Dismounting, the Indian scrutinized the hoof-prints where the horse had stood. Getting into the saddle again, he led the way, bending over his horse's neck and stopping frequently to read the trail, half a mile out along the Gap road, until he could once more readily point out the hoof-prints to his companions. "That is Sassoon," he announced. "I know the heels. And I know he rides this horse; it belongs to Gale Morgan. Sassoon," Scott smiled sympathetically on Lefever, "is half-way to Morgan's Gap." "After him!" cried Lefever hotly. De Spain looked inquiringly at the guard. Scott shook his head. "That would be all right, but there's two other Calabasas men in the Gap this afternoon it wouldn't be nice to mix with--Deaf Sandusky and Harvey Logan." "We won't mix with them," suggested de Spain. "If we tackle Sassoon, they'll mix with us," explained Scott. He reflected a moment. "They always stay at Gale Morgan's or Duke's. We might sneak Sassoon out without their getting on. Sassoon knows he is safe in the Gap; but he'll hide even after he gets there. He takes two precautions for every other man's one. Sassoon is a wonder at hiding out. I've got the Thief River run this afternoon----" De Spain looked at him. "Well?" Scott's face softened into the characteristic smile--akin to a quiet grin--that it often wore. "If I didn't have to go through to-day, and the three of us could get to the Gap before daylight to-morrow morning, I would give Sassoon a run for his money in spite of the other fellows." "Don't take your run this afternoon," directed de Spain. "Telephone Sleepy Cat for a substitute. Suppose we go back, get something to eat, and you two ride singly over toward the Gap this afternoon; lie outside under cover to see whether Sassoon or his friends leave before night--there's only one way out of the place, they tell me. Then I will join you, and we'll ride in before daylight, and perhaps catch him while everybody is asleep." "If you do," predicted Scott, in his deliberate way of expressing a conclusion, "I think you'll get him." It was so arranged. CHAPTER V ROUNDING UP SASSOON De Spain joined his associates at dark outside the Gap. Neither Sassoon nor his friends had been seen. The night was still, the sky cloudless, and as the three men with a led horse rode at midnight into the mountains, the great red heart of the Scorpion shone afire in the southern sky. Spreading out when they rode between the mountain walls, they made their way without interruption silently toward their rendezvous, an aspen grove near which Purgatoire Creek makes its way out of the Gap and, cutting a deep gash along the edge of the range for a hundred miles, empties into the Thief.