But Sautee's answer was drowned in the roar of the motor as he sped up the road toward the hogback and the mine. CHAPTER XXI A CAPTURE When Rathburn rode away from Sautee's quarters he galloped up the street straight for the road which led west out of town. He pulled his horse down to a trot when he reached the Carlisle cabin and made another brief inspection which showed that the place was deserted. Then he struck into the trail behind the cabin and began the ascent toward the Dixie Queen. He rode slowly through the timber, depending upon his mount to keep to the dim trail, but in the open stretches in meadows and on the crest of ridges where the timber thinned, he made better time. On this occasion one would not have noted an attitude of uncertainty about his manner or movements. He had paid strict attention to the barn man's description of this trail, and he had determined general directions the day before. Rathburn was not a stranger to the art of following new trails; nor was he the kind to become confused in a locality with which he was not familiar unless he became absolutely lost. In this instance it would be a hard matter to become lost, for the ridges rose steadily upward toward the summits of the high mountains, the town was in the narrow valley below, and the foothills ranged down to the desert in the east. He was halfway to the mine when he saw the gleam of an automobile's lights in the road far below. "Sautee got busy right quick," he said aloud. "I 'spect they're hustlin' up to head me off at the hogback. They're figuring I'd try to go back the way I come in." He smiled grimly in the soft moonlight, and his gaze turned toward the east, where the stars glowed over the shadowy reaches of desert which he could not see, but the very thought of which stirred something in his soul. Then he pushed on up the trail toward the mine. For more than an hour he rode, and then, when he came to the crest of a ridge just below the Dixie Queen, he saw the lights of an automobile in the road to the right of him. "Now what?" he ejaculated. "They ain't figurin' I'd come up here!" He sat his horse with features again wreathed in perplexity. He scowled at the approaching gleam of light. In the direction of the hogback he could see nothing. Nor could he see the horsemen already on the trail below him and on the ridge trail to eastward. The little mine village was directly below him. The few buildings huddled together below the big mine dump were dark. The mine buildings, too, were dark. A faint glow showed in the east--harbinger of the dawn. The left side of the automobile was toward him when it stopped in the little street below. A man climbed out and walked around in front of the car, and Rathburn grunted in recognition as he made out the familiar form of Sautee, the mine manager.