le. So he wrote that order to Goodell and started me out to
join you--with a warning to keep our eyes open, for undoubtedly the men
who killed Rutter and held you up would be watching for a chance at us
if we found that gold."

"Very acute reasoning on his part, I'm sure," I interrupted. "We knew
that without his telling. And if he thinks those fellows are hanging
about waiting for a whack at that dust, why doesn't he get out with a
bunch of his troopers and round them up?"

"That's what," Mac grinned. "But wait a minute. This was about three in
the afternoon, and he ordered me to start at once so as to catch you
fellows as soon as possible. I started a few minutes after three. You
remember the paymaster's train left that morning. He had a mounted
escort of six or seven besides his teamster. The MacLeod trail runs less
than twenty miles north of here, you know. I followed it, knowing about
where they'd camp for the night, thinking I'd make their outfit and get
something to eat and a chance to sleep an hour or two; then I could come
on here early in the morning. I got to the place where I had figured
they would stop, about eleven o'clock, but they had made better time
than usual and gone farther, so I quit the trail and struck across the
hills, for I didn't want to ride too far out of my way. When I got on
top of the first divide I ran onto a little spring and stopped to water
my horse and let him pick a bit of grass; I'd been riding eight hours,
and still had quite a jaunt to make. I must have been about three miles
south of the trail then."

He stopped to light the cigarette he had rolled while he talked, and I
kept still, wondering what would come next. MacRae wasn't the man to go
into detail like that unless he had something important to bring out.

"I sat there about an hour, I reckon," he continued. "By that time it
was darker than a stack of black cats, and fixing to storm. I thought I
might as well be moving as sit there and get soaked to the hide. While I
was tinkering with the cinch I thought I heard a couple of shots. Of
course, I craned my neck to listen, and in a second a regular fusillade
broke out--away off, you know; about like a stick of dry wood crackling
in the stove when you're outside the cabin. I loped out of the hollow
by the spring and looked down toward the trail. The red flashes were
breaking out like a bunch of firecrackers, and with pretty much the same
sound. It didn't last long--a minute