"I trusted Lucy," said Holley. "But all the same, knowin' she was in love, I jest wanted to see if any girl in love could keep her word.... So about dark I went down the grove an' watched fer Slone. Pretty soon I seen him. He sneaked along the upper end an' I follered. He went to thet bench up by the biggest cottonwood. An' he waited a long time. But Lucy didn't come. He must have waited till midnight. Then he left. I watched him go back--seen him go up to his cabin." "Wal, if she didn't meet him, where was she? She wasn't in her room." Bostil gazed at Holley and the other riders, then back to Holley. What was the matter with this old rider? Bostil had never seen Holley seem so strange. The whole affair began to loom strangely, darkly. Some portent quickened Bostil's lumbering pulse. It seemed that Holley's mind must have found an obstacle to thought. Suddenly the old rider's face changed--the bronze was blotted out--a grayness came, and then a dead white. "Bostil, mebbe you 'ain't been told yet thet--thet Creech rode in yesterday.... He lost all his racers! He had to shoot both Peg an' Roan!" Bostil's thought suffered a sudden, blank halt. Then, with realization, came the shock for which he had long been prepared. "A-huh! Is thet so? ... Wal, an' what did he say?" Holley laughed a grim, significant laugh that curdled Bostil's blood. "Creech said a lot! But let thet go now.... Come with me." Holley started with rapid strides down the lane. Bostil followed. And he heard the riders coming behind. A dark and gloomy thought settled upon Bostil. He could not check that, but he held back impatience and passion. Holley went straight to Lucy's window. He got down on his knees to scrutinize the tracks. "Made more 'n twelve hours ago," he said, swiftly. "She had on her boots, but no spurs.... Now let's see where she went." Holley began to trail Lucy's progress through the grove, silently pointing now and then to a track. He went swifter, till Bostil had to hurry. The other men came whispering after them. Holley was as keen as a hound on scent. "She stopped there," he said, "mebbe to listen. Looks like she wanted to cross the lane, but she didn't: here she got to goin' faster." Holley reached an intersecting path and suddenly halted stock-still, pointing at a big track in the dust. "My God! ... Bostil, look at thet!" One riving pang tore through Bostil--and then he was suddenly his old self, facing the truth of danger to one he loved. He saw beside the big track a faint imprint of Lucy's small foot. That was the last sign of her progress and it told a story. "Bostil, thet ain't Slone's track," said Holley, ringingly. "Sure it ain't. Thet's the track of a big man," replied Bostil. The other riders, circling round with bent heads, all said one way or another that Slone could not have made the trail. "An' whoever he was grabbed Lucy up--made off with her?" asked Bostil.