Both listened. “I hear it!” whispered Peggy. “It’s a horse—there! Some one spoke.”
“It’s Freeman!” Alice joyously called out. “Coo-hoo!”
No one replied, and Peggy, rushing to the door, met the young outlaw, who appeared on the threshold with stern, set face.
“Who’s been here since I left? Your party?”
Peggy recoiled in surprise and alarm, and Alice cried out, “Why did you come back?”
“Two men on horseback have been here since I left. Who were they?” His voice was full of haste.
“One of them said—he was the—the sheriff,” Alice replied, faintly.
He smiled then, a kind of terrifying humor in his eyes. “Well, the chances are he knew. They took my trail, of course, and left in a hurry. Expected to overhaul me on the summit. They’ve got their work cut out for ’em.”
“How did they miss you?” the girl asked, huskily.
“Well, you see, when I got up where I could view the sky I was dead sure we were in for a whooping big snow-storm, and I just couldn’t leave you girls up here all alone, so I struck right down the cañon in the bed of the creek—the short cut. I don’t like to backtrail, anyway; it’s a bad habit to get into. I like to leave as blind a trail as I can.” His face lightened up, grew boyish again. “They’re sure up against a cold proposition about now. They’ll lose my track among the rocks, but they’ll figure I’ve hustled right on over into Pine Creek, and if they don’t freeze to death in the pass they’ll come out at Glover’s haymeadow to-morrow night. How’s the wood-pile holding out?”