Down the slope from the wind-swept summit into the valley rode the posse of Jake Bush. Their horses, too, were gaunted with scant feed and hard work. Like the men who had preceded them these were unkempt, strained of eye. Rennie rode in the lead, his eyes on the trail. The eyes of the others prodded and tested the valley into which they were descending.

By various signs they knew they were closing the gap which separated them from their quarry. When they reached the abandoned camp they dismounted and Rennie and Bush tested the ashes.

"Warm where they ain't wet," said Bush. "This is the earliest we've ever struck their camp yet. They made slow time yesterday. Can't be many hours ahead."

"Looks to me like their horses is playin' out," Rennie agreed. "Well, let's get goin'."

They rode on down the valley. The trail was plain, and the tracks of horses in the vanishing light snow. They strung along at a steady jog.

From the left, clean and sharp came the vibrant crash of a rifle shot. Instantly the hills took it up, flinging it in echoes back and forth. But with the echoes came other shots, not clear but blunt, muffled, multiplying the riot of sound. They jerked their horses to a standstill.

"Not more 'n a mile away," said Rennie. "Them boys is further ahead. It can't be them."

"We'll darn soon see," said Bush.

They turned in the direction of the shots, spreading out riding slowly. And presently they came upon a pony standing with dropped reins.

"Why," Turkey exclaimed, "it's Paul Sam's! I'd know that cayuse anywhere."

There was no mistaking the calico pony. Angus, too recognized it. If Paul Sam were there it could be but for one purpose.

"Ride slow," Bush advised. "We don't want to overlook anything."

But in less than five hundred yards they came upon tragedy. Paul Sam and Blake lay as they had fallen. In the background a gaunt horse raised his head for a moment from his browsing.

They dismounted, ringing the prostrate figures around. Bush removed his hat, not out of respect for the dead, but to scratch his head.

"Gosh!" he observed inadequately. Rennie loosened the old fingers from the knife haft and made a swift examination. He picked up a rifle cartridge, unexploded, with the cap faintly dinted.

"Missed fire!" he said. "Then Blake took the gun away from him and went for his six-shooter and the old man went for his knife. Lord!"

Angus said nothing. He felt he had been defrauded, hardly used. By day and by night one vision had haunted him—Faith's soft throat, bruised and discolored. Just so he had made up his mind to kill Blake, with his hands, repaying him measure for measure. His disappointment was bitter.

"The old man beat you to it," said Rennie, "but I guess he had the right to, if he could."

Angus nodded. It was true enough. But Turkey was picking up the scattered money which Blake had let fall. It opened a field for speculation. No doubt this was some of Braden's money, and the brothers had divided with Blake. But why had Blake quit them? Bush made a shrewd guess.

"Blake wasn't no game bird," he said. "He'd quit any time rather than go to a show-down. Mabbe that was what he was tryin' to do."

"And bumped into one," said Rennie. "But I wonder! We're gettin' close, and it ain't so far to the Cache now. It wouldn't do 'em no good to get there with us right behind. They might make a stand and take a chance."

"Or bushwhack us," the deputy suggested. "Us ridin' along single file in some bad place and them shootin' from cover—hell! we'd be down and kickin' before we could draw a gun."

"That's so," Rennie replied thoughtfully. "We'd better go careful. Well, I s'pose we better try to bury these dead folks while we're here."

"The Injun, anyway," said Bush. "Give him the best of it."

They did the best they could, and built above with stones. Then they went back and took up the pursuit, holding on till darkness hid the trail. By daylight they were away, and even earlier than before they came upon the deserted camp.

And now the old trail began to ascend. It led into a country wild and rugged, the jagged vertebrae of a mountain range seamed and scarred with gulch and canon. It was very bad for horses and very hard work for everybody. But signs showed that they were very near their quarry.

"We're darn near on top of 'em," said Rennie, and thereafter he rode with gun in hand.

But it was late in the afternoon when they got their first glimpse of the fugitives, who were rounding a bare shoulder ahead and above them. Two were riding and one was leading his horse. They themselves were not seen for a growth of brush at that point of the trail intervened. They looked to Bush for instructions.

