Bruce Standing running, breaking a straight path through the brush, came swiftly into the little upper valley. When in answer to his whistling his horse came trotting up to him, he did not tarry to saddle; he had picked up his bridle on his way and now mounted and struck off bareback through the woods with no second's delay.
"Get into it, Daylight!" he muttered. "We're riding for old Thor to-day!"
From a distance Billy Winch, hurrying homeward, heard that long call he knew so well. He pulled his horse down from a steady canter and turned, calling to Mexicali Joe to come back with him. Once within sight Standing waved and shouted again; Winch and Joe sensed urgency and dipped their spurs, riding back to a meeting with him. Winch stared and frowned while his employer made his curt explanation; Mexicali Joe gasped. But neither man had a word to say; Standing laid his brief command upon them and the three turned back, riding hard, into the mountains.
Again Standing called, when near enough to camp to hope that his voice would carry above the noise of the tumbling waterfalls; this time to Lynette, to tell her of their coming. He rode ahead; again and again he shouted to her; he leaned out to right and left from his horse's back, seeking a glimpse of her through the trees. And yet, when they were almost in the camp, there still came no answer to his shoutings and he caught no glimpse of her.... Suddenly, to his fancies, the woods seemed strangely hushed—and empty.
"She's gone," said Winch carelessly.
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"No!" said Standing with such brusque emphasis that Winch looked at him wonderingly. "She said she'd wait for us, Bill."
But when they drew closer, so close that the various familiar camp objects were revealed, and still there was no response and no sight of her, Winch muttered:
"Just the same, gone or not gone, she ain't here, Timber."
"I tell you, man," snapped Standing, "she said she would wait. And what she says she will do, she will do!"
Now the three dismounted in the heart of the camp and still there was no sign of Lynette.
"Anyhow," said Winch, "it's a dog and not a girl we come looking for. Thor'll be here ... if he's alive yet."
"He will be right where I left him." Standing led the way among the big trees, an arm about Billy Winch, hopping at his side the last few steps; they saw him looking in all directions and understood that while he led them toward Thor he was seeking the girl. But they found only the dog lying where he had been struck down; Thor barely able to lift his bloody head, his sight dim, but his dog's intelligence telling him that his master had come back to him; Thor whining weakly. Winch squatted down at the dog's side, become upon the instant an impressive diagnostician.
Standing stood a moment over the two, looking down upon them. Then he turned away, leaving Thor in the skilful hands of Winch and hurrying down to the creek, seeking Lynette. It was possible, he told himself, that she had gone down for a drink; that so near the waterfall she had not heard him calling. So he called again as he went on and looked everywhere for her.
But she was not down by the creek and she did not
[Pg 292]
 answer him from the woods. He came back, up into camp, perplexed. Winch was still bending over Thor; he was snap............