Brent and Bud Sellers had ridden with spirits rapidly sinking since they had drawn near to that territory which lay adjacent to Wolf-Pen Gap. The failure to reach Halloway by 'phone at Viper was a bad augury, since it left them in the position of an army whose intelligence bureau has collapsed. The two horsemen had ridden through wintry forests along steep and difficult roads where it seemed that they alone represented humanity. Of course Alexander, herself, might be traveling as uneventfully as themselves, but they could feel no great confidence in that hope and now there was nothing to do but to push on to Viper, perhaps passing by spots where they were sorely needed, as they went, and to try to find Halloway, whose silence left them groping in the dark. Will Brent was, in the sense of present requirements, no woodsman. He knew the forests as a lumber expert knows them, but the seemingly trivial and minute indications that another might have read, carried for him no meaning. However, he put his dependence in Bud Sellers whose knowledge of such lore amounted to wizardry, and at one point Bud halted abruptly gazing down with absorbtion from his saddle. "Right hyar," he said shortly, "Alexander stopped an' hed speech with two horsemen. Ther looks of hit don't pleasure me none nuther." "Why?" inquired Brent, and the mountaineer drew his brow into an apprehensive furrow. "Fer a spell back, I've been watchin' these signs with forebodin's. Alexander wasn't ridin' at no stiddy gait. She'd walk her mule, then gallop him--then she'd pull down an' halt. These other two riders did jest what she did--kain't ye read ther story writ out in ther marks of them mule-irons on ther mud?" Brent shook his head in bewilderment. "Well, hit's all too damn plain an' hit would 'pear ter signify that Alexander sought ter shake off two fellers thet didn't low ter be shook off. Right hyar they all stopped, an' parleyed some." "Why?" "Because three mules stood hyar fer a leetle spell--ye kin see whar they stomped, an' movin' mules don't stomp twice or thrice over ther same spot. Then two of 'em went on gallopin'--and one went on walkin'. Yes this is whar she got rid of 'em, but I misdoubts ef they lost sight of her." A little further Bud showed Brent where the two mules had turned aside to the right and, a mile further on, where Alexander had also abandoned the main road and gone to the left. "She held ter ther highway a mile further then she 'lowed ter," growled Sellers. "Thar's jest one reasonable cause fer thet. She knowed she war bein' spied on, an' she aimed ter shake 'em off. I wonder _did_ she shake 'em off." When they had almost reached the Gap itself and were proceeding warily they came to a narrow ford at whose edge Bud drew rein. "Let's pause an' study this hyar proposition out afore we rides on any further," he suggested.