The assertion chimed accurately with the fact. The stars had already disappeared from the eastern half of the sky, and the sharply outlined summits of the distant Park Range were visible against the rose-tinted background of the coming dawn. In the middle distance the reaches of the great basin came slowly into view, and in the first rays of the rising sun the ground over which they had stumbled in the small hours of the night spread itself map-like below them. Far down on the basin trail a straggling procession of creeping figures revealed itself, the distance minimizing its progress so greatly that the movement appeared to be no more than a snail’s pace. “You see,” Philip scowled. “If we had camped at the foot of this hill it would have been all over but the swearing.” Bromley acquiesced with a nod. “You are right. What next?” “We have our lead now and we must hold it at all costs--get well down into the timber on the western slope before they can climb up here. Are you good for more of the same?” “A bit disfigured, but still in the ring,” said the play-boy, with his cheerful smile twisting itself, for very weariness, into a teeth-baring grin. Then, as the sunlight grew stronger, he made a binocular of his curved hands and looked back over the basin distances. As he did so, the twisted smile became a chuckling laugh. “Take another look at that outfit on the trail, Phil,” he said. “It’s my guess that they have a pair of field-glasses and have got a glimpse of us up here.” Philip looked, and what he saw made him scramble to his feet and shout at the patient jacks, lop-eared and dejected after their long night march. The group on the distant trail was no longer a unit. Three of the dots had detached themselves from the others and were coming on ahead--at a pace which, even at the great distance, defined itself as a fast gallop. VI WITH the vanguard of the army of eager gold-hunters fairly in sight, the two who were pursued cut the summit breathing halt short and resumed their flight. Avoiding the sand-covered snowdrifts in which they had come to grief on the journey out, they pushed on down the western declivities at the best speed the boulder-strewn slopes and craggy descents would permit, postponing the breakfast stop until they reached a grassy glade well down in the foresting where the animals could graze. After a hasty meal made on what prepared food they could come at easily in the packs, and without leaving the telltale ashes of a fire, they pressed on again westward and by early afternoon were in the mountain-girt valley of the stream which had been their guide out of the western wilderness two days earlier. Again they made a cold meal, watered and picketed the animals, and snatched a couple of hours for rest and sleep. Scanting the rest halt to the bare necessity, mid-afternoon found them once more advancing down the valley, with Philip, to whom horseback riding was a new and rather painful experience, leading his mount.