"Sure; looks like the half of a pear. He said it was powder under the

skin."

A new look of reviving determination swept into Hampton's gloomy

eyes--beyond doubt this must be his man.

"How many horses did he have?"

"Two."

"Did you overhear him say anything definite about his plans for the

trip?"

"What, him? He never talks, that fellow. He can't do nothing but

sputter if he tries. But I wrote out his orders, and they give him to

the twenty-fifth to make the Big Horn. That's maybe something like

fifty miles a day, and he's most likely to keep his horses fresh just

as long as possible, so as to be good for the last spurt through the

hostile country. That's how I figure it, and I know something about

scouting. You was n't planning to strike out after him, was you?"

"I might risk it if I only thought I could overtake him within two

days; my business is of some importance."

"Well, stranger, I should reckon you might do that with a dog-gone good

outfit. Murphy 's sure to take things pretty easy to-day, and he's

almost certain to follow the old mining trail as far as the ford over

the Belle Fourche, and that's plain enough to travel. Beyond that

point the devil only knows where he will go, for then is when his hard

ridin' begins."

The moment the operator mentioned that odd scar on Murphy's hand, every

vestige of hesitation vanished. Beyond any possibility of doubt he was

on the right scent this time. Murphy was riding north upon a mission

as desperate as ever man was called upon to perform. The chance of his

coming forth alive from that Indian-haunted land was, as the operator

truthfully said, barely one out of a hundred. Hampton thought of this.

He durst not venture all he was so earnestly striving after--love,

reputation, honor--to the chance of a stray Sioux bullet. No! and he

remembered Naida again, her dark, pleading eyes searching his face. To

the end, to the death if need were, he would follow!

The memory of his old plains craft would not permit any neglect of the

few necessaries for the trip. He bought without haggling over prices,

but insisted on the best. So it was four in the afternoon when he

finally struck into the trail leading northward. This proved at first

a broad, plainly marked path, across the alkali plain. He rode a

mettlesome, half-broken bronco, a wicked-eyed brute, which required to

be conquered twice within the first hour of travel; a second and more

quiet animal trailed behind at the end of a lariat, bearing the

necessary equipment. Hampton forced the two into a rapid lope,

striving to make the most possible out of the narrow margin of daylight

remaining.




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