Shagbark dressed and roasted the two carcasses. No chef could have done the work better. The odor of the broiling meat whetted every appetite and the meal was one of the most satisfying of which they had partaken since crossing the Missouri. Enough “fragments” remained to serve quite well for a lighter feast, and they were carefully laid aside for that purpose. It was about two o’clock when the yokes were adjusted to the necks of the oxen, the horsemen swung into their saddles, and the cavalcade headed for Fort Laramie, on the other side of the mountain spur which bears the latter half of that name. From the saddle, Alden Payne scrutinized the country to the north, the west and the south. He was searching for the company with which his enemy Ross Brandley was traveling. His one regret was that the antelope hunt had lessened the probability of meeting that combative young man. Like many a mistaken youth, Alden was sure he could not be happy until he had evened up matters between them. “He nearly knocked me over in the first place,” reflected the youth for the hundredth time, “and when I protested, he insulted me, put up his fists, and got in a blow. What roils me,” added Alden to himself, with a flash of the eye and a compression of the lips, “is that he must have taken my politeness last night for fear of him. If I had only known who he was, I should have said something that would have made his cheeks tingle. It will be strange if we miss each other, for we are both anxious to meet, and, after all, there can’t be so very many miles between us.” Far ahead towered the Laramie range, the peaks, softened by the intervening miles, gradually taking on a clearer view, as the separating distance was lessened. To the northward country was undulating or level, mostly covered with the billowy, succulent lush grass, which makes the region one of the finest grazing grounds in the world. Halting Firebug, so that his gait should not interfere with his sight, the young man studied the outlook in that direction. He was thus employed when Shagbark drew rein beside him. “Wal, younker, what do ye make of it?” “It seems to me,” replied Alden, lowering the binocular, “that I can see a faint, bluish shadowy outline of something in the horizon. Is it a mountain range?” “That’s what it is,” said Shagbark; “ye’re looking at the Medicine Bow Mountains, which lay a good many miles south; afore long they’ll fade out of yer sight; see anything else?” Alden raised the glasses again and studied the section. “I see the white tents of an emigrant train well to the southwest and several miles behind them, other wagons, both slowly pushing westward.” “Ye’re right; I wonder how many hundred of ’em there is atween St. Joe and Sacramento?” “It isn’t possible, Shagbark, that either of those trains is the one to which Mr. Chadwick belongs?” The veteran guffawed.