"Come on, Abe," he said aloud, putting down the binoculars with a hand that trembled. "They've sent you on home, or you've got away.... But how about th' party you carried off?" He walked to the gate and stood uneasily awaiting the arrival of the animal. As the sorrel came into sight from the nearest wash into which he had disappeared he was moving at a deliberate trot, but when he made out the figure of his waiting master he strode swifter, finally breaking into a gallop and approaching at great speed, whinnering from time to time. The bridle reins were knotted securely about the horn. He had not escaped; Abe had been sent home. He stopped before Bruce and nuzzled the man's hands as they caressed his hot, soft nose. "It looks as if they had trouble before they left, from th' way my room is," the man said to the horse as he stroked his nose, "but I know right well he'd never got you out of that corral alone an' never got you off in that direction unless somebody'd helped him; she might make you mind 'cause she rode you once. If it wasn't for that ... I'd think she'd been forced ... 'cause they must have had a racket...." He led the horse through the gate and into the corral. There, he slipped the bridle off, uncinched and dragged the saddle toward him. As the polished, darkened seat turned to the bright sunlight, he saw that the leather had been defaced and, indignation mounting, he leaned over to inspect it. The resentment departed, a mingling of fear and triumph and rage rose within him, for on the saddle had been scratched in hasty, crude characters: BOUND FOR MI NE HELP No need to speculate as to the author of that message on the saddle. That Ann had been forced by circumstances to do the work furtively was as evident. And the combination of facts which rode uppermost in his confused mentality was this. Ann Lytton was being taken to the Sunset mine against her will; she had appealed to him for aid and, because of that, he knew that she had chosen between the two, between her husband and her honorable lover! For a moment, mad, hot triumph filled him. He had done his best with the ruin of a man he had set out to reconstruct; he had groomed him well, conscientiously, giving him thorough care, great consideration, just to satisfy his own moral sense; he had given him back to Ann at the cost of intense suffering ... and it had not been enough for her; she was not satisfied. Beside her husband, bound for her husband's mountain home, she had found herself in her hour of need and had cried out to him for help!