Old Donald took one look at him through half-closed eyes.

“You look as though you’d come out of a tussle with a grizzly,” he grinned.  “Want some fresh court-plaster?”

“And look as though I’d come out of a circus—­no!” retorted Aldous.  “I’m invited to breakfast at the Blacktons’, Mac.  How the devil am I going to get out of it?”

“Tell ’em you’re sick,” chuckled the old hunter, who saw something funny in the appearance of Aldous’ face.  “Good Lord, how I’d liked to have seen you come through that window—­in daylight!”

Aldous led off in the direction of the trail.  MacDonald followed close behind him.  It was dark—­that almost ebon-black hour that precedes summer dawn in the northern mountains.  The moon had long ago disappeared in the west.  When a few minutes later they paused in the little opening on the trail Aldous could just make out the shadowy form of the old mountaineer.

“I lost my gun when I jumped through the window, Mac,” he explained.  “There’s another thirty-eight automatic in my kit at the corral.  Bring that, and the .303 with the gold-bead sight—­and plenty of ammunition.  You’d better take that forty-four hip-cannon of yours along, as well as your rifle.  Wish I could civilize you, Mac, so you’d carry one of the Savage automatics instead of that old brain-storm of fifty years ago!”

MacDonald gave a grunt of disgust that was like the whoof of a bear.

“It’s done business all that time,” he growled good humouredly.  “An’ it ain’t ever made me jump through any window as I remember of, Johnny!”

“Enough,” said Aldous, and in the gloom he gripped the other’s hand.  “You’ll be there, Mac—­in front of the Blacktons’—­just as it’s growing light?”

“That means in three quarters of an hour, Johnny.  I’ll be there.  Three saddle-horses and a pack.”

Where the trail divided they separated.  Aldous went directly to the Blacktons’.  As he had expected, the bungalow was alight.  In the kitchen he saw Tom, the Oriental cook, busy preparing breakfast.  Blackton himself, comfortably dressed in duck trousers and a smoking-jacket, and puffing on a pipe, opened the front door for him.  The pipe almost fell from his mouth when he saw his friend’s excoriated face.

“What in the name of Heaven!” he gasped.

“An accident,” explained Aldous, with a suggestive shrug of his shoulders.  “Blackton, I want you to do me another good turn.  Tell the ladies anything you can think of—­something reasonable.  The truth is, I went through a window—­a window with plenty of glass in it.  Now how the deuce can I explain going through a window like a gentleman?”

With folded arms, Blackton inspected him thoughtfully for a moment.

“You can’t,” he said.  “But I don’t think you went through a window.  I believe you fell over a cliff and were caught in an armful of wait-a-bit bushes.  They’re devilish those wait-a-bits!”