ing down the river, and
shortly came rushing back to us.

"Aha, I told yuh," he cried exultantly. "That was her crossed the river
this mornin'. I found her track in the sand. One uh yuh stand guard,
and the other feller come with me. We c'n trail her."

"Go ahead," I told MacRae--a superfluous command, for I could not have
kept him from going if I had tried.

So I was left on the sand-bar with two dead thieves, and two who should
have been dead, and a little knot of horses for company. Hicks and
Bevans gave me little concern. I had helped tie both of them, and I knew
they would not soon get loose. But it was a weary wait. An hour fled. I
paced the bar, a carbine in the crook of my arm and a vigilant eye for
incipient outbreaks for freedom on the part of those two wolves. The
horses stood about on three legs, heads drooping. The smoke-clouds
swayed and eddied, lifted a moment, and closed down again with the
varying spasms of the fire that was beating itself out on the farther
shore. I sat me down and rested a while, arose and resumed my nervous
tramping. The foglike haze began to thin. It became possible to breathe
without discomfort to the lungs; my eyes no longer stung and watered.
And after a period in which I seemed to have walked a thousand miles on
that sandy point, I heard voices in the distance. Presently MacRae and
Piegan Smith broke through the willow fringe on the higher ground--and
with them appeared a feminine figure that waved a hand to me.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SPOILS OF WAR.

All things considered, it was a joyous knot of humanity that gathered on
that sand-bar--if one excepts the two plunderers who were tied hard and
fast, their most cheerful outlook a speedy trial with a hangman's noose
at the finish. I recollect that we shook hands all around, and that our
tongues wagged extravagantly, regardless of whoever else might be
speaking. We settled down before long, however, remembering that we were
not altogether out of the woods.

The fire by this time had, to a great extent, beaten itself out on the
opposite bank, and with nothing left but a few smoldering brush-patches,
the smoke continued to lift and give us sundry glimpses of the black
desolation that spread to the north. So far as we knew, the wind had
carried no sparks across the river to fire the south side and drive us
back to the barrenness of the burned lands. And with the certainty that
Lyn was safe, and that we were beyond disputi