Riding the hard trail through the basin, from its neck at Okar to the broad, upward slope that led to the Double A ranchhouse, came another man, who also was sacrificing everything to speed. His horse was fresh, and he spared it not at all as he swept in long, smooth, swift undulations over the floor of the basin. Ben Nyland's lips were as straight and hard as were those of the other man who was racing toward the Double A from another direction; his face was as grim, and his thoughts were as bitter and savage. When he reached the bottom of the long, gentle slope that stretched to the Double A ranchhouse he did not spare his horse. The terrible spurs sank in again and again, stirring the animal to a frenzy of effort, and he rushed up the slope as though it were a level, snorting with pain and fury, but holding the pace his rider demanded of him. And when he reached the corral fence near the Double A ranchhouse, and his rider dismounted and ran forward, the horse heaved a sigh of relief and stood, bracing his legs to keep from falling, his breath coming in terrific heaves. An instant after his arrival Ben Nyland was in side the Double A ranchhouse, pistol in hand. He tore through the rooms in the darkness, stumbling over the furniture, knocking it hither and there as it interfered with his progress. He found no one. Accidentally colliding with the table in the kitchen, he searched its top and discovered thereon a kerosene lamp. Lighting it with fingers that trembled, he looked around him. There were signs of the confusion that had reigned during the day. He saw on the floor the rope that had encircled Dale's neck--one end of it was tied to the fastenings of the kitchen door. The tied rope was a mystery to Nyland, but it suggested hanging to his thoughts, already lurid, and he leaped for the pantry. There he grimly viewed the wreck and turned away, muttering. "He's been here an' gone," he said, meaning Dale; "them's his marks--ruin." Blowing out the light he went to the front door, paused in it and then went out upon the porch, from where he could look northeastward at the edge of the mesa surmounting the big slope that merged into the floor of the basin. Faintly outlined against the luminous dark blue of the sky, he caught the leaping silhouette of a horse and rider. He grinned coldly, and stepped back into the shadow of the doorway. "That's him, damn him!" he said. "He's comin' back!" He had not long to wait. He saw the leaping silhouette disappear, seeming to sink into the earth, but he knew that horse and rider were descending the slope; that it would not be long before they would thunder up to the ranchhouse--and he gripped the butt of his gun until his fingers ached.