“It will,” rumbled MacDonald.  “I learned other things early this afternoon, Johnny.  Quade did not stay behind.  He went with Rann.  DeBar and the woman are with them, and two other men.  They went over the Lone Cache Pass, and this minute are hurrying straight for the headwaters of the Parsnip.  There are five of ’em—­five men.”

“And we are two,” smiled Aldous.  “So there is an advantage on their side, isn’t there, Mac?  And it makes the game most eminently fair, doesn’t it?”

“Johnny, we’re good for the five!” cried old Donald in a low, eager voice.  “If we start now——­”

“Can you have everything ready by morning?”

“The outfit’s waiting.  It’s ready now, Johnny.”

“Then we’ll leave at dawn.  I’ll come to you to-night in the coulee, and we’ll make our final plans.  My brain is a little muddled now, and I’ve got to clear it, and make myself presentable before supper.  We must not let Joanne know.  She must suspect nothing—­absolutely nothing.”

“Nothing,” repeated MacDonald as he went to the door.

There he paused and, hesitating for a moment, leaned close to Aldous, and said in a low voice: 

“Johnny, I’ve been wondering why the grave were empty.  I’ve been wondering why there weren’t somebody’s bones there just t’ give it the look it should ‘a’ had an’ why the clothes were laid out so nicely with the watch an’ the ring on top!”

With that he was gone, and Aldous closed and relocked the door.

He was amazed at his own composure as he washed himself and proceeded to dress for supper.  What had happened had stunned him at first, had even terrified him for a few appalling moments.  Now he was superbly self-possessed.  He asked himself questions and answered them with a promptness which left no room for doubt in his mind as to what his actions should be.  One fact he accepted as absolute:  Joanne belonged to him.  She was his wife.  He regarded her as that, even though Mortimer FitzHugh was alive.  In the eyes of both God and man FitzHugh no longer had a claim upon her.  This man, who was known as Culver Rann, was worse than Quade, a scoundrel of the first water, a procurer, a blackmailer, even a murderer—­though he had thus far succeeded in evading the rather loose and poorly working tentacles of mountain law.

Not for an instant did he think of Joanne as Culver Rann’s wife.  She was his wife.  It was merely a technicality of the law—­a technicality that Joanne might break with her little finger—­that had risen now between them and happiness.  And it was this that he knew was the mountain in his path, for he was certain that Joanne would not break that last link of bondage.  She would know, with Mortimer FitzHugh alive, that the pledge between them in the “coyote,” and the marriage ceremony in the room below, meant nothing.  Legally, she was no more to him now than she was yesterday, or the day before.  And she