Then the two men went out and saddled the horse. In three minutes Jim
was in the saddle, and Peter gripped him by the hand.

"The good God'll help you out for this, Jim. So long."

"So long."

As the horseman passed the hut Eve and Elia were standing before the
closed door. Jim saw them, but he would not pause. However, his keen
ears heard the whispered "God bless you" which the woman threw after
him. And somehow he felt that nothing else in his life much mattered.

A few moments later Eve was at her gate, fumbling for the latch. Elia
was at her side, looking out at the lights of the village. Suddenly he
turned and raised his beautiful face to hers.

"Say, sis, you're a fule woman," he declared sharply. He was listening
to the sounds of bustle down at the saloon. "Can't you hear? That's
the boys. They've come in, and they're gettin' ready to start with
Doc. If they get him--they'll hang him."

"Him? Who? What d'you mean?"

The terrified woman was staring down into his calm eyes.

"Why--Jim."

"Oh, God, no! They can't! They won't! He's too good--too brave! God
will never let them. It would be too cruel."

"Say, I guess you'd be sorry some?"

"Sorry?"

But Eve was fumbling again at the gate. Nor could the boy extract
another word from her.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TRAIL OF THE RUSTLERS

The blackness of night begins to stir. Ahead and above roll vague
shadows, darkening, threatening, in the immensity of their wave-like
shapes. Away behind the stars shine pitifully, for a dim gray light in
the east heralds the coming of day. Slowly the shadows change from
black to a faint gray, and their rolling becomes more pronounced. Now,
with each passing moment, the eastern light grows, and the darkness of
the west responds; now, too, the shadows show themselves for what they
are. They stir and seethe like the churning of water nearly boiling,
under the rising zephyrs of mountain air. They are the dense morning
mists, a hazy curtain shutting out the mountain splendor beyond.

In less than half an hour a wonderful metamorphosis. A tinted fringe
of cloud appears on the mists high up, and gives the impression of a
beam of sunlight amidst the shadows. But no sun has broken the eastern
sky-line, nor will it for another half-hour. Yet the light increases,
and the swirling mists become a rosy cloudland, deep, ruddy, and
exquisitely beautiful. The living fog rolls up, lifting, lifting, and
every moment the picture grows