Beth obeyed directions and thereby discerned, with remarkable clearness, the moving object, far away below.  She did not in the least suspect its nature.

“Why, yes—­what is it?” she asked with languid interest, having expected something more significant.  “Is it some small animal?”

“Yes,” responded Van.  “It’s Searle.”

Beth was instantly all attention.

“Not Mr. Bostwick, in his car?”

Van continued to study the gray of the world-wide map.

“I rather wonder——­” he mused, and there he halted, presently adding, “He’s climbing a hill.  You might not think so, looking down from here, but it’s steep and sandy, for a car.”

She was watching eagerly.

“And he’s no further along towards Goldite than this?”

“He’s had some tough old going,” answered Van.  “He’s in luck to——­” then to himself, as he continued to scan the scene for something he did not apparently find.  “By Jupe!  I’d have sworn Matt Barger——­” He broke off abruptly, adding in a spirit of fairness, “Searle is getting right up to the ridge all right.  Good boy!  He must have a powerful motor under the—­There!  By George!  I knew it!  I knew it!  Got him! right there in the gravel!”

The girl looked suddenly upon him, wholly unable to comprehend the sharp exclamations he was making.

“What has got him?  What do you mean?” she demanded in vague alarm.  “I don’t see what you——­”

“That’s Matt every time—­I thought so,” he resumed, as he stepped a little closer to the girl.  “Don’t you see them?—­those lively little specks, swarming all around the machine?”

Beth bent her gaze on the drama, far below—­a play in which she knew but one of the characters, and nothing of the meaning of the scene.

“I see—­yes—­something like a lot of tiny ants—­or something.  What are they?—­not robbers?—­not men?”

“Part men, part hyenas,” he told her quietly.  “It’s a lot of State convicts, escaped from their prison, two days free—­and desperate.”

She was suddenly very pale.  Her eyes were blazing.

“Convicts!  Out of prison?”

“A good long way out,” he told her watching, “and clever enough to hike for the mines, with the camps all full of strangers.  They learn to be good mixers, when they’re trying to escape.”

Beth gazed at him searchingly.

“You—­knew they were out—­and waiting on the road?”

“Everyone knew they were out—­and I certainly thought big Matt would do precisely what you see he has done.”

“Matt?” she echoed.

“The leader,” he explained, “a clever brute as ever worried a sheriff.”

She was not in the least interested in the personality of the convict thus described.  Her mind had flown to another aspect of the case—­the case involving herself.

“And this was why you wouldn’t let us go in the auto?” she said.  “You expected this?”