e of the valley he read some nameless reason for fear. The trail
seemed the same, the brook flowed and murmured as of old, the trees
shone soft and green, but Neale sensed a difference. He dared not look
at Larry for confirmation of his fears. The valley had not of late been
lived in!

Neale rode hard up the trail under the pines. A blackened heap lay where
once the cabin had stood. Neale's heart gave a terrible leap and then
seemed to cease beating. He could not breathe nor speak nor move. His
eyes were fixed on the black remains of Slingerland's cabin.

"Gawd Almighty!" gasped Larry, and he put out a shaking hand to clutch
Neale. "The Injuns! I always feared this--spite of Slingerland's talk."

The feel of Larry's fierce fingers, like hot, stinging arrows in his
flesh, pierced Neale's mind and made him realize what his stunned
faculties had failed to grasp. It seemed to loosen the vise-like hold
upon his muscles, to liberate his tongue.

He fell off his horse.

"Red! Look--look around!"

Allie was gone! The disappointment at not seeing her was crushing, and
the fear of utter loss was terrible. Neale lay on the ground, blind,
sick, full of agony, with his fingers tearing at the grass. The evil
presentiments that had haunted him for months had not been groundless
fancies. Perhaps Allie had called to him again, in another hour of
calamity, and this time he had not responded. She was gone! That idea
struck him cold. It meant the most dreadful of all happenings. For a
while he lay there, prostrate under the shock. He was dimly aware of
Larry's coming and sitting down beside him.

"No sign of any one," he said, huskily. "Not even a track!... Thet fire
must hev been about two weeks ago. Mebbe more, but not much. There's
been a big rain an' the ground's all washed clean an' smooth ... Not a
track!"

It was the cowboy's habit to calculate the past movements of people and
horses by the nature of the tracks they left.

Then Neale awoke to violence. He sprang up and rushed to the ruins of
the cabin, frantically tore and dug around the burnt embers, and did not
leave off until he had overhauled the whole pile. There was nothing but
ashes and embers. Whereupon he ran to the empty corrals, to the sheds,
to the wood-pile, to the spring, and all around the space once so
habitable. There was nothing to reward his fierce energy--nothing to
scrutinize. Already grass was springing in the trails and upon spots
that had once been