Relieved that he was not to spend the night without food and fire, he vaulted the “snake” fence, and strode to the back door.  A woman was frying venison steaks.

“Hullo, Mrs. Ward,” Bob shouted at her.  “That smells good to me; I haven’t had a bite since last night!”

The woman dropped her pan and came to the door.  A lank and lean Pike County Missourian rose from the shadows and advanced.

“Light and rest yo’ hat, Mr. Orde!” he called before he came well into view.  “But yo’ already lighted, and you ain’t go no hat!” he cried in puzzled tones.  “Whar yo’all from?”

“Came from north,” Bob replied cheerfully, “and I lost my horse down a canon, and my hat in a river.”

“And yere yo’ be plumb afoot!”

“And plumb empty,” supplemented Bob.  “Maybe Mrs. Ward will make me some coffee,” he suggested with a side glance at the woman who had once tried to poison him.

She turned a dull red under the tan of her sallow complexion.

“Shore, Mr. Orde—­” she began.

“We didn’t rightly understand each other,” Bob reassured her.  “That was all.”

“Did she-all refuse you coffee onct?” asked Ward.  “What yo’ palaverin’ about?”

“She isn’t refusing to make me some now,” said Bob.

He spent the night comfortably with his new friends who a few months ago had been ready to murder him.  The next morning early, supplied with an ample lunch, he set out.  Ward offered him a riding horse, but he declined.

“I’d have to send it back,” said he, “and, anyway, I’d neither want to borrow your saddle nor ride bareback.  I’d rather walk.”

The old man accompanied him to the edge of the clearing.

“By the way,” Bob mentioned, as he said farewell, “if some one asks you, just tell them you haven’t seen me.”

The old man stopped short.

“What-for a man?” he asked.

“Any sort.”

A frosty gleam crept into the old Missourian’s eye.

“I’ll keep hands off,” said he.  He strode on twenty feet.  “I got an extra gun—­” said he.

“Thanks,” Bob interrupted.  “But I’ll get organized better when I get home.”

“Hope you git him,” said the old man by way of farewell.  “He won’t git nothing out of me,” he shot back over his shoulder.

Bob now knew exactly where he was going.  Reinvigorated by the food, the night’s rest, and the cool air of these higher altitudes, he made good time.  By four o’clock of the afternoon he at last hit the broad, dusty thoroughfare over which were hauled the supplies to Baker’s upper works.  Along this he swung, hands in pockets, a whistle on his lips, the fine, light dust rising behind his footsteps.  The slight down grade released his tired muscles from effort.  He was enjoying himself.

Then he came suddenly around a corner plump against a horseman climbing leisurely up the grade.  Both stopped.

If Bob had entertained any lingering doubt as to Oldham’s complicity in his abduction, the expression on the land agent’s face would have removed it.  For the first time in public Oldham’s countenance expressed a livelier emotion than that of cynical interest.  His mouth fell open and his eyeglasses dropped off.  He stared at Bob as though that young man had suddenly sprung into visibility from clear atmosphere.  Bob surveyed him grimly.