DURING the night a few flakes of snow had fallen—just the flurry of a storm that had come and tired and paused to rest awhile. The morning broke grey and sombre and intensely still; the mantle of white that covered the ground and clung to bushes and tree branches seemed to muffle every sound; the atmosphere was clear, but filled with brooding expectancy.

The three friends at the hunter’s hut were early astir. Roderick, despite the fact that fortune had at last smiled and crowned with success the prolonged quest for his father’s lost mine, was strangely oppressed. Buell Hampton, too, was grave and inclined to silence. But Grant Jones was gay and happy, singing blithely during the preparations for breakfast.

On the previous night he had received the story of the find with exultant delight. With such a rich mining claim all the ambitions of his life were about to be realized. He would buy out his financial partners in the Dillon Doublejack and publish it as a daily newspaper—hang the expense, the country would grow and with it the circulation, and he would be in possession of the field against all-comers. Then again he would acquire the Encampment Herald although keeping on the brilliant Earle Clemens as editor; also start another paper at Rawlins, and in a little time run a whole string of journals, like some of the big newspaper men whose names were known throughout the nation. Listening to these glowing plans as they drank their morning coffee around the campfire, Roderick and the Major could not but admire the boyish gaiety of this sanguine spirit.

“I’m going to propose to Dorothy tomorrow,” exclaimed Grant by way of grand finale to his program of great expectations, “and the Reverend Stephen Grannon will marry us before the week is out We’ll spend our honeymoon in Chicago so that I can buy some new printing presses and things. Then we’ll be back in time to bring out a grand mid-winter number that will make all Wyoming sit up and take notice. By gad, boys, it’s great to be a newspaper editor.”

“Better to be a newspaper proprietor,” laughed Roderick.

“Or both combined,” suggested the Major.

“There you’ve hit it,” cried Grant. “And that’s just the luck that has come my way at last—thanks to you, Roderick, old scout, and to you, Major, as well.”

“No, no,” protested Buell Hampton. “With your happy disposition and great capacity for work, success was bound to be yours, my dear fellow. The manner of its coming is a mere detail.”

“That’s the way a good friend cloaks good deeds,” replied Grant. “However, we’ll let it go at that. Pass the frying pan please; this bacon’s just fine.” Plans for the day were carefully discussed. The man in charge of the burros had not been taken into their confidence; as a member of the expedition he would be properly looked after later on, but meanwhile strict secrecy was the only wise policy until the location papers had been properly filed at the county seat, Rawlins. This filing would undoubtedly be the signal for a rush of all the miners and prospectors within a hundred miles of the little treasure valley among the hills.

“Yes, there will be a regular stampede,” remarked the Major—“provided the snow holds off,” he added with a glance at the grey canopy of cloud overhead.

“I think we are in for another storm,” said Grant, gazing around. “If so, the whole country will be sealed up until the spring.”

“Which is not the worst thing that might happen,” commented Buell Hampton.

“Would certainly give us ample time to make all our arrangements for the future,” concurred Roderick.

It was agreed that they would take with them that morning the sacks in which the provisions had been brought up, and bring back as much gold as they could carry. For a moment Grant and Roderick discussed the advisability of leaving their guns behind. But there were outlaws among the mountains, and it was deemed prudent to carry the weapons.

All preparations were now completed, and a start was made, the stableman being left in charge of the camp with instructions to have a good fire of embers ready for the brisket of venison they would return with about the noontide hour.

Buell Hampton led the way at a swinging gait,

Roderick followed, then came Grant Jones singing lustily:

“As I was coming down the road,

Tired team and a heavy load,

I cracked my whip and the leader sprang

And the off horse stepped on the wagon tongue.”

A little way down the hill Grant called a halt He had discovered on the light dusting of overnight snow the tracks of a big bear, and for the moment everything else was forgotten. Bear-hunting to him was of more immediate interest than gold-hunting, and but for the restraining hand of Buell Hampton the ardent young sportsman would have started on the trail.

“Let’s stop a while,” he pleaded. “Just look at those pads. A great big cinnamon bear—a regular whale.”

“No, no,” said the Major decisively, again glancing at the sky. “We must press on.”

“I’d like a hug all right,” laughed Roderick, “but not from a cinnamon bear in a snowdrift.”

“Gee, but I’m sorry I left my dogs at Dillon,” remarked Grant regretfully. “The last thing I said to Scotty Meisch was to look after the dogs even if the printing press burned. There’s no friend like a good dog, Major.”

“Rather a doubtful compliment,” replied Buell Hampton with a smile.

“Present company always excepted,” laughed the editor adroitly. “Well, well; we must let Mr. Bruin go this time. Lead on, Macduff, lead on.”

