Misery stared at him out of her fine eyes, yet the unconscious courage of her graceful poise--erect, with head thrown back so that he could even see the pulse beat in the brown throat--suggested anything but supine surrender to her terror. Before he could reach her she had slipped into the night, and he could not find her.
Men dribbled in to the Turkey Creek Crossroads along as many trails as the ribs of a fan running to a common centre. Jim waited, watch open, and when it said that seven o'clock had come he snapped it shut and gave the word to set out.
It was a grim, business-like posse, composed of good men and true who had been sifted in the impartial sieve of life on the turbid frontier. Moreover, they were well led. A certain hard metallic quality showed in the voice and eye of Jim Yeager that boded no good for the man who faced him in combat to-day. He rode with his gaze straight to the front, toward that cleft in the hills where lay Gregory's Pass. The others fell in behind, a silent, hard-bitten outfit as ever took the trail for that most dangerous of all big game--the hidden outlaw.
The little bunch of riders had not gone far before Purdy, who was riding in the rear, called to Yeager.
"Somebody coming hell-to-split after us, Jim."
It turned out to be Buck Weaver, who had been notified by telephone of what was taking place. A girl had called him up out of his sleep, and he had pounded the road hard to get in at the finish.
Jim explained the situation in a few words and offered to yield command to the owner of the Twin Star ranch. But Buck declined.
"You're the boss of this rodeo, Yeager. I'm riding in the ranks to-day."
"How did you hear we were rounding-up to-day?" Jim asked.
"Some one called me up," Buck answered briefly, but he did not think it necessary to say that it was Phyllis.
Behind them, unnoticed by any, sometimes hidden from sight by the rise and fall of the rough ground, sometimes silhouetted against the sky line, rode a slim, supple figure on a white-faced cow pony. Once, when the fresh morning wind swept down a gulch at an oblique angle, it lifted for an instant from the stirrup leather what might have been a gray flag. But the flag was only a skirt, and it signalled nothing more definite than the courage and devotion of a girl who knew that the men she loved best on earth were in danger.