“No,” he said, “I’d stake a month’s pay that the fellow’s not ahead.”
They looked at each other, frankly puzzled; and then Prescott broke out angrily:
“Where can the blasted rustler be?”
“Couldn’t have left the bluffs on my side without my seeing him, and if he’d doubled back on his tracks, you’d have met him,” Curtis remarked.
“He’s not likely to be hiding in the woods. He’d freeze without a proper outfit, which he can’t have got.”
They grappled with the problem in silence for a minute or two.
“We’ll take the back trail,” Stanton decided. “The fellow must have broken out for open country on your side. I guess he knows where there’s a homestead where he might find a team.”
Prescott agreed, and they rode off wearily the way he had come, shivering with the cold that had seized them while they waited. The expectant excitement which had animated them for the past hour had gone and was followed by a reaction. Their bodies were half frozen, their minds worked heavily, but both were conscious of a grim resolve. It was the trooper’s duty to bear crushing fatigue and stinging frost, one that was sternly demanded of him; and the rancher had a stronger motive. He must clear himself for Muriel’s sake, and he was filled with rage against the man who had tried to betray him. He would go on, if necessary, until his hands and feet froze or the big Clydesdale fell.