“Seven o’clock,” he said.  “We’ll leave word for the girls to be ready at nine.  What are you going to do meantime, Aldous?”

“Hunt up MacDonald, probably.”

“And I’ll run down and take a look at the work.”

As they left the house the engineer nodded down the road.  MacDonald was coming.

“He has saved you the trouble,” he said.  “Remember, Aldous—­nine o’clock sharp!”

A moment later Aldous was advancing to meet the old mountaineer.

“They’ve gone, Johnny,” was Donald’s first greeting.

“Gone?”

“Yes.  The whole bunch—­Quade, Culver Rann, DeBar, and the woman who rode the bear.  They’ve gone, hide and hair, and nobody seems to know where.”

Aldous was staring.

“Also,” resumed old Donald slowly, “Culver Rann’s outfit is gone—­twenty horses, including six saddles.  An’ likewise others have gone, but I can’t find out who.”

“Gone!” repeated Aldous again.

MacDonald nodded.

“And that means——­”

“That Culver Rann ain’t lost any time in gettin’ under way for the gold,” said Donald.  “DeBar is with him, an’ probably the woman.  Likewise three cut-throats to fill the other saddles.  They’ve gone prepared to fight.”

“And Quade?”

Old Donald hunched his shoulders, and suddenly John’s face grew dark and hard.

“I understand,” he spoke, half under his breath.  “Quade has disappeared—­but he isn’t with Culver Rann.  He wants us to believe he has gone.  He wants to throw us off our guard.  But he’s watching, and waiting—­somewhere—­like a hawk, to swoop down on Joanne!  He——­”

“That’s it!” broke in MacDonald hoarsely.  “That’s it, Johnny!  It’s his old trick—­his old trick with women.  There’s a hunderd men who’ve got to do his bidding—­do it ‘r get out of the mountains—­an’ we’ve got to watch Joanne.  We have, Johnny!  If she should disappear——­”

Aldous waited.

“You’d never find her again, so ’elp me God, you wouldn’t, Johnny!” he finished.

“We’ll watch her,” said Aldous quietly.  “I’ll be with her to-day, Mac, and to-night I’ll come down to the camp in the coulee to compare notes with you.  They can’t very well steal her out of Blackton’s house while I’m gone.”

For an hour after MacDonald left him he walked about in the neighbourhood of the Blackton bungalow smoking his pipe.  Not until he saw the contractor drive up in the buckboard did he return.  Joanne and Peggy were more than prompt.  They were waiting.  If such a thing were possible Joanne was more radiantly lovely than the night before.  To Aldous she became more beautiful every time he looked at her.  But this morning he did not speak what was in his heart when, for a moment, he held her hand, and looked into her eyes.  Instead, he said: 

“Good morning, Ladygray.  Have you used——­”

“I have,” she smiled.  “Only it’s Potterdam’s Tar Soap, and not the other.  And you—­have not shaved, John Aldous!”