n in Pete's
chest, because when we closed in on the rendezvous that night I took
fool chances. I jumped in alone. Dutch Henry had my life in his hands
when Blue Pete fired from the shadows. . . . Somehow he'd dragged
himself there to be on hand. He saved my life again. . . . He died
for it."

Constable Williams cleared his throat. Torrance was silent. Tressa
leaned forward and touched Mahon's sleeve.

"You didn't bury him in a cemetery? He'd hate it."

"We never found his body. Mira Stanton, the girl I told you of, buried
him where we never could find. She wrote us . . . and she hated us.
There's a rough stone to his memory down there on the edge of the
Cypress Hills. It reminds the few of us who see it of my friend,
simple, plain, rugged, lasting. There's no name on it, just 'Greater
Love.'"

"You didn't find him? What was he like?" Tressa's face was flushed.

"A big, slouching sort of figure, but with a world of muscle you'd
never suspect. The face of an Indian, but lighter; it's bluish tint
gave him his name. A smile that made you forget anything but that he
was your friend; a square jaw, squinting eyes--"

"Was his face very thin, almost haggard, with hollows under the eyes,
and one shoulder lower than the other?"

Mahon smiled at her excitement. "No, his face lurked a little heavily,
waiting only for that wonderful smile, but it wasn't haggard. And his
shoulders were twin towers of strength."

"Oh," she sighed, "then it isn't him."

"I can assure you, Miss Torrance, that there's not a grain of hope to
raise. Whom does my friend resemble?"

"Why, Peter Maverick--just some ways."

For a moment he seemed startled, almost frightened, then he smiled
indulgently.

"It only means they're both of Indian strain, have crooked eyes (a not
uncommon combination), and happened to toy with the same invented name
that is taken from the herds. Nothing more. . . . If I thought Blue
Pete would throw himself through a window and down a bank like that at
sight of me--"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "He wouldn't, of course. But wouldn't it
have been a story?"

"The sort of story that never happens even in books," he sighed.

CHAPTER XI

THE DESERTED CAMP

Three low taps sounded on the side of Koppy's shack. The underforeman
rose and, standing well back in the gloom of the interior, peered
through the open door to the boss's shack beside the grade. Then he
went to the window that open