They coursed far and near, always keeping to the stream beds, for if Slingerland had made another camp it would be near water.  More than one trail led nowhere; more than one horse track roused hopes that were futile.  The Wyoming hills country was surely a lonely and a wild one, singularly baffling to the searchers, for in two weeks of wide travel it did not yield a sign or track of man.  Neale and King used up all their scant supply of food, threw away all their outfit except a bag of salt, and went on, living on the meat they shot.

Then one day, unexpectedly, they came upon two trappers by a beaver-dam.  Neale was overcome by his emotion; he sensed that from these men he would learn something.  The first look from them told him that his errand was known.

“Howdy!” greeted Larry.  “It shore is good to see you men—­the fust we’ve come on in an awful hunt through these heah hills.”

“Thar ain’t any doubt thet you look it, friend,” replied one of the trappers.

“We’re huntin’ fer Slingerland.  Do you happen to know him?”

“Knowed Al fer years.  He went through hyar a week ago—­jest after the big rain, wasn’t it, Bill?”

“Wal, to be exact it was eight days ago,” replied the comrade Bill.

“Was—­he—­alone?” asked Larry, thickly.

“Sure, an’ lookin’ sick.  He lost his girl not long since, he said, an’ it broke him bad.”

“Lost her!  How?”

“Wal, he was sure it wasn’t redskins,” rejoined the trapper, reflectively.  “Slingerland stood in with the Sioux—­traded with ’em.  He—­”

“Tell me quick!” hoarsely interrupted Neale.  “What happened to Allie Lee?”

“Fellars, my pard heah is hurt deep,” said Larry.  “The girl you spoke of was his sweetheart.”

“Young man, we only know what Al told us,” replied the trapper.  “He said the only time he ever left the lass alone was the very day she was taken.  Al come home to find the cabin red-hot ashes.  Everythin’ gone.  No sign of the lass.  No sign of murder.  She was jest carried off.  There was tracks—­hoss tracks an’ boot tracks, to the number of three or four men an’ hosses.  Al trailed ’em.  But thet very night he had to hold up to keep from bein’ drowned, as we had to hyar.  Wal, next day he couldn’t find any tracks.  But he kept on huntin’ fer a few days, an’ then give up.  He said she’d be dead by then—­said she wasn’t the kind thet could have lived more ’n a day with men like them.  Some hard customers are driftin’ by from the gold-fields.  An’ Bill an’ I, hyar, ain’t in love with this railroad idee.  It ’ll ruin the country fer trappin’ an’ livin’.”

Some weeks later a gaunt and ragged cowboy limped into North Platte, walking beside a broken horse, upon the back of which swayed and reeled a rider tied in the saddle.

It was not a sight to interest any except the lazy or the curious, for in that day such things were common in North Platte.  The horse had bullet creases on his neck; the rider wore a bloody shirt; the gaunt pedestrian had a bandaged arm.