The absence of the wagon was a clue. He stole along the out-going tracks, between which, small, circular and clearly stamped, were the hoof-prints of two mules. Near the coulee-crossing, the tracks ran into others, and fresher ones, that diverged sharply into the corn. The hoof-prints between these pointed eastward. He forsook the out-going and turned back across the field. At first, the course of the wagon puzzled. After veering north until the canyon yawned, the team had made along the brink, keeping perilously near it; farther on, at the upper end of the plowed strip, the direction abruptly changed. The mules had swung out to the right upon the open prairie, travelling straight for the middle of the gap. So far they had gone at a furious gallop. Now, however, they slowed to a walk. When the course no longer puzzled. To and fro, it wended, this way for a few feet, then, the other--proof that Ben and Betty had fed. The Squaw halted. The horizon was faintly yellow. Upon it was a moving black object, which presently took the clearer form of a wagon and span. He set off, his loose hair whipping at his back. The team was also travelling rapidly. Behind was a reddish follower that lowed in protest of the speed. When the mules came by, Dallas was standing at the dashboard, plying the lash. Her face was ashen, her eyes were hollow. She did not see the Indian, for her gaze was upon the shack. He swung himself into the rattling box. There lay Marylyn, still in the grasp of the stupor that had bound them, brain and body, through the night. Before the mules brought up at the lean-to, Dallas was over a wheel and tottering in quest of her father. Out of the shack, as she searched it, sounded her plaintive cry: "Daddy! daddy! where are you? Oh, Daddy! _daddy!_ come back!" Squaw Charley, bringing Marylyn in, found the elder girl kneeling behind the partition, her arms thrown out to grasp the vacant bunk. He put his load down gently; then, unbidden, rushed through the door for Brannon. When Captain Oliver arrived, with Fraser, a surgeon and a detachment of mounted men, Dallas was seated in the doorway, rocking Marylyn against her breast. She looked up, dry-eyed, as he hurried to her. "What'd they do it for?" she asked him, brokenly. "How could they hurt you, dad? Oh, the land wasn't worth it! the land wasn't worth it!" Something to quicken life in Marylyn was the first thought. Then, food and drink were given the girls. Meanwhile, the troopers were sent out under Fraser to range the bend and beat the coulee. Oliver stayed. But to his questions, Dallas, her reason tottering like her steps, could only return others that were heartrending: "He'll come back, won't he? They wouldn't kill him? Oh, you don't think he's dead?" "We'll find him," said the captain. He was pitiful in his regret. This tragedy was striking home to him as even the Jamieson failure had not. His long, sad face was more like a walrus' than ever.