Stiff from the long day in the saddle, Philip would have welcomed a blanket bed before the Tishbite’s hearth fire, but the urgencies were still acutely upon him; also, he was beginning to acquire the pride of the outdoor man. If Garth, who had already tramped miles before the afternoon meeting on the high pass, could stand it to keep on going, surely he could. “We’ll tackle it,” he said shortly; and presently they were taking the steep mountain trail in reverse, slipping and sliding in the dry snow, but doggedly making their way toward the high, wind-swept pass. Visioning that long night tramp in the moonlight, afterward, Philip knew it would be an enduring memory after many other experiences had faded and gone. The slippery trail; the black shadows of the trees while they were still in the foresting, and the blacker shadows of great rocks and gulch cliffs after they had climbed above timber line; the keen night wind sweeping over the bleak pass where they paused for a short halt in the lee of a sheltering boulder to eat a few mouthfuls of food before hitting the downward trail; the perilous descent to the headwater gulches of the Roaring Fork, where more than once he owed his escape from a sudden plunge into unknown depths to the quick clutch of the silent giant plodding along tirelessly behind him--no detail of the deadening, soul-harrowing fight for endurance, lapsing finally into a sheer effort of the will to thrust one foot before the other, would ever be forgotten. The moon had long since disappeared behind the uplifted skyline of the western ranges by the time they were measuring the last of the weary miles in the valley of the lucky strike. At the foot of one of the jutting mountain spurs, Philip broke the slogging monotony to say: “We’re almost there. The next gulch is ours.” “Good enough,” was the muttered comment from the rear; and then, suddenly: “Hold up--hold your hosses a minute!” Philip turned and saw Garth stooping with his rifle held in the crook of an arm. He was peering down at the hoof tracks they had been following. “What is it?” he asked. Garth pushed his flap-brimmed hat to the back of his head and looked up. “Thought yuh said a while back that this here was your trail--the one yuh made comin’ out with the cavoyard this mornin’.” “Well, isn’t it?” “Not by a jugful--not unless yuh was walking the hull caboodle of ’em back’ards.” “What’s that?” “Sure as shootin’. The critters that made this trail was goin’ the same way we are. Get down and take a squint for yerself.” Philip was about to comply when he saw a spurt of red flame leap out in the up-valley distance, the flash followed quickly by the reverberating echoes of a rifle shot. At the flash and crash Garth leaped afoot with a growled-out imprecation and worked the lever of his repeating rifle to throw a cartridge into the chamber.