Selwood had ridden all the lower reaches of Nameless that week, had skirted the western end of Mystery and even trailed far into the Deep Hearts themselves in an effort to find something, anything, which might tell him he was at least on the right track. He hardly knew what it was for which he searched—perhaps an old trail, perhaps a secret branding fire. But he had found nothing. So he fell back on his night riding again, and as always this led him instinctively into the region of Sky Line Ranch. He had crossed the river near the head of Nance Allison’s tilled land, and had sat a moment peering down the length of the brown stretch where the rows of young corn were springing bravely. It pleased the sheriff to see this promise of a fair crop, for he knew the girl, and had known her father for an honest, straightforward man. The hard effort of the family to get along was known to all the ranchers and earned its mead of admiration in a land where work was regarded almost as a religion. Nameless could condone wrong, but not shiftlessness. And this girl was not shiftless. Instead her sharp management and her heavy labor were matters of note. So the sheriff took special cognizance of the look of her big field of corn and nodded in pleased satisfaction. “Too bad she lost those six steers,” he told himself, “they’d have helped a lot in her year’s furnishing. Game young pair.” Then he moved on up into the blue-brush that clothed the slants by the river and made for the heights. Three hours later he was sitting sidewise in his saddle beside the well-worn trail which led up to Sky Line. He was not too close, being ensconced in a little thicket of maple about fifty yards back and above. He had spent many an hour here before. It afforded a good view of the trail, and better still, a splendid chance to hear. Twice in the last month he had heard and seen a bunch of Kate’s riders coming home from Cordova where they had gone to gamble. But this fact had been unproductive of anything sinister. They had ridden boldly, as behooves innocent men, their horses climbing slowly with rattle of spur and bit-chain, the squeak and whine of saddles. Selwood had reached a hand to his horse’s nose to preclude its neighing, and had seen them pass on up and disappear. Next day he had unostentatiously made sure that these men had played at McKane’s—in both instances. And now he waited again, seemingly in a foolish quest. He knew it would seem so to an observer. It seemed so to him when he regarded it with reason. But reason was not actuating him. It was instinct—hunch. So Sheriff Price Selwood—whom Kate Cathrew quite frankly hated—sat in the darkness and watched and listened beside her trail, a lost little thread on the vast expanse of the wooded slopes.