clared Rogers; "to put Harlan wise to
where Deveny's headed for. We're leavin' the herd here until we find out
what's goin' on. Half of you guys beat it to the Rancho Seco--trailin'
Deveny an' his boys, to find out what they're doin'. You're herd-ridin'
them if they go to monkeyin' with the Rancho Seco. Slope!"

Rogers had hardly ceased speaking when the outfit was on the move. There
were eleven men, including Rogers; and they sent their horses leaping
over the crest of the hill nearest them--dividing, as they reached the
level on the other side with seemingly no previous arrangement, into two
groups--one group going northeastward, toward the South Trail, and the
other fading into the space that yawned between it and the point where
the trail to the Star led downward into the big basin.

* * * * *

Haydon, holding hard to the pommel of the saddle, urging his horse along
the trail that led up the valley, looked back whenever he reached a rise,
his eyes searching the space behind him for the dread apparition that he
expected momentarily.

He knew that it would not be long before Morgan and Harlan would emerge
from the ranchhouse to discover that he had escaped; and he knew, too,
that they would suspect that he had gone to the Cache.

He expected they would delay riding after him, however, until they
searched for him in some of the buildings, and that delay, he hoped,
would give him time to reach the Cache.

He was handicapped by his useless arm--for it made riding awkward, and
the numbness was stealing down his side, toward his leg. He paid little
attention to the pain; indeed, he entirely forgot it in his frenzied
eagerness to reach the Cache.

More prominent in his brain at this minute than any other emotion was a
dread of Billy Morgan. He had yielded to terror when Morgan had revealed
his identity; but the terror he had felt then had not been nearly so
paralyzing as that which was now upon him.

His eyes were bulging as he rode; his lips were slavering, and he
shuddered and cringed as he leaned over his horse's mane, urging him to
greater effort--even though there were times when his lurches almost
threw him out of the saddle.

For his previous terror had been somewhat tempered with a doubt of
Morgan's veracity. Even when he had seen Morgan reaching for his pistol
he had felt the doubt--had felt that Morgan was not Morgan at all, but
Woodward, perpetrating a grotesq