e going through
there was no chance of his reaching the grade in time to satisfy his
curiosity; if they were stopping at the trestle there was no hurry.
With unerring sense he made straight for the trestle.

As he walked along he was conscious of rising concern, of more than
ordinary personal connection with the visitors, and in a minute or two
he was running in the long easy lope which carries the Indian over
incredible distances in a space of time that challenges the ordinary
horse.

So that when the rattle of the engines ceased with suspicious
suddenness midway between the end-of-steel village and the trestle he
was not far from the grade. He deflected his course and presently,
with scarcely deepened breath to show the speed at which he had come,
he was watching from the shadows a strange scene.

In a long line, soundless but for the hurried tramp of their heavy
boots, dim figures emerged from the bush, lifted something from a
speeder, and disappeared the way they had come. The first speeder,
already unloaded, stood awaiting its companion. Blue Pete saw at first
without grasping the meaning. Then a jangle of metal enlightened him.

Rifles--that was what these men were carrying away!

For an agonised moment he felt unequal to the occasion. He knew in a
flash what arms portended among these foreign devils. But it was too
late to do much to forestall it. One speeder load was gone, and the
second was emptying fast. He might frighten the silent porters away
and perhaps capture the remainder of their burdens, but that would, at
best, rob them of a few dozen rifles, while scores--perhaps
hundreds--were by this time secure. And the bohunks would be warned.

A plan developed.

If only he had brought Mira! She could trail almost as well as he, and
her wits were quick. Danger or no danger, if only Mira were there to
help! On the trail of the last figure he crept, and the chug of the
flying speeders roared back to him in diminuendo.

The task he had set himself was an easy one. The man he followed,
clumsy and stupid, was anxious only to make speed. In among the trees
he led, though not far from the grade, and when at last he stopped and
began to rustle among the leaves and dead boughs, Blue Pete knew he had
reached the end of the trail. Yet even as the man worked feverishly
the halfbreed visualised the spot; and he knew no great cache could be
there. It puzzled him, alarmed him.

When the man was gone,