"I guess we'll lock them in the back store until morning," he said, after a short conference apart with Grant. "A little cooling down is not going to do them much harm, and I don't think anyone could get out without an axe." The building looked secure and, when food and hot coffee had been served them, Grant retired to rest. He slept soundly, and it was close on daylight when a pounding on the door awakened him. "I guess you had better get up at once," their host called. A few minutes later Grant and Breckenridge went downstairs with him, and the storekeeper, opening a door, lifted the lamp he held and pointed to an open window in the roof. A barrel, with a box or two laid upon it, stood suggestively beneath it. Breckenridge glanced at Larry, and saw a curious little smile on his face. "Yes," he said, "it's quite simple. Now, I never saw that window. Where would they be likely to head for?" "Pacific Slope," said the storekeeper. "Wages are high just now, and they seemed quite afraid of you. The west-bound fast freight stopped here for water about two hours ago, and it was snowing that thick nobody would see them getting into a box car. They heave a few dry goods out here occasionally." Breckenridge turned to Grant. "You seem relieved." "Yes," said Grant, with a little shake of his shoulders. "If they have lit out of the country it will content me. I have had quite enough hard things to do lately." A sudden thought struck Breckenridge. "You didn't mean--" he said with a shudder. "I didn't mean to let them go, but I'm glad they've gone," Grant answered. "We made a warning of one of the cattle-barons' men, and the man who takes the law into his own hands is doubly bound to do the square thing all round. If he does less, he is piling up a bigger reckoning than I would care to face." XXV CHEYNE RELIEVES HIS FEELINGS A blustering wind moaned outside the lonely building, and the stove snapped and crackled as the chilly draughts swept into the hall at Cedar Range. Jackson Cheyne had arrived on horseback in the creeping dusk an hour or two earlier, after spending most of four nights and days in the slushy snow, and was now resting contentedly in a big hide chair. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that Hetty sat close by, he was feeling pleasantly drowsy when she turned to him. "You have only told us that you didn't find the train-wreckers, and you know we are just dying with curiosity," she said. Cheyne looked up languidly, wondering whether the half-indifferent inquisitiveness was assumed, as he remembered the anxiety he had seen in Hetty's face when he first came in. Instead of answering directly, he glanced round the little group sitting about the stove--for Miss Schuyler, and Christopher Allonby and his cousin were there, as well as Hetty.