“Yes, and Basil's there, and the half-breed's there,” he took his eyes off Raymond's face, and for the first time noticed that he had exchanged his ragged uniform for an excellent suit of grey homespun. “You've crossed the range and been down into the valley. Now what are you doing here on the back track when you were all so keen for trying your luck in California?” “Well,” said the deserter with a quick shift of ground, “maybe Basil is there, and maybe the half-breed is there; what does it signify?” “Why are you following us?” But at this Raymond shook his head vehemently. “Following you—and why'd we be following you? I'll tell you the truth, fact is, sometimes it gravels me to tell the truth; but with a friend—we're taking a party of Saints back to the Missouri. There was money in the job, and darn California anyhow; it's a long way off, and they say in the valley the bottom's dropped clean out of this here gold business. It's all rank foolishness, they are beginning to come back, and the Saints are feeding them and helping them on toward the States; we mighty soon got shut of that notion when we'd seen and talked with a few of them that'd crossed to the Coast; and when Young offered to hire us to take a score of his missionaries to the Missouri we jumped at the chance.” “You daren't go near Fort Laramie,” said Rogers, but his theories as to what had brought Raymond there had been rather shaken by the excellent account he was now giving of himself. “I wa'n'. aware I said I was going near the fort. No, sir, we're going out the way we come in. We allow to hit the trail a hundred miles the other side of old Laramie.” Rogers looked at him doubtfully, yet he was almost inclined to believe that it was as he said, that the first rush of emigration might have encountered a few discouraged ones who had gone into California the preceding fall, and who having been unfortunate were making the best of their way back to the States—this might even have resulted in a stampede among the emigrants. He recalled how the fear of the cholera had turned back thousands before a quarter of their journey had been completed. With his shifty eyes narrowed to a slit, the deserter watched the Californian. He could see something of what was passing in his mind and he could guess the rest; yet when he spoke again he said, “I reckon you don't take any great stock in what I'm telling you; come up to the top of yonder ridge and you can see our camp, and that it's exactly as I say.” This was the very thing Rogers had resolved on doing. “I'm going with you all right, but look here, if you so much as make a sign or a sound, to let 'em know we're close at hand, I'm going to blow the top of your head off. Here, walk before me, and heed every word I say. If I find you're telling me the truth about its being a party of Mormon missionaries, I'll bring you back here and turn you loose. We'll leave your gun here.”