When she at last arose to take the trail back to the camp it was past midnight. Nothing had come of her long wait and she felt it would be useless to remain longer. No one would have allowed even Keith McBain to leave town on such a night and at an hour that would make the trip to camp doubly hazardous.
But as she went over the top of the ridge and rode along the trail she had come over earlier in the night she began to estimate the difficulty of the problem that awaited her if her fears concerning McCartney's designs had any foundation in fact.
She knew the hour must come sooner or later when McCartney would give up his policy of quiet waiting. She knew something of his determination and recklessness of consequences. She knew he would strike when he thought the moment most opportune. And she was not blind to the fact that the moment was perhaps at hand. He would carry out his threat some time—why should he not do so to-night?
Cherry McBain had never been afraid of Bill McCartney; she had usually managed to meet him when the other men were around, or when her father was near, and she had successfully avoided anything but the most casual passages between them. Her chief security had lain in the fact that she had always been on the best of terms with the men of her father's camp. She liked them and she knew they liked her. But she did not fail to recognize that McCartney's chief concern during the last few weeks had been to win for himself the regard of the men and make them his followers. That he had won a small group through the fear he had inspired by his display of brute strength Cherry well knew. Just how far he had been successful among the more independent men of the camp she did not know. Gabe Smith had often spoken to her about it, and had assured her of the loyalty of the great majority of them, but she knew that Gabe's judgment on such things was not always to be relied upon. It was this uncertainty that made her afraid. She was actually afraid for herself. Without the active support of the men in her father's camp she would be powerless against a man of McCartney's temper, to say nothing of his size, and she dreaded the moment when he would step up and demand that she should do her part to make good her father's bargain.
She knew at any rate what the future held for her if the worst came to the worst. She would fight as long as she had strength left in her body and wit in her mind. If she failed at last it would be for her father's sake, at least, and she would harbour no regrets and cherish no grudge. Suddenly, as she rode along in deep thought, she was awakened from her dreaming by the sight of a red flare in the clouded night-sky. It appeared directly ahead of her, a large spot of ruby light glowing against the low clouds. She knew what it meant only too well, but the fear of what its full meaning might be sent a chill to her heart as she looked at it. Then she gave her horse a sharp cut with her quirt and he was off at a mad gallop along the muddy trail.
The caution she had exercised in picking her way along through the darkness was suddenly forgotten. The horse would have to do the best it could to find a footing and keep the trail. One thought only occupied her mind. The camp was on fire and she must save it, if she could cover the distance in time.
About half an hour of the maddest riding she had ever done brought her to the edge of the camp where the trail left the grade and emerged from the bushes beside the corral. In the middle of the camp the men were dancing about the flaming remnants of what had been the cook camp. It had been nothing but a frame of logs and canvas, and had gone up like so much dry kindling in a few minutes. What she saw was nothing more than a heap of burning debris, about which the men were running and shouting like beings half-crazed.
At first Cherry stood at a distance, scarcely knowing what to do. Three workless days had produced the kind of results that she had long since learned to expect in construction camps. With McCartney on the ground she knew the results were inevitable. The men were nearly all drunk and many of them scarcely seemed to know what they were doing.
All at once she saw the swaggering form of McCartney in the light from the fire. The sight maddened her and with a flash of her quirt she sent her horse flying into the crowd, pulling him back suddenly almost upon his haunches at the very edge of the fire.
Her sudden appearance like an apparition out of the night struck surprise into the hearts of the men. They fell back, some of them with terror on their faces as she struck, first on one side, then on the other, at a couple who approached her in threatening attitude.