"Nothing could tempt me to go up there now," said Dick. "Maybe not, nor me either, but as I live somebody is on top of that ridge now." Dick's eyes followed his pointing finger, saw a black dot on the utmost summit, and then he snatched up his glasses. "It's Slade, his very self!" he exclaimed in excitement. "I'd know that hat anywhere. Now, how under the sun did he come there!" "It's more important to know why he has come," said Warner, using his own glasses. "I see him clearly and there is no doubt that it's the same robber, traitor and assassin who, unfortunately, escaped when we shot his horde to pieces." "He has a rifle with him, and as sure as we live he's sitting down on the ice, and picking out a target here in the valley." "A risky business for Slade. Shooting upward we can take better aim at him than he can at us." There was a great stir in the valley, as others saw the figure on the mountain and read Slade's intentions. Fifty men sprang to their feet and seized their rifles. But the guerrilla moved swiftly along the knife-edge of the ridge, obviously sure of his footing, and before any of them could fire, dropped down behind a little group of cedars. Every stem and bough was cased in a sheath of silver mail, but they hid him well. Dick, with his glasses, could not discern a single outline of the man behind the glittering tracery. But as they looked, a head of red appeared suddenly in the silver, smoke floated away, and a bullet knocked up the ice near them. They scattered in lively fashion, and from shelter watched the silver bush. A second bullet came from its foliage and wounded slightly a man who was carrying wood to one of the fires. But the annoying sharpshooter remained invisible. "He's lying down on the ice like a Sioux or Cheyenne in a gully," said Pennington. "Maybe he has a gully in the ice," said Dick, "and he can crouch here and shoot at us all day, almost in perfect safety." But Colonel Winchester appeared and ordered a score of the men, with the heaviest rifles, to shoot away the entire clump of cedars. They did it with a method and a regard for mathematics that filled Warner's soul with delight, firing in turn and planting their bullets in a line along the front of the clump, cutting down everything like a mower with a scythe. Dick with the glasses saw the ice fly into the air in a silver spray as bush after bush fell. Presently they were all cut away by that stream of heavy bullets, but no human being was disclosed. "He's just gone over the other side of the ridge," said Warner in disgust, "and is waiting there until we finish. We couldn't shoot through a mountain, even if we had one of our biggest cannon here. He'll find another clump of bushes soon and be potting us from it." "But we can shoot that away too," said Dick hopefully.