About four miles from town he cut the telephone wires, for he knew that as soon as his escape became known to the jailer, the sheriff would be notified, and he would telephone in every direction the escape of his prisoner, just the same as if there had been no arrangement between them.  It was certain, too, that all the roads leading from Gimlet Butte would be followed and patrolled immediately.  For which reason he left the road after cutting the wires, and took to the hill trail marked out for him in the map furnished by Brandt.

By night, he was far up in the foothills.  Close to a running stream, he camped in a little, grassy park, where his pony could find forage.  Brandt had stuffed his saddlebags with food, and had tied behind a sack, with a feed or two of oats for his horse.  Fraser had ridden the range too many years to risk lighting a fire, even though he had put thirty-five miles between him and Gimlet Butte.  The night was chill, as it always is in that altitude, but he rolled up in his blanket, got what sleep he could, and was off again by daybreak.

Before noon he was high in the mountain passes, from which he could sometimes look down into the green parks where nested the little ranches of small cattlemen.  He knew now that he was beyond the danger of the first hurried pursuit, and that it was more than likely that any of these mountaineers would hide him rather than give him up.  Nevertheless, he had no immediate intention of putting them to the test.

The second night came down on him far up on Dutchman Creek, in the Cedar Mountain district.  He made a bed, where his horse found a meal, in a haystack of a small ranch, the buildings of which were strung along the creek.  He was weary, and he slept deep.  When he awakened next morning, it was to hear the sound of men’s voices.  They drifted to him from the road in front of the house.

Carefully he looked down from the top of his stack upon three horsemen talking to the bare-headed ranchman whom they had called out from his breakfast.

“No, I ain’t seen a thing of him.  Shot Billy Faulkner, you say?  What in time for?” the rancher was innocently asking.

“You know what for, Hank Speed,” the leader of the posse made sullen answer.  “Well, boys, we better be pushing on, I expect.”

Fraser breathed freer when they rode out of sight.  He had overslept, and had had a narrow shave; for his pony was grazing in the alfalfa field within a hundred yards of them at that moment.  No sooner had the posse gone than Hank Speed stepped across the field without an instant’s hesitation and looked the animal over, after which he returned to the house and came out again with a rifle in his hands.

The ranger slid down the farther side of the stack and slipped his revolver from its holster.  He watched the ranchman make a tour of the out-buildings very carefully and cautiously, then make a circuit of the haystack at a safe distance.  Soon the rancher caught sight of the man crouching against it.