“And we can get there ahead of them?”

“We could—­if it wasn’t for Joanne.  We’re makin’ twenty miles a day.  We could make thirty.”

“If we could beat them to it!” exclaimed Aldous, clenching his hands.  “If we only could, Donald—­the rest would be easy!”

MacDonald laid a heavy hand on his knee.

“You remember what you told me, Johnny, that you’d play the game fair, and give ’em a first chance?  You ain’t figgerin’ on that now, be you?”

“No, I’m with you now, Donald.  It’s——­”

“Shoot on sight!”

“Yes.”

Aldous rose from his seat as he spoke.

“You turn in, Mac,” he said.  “You’re about bushed after the work you’ve done to-day.  I’ll keep first watch.  I’ll conceal myself fifty or sixty yards from camp, and if we have visitors before midnight the fun will all be mine.”

He knew that MacDonald was asleep within fifteen minutes after he had stationed himself at his post.  In spite of the fact that he had had almost no sleep the preceding night, he was more than usually wakeful.  He was filled with a curious feeling that events were impending.  Yet the hours passed, the moon flooded the valley again, the horses grazed without alarm, and nothing happened.  He had planned not to awaken old Donald at midnight, but MacDonald roused himself, and came to take his place a little before twelve.  From that hour until four Aldous slept like the dead.  He was tremendously refreshed when he arose, to find that the candle was alight in Joanne’s tepee, and that MacDonald had built a fire.  He waited for Joanne, and went with her to the tiny creek near the camp, where both bathed their faces in the snow-cold water from the mountain tops.  Joanne had slept soundly for eight hours, and she was as fresh and as happy as a bird.  Her lameness was almost gone, and she was eager for the day’s journey.

As they filed again up the valley that morning, with the early sun transfiguring the great snow-topped ranges about them into a paradise of colour and warmth, Aldous found himself mentally wondering if it were really possible that a serious danger menaced them.  He did not tell MacDonald what was in his mind.  He did not confess that he was about ready to believe that the man on the snow-ridge had been a hunter or a prospector returning to his camp in the other valley, and that the attack in Tete Jaune was the one and only effort Quade would make to secure possession of Joanne.  While a few hours before he had almost expected an immediate attack, he was now becoming more and more convinced that Quade, to a large extent, had dropped out of the situation.  He might be with Mortimer FitzHugh, and probably was—­a dangerous and formidable enemy to be accounted for when the final settlement came.