“No use, boys,” he declared.  “Perris has hopped out.  Wise gent, at that.  He seen the game was too big for him.  And I don’t blame him for quitting.  Ain’t nothing here that he’d come after.  Them boots are wore out.  The blankets and the cooking things he got from the ranch.  Look at the way the blankets are piled up.  Shows he quit in a rush and started away.  When a gent figures on coming back, he tidies things up a little when he leaves in the morning.  No, boys, he’s gone.  Main thing to answer is:  If he ain’t left the valley why ain’t he here in his shack now?”

“Maybe he’s hunting that damn hoss?” suggested the foreman, but his voice was weak with uncertainty.

“Hunting Alcatraz after dark?” queried Little Joe.

There was no answer possible.  The last glow of twilight was fading to deep night.  The trees on the edge of the clearing seemed to grow taller and blacker each moment.  Certainly if it were well-nigh impossible to hunt the stallion effectively in daylight it was sheer madness to hunt him at night.  Every moment they waited in the cabin, the certainty that Perris had left the valley grew greater.  It showed in their voices, for every man had spoken softly at first as though for fear the spirit of the inhabitant of the shack might drift near unseen and overhear.  Now their words came loud, disturbing and startling Hervey in the midst of his thoughts, as he continued wandering about the cabin, lighting match after match, striving in vain to find something which would reawaken his hopes.  But there was nothing of enough worth to induce Perris to return, and finally Hervey gave up.

“We’ll start on,” he said at length.  “You boys ride along.  I’ll give the place another look.”

As a matter of fact, he merely wished to be alone, and he was dimly pleased as they sauntered off through the trees, their voices coming more and more vaguely back to him, until the far-off rattle of hoofs began.  The last he heard of them was a high-pitched laugh.  It irritated Hervey.  It floated back to him thin and small, like mockery.  And indeed he had failed miserably.  How great was his failure he could hardly estimate in a moment and he needed quiet to sum up his losses.

First of all, he had hopelessly alienated the girl and while offending her he had failed to serve the rancher.  For Red Jim Perris, driven by force from the ranch, would surely return again to exact payment in full for the treatment he had received.  The whole affair was a hopeless muddle.  He had staked everything on his ability to trap Perris and destroy him, thereby piling upon the shoulders of Oliver Jordan a burden of gratitude which the rancher could never repay.  But now that Perris was footloose he became a danger imperilling not only Jordan but Hervey himself.  The trap had closed and closed on nothing.  The future presented to Hervey stark ruin.

So enthralling was the gloom of these thoughts that the foreman did not hear the thudding hoofs of a horse which trotted up through the trees.  Not until horse and rider appeared in the clearing was Hervey roused and then in the first glance by the size and the tossing head of the approaching pony, he recognized the horse of Red Perris!