And again as he fell into Indian file he sang his song.

The lilt and the words of that song, the picture of the stalwart figure in the pride of young manhood carolling gaily while marching along through the brushwood and down the timbered hillside, were des-tined never to fade from the memory of Roderick Warfield. With a sob in his heart he would recall the scene many and many a time in the days to come.

Meanwhile at the camp fire in Hidden Valley, Grady and Bud Bledsoe were also afoot. They had awaked from their half drunken slumber, chilled to the very marrow of their bones. Even the sight of the heap of nuggets could not at first restore warmth to their hearts. There was no whiskey left in the flask—not a drain. Their teeth chattering, they piled fresh brush on the camp fire, and then a half-rotted tree stump that soon burst into flame. Then when warmth at last crept through their frames, they too made their plans for the day.

Buell Hampton and Roderick Warfield might come back. Perhaps they had camped all night in the mountain cave. In any case it would be safer to leave the canyon by the other way—by the trail along which Roderick must have entered and which was quite clearly defined in the snow as it led up the gorge. Yes; they would clear out in that direction, and Bud Bledsoe, who knew every track among the mountains, further proposed that they would then cross the range and take the west road to Rawlins. With a price on his head he himself could not enter the town—although a little later some of the new-found gold would square all that, for the present he must lie low. But he would guide Grady on the way, and the latter would get into Rawlins first and file the location papers without anyone at Encampment knowing that he had made the trip.

“That’s the dope,” cried Bud Bledsoe, as he jumped to his feet and began stuffing his pockets to their fullest capacity with the big and little slugs of gold. Grady followed his example. Then both men took up their guns, Bledsoe also the light but strong hair lariat which was his constant companion whether he was on horse or foot, and began making their way up the canyon, following the well-trodden path through the snow along which Buell Hampton and Roderick had retraced their footsteps the evening before.

It was a couple of hours later when the Major, Grant Jones, and Roderick emerged from the grotto.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the Major. “Look there!” And with extended arm he pointed to the ascending smoke of the camp fire higher up the valley.

With the caution of deerstalkers they ascended by the stream. They found that the camp fire was abandoned. The half-gnawed bones, the empty whiskey flask, the remnant heap of nuggets, the hollows on the sand where the two men had slept—all helped to tell the tale. The names on the substituted location papers completed the story—W. B. Grady’s name and those of some dummies to hold the ground, illegally but to hold it all the same. Bud Bledsoe, the outlaw, had not ventured to affix his own name, but the big whiskey bottle left little doubt as to who had been Grady’s companion in the canyon overnight.

The miscreants had departed—the tracks of two men were clearly shown at a little distance from those left by Roderick and the Major. They had ascended the gorge.

“We have them trapped like coyotes,” declared the Major, emphatically.

“I’m not so sure about that,” remarked Grant Jones. “If there is one man in this region who knows the mountain trails and mountain craft it is Bud Bledsoe. He’ll get out of a box canyon where you or I would either break our necks to a certainty or remain like helpless frogs at the bottom of a well. Then I’ve got another idea—a fancy, perhaps, but I—don’t—just—know.”

He spoke slowly, an interval between each word, conning the chances while he prolonged his sentence.

“What’s your idea?” asked Roderick. But the Major waited in silence.

At last Grant’s face lighted up.

“Yes, by jingo,” he cried, “that may be their plan. If they can get over the range on to the Ferris-Haggerty road they may make Rawlins by the western route. That’s why they may have gone up the canyon instead of returning by the cave. For they came in by the cave; it is you they followed yesterday, Major, into the valley. The tracks show that.”

“I have already satisfied myself on that point,” replied Buell Hampton. “I have no doubt, since we balked Bledsoe in his previous attempt, that he has been on my tracks ever since, determined to find out where I got the rich ore. But it surprises me that a man in Grady’s position should have descended to be the associate of such a notorious highwayman.”

“Oh, moral turpitude makes strange bedfellows,” said Grant, pointing to the depressions where the two claim-jumpers had slept “But there is no use in indulging in conjectures at the present time. I’ve a proposal to make.”

“Let us hear it,” said the Major.

“Luckily I brought my skis with me, strapped to one of the burros. Didn’t know when they might come handy amid all this snow. Well, I’ll go back to the hut, and I’ll cut across the range, and will intercept these damned robbers, if that’s their game, to a certainty.”

“Rather risky,” remarked Buell Hampton. “Feels like more snow.” And he sniffed the ambient air.

