to the crest of a ridge just below the
Dixie Queen, he saw the lights of an automobile in the road to the
right of him.

"Now what?" he ejaculated. "They ain't figurin' I'd come up here!"

He sat his horse with features again wreathed in perplexity. He
scowled at the approaching gleam of light. In the direction of the
hogback he could see nothing. Nor could he see the horsemen already on
the trail below him and on the ridge trail to eastward.

The little mine village was directly below him. The few buildings
huddled together below the big mine dump were dark. The mine
buildings, too, were dark. A faint glow showed in the east--harbinger
of the dawn.

The left side of the automobile was toward him when it stopped in the
little street below. A man climbed out and walked around in front of
the car, and Rathburn grunted in recognition as he made out the
familiar form of Sautee, the mine manager.

He saw Sautee and another leave the car and walk toward a building at
the lower end of the street. He could see them fairly well in the
moonlight and realized that in a comparatively short time it would be
daylight. He turned his horse down the slope.

When he reached the rear of the few buildings which formed the mining
village, catering to the wants of the Dixie Queen workers, Rathburn
edged along to the lower end where he left his horse in the shadow of
a building directly across from the one which Sautee and his companion
had entered, and in the windows of which a light now shone.

He stole across the street. Peering in one of the windows he saw that
the room was an office. Sautee was standing before a desk, talking to
another man. Rathburn quickly surmised that this man had accompanied
Sautee from the town. Even as he looked, Sautee finished his speech by
striking a palm with his fist, and his companion strode toward the
door.

Rathburn darted around the side of the building into the shadow as the
man came out and hurried up a wide road toward the mine buildings
above. Then Rathburn ran around to the front of the building and
quietly opened the door.

Sautee had seated himself at the desk, and he swung about in his chair
as he heard the door open. He looked again into the black bore of
Rathburn's gun. His eyes bulged, and this time they shone with genuine
terror.

"It was sure in the pictures for us to meet again, Sautee," said
Rathburn easily. "Our business wasn't finished. We ain't through
yet."

"There isn't