he care necessary to leave no
traces of getting down and climbing up.

Leaving Hawk when the night was nearly spent, Laramie returned to his
horse, retraced his blind way through the bad lands and got to the road
some miles above where he had left it. He started for home but left
the road below his place and picking a trail through the hills came out
half a mile northwest of his cabin. Here he cached his saddle and
bridle, turned loose his horse and going forward with the stealth of an
Indian he got close enough to his cabin to satisfy himself, after
painstaking observation, that his cabin was neither in the hands of the
enemy, nor under close-range surveillance. When he reached the house
he disposed of his rifle, slipped inside and struck a light. On the
stove he found his frying pan face downward and the coffee pot near it
with the lid raised. From this he knew that Simeral in his absence had
cared for his stock; and being relieved in his mind on this score he
laid his revolver at hand and threw himself on the bed to sleep. Day
was just breaking.

CHAPTER XXII

STONE TRIES HIS HAND

In getting home safely, Laramie had not flattered himself that he was
not actually under what in mountain phrase is termed the death watch.
In matter of fact, Van Horn and Doubleday had gone home to stay until
the excitement should blow over. But they had left Stone and two men
charged with intercepting Laramie on his return. The investing lines
had not, however, been skilfully drawn and Laramie had slipped through.

He slept undisturbed until the sun was an hour high. Then peering
through a corner of the blanket that hung before the window he saw
Stone and two companions half a mile from the house, riding slowly as
if looking for a trail; particularly, as he readily surmised, for his
own trail. As to his horse betraying him, Laramie had no fear, knowing
the beast would make straight for the blue stem north of the hills. It
was no part of Laramie's plan of defense to begin fighting or to force
any situation that favored him--as he believed the present one to do.

Few men that knew his enemies would have agreed with him in this view;
they would, indeed, have thought it extremely precarious for Laramie to
be caught in any place he could not escape from unseen. But Laramie
was temperamentally a gambler with fortune and he put aside the worries
that occasionally weighed on his friends. Standing at his one small
window