His day of sullen brooding over the matter did not improve his temper; and the next morning his friends were relieved to see him setting out alone, with rifle and field-glass and lunch.  Ostensibly starting in the direction of the upper Laurel Creek country he doubled back, as soon as he was out of sight of camp, and took the trail leading down to Clear Creek canyon.

It could not be said that the man had any definite purpose in mind.  He was simply yielding in a purposeless way to his mood, which, for the time being, could find no other expression.  The remote chance that some opportunity looking toward his desire might present itself, led him to seek the scenes where such an opportunity would be most likely to occur.

Crossing the canyon above the Company Headwork he came into the pipe-line trail at a point a little back from the main wagon road and, an hour later, reached the place on Oak Knoll where the Government trail leads down into the canyon below, and where Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had committed themselves to the judgment of Croesus.  Here he left the trail, and climbed to a point on a spur of the mountain, from which he could see the path for some distance on either side and below, and from which his view of the narrow valley was unobstructed.  Comfortably seated, with his back against a rock, he adjusted his field-glass and trained it upon the little spot of open green—­marked by the giant sycamores, the dark line of cedars, and the half hidden house—­where he knew that Sibyl Andres and Myra Willard were living.

No sooner had he focused the powerful glass upon the scene that so interested him, than he uttered a low exclamation.  The two women, surrounded by their luggage and camp equipment, were sitting on the porch with Brian Oakley; waiting, evidently, for the wagon that was crossing the creek toward the house.  It was clear to the man on the mountainside, that Sibyl Andres and the woman with the disfigured face were returning to Fairlands.

For some time, James Rutlidge sat watching, with absorbing interest, the unconscious people in the canyon below.  Once, he turned for a brief glance at the grove of sycamores behind the old orchard, farther down the creek.  The camp of Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King was no longer there.  Quickly he fixed his gaze again upon Sibyl and her friends.  Presently,—­as one will when looking long through a field-glass or telescope,—­he lowered his hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the immediate objects in the landscape before him.  At that moment, the figure of a man appeared on the near-by trail below.  It was a pitiful figure—­ill-kempt ragged, half-starved, haggard-faced.

Creeping feebly along the lonely little path—­without seeing the man on the mountainside above—­crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful air—­the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur around which the trail led beneath the spot where Rutlidge sat.