assistance, she climbed into the empty saddle without
comment; and mutely pointed the way over the hills to the west. Garth
lingered to affix a note to the door of the shack for those they
expected to follow.

As he caught up to them again, he overlooked his little party with the
eye of a commander. It was not a hopeful view: three wretched, half-fed
beasts he had, complaining at the very start under their loads; and for
his aids an injured boy and a sick girl; with one first-class weapon and
a toy among the three of them. This was all he had with which to meet
and overcome Grylls's strong and well-provided party. The odds were so
preposterous, he put the thought out of his head with a shrug. At the
last there is a moment when the hard-pressed commander must wall up his
brain; and let the tide of his blood carry him. The daylight revealed
Garth's face gaunt and sunken; his lips a grim stroke of red; and his
eyes contracted to two icy points.

As they climbed the hill Rina said: "They got fourteen horse. Nick
Grylls bring nine, three yours, and two cayuse 'Erbe't's."

At the top she halted them, while she walked her horse back and forth,
searching the grass. Garth's eyes meanwhile swept the wide, brown,
undulating sea, seeking in the hollows and the coppices for any sign of
motion. But the plain was as empty of life as the gray sky.

Rina rejoined him. "They break up so we can't see them so good," she
said in her indifferent way. "Seven horse go by the edge of the coulee,
southwest. Five horse go west. Two horse go northwest. Bam-by I t'ink
they come together."

"What horse was _she_ on?" Garth demanded.

"Nick Grylls's big roan," she answered. "They mak' a bag for her to sit
in. She sit one side; Mary Co-que-wasa sit the other."

"Find the roan's tracks," ordered Garth.

Rina shook her head. "I never follow that horse," she said.

"Find the heaviest tracks then!"

She obediently wheeled her horse; and searched the turf again; riding
around them in wide fanlike sweeps, while Garth waited with a deadly
patience. At last she struck off to the northwest, calling to them, and
Garth and Charley spurred after.

"'Erbe't, Mary and her, go this way," she said briefly, as they came up.
"Nick Grylls take six horse west, and Xavier take four by coulee."

"If we can overtake her before the others come up!" muttered Garth.

Rina, looking at their horses, shrugged significantly.

For half an hour they loped over the p