The Blackguard, coming to the mill at high noon, found it a smouldering ruin, and the woods above a smoking waste, full of charred trunks. Going round by way of the Tough Nut Claim, he gained the upper moorland, wrapped in a choking dry mist, out of which rose the Throne cabins, gaunt, spectral, desolate. The doors were locked, the windows barred hastily across with a few rough planks, the stable empty. Down the hills he rode, his black horse lathered with sweat, his face haggard as he followed the trail of three riders. Ramsay had led, Miss Violet followed, Burrows taking the rear, all down the swaying curves of the steep places, and along the sinuous path through heavy timber. They had not stayed to even pack their clothes; they had not watered their horses at the spring; they had moved before daybreak, to judge by the blundering course, and Miss Violet had left here and there tokens, as though he needed any further incentive, shreds of white among fallen leaves, torn from a handkerchief.
At last the Blackguard drew rein at the foot of the mountains. He looked towards the camp where lay Arrapahoe Bill, tended by the Mexican, recovering from an interview with a grizzly bear; he looked along the trail toward the Mission, whither, to judge by the scraps of cambric, Miss Violet had been carried much against her will; and he looked across the valley to where the tents of the Mounted Police encampment glimmered white in the afternoon sun. It was useless to trouble the cowboys, useless to ride to the Mission unless he had some sort of authority for interference; better to get help from the camp. Trusting that the Padre would have sense enough to delay the travellers, he set off at a hand-gallop for Wild Horse Creek.
By mid-afternoon he gained the camp, an hour later rode out again on a fresh horse, accompanied by Dandy Irvine. Both men were armed, both in uniform, for they rode this time on Her Majesty's service.
"Do you know," said Dandy, while they splashed across the ford, "that this was to have been your wedding-day?"
"Was to have been? It is my wedding-day."
"Do you know that the Colonel went off alone this morning, bound for the Mission?"
"To give the bride away," said the Blackguard, grinning. "I knew he would keep his promise."
Gaining the top of the bench-land, they rode off at a canter across the valley, through meadows scathed with an early frost, by poplar bush, where the leaves hung sere and yellow, or fluttered dead to earth. The wind was keen from the north, the sky was overcast with wintry cloud, and distant woods loomed faint in a bluish haze.
"How do you know," asked Dandy, "that they fired the mill? It might have been accident."
"I'm not quite blind," answered the Blackguard. "There was a five-gallon can of kerosene lying outside the ruins."