Weston looked away, but Steele cried, "Good work, man," clapping him warmly on the shoulder. Then he added boyishly: "I'm hungry as a bear! Got any grub left?" "Yes," answered Weston quietly, "plenty. Come on down all of you, and I'll rustle some flapjacks and coffee." They started down the trail, Weston and Ross in advance. At the mention of "old man Quinn" Ross's elation had subsided. He looked at Weston out of the corner of his eye. The other's eyes were downcast and his face pale beneath its sunburn. His hair was of a peculiar color, light at the roots and dark at the ends. He had evidently forgotten to bring his hair dye to Meadow Creek. The older man spoke first. His voice was low and his words halting. "I had to take you across the mountain and leave you there," he explained briefly. "Sandy was behind the cabin when we got there. I couldn't fool 'im about you, but I did about myself; and, if you all had put off comin' over a day longer, I could have got away out of Sandy's reach." As he spoke, Weston's hand involuntarily crept up to his breast pocket. It fell again, however, as he added in a mutter as though to himself: "And Less--I had to take 'im over too--for my own good. But it's all up now and I've got to face it out." Just behind them came the sheep-herder, his thoughts reverting to a subject on which he had tried once to speak. Now he saw an opportunity. "Ye must 'a' known of old man Quinn then," he called to Weston. "Didn't ye?" Weston stumbled. He caught himself, but the movement saved him from the necessity of an answer. "Wall," the sheep-herder went on, almost running in order to keep up with the pace Weston had set, "I met Happy in Cody t' other day, and Happy said old man Quinn had pinched the fourth puncher that druv his sheep----" "What?" shouted Weston. He swung around so suddenly that the sheep-herder ran full tilt against him. "What?" Weston shouted again. He seized the amazed and terrified Sheepy, and held him by the arms in a vise that made the man wince. "Say that again." "S-say what?" faltered Sheepy. "What about the fourth? Tell me!" With every word Weston, his eyes ablaze, his lips drawn back over strong white teeth, gave the old sheep-herder a convulsive shake. "W-why," the old man quavered, "Happy, he said that a feller down in Oklahomy, name of Burns, went and give himself up to old man Quinn. He said he was the feller the old man was after--that he was the fourth who done the business with the sheep. But because he owned up the jedge give 'im only six months----" Weston suddenly pushed the sheep-herder from him, his face working convulsively. "Then I wasn't in it!" he cried. "Sandy said I was, but I wasn't!" Offering no further explanation to his astonished hearers, he turned toward the McKenzie shack on a run; and for a couple of hours they saw no more of him.