There nature asserted herself.  The man had not slept for two nights; he had travelled many miles on horseback, by train, and by buckboard; he had experienced the most exhausting of emotions and experiences.  He fell asleep, and he did not awaken until after sun-up.

Promptly he began his inquiries.  Saleratus Bill had passed through the night before; he had ridden up the mill road.

Oldham ate his breakfast, saddled one of the team horses, and followed.  Ordinarily, he was little of a woodsman, but his anxiety sharpened his wits and his eyes, so that a quarter mile from the summit he noticed where a shod horse had turned off from the road.  After a moment’s hesitation he turned his own animal to follow the trail.  The horse tracks were evidently fresh, and Oldham surmised that it was hardly probable two horsemen had as yet that morning travelled the mill road.  While he debated, young Elliott swung down the dusty way headed toward the village.  He greeted Oldham.

“Is Orde back at headquarters yet?” the latter asked, on impulse.

“Yes, he got back day before yesterday,” the young ranger replied; “but you won’t find him there this morning.  He walked over to the mill to see Welton.  You’d probably get him there.”

Oldham waited only until Elliott had rounded the next corner, then spurred his horse up the mountain.  The significance of the detour was now no longer in doubt, for he remembered well how and where the wagon trail from headquarters joined the mill road.  Saleratus Bill would leave his horse out of sight on the hog-back ridge, sneak forward afoot, and ambush his man at the forks of the road.

And now, in the clairvoyance of this guilty terror, Oldham saw as assured facts several further possibilities.  Saleratus Bill was known to have ridden up the mill road; he, Oldham, was known to have been inquiring after both Saleratus Bill and Orde—­in short, out of wild improbabilities, which to his ordinary calm judgment would have meant nothing at all, he now wove a tissue of danger.  He wished he had thought to ask Elliott how long ago Orde had started out from headquarters.

The last pitch up the mountain was by necessity a fearful grade, for it had to surmount as best it could the ledge at the crest of the plateau.  Horsemen here were accustomed to pause every fifty feet or so to allow their mounts a gulp of air.  Oldham plied lash and spur.  He came out from his frenzy of panic to find his horse, completely blown, lying down under him.  The animal, already weary from its sixty-mile drive of yesterday, was quite done.  After a futile effort to make it rise, Oldham realized this fact.  He pursued his journey afoot.

Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this accident, Oldham trudged on as rapidly as his wind would allow.  As he neared the crossroads he slackened his pace, for he saw that no living creature moved on the headquarters fork of the road.  As a matter of fact, at that precise instant both Bob and Ware were within forty yards of him, standing still waiting for Amy to collect her dogwood leaves.  A single small alder concealed them from the other road.  If they had not happened to have stopped, two seconds would have brought them into sight in either direction.  Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and himself came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.