ieces, and they managed to reach a little cattle
shack, two miles south of town. They've found Lanier's striker,
too--what's left of him."

By this time Kate had come down-stairs, and with pallid face was
listening dumbly to her father's words. She seemed hardly to heed the
presence of the strangers. Not until the captain had emerged from his
furs and stood robust and ruddy, yet a little short of breath, did she
lay her hand upon his arm and ask her question.

"Have they found Rawdon?"

"Rawdon? No, not a sign of him anywhere!"

"Is that the young fellow that those sergeants have been hunting for?"
asked one of the detectives. "We managed to find out about him. He was
in town early as three o'clock Friday, and he left on Number Six that
night."

"Do you mean to tell me," said Sumter, gazing blankly at the speaker,
"that he wasn't out here when--this--happened?"

"Not unless he had wings! That train leaves at 11.40." Whereupon Kate
Sumter slowly withdrew her hand, then turned away.

VII

Another day went by. Major Scott and his clerk, under Larrabee's skilful
touch, were gradually regaining strength and beginning to answer
questions. At first their senses seemed dulled, as though they could not
shake off the frost that benumbed them. At first they could tell little
of the cause of the mishap. The ambulance was curtained in, even at the
rear, through which the two scared troopers had managed to slip to their
doom. Not until the snows melted in the spring, and the contents of the
ravines should be revealed, was it likely they would be heard of again.
The railway was still blocked. The wires were still down. Fort Cushing
stood isolated from the outer world, and no less than five of its
garrison were absent and unaccounted for: the two men detailed to drive
in with the paymaster, two bacchanalians who, being in town when the
storm broke, had dared each other to face the gale and tramp out, and
finally a young trooper named Cary, who had arrived with the same
recruit squad that brought them Rawdon, and had been on terms of
friendship, if not indeed of intimacy, with him. They had been together
that very Friday afternoon. In addition, whereabouts unknown, was
Sergeant Fitzroy, of Snaffle's Troop. "Absent with leave," said the
morning report. "Acting under the verbal instructions of the commanding
officer," said his captain.

Along toward dusk on Tuesday, others of the searching squadron, sent
afar down the