The, shooting ceased. Silence fell upon the gloom of the dusk. Then came a calling between Smith and Wickwire, and a signalling of pistol-shots for their companions. Kennedy and Bob Scott dashed down toward the river-bed on their horses. Seagrue lay on his face. Young Rebstock sat with his hands around his knees on the sand. Above him at some distance, Wickwire and Smith stood before a man who leaned against the sharp cheek of the bowlder at the point. In his hands his rifle was held across his lap just as he had dropped on his knee to fire. He had never moved after he was struck. His head, drooping a little, rested against the rock, and his hat lay on the sand; his heavy beard had sunk into his chest and he kneeled in the shadow, asleep. Scott and Kennedy knew him. In the mountains there was no double for Murray Sinclair. When he jumped behind the point to pick Whispering Smith off the ledge he had laid himself directly under Wickwire's fire across the wash. The first shot of the cowboy at two hundred yards had passed, as he knelt, through both temples. They laid him at Seagrue's side. The camp was made beside the dead men in the wash. "You had better not take him to Medicine Bend," said Whispering Smith, sitting late with Kennedy before the dying fire. "It would only mean that much more unpleasant talk and notoriety for her. The inquest can be held on the Frenchman. Take him to his own ranch and telegraph the folks in Wisconsin--God knows whether they will want to hear. But his mother is there yet. But if half what Barney has told to-night is true it would be better if no one ever heard." CHAPTER XLV BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS In the cottage in Boney Street, one year later, two women were waiting. It was ten o'clock at night. "Isn't it a shame to be disappointed like this?" complained Dicksie, pushing her hair impatiently back. "Really, poor George is worked to death. He was to be in at six o'clock, Mr. Lee said, and here it is ten, and all your beautiful dinner spoiled. Marion, are you keeping something from me? Look me in the eye. Have you heard from Gordon Smith?" "No, Dicksie." "Not since he left the mountains a year ago?" "Not since he left the mountains a year ago." Dicksie, sitting forward in her chair, bent her eyes upon the fire. "It is so strange. I wonder where he is to-night. How he loves you, Marion! He told me everything when he said good-by. He made me promise not to tell then; but I didn't promise to keep it forever." Marion smiled. "A year isn't forever, Dicksie."