It was not necessary for any one to arouse Roy Osborne the next morning. Just as the distant peaks of the Blue Mountains were growing pink, the boy sprang out of bed. It was yet dark without and the stars were shining. Roy was surprised to find Mr. Cook already arisen and the Jap busy in the kitchen. As day began to break, they had coffee and bacon. Then Mr. Cook wrote a note which he left in charge of the house boy and with a small parcel of food, he and Roy proceeded to the Company office and the corral.

“You mustn’t do that while we are in the air,” said Roy laughing, as Mr. Cook lit his usual after breakfast cigar.

The manager looked at him in some surprise.

“Can’t smoke?” he replied.

“Better not,” answered Roy. “Rather risky. We’re right beside the gasoline, you know. There are certain chances we have to take, and this isn’t one of them.”

Mr. Cook grunted.

“All right,” he exclaimed with a pretended growl, “but it kind o’ takes away the pleasure o’ the excursion.”

Roy had to smile. “Pleasure of the excursion,” he thought. “Racing over the desert after a cold-blooded murderer and thief who’ll probably shoot us full of holes at the first chance.”

“Rule number one,” he went on, his smile broadening. “And number two is: ‘It takes only one person to operate an aeroplane.’ I’ll be that person. Never interfere. It’s worse than a woman grabbin’ the reins when you’re drivin’.”

“Anything else?” asked Mr. Cook, with assumed soberness.

“Yes,” added Roy. “The car balances itself. It may turn over, but it’ll come up again. If anything happens, hold fast and wait. Don’t jump.”

“You know what I told your boss?” asked Mr. Cook suddenly. “I told him I’d done about everything that was risky, but that I wouldn’t go up in one o’ them things. I hadn’t seen one o’ them then. I’m agoin’ now even if I have to cut out smokin’. I’ve got the fever.”

It was now early dawn. The corral watchman was the only person to greet the early visitors and he gave what assistance was needed. Roy determined to use the starting wheels and within a few minutes he had attached them; the passenger seat which had not been put in place was also attached. The watchman was sent to fill the water bottle—the one Roy had purchased with such satisfaction—and it and the packet of food were made fast in the little baggage hammock.

Then Roy debated as to whether he had better make a short trial trip. He left the matter to Mr. Cook.

“I’m game from the start,” answered the westerner. “It looks good to me.”

Roy pointed to the passenger seat.

“One minute!” exclaimed Mr. Cook.

He hurried to the rear door of the office building, unlocked it and in a few moments reappeared buckling on a six-shooter.

“I don’t usually wear such things,” he exclaimed, with a smile. “But I see you have one and I thought I’d be in style. And say,” he added, “talkin’ about rules, I’ve got a suggestion. If by any chance we should happen to strike Mike’s trail, an’ you have any choice about it, you can fly just as high as you like till I tell you to come down.”

Roy understood. Mr. Cook climbed into the fragile framework and gingerly took his seat. Having made a last close examination of the car, Roy did the same. He dropped his hat string into place, turned his loose cuffs back to be sure they were out of the way, adjusted his feet, tested the flexing wires, rudder guides and lever, and then said:

“Hold on and sit steady.”

A moment later the engine exploded into action. The boy with a quick motion threw the chain gear into play, and as the two propellers began to turn, he sprang back and grasped the forward rudder lever.

The car trembled, seemed to heave like a boat rising on the water and then, for a second, settled back into place. The next instant it lunged forward on its wheels, hesitated, sprang forward again and then, touching the corral yard in a series of little jumps started toward the wide space in the mesquite fence. Roy knew the proper moment. Just as the trembling framework seemed settling into its stride, there was a quick movement of the rudder lever.

The swiftly moving car responded like an arrow. With a parting bound, it left the ground and, its big propellers tearing through the air, the aeroplane shot upward. Mr. Cook sat like a professional. Roy’s eyes saw nothing but the engine, the chain gear and the flying propellers. Two hundred feet above the ground, he brought down the rudder, felt the car settle on a level course, and knew from the rushing air that the machine was flying under control and safely.

The start had been parallel with the river and east toward Colorado. Without speaking, the young aviator followed this course a few moments and then, with a long turn, headed for the river. As the deep canyon of this shadowed itself beneath him, he relaxed.

“She’s all right, Mr. Cook. How do you feel?”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for all Mike took. Say,” he added with almost boyish enthusiasm, “why couldn’t I do this? Looks easy.”

“Every one’ll do it in a few years,” answered Roy. “I guess I won’t have my job very long.”

“You can have it as long as you like,” came the answer—punctuated with little gasps, for Roy was now making a sharper turn down