He laughed softly as she kissed him and crept back into his arms, where she shuddered and laid her head on his breast. "No," he said, "he will never kill me. I've got too much to live for now." CHAPTER XXIV NO TRAIL The chase, which had been flung far, swung back towards Deadman Canyon, where the trail of the fugitives had disappeared; and with the others came the Randolphs and Isham Scarborough, riding up the creek from Tonto. Apache trailers came drifting in, drawn like vultures by the crowd; and soon, under their guidance, the search party crossed the creek and came out on the bench below the castle. Hall and Allifair could hear their shouts as they found the marks of his first turkey-trap, in the underbrush above the little spring; and then the chase led on to the cliff-dwellings below them, where Hall had made camp the first time. But the signs were all old and they came back to the spring, where they could look up and see the lost castle. Every word that they said could be heard now perfectly and Allifair trembled as she listened. "Well, the house is there, ain't it?" argued Isham, trying to bully the Apache trailers. "How'd they git up to it? Well, _busca_ the trail!" "No! No tlail!" responded the Apaches, and that was the last heard of them, for the cowboys had taken sides on the matter. Some swore that the trail came down from the top, and that they could see a kind of bear-track down the cleft; and the others were just as positive that it had ascended the cliff but had been lost by a cave-off of the rock. "No! No tlail!" repeated the Apaches when the uproar had subsided, and Isham Scarborough came back at them angrily. "You're scairt, you black rascals!" he shouted. "Hey, Charley--you take me up that mountain? Well, there now--you see? These danged Injuns are buffaloed--they're afraid Old Man Baker will kill 'em!" "No! No 'flaid!" grunted the Indians, but they would not go up the chasm, for no Apache ever set foot on Baker Mountain. "Hey, I'll tell you!" hollered Isham, his voice rising above the babel like the roar of a mountain bull, "I'll tell you where they've gone! Up Devil's Chasm and plumb over the summit--they couldn't get nowhere's else! Didn't we trail 'em to the crick, and ain't we rode clean to Tonto, cutting circles to pick up their tracks? Well, they crossed then I'm telling ye, even if you fellers couldn't, and by this time they're clean to Geronimo!" "Well, let's go to Geronimo, then," spoke up Cal Randolph's even voice, "what's the use of trying to climb this mountain?" "They may be hid up there," cried Isham. "But cripes, boys, we know one thing--they never went down that crick. And if they didn't go there where else could they go, except----" He paused as a voice began shouting his name, and Hall peeped over the rampart. A man had ridden down to their camp across the creek and was waving his hat and hallooing.