"There ain't much sun left and they'll be goin' into camp soon," the deputy said. "We'll leave the horses here with one man, and the rest of us go ahead. While they're makin' camp we'll stand 'em up. What say, Dave?"

"Who stays with the horses?"

"Turkey," Bush decided. "He's the youngest."

"I'm damned if I do," Turkey rebelled. "Stay yourself. You're the oldest."

Bush grinned. "Can't, sonny, though I'd love to." He drew a dilapidated pack of cards from his pocket and spread them fanwise. "Draw one. Low stays. Deuce is low."

Drury drew low, cursed his luck. McClintock on one knee lacing a shoepack grinned at him.

"I wisht you'd sponge off my cayuse's back, Joe. He's gettin' sore. While you're about it, with nothin' else to do, you might go over the whole lot."

Drury's retort put his first outburst in the shade. Laughter stirred him to fresh efforts.

"Now, boys!" said Bush.

He took the lead, Rennie behind him, then Angus.

Angus was glad to be out of the saddle, and glad, too, that the end of the chase was at hand. With the death of Blake much of his interest in it had vanished. There was still Gavin, who if Braden's dying declaration was to be believed had killed his father. But strangely enough he felt little or no enmity toward him. He thought he should feel more. Turkey, behind him, spoke.

"I guess this is the finish of that bunch. If they start anything, we want to get Gavin—if he killed father."

Angus was silent for a moment. There was the possibility that it would not be a one-sided affair. He was not troubled for himself, but Turkey was rash.

"Don't take any chances, kid, if there is trouble."

"Not a chance," Turkey replied cheerfully. "Anybody that beats me to the trigger will have to go some."

"That wasn't what I meant. Look after yourself. Don't get hurt."

"Are you trying to tell me to play it safe?" Turkey demanded with virtuous indignation. "Why I ought to report you to Bush. Look after yourself. You're married. Play it safe! Huh! You bet I will—with a fast gun."

But the sun was going down. Unless the fugitives suspected something they would soon be making camp. Now and then Bush stopped to listen. None now spoke above a whisper. It was like the last hundred yards of a long, hard stalk of big game. In this case the game was big enough, and dangerous. Mistakes could not be afforded.

Bush stopped suddenly. Distinct in the stillness came the quick "lick-lock" of an ax. The deputy nodded.

They came upon the camp. It was on a little flat at the mouth of a wild draw, a little glade fringed with brush, through which ran a trickle of a spring creek. At one side the horses, unsaddled, grazed. Gavin, at the other side, was dragging in a dry pole for firewood. Gerald knelt beside a freshly kindled fire. Larry was getting food from a sack.

It was Larry who saw them almost at the instant they saw him. He cried a warning. Gerald rose swiftly. Gavin dropped his pole. Bush stepped forward and held up his hand.

"I want you boys," he said.

"You can't have us," Gerald replied. "That's cold, Bush."

"Don't be foolish," Bush advised. "I want you, and I'm going to get you. And that's cold, too."

"Then fly at it!" Gerald cried, and with the words jerked his gun and fired.

Bush staggered, twisted and went down; but he drew his gun as he did so and began to shoot from the ground. The lonely mountain camp became an inferno of shattering, rolling sound.

Angus felt his hat lift as in a sudden squall. At the same moment Turkey spun half around and against him, destroying his aim.

"I'm all right!" the youngster gasped, and in proof of his assertion fired.

Bustede, his right arm hanging, had dropped his rifle and was struggling to draw his six-shooter with his left hand. McClintock, on one knee, was working the lever of his rifle like a saw. Rennie, a gun in either hand, unhooked them in a rattling roar.

Suddenly Gerald pitched forward on his face. Larry doubled up and went down. But Gavin was apparently unhurt. He saw his brothers fall. For an instant he stood looking at them. Then he turned and bounded for the sheltering brush. With the rush of a bull moose he crashed into it while a sleet of lead cut twigs around him, and disappeared.

"Git him!" Bush croaked from the ground. "Git him, somebody. Oh, sink my soul for all rotten shootin'! Six guns-and he makes the timber! Agh-r!"

Angus stooped for an instant over Turkey. The youngster, very white of face, was sitting on the ground; but he was outcursing Bush.

"Are you hurt much? Where?"

"Not much. My shoulder. Get him, damn him! Get him for father!"

Angus found Rennie running beside him. It was impossible to trail the fugitive. All they could do was to keep on up the draw and trust to luck. But the pace and the rough ground soon told on Rennie.

"I can't travel no more," he gasped. "Too old. You go ahead."

"Go back and help the boys," Angus said. "There's a moon to-night and I may not be back. If I don't find him I'll come in in the morning."

"Be darn sure you do come in. Don't take no chances."

Angus ran on up the draw. Now that he was alone he began to put forth his strength and speed while the light should last. He was sure that Gavin would make for the higher ground. He would cross the summit of that range, and go ahead for the Cache. Though he had neither food nor outfit he had his six-shooter and presumably ammunition and matches. Angus knew that he himself would suffer little more than inconvenience if he were in Gavin's place.

The draw narrowed, and steep hills closed in on either hand. He turned to the right and began to climb. Darkness overtook him and he stopped. The cold chilled his sweating body with the cessation of motion, but Gavin was as badly off. When the moon rose he went on again, but it was slow work. Objects were distorted. Shadows lay where he would have had light. Once he slipped and fell, slithering twenty feet and barely saving himself from an almost perpendicular drop of a hundred. He crawled back with difficulty, but his rifle was gone. He had heard it clang far below him. However, he had his belt gun, and so was on a par with Gavin.

His objective was what seemed to be a notch in the summit. It was what he would make for were he in Gavin's place. He toiled upward methodically, without hurry now, for there might be a long trail ahead. If Gavin could go to the Cache so could he. The timber began to thin out, to stunt. Trees were dwarfed, twisted by the mountain winds, mere miniatures. Presently they ceased altogether. He was above timberline.

There the thin snow partially covered the ground, increasing the difficulty of travel. But its actinic qualities gave more light. It was past midnight, and the moon was well up. He had been traveling for more than seven hours.

For a moment he paused to rest, his lungs feeding greedily on the thin, cold air, and surveyed the scene below. It was a black fur of tree-tops, rolling, undulating, cleft with lines of greater darkness indicating greater depths. He could look over the tops of lesser mountains. Above were the peaks of the range, whitened spires against the sky.

In those far heights of the mountain wilderness one seemed to touch the rim of space itself. The moon, the night, the height produced an effect of unspeakable vastness. It seemed to press in, to enfold the tiny atom crawling upon and clinging to the surface of the earth. There finite and infinite made contact. It was like the world's end, the Ultima Thule of ancient man.

Some such thoughts, vague, scarcely formed, passed through his mind. The ranch, ploughed land, houses, seemed to belong to another world.

Once more he began to climb, and now that he was close to the summit the going was easier. Suddenly he stopped. There, clear in the moonlight, was the track of a moccasin-clad foot.

There was no doubt that it was Gavin's. Knowing his own pace Angus knew that the big man could not be far ahead. No doubt he would keep going, over the summit and down the other side, for timber. Once in the timber, with a fire, he would rest. His trail across would be covered by the first wind. He would not suspect that any one would or could follow him by night.

Angus followed the trail easily by the bright moonlight, noting grimly that the length of the stride was almost identical with his own. The prints were clean, showing that the feet had been cleanly lifted and set down, token of energy unimpaired.

When he reached the summit he took a careful survey. It was a desolate plateau, swept and scoured by the winds and rains and snow of unnumbered centuries. On it nothing grew. Here and there bowlders loomed blackly. But nothing moved. Apparently, it was as bare of life as the dead mountains of the moon. The trail led straight on.

Satisfied of this, Angus followed the trail at speed. Now and then it turned out to avoid a bowlder, but otherwise it went straight ahead, as though no doubt of direction existed in its maker's mind. Presently it swung around a huge rock and then turned north. Angus glanced casually at the bowlder and passed by; but he had taken no more than three strides in the new direction when a voice behind him commanded:

"Stop! Put up your hands!"