“Oh, I’ll be all right. And you’ve got to take risks too. I’ll give Roderick my rifle, Major, and you take your own. You can follow the trail of these men, and if they have got out of the canyon, then you can get out the same way too. If so, we’ll all meet on the range above. Roderick, you know where the Dillon Trail crosses the Ferris-Haggerty Road?”

Roderick nodded assent.

“Well, we can’t miss each other if we all make for that point. And if you don’t arrive by noon, I’ll go right on to Rawlins by the western road, and lodge our location papers. I’ll know you have Bledsoe and Grady trapped and are holding the ground.”

“Sounds feasible,” said Roderick. “But first of all we’ve got to tear down these fraudulent location notices and put our own up again.” He pointed to one of the corner stakes. “Just look—these claim-jumpers came provided with regular printed forms.”

“Well, go ahead with that right now,” said Grant. “No doubt the papers have been changed too down on the Major’s ground. When you’re through with that job, follow the trail up the canyon. Now I’m off for my skis, and then for the road over the hills. Good-by. Take care of yourselves. Good-by.”

And down the valley they heard his voice singing the song of the mountain trail:

“As I was coming down the road,

Tired team and a heavy load,

I cracked my whip and the leader sprung

And the off horse stepped on the wagon tongue.”

Then his figure disappeared round a bend, and all again was still.

But Bledsoe and Grady had taken their time in ascending the canyon. But at last they reached the impasse that had brought Buell Hampton and Roderick to a halt the previous evening and caused them to retrace their steps as the tracks revealed. Just as they were discussing whether it might not be necessary for them also to turn back, a deer dashed wildly past them on the narrow bench where they stood—so close that they might have almost touched it with an outstretched hand.

Grady jumped back, frightened by the sudden bound of the swiftly speeding animal.

“Do you know what that means?” asked Bledsoe quietly.

“We started the deer, I suppose,” stammered Grady.

“No. But someone else did—lower down the gorge. We are being trailed, boss. We’ve got to get out of this hole in double-quick time or chance being shot down from behind a rock.”

“This wall is impossible,” exclaimed Grady, his frightened face gazing up the cliff.

Bledsoe was surveying the situation.

“Wait a minute,” he said at last. Then he swung his lariat, the noose of which, going straight to its mark, caught a projecting tree stump full fifty feet above.

“If you can make that,” he added, as he pulled the rope tight, “there’s a ledge running right around and up—see?” He pointed with his finger, tracing a line along the rocky wall. “Now up you go. I’ll hold the rope. It’s dead easy.”

Grady dropped his rifle, and with both hands began to climb. Weighted with the gold in his pockets, he made the ascent slowly and laboriously. But at last he gained the ledge, and scrambling now on hands and knees as he moved further upward and onward he speedily disappeared over the rim of the cliff.

On Bledsoe’s lips was a smile of cold contempt.

“Hell!” he muttered. “I wanted him to pull up the junk first. However, I’ll manage, I guess.”

He proceeded to tie to the riata his own and Grady’s rifle. Then he swung himself aloft.

But he was not half way up when a rifle bullet flattened itself on the rock not a foot from his head.

“Hands up!” came a voice from below.

“By God, ain’t they up now?” muttered the outlaw grimly, as he jerked himself to a higher foothold. A few more springs and he was standing on the ledge. Then, when a second bullet knocked off his hat, he ducked and scurried along the narrow footway almost as quickly as Grady had done, and was gone from the view of the two riflemen lower down the canyon.

“Come on,” exclaimed Roderick. “They don’t seem to have any guns. We’ll get them yet.”

Buell Hampton followed to the foot of the cliff. The rifles tied to the lariat showed that the fugitives were in truth disarmed, so far at least as long-distance weapons were concerned. The Major carefully hid the rifles in a clump of brushwood.

They were now prepared to follow, but caution had to be used, for Bud Bledsoe no doubt had a brace of revolvers at his belt. Roderick climbed up the rope first, while Buell Hampton, with his Springfield raised, kept watch for the slightest sign of an enemy above. But the fugitives had not lingered. Roderick, from the edge of the cliff, called on the Major to make the ascent, and a few minutes later they stood side by side.

High up on the snow-clad face of the mountain were the fleeing figures of Grady and Bledsoe. Yes, they were making in the direction of the Ferris-Haggerty Road. Grant would certainly intercept them, while Roderick and the Major stalked the quarry from the rear.

“I intend to get that thousand-dollar reward for Bud Bledsoe’s hide,” laughed Roderick, slipping a cartridge into the chamber of his rifle.

“We must not shoot to kill,” replied the Major. “It will be sufficient that they surrender. We have them at our mercy. Come along.”

He advanced a few paces, then paused.

“But there,” he murmured, “I do not like this snow.” He held out his hand, and a first soft feathery flake settled on his palm.

