Rathburn thrust his gun back into its holster and took the keys. In a moment he had unlocked the padlock and swung open the iron door, exposing case after case of high explosive within the stone structure. Sautee was staring at him in dire apprehension. Rathburn pointed toward the rift in the mountain on the left above them. Sautee looked and saw a man and a boy riding down the trail. "That looks to me like the man that held me up last night," said Rathburn. "He looks like one of the men, anyway. Maybe he's found out he didn't get much, eh? Maybe he's coming back because he didn't have enough to make a get-away with. Maybe he thinks he was double crossed or something." Sautee's features were working in a spasm of fear and worry. Suddenly he turned on Rathburn. "Why don't you get away?" he asked in eager pleading. "That trail will take you out of the mountains and down into the desert country. You're from the desert, aren't you? You can make it. You've made a good haul. Go! It'll be better for me and all of us!" Rathburn laughed bitterly. "I can't go because I'm a worse fool than you are," he said acridly. "Get in there. Sneaking lizards, man, can't you see I'm tempted to put a shot into one of them boxes and blow us both to kingdom come?" Sautee shrank back into the powder house, and Rathburn slammed the door. As Rathburn snapped the padlock and thrust the keys into his pocket his eyes again sought the trail to the left above him. No one was in sight. The man and the boy had disappeared in a bend or depression in the trail. But when he looked down toward the hogback he saw a car coming up the road toward the mine. A number of horsemen had taken its place on the hogback. Rathburn ran for his horse. CHAPTER XXII A SECOND CAPTURE Rathburn rode straight up the trail which led from the powder house toward the pass over the big mountain. His eyes were gleaming with satisfaction, but several times they clouded with doubt, and he felt the bank notes in his coat pocket. Each time, however, he would shake his head and push on up the trail with renewed energy. Looking backward and downward, he could see the posses gathering in the street of the mine village. He sensed the excitement which had followed the sudden disappearance of Sautee and smiled grimly. He saw that the automobile from the hogback had reached the village. Scores of men were clustered about it. He knew Mannix was taking personal charge of the man hunt; but there was a chance to get away! He looked wistfully eastward. Somewhere off there, beyond the rolling foothills, was the desert. He thrilled. It had been there he had made his first mistake. Goaded by the loss of his small cattle ranch he had taken revenge on the man who had foreclosed on him and others in a similar predicament. He had held up the bank and restored a small measure of the losses. Even then the profit of the unscrupulous money lender had been enormous.