“I am glad to see that if you haven’t any arms in your hands you’re not incapable of handling them,” said Demorest coolly, as he passed by them and again fell into the rear of the muleteer.

But Barker had thought the incident very funny, and laughed effusively at Whiskey Dick.  “I didn’t know that Steptoe was up to that kind of fun,” he said, “and I suppose we did look rather rough with these guns as we ran on ahead of the mule.  But then you know that when you called to me I really thought you were in for a shindy.  All the same, Whiskey Dick did that ‘hands up’ to perfection:  how he managed it I don’t know, but his knees seemed to knock together as if he was in a real funk.”

Demorest had thought so too, but he made no reply.  How far that miserable drunkard was a forced or willing accomplice of the events of last night was part of a question that had become more and more repugnant to him as he was leaving the scene of it forever.  It had come upon him, desecrating the dream he had dreamt that last night and turning its hopeful climax to bitterness.  Small wonder that Barker, walking by his side, had his quick sympathies aroused, and as he saw that shadow, which they were all familiar with, but had never sought to penetrate, fall upon his companion’s handsome face, even his youthful spirits yielded to it.  They were both relieved when the clatter of hoofs behind them, as they reached the valley, announced the approach of Stacy.  “I started with the second mule and the last load soon after you left,” he explained, “and have just passed them.  I thought it better to join you and let the other load follow.  Nobody will interfere with that.”

“Then you are satisfied?” said Demorest, regarding him steadfastly.

“You bet!  Look!”

He turned in his saddle and pointed to the crest of the hill they had just descended.  Above the pines circling the lower slope above the bare ledges of rock and outcrop, a column of thick black smoke was rising straight as a spire in the windless air.

“That’s the old shanty passing away,” said Stacy complacently.  “I reckon there won’t be much left of it before we get to Boomville.”

Demorest and Barker stared.  “You fired it?” said Barker, trembling with excitement.

“Yes,” said Stacy.  “I couldn’t bear to leave the old rookery for coyotes and wild-cats to gather in, so I touched her off before I left.”

“But”—­said Barker.

“But,” repeated Stacy composedly.  “Hallo! what’s the matter with that new plan of ‘The Rest’ that you’re going to build, eh?  You don’t want them both.”

“And you did this rather than leave the dear old cabin to strangers?” said Barker, with kindling eyes.  “Stacy, I didn’t think you had that poetry in you!”

“There’s heaps in me, Barker boy, that you don’t know, and I don’t exactly sabe myself.”

“Only,” continued the young fellow eagerly, “we ought to have all been there!  We ought to have made a solemn rite of it, you know,—­a kind of sacrifice.  We ought to have poured a kind of libation on the ground!”