“Oh, well be all right,” cried Roderick. “Besides we’ve got to help Grant.”

They trudged along, walking zig-zag up the hill to lessen the incline, but always keeping close to the trail of the men they were pursuing. On the plateau above the snow lay deeper, and at places they were knee-deep in the drift, their feet breaking through the thin encrusting surface which frost had hardened.

“It is a pity we have not web snowshoes or skis,” remarked Buell Hampton when they had paused to draw breath. “We could make so much better time.”

“Well, the other fellows are no better equipped than ourselves,” replied Roderick, philosophically. “But, by jingo, it’s snowing some now.”

Yes, the feathery flakes were all around them, not blindingly thick as yet, but certain precursors of the coming storm. The trail was still quite clear although the fugitives were no longer in sight.

An hour passed, two hours, three hours—and hunters and hunted still plodded on. Roderick felt no misgivings, for he could tell from the lie of the hills that they were making steadily for the junction of the Ferris-Haggerty Road with the track over the range to Dillon, where Grant Jones would now be waiting. But at last the snow began to fall more thickly, and the encircling mountains came to be no longer visible. Even the guiding footprints were becoming filled up and difficult to follow.

All at once Buell Hampton stopped.

“These men have lost their way,” he exclaimed.

“They are going round in a circle. Look here—they have crossed their own track.”

The evidence was unmistakable.

“Then what are we to do?” asked Roderick. “I suppose we hardly know where we are ourselves now,” he added, looking uneasily around.

“I have my pocket compass—luckily I never travel without it in the mountains. But I think it is prudent that we should lose no further time in making for Encampment.”

“And Grant Jones?”

“He can look after himself. He is on skis, and knows every foot of the Dillon trail.”

“Then Grady and Bledsoe?”

“Their fate is in other hands. If we follow them any longer we will undoubtedly be caught in the storm ourselves.” He held a hand aloft. “See, the wind is rising. There will be heavy drifting before long.” Roderick now felt the swirl of driven snow on his cheeks. Yes, the wind had risen.

“But we’ll endeavor to save them,” continued Buell Hampton. “Perhaps, as they are circling round, they are not far away from this spot even now. We will try at all events.”

And raising both hands to form a voice trumpet, he uttered a loud: “Hallo I hallo!”

But no answer came. Again he shouted, again and yet again, turning round in all directions. Everything remained silent and still.

The Major now glanced at his compass, and took his bearings.

“Come,” was all he said, as he led the way through the loose crisp snow that crunched and cheeped beneath their feet.

Half an hour later the storm by some strange vagary abated. The wind was blowing stronger, but it seemed to be driving the snow-laden clouds up into the higher mountain elevations. All of a sudden a penetrating shaft of sunshine flashed through the dancing snow-flakes, then the flakes themselves ceased to fall, and the sun was shining on the virgin mantle of white that enveloped range and peaks as far as the eye could see.

Roderick glanced down the mountain side. Almost beneath his feet was Conchshell Ranch—he could see the home on the little knoll amid the clustering pine trees. For the moment he was thinking of Gail. But the hand of Buell Hampton had clutched his shoulder.

“Look!”

And Roderick looked—away in the direction of Cow Creek Canyon, a mighty gash in the flank of the mountains nearly a thousand feet deep and more than half a mile across. Standing out, clear and distinct in the bright sunshine, were the tall twin towers on either side of the gorge, supporting the great steel cable which bridged the chasm and carried the long string of iron buckets bringing ore from the Ferris-Haggerty mine, fourteen miles distant, down into the smelter at Encampment. Roderick at his first glance saw that the aerial cars, despite the recent snow-storm, were still crawling across the deep canyon, for all the world like huge spiders on a strand of gossamer.

But as his eyes swept the landscape he beheld outlined on the white expanse of snow the figures of three men. One, standing fully a hundred yards away from the other two and lower down the hill, was the gorilla-like form of Bud Bledsoe. The others were Grady and Grant Jones on his skis.

And as Roderick looked, before he could even utter a cry, these two figures clutched at each other. For a moment they swayed to and fro, then Grant seemed to fling his man away from him.

Almost at the same instant, just as a picture might be blotted from a screen by cutting off the light, both figures had vanished! Then, like steam shot from a geyser, there ascended high into mid-air a great cloud of powdered snow, and to the watchers’ ears came a deep boom resembling the prolonged and muffled roar of thunder or big artillery.

“Good God! A snow slide!” gasped Buell Hampton.

Roderick was stricken dumb. He stood rigid, frozen with horror. He needed no one to tell him that Grant Jones had gone over the rim of the canyon, down a thousand feet, smothered under a million tons of snow.