"You figger they'll get away with DeBar?"
"Yes, to-night."
MacDonald threw open the breech of his single-loader and drew out a cartridge as long as his finger. Replacing it, he snapped the breech shut.
"Don't know as I'm pertic'lar sad over what's happened," he said, with a curious look at Aldous. "We might have got out of this without what you call strenu'us trouble. Now—it's fight! It's goin' to be a matter of guns an' bullets, Johnny—back in the mountains. You figger Rann an' the snake of a half-breed'll get the start of us. Let 'em have a start! They've got two hundred miles to go, an' two hundred miles to come back. Only—they won't come back!"
Under his shaggy brows the old hunter's eyes gleamed as he looked at Aldous.
"To-morrow we'll go to the grave," he added. "Yo're cur'ous to know what's goin' to happen when we find that grave, Johnny. So am I. I hope——"
"What do you hope?"
MacDonald shook his great gray head in the dying firelight.
"Let's go to bed, Johnny," he rumbled softly in his beard. "It's gettin' late."