The man at the end of the wire cried out at this, then choked back his words to hear what followed.  His free hand began making strange, futile motions as though he traced patterns in the air.

“I can’t raise the road-house on the wire and—­something dreadful has happened, I know.”

“What made her go?” he shouted.

“To save you,” came Cherry’s faint reply.  “If you love her, ride fast to the Sign of the Sled or you’ll be too late.  The Bronco Kid has gone there—­”

At that name Roy crashed the instrument to its hook and burst out of the shanty, calling loudly to his men.

“What’s up?”

“Where are you going?”

“To the Sign of the Sled,” he panted.

“We’ve stood by you, Glenister, and you can’t quit us like this,” said one, angrily.  “The trail to town is good, and we’ll take it if you do.”  Roy saw they feared he was deserting, feared that he had heard some alarming rumor of which they did not know.

“We’ll let the mine go, boys, for I can’t ask you to do what I refuse to do myself, and yet it’s not fear that’s sending me.  There’s a woman in danger and I must go.  She courted ruin to save us all, risked her honor to try and right a wrong—­and—­I’m afraid of what has happened while we were fighting here.  I don’t ask you to stay till I come back—­it wouldn’t be square, and you’d better go while you have a chance.  As for me—­I gave up the old claim once—­I can do it again.”  He swung himself to the horse’s back, settled into the saddle, and rode out through the lane of belted men.

CHAPTER XX

IN WHICH THREE GO TO THE SIGN OF THE SLED AND BUT TWO RETURN

As Helen and her companion ascended the mountain, scarred and swept by the tempest of the previous night, they heard, far below, the swollen torrent brawling in its bowlder-ridden bed, while behind them the angry ocean spread southward to a blood-red horizon.  Ahead, the bleak mountains brooded over forbidding valleys; to the west a suffused sun glared sullenly, painting the high-piled clouds with the gorgeous hues of a stormy sunset.  To Helen the wild scene seemed dyed with the colors of flame and blood and steel.

“That rain raised the deuce with the trails,” said Struve, as they picked their way past an unsightly “slip” whence a part of the overhanging mountain, loosened by the deluge, had slid into the gulch.  “Another storm like that would wash out these roads completely.”

Even in the daylight it was no easy task to avoid these danger spots, for the horses floundered on the muddy soil.  Vaguely the girl wondered how she would find her way back in the darkness, as she had planned.  She said little as they approached the road-house, for the thoughts within her brain had begun to clamor too wildly; but Struve, more arrogant than ever before, more terrifyingly sure of himself, was loudly garrulous.  As they drew nearer and nearer, the dread that possessed the girl became of paralyzing intensity.  If she should fail—­but she vowed she would not, could not, fail.