His relief was inexpressible for a minute. He had made good, if there was not another word spoken. ‘One of the finest men I ever knew!’ he added. No answer from Bart. Now gradually Elbert began to realize he was running with what was left of Monte Vallejo’s band. There hadn’t been any time to think or choose back in el cuartel. He had jumped at the chance to ride out with Bart; that meant he had cast his lot with the bandits; identified once and for all with a fragment of the outlaws, now hunted from all quarters of Sonora. Still, a kind of freedom throbbed in him, his nostrils dilated to the smell of dust in the night--a man beside, a horse beneath. Finally above the thud of hoofs, Bart’s voice again: ‘What did they lock you up for?’ ‘My mare, Mamie here, I guess. They thought she was one of the race-horses--’ ‘Thought you were one of us,’ Bart chuckled. ‘How long have you been locked up?’ ‘Last night--or night before last--if it’s getting on toward morning.’ ‘Two hours to daybreak yet.’ In the silence after that, Elbert became queerly aware that Bart wanted to ask more about his father, but couldn’t get his voice to working. The words reached him: ‘So they kicked off Monte yesterday morning?’ ‘Day before yesterday--’ ‘You weren’t there then?’ ‘No, but they told me he had the nerve--that Bistula of the rurales, himself, finished the job. The soldiers wouldn’t shoot straight!’ ‘I sure wanted to get to Monte in time,’ Bart said, queerly. ‘The game’s up, with him gone--’ Did he mean he regarded their own capture as inevitable? After another pause, Bart asked: ‘And what do you get, Mister, for coming down here and mixing up in this?’ ‘Your father arranged all that. We were friends, you know--’ ‘Don’t you know you’re in bad, ridin’ with this outfit?’ ‘I took the job--’ ‘Better if I’d left you locked up in that cell. You’re along with what’s left of a losing game--’ Bart’s laugh sounded forlorn as he added: ‘Why, they’re after us from every town--’ Elbert cleared his throat ‘You see, I took the job--’ His eye had fastened on the north star as he spoke. It was over his right shoulder, so they were riding west. He could see the mountains lying northward there in the moonlight. A sudden passion mounted in him to turn north right now; to ride straight north, crossing the Border with Bart, yonder in the mountains where there were no roads; to find himself in the States with Bart, asking the way to San Forenso; after that, the trail west to the cabin, his mind finishing the picture in a flash--with Mamie and the sorrel safe in the corral. The deep laughing voice at his left: ‘I guess when you take a job, you try to see it through, don’t you?’ ‘Yes,’ said Elbert in fainter tone. He was deeply drawn to the man he had come for. Sometimes it was as if Cal Monroid were riding at his side; sometimes a feeling of Mr. Leadley’s presence. ‘I’d like to get you out of this, Mister, but it’s a sort of tight web--’