“I understand,” said Brice, with sparkling eyes.  “I’ll find my way all right.”

“And when ye git thar, look out for yourself!” put in the woman earnestly.  “Ye may have regular greenhorn’s luck and pick up Flo afore ye cross the boundary, for she’s that bold that when she gets lonesome o’ stayin’ thar she goes wanderin’ out o’ bounds.”

“Hev ye any weppin,—­any shootin’-iron about ye?” asked Tarbox, with a latent suspicion.

The young man smiled, and again showed his empty belt.  “None!” he said truthfully.

“I ain’t sure ef that ain’t the safest thing arter all with a shot like Harry,” remarked the old man grimly.  “Well, so long!” he added, and turned away.

It was clearly a leave-taking, and Brice, warmly thanking them both, returned to the road.

It was not far to the scene of the obstruction, yet but for Tarbox’s timely hint, the little trail up the mountain side would have escaped his observation.  Ascending, he soon found himself creeping along a narrow ledge of rock, hidden from the road that ran fifty yards below by a thick network growth of thorn and bramble, which still enabled him to see its whole parallel length.  Perilous in the extreme to any hesitating foot, at one point, directly above the obstruction, the ledge itself was missing—­broken away by the fall of the tree from the forest crest higher up.  For an instant Brice stood dizzy and irresolute before the gap.  Looking down for a foothold, his eye caught the faint imprint of a woman’s shoe on a clayey rock projecting midway of the chasm.  It must have been the young girl’s footprint made that morning, for the narrow toe was pointed in the direction she would go!  Where she could pass should he shrink from going?  Without further hesitation he twined his fingers around the roots above him, and half swung, half pulled himself along until he once more felt the ledge below him.

From time to time, as he went on along the difficult track, the narrow little toe-print pointed the way to him, like an arrow through the wilds.  It was a pleasant thought, and yet a perplexing one.  Would he have undertaken this quest just to see her?  Would he be content with that if his other motive failed?  For as he made his way up to the ridge he was more than once assailed by doubts of the practical success of his enterprise.  In the excitement of last night, and even the hopefulness of the early morning, it seemed an easy thing to persuade the vain and eccentric highwayman that their interests might be identical, and to convince him that his, Brice’s, assistance to recover the stolen greenbacks and insure the punishment of the robber, with the possible addition of a reward from the express company, would be an inducement for them to work together.  The risks that he was running seemed to his youthful fancy to atone for any defects in his logic or his plans.  Yet as he crossed the ridge, leaving the civilized highway behind him, and descended the narrow trail, which grew wilder at each step, his arguments seemed no longer so convincing.  He now hurried forward, however, with a feverish haste to anticipate the worst that might befall him.