Smith crossed to the
Crawling Stone. When Smith and Scott reached the Frenchman they parted
to cover in turn each of the trails by which it is possible to get out
of the river country toward the Park and Williams Cache.

By four o'clock in the afternoon they had all covered the ground so
well that the four were able to make their rendezvous on the big Fence
divide, south of Crawling Stone Valley. They then found, to their
disappointment, that, widely separated as they had been, both parties
were following trails they believed to be good. They shot a steer,
tagged it, ate dinner and supper in one, and separated under
Whispering Smith's counsel that both the trails be followed into the
next morning--in the belief that one of them would run out or that the
two would run together. At noon the next day Scott rode through the
hills from the Fence, and Kennedy with Wickwire came through Two
Feather Pass from the Frenchman with the report that the game had left
their valleys.

Without rest they pushed on. At the foot of the Mission Mountains they
picked up the tracks of a party of three horsemen. Twice within ten
miles afterward the men they were following crossed the river. Each
time their trail, with some little difficulty, was found again. At a
little ranch in the Mission foothills, Kennedy and