A low peculiar whistle cut the air and the next moment a voice which the girl recognized as the Texan’s sounded plainly through the dark.

“You got here, did you?  Where’s the girl?” Alice could not catch the answer but at the next words of the Texan she started forward tugging at the reins of the refractory cayuses.

“Come alive, now, an’ get your outfit together.  There’s prob’ly a big posse out an’ we got to scratch gravel some lively to keep ahead of ’em, which little item the future prosperity of all concerned, as the fellow says, depends on—­not only the hangee here, but us accessories, the law bein’ some specific in outlinin’ the disposal of aiders an’ abettors of felonious transmigrations.”

The half-breed relieved her of the horses and Alice rushed to the side of Endicott who had reined his horse out of the water and dismounted stiffly.

“Oh, Winthrop!” she cried joyfully.  “Then they didn’t hang you, and——­”

Endicott laughed:  “No, they didn’t hang me but they put a lot of local colour into the preliminaries.  I certainly thought my time had come, when friend Tex here gave the word to throw off the rope.”  The girl flashed a grateful glance into the face of the Texan who sat his horse with the peculiar smile curling his lips.

“Oh, how can I ever thank you?” she cried impulsively.  “I think you are just splendid!  And I’ll never, never distrust you again.  I’ve been a perfect fool and——­”

“Yes,” answered the man gruffly, and Alice noticed that the smile was gone from his lips.  “But you ain’t out of the woods yet.  Bat’s got that horse packed an’ as soon as Winthrup, there, can crawl up the side of that bronc we better be hittin’ the trail.  If we can make the timber at the head of Cow Creek divide by daylight, we can slip down into the bad lands tomorrow night.”

Endicott painfully raised a foot to the stirrup, and the Texan turned abruptly to the girl.

“Can you make it?” he asked.  She replied with an eager affirmative and the Texan shot her a glance of approval as he watched her mount, for well he knew that she must have fared very little better than Endicott in the matter of aching muscles.

Mile after mile the four rode in silence, Tex in the lead with Bat Lajune close by his side.  An occasional backward glance revealed the clumsy efforts of the pilgrim to ease himself in the saddle, and the set look of determination upon the tired face of the girl.

“Winthrup ain’t wearin’ well,” thought the cowboy as his lips twisted into a smile, “but what could you expect with a name like that?  I’m afraid Winthrup is goin’ to wish I hadn’t interfered none with his demise, but he won’t squawk, an’ neither will she.  There’s the makin’s of a couple of good folks wasted in them two pilgrims,” and he frowned darkly at the recollection of the note of genuine relief and gladness with which the girl had greeted Endicott; a frown that deepened at the girl’s impulsive words to himself, “I think you are just splendid.  I’ll never distrust you again.”  “She’s a fool!” he muttered under his breath.  At his side the half-breed regarded him shrewdly from under the broad brim of his hat.