hurt, or they
got her--I'm going back!" he said grimly.

"Hell! you can't do any good alone," Eddie protested, coming after him.
"We'll go look for her, Mr. Birnie, but we've got to have something so
we can see. If Jerry could dig up a couple of lanterns--"

"You wait. I'm coming along," Jerry called guardedly. "I'll bring
lanterns."

To Bud that time of waiting was torment. He had faced danger and tragedy
since he could toddle, and fear had never overridden the titillating
sense of adventure. But then the danger had been for himself. Now terror
conjured pictures whose horror set him trembling. Twenty-four hours and
more had passed since he had kissed Marian's hand and let her go--to
what? The inky blackness of those tunnelled caverns in the Gap
confronted his mind like a nightmare. He could not speak of it--he dared
not think of it, and yet he must.

Jerry came on horseback, with three unlighted lanterns held in a cluster
by their wire handles. Eddie immediately urged his horse into the brushy
edge of the trail so that he might pass Bud and take the lead. "You sure
made quick time," he remarked approvingly to Jerry.

"I raided Dave's cache of whiskey or I'd have been here quicker," Jerry
explained. "We might need some."

Bud gritted his teeth. "Ride, why don't yuh?" he urged Eddie harshly.
"What the hell ails that horse of yours? You got him hobbled?"

Eddie glanced back over his bobbing shoulder as his horse trotted along
the blind trail through the brush. "This here ain't no race track," he
expostulated. "We'll make it quicker without no broken legs."

There was justice in his protest and Bud said nothing. But Sunfish's
head bumped the tail of Eddie's horse many times during that ride. Once
in the Gap, with a lighted lantern in his rein hand and his six-shooter
in the other--because it was ticklish riding, in there with lights
revealing them to anyone who might be coming through--he was content to
go slowly, peering this way and that as he rode.

Once Eddie halted and turned to speak to them. "I know Boise wouldn't
leave the trail. If Sis had to duck off and hide from somebody, he'd
come back to the trail. Loose, he'd do that. Sis and I used to explore
around in here just for fun, and kept it for our secret till Lew found
out. She always rode Boise. I'm dead sure he'd bring her out all right."

"She hasn't come out--yet. Go on," said Bud, and Eddie rode forward
obediently.

Three hours it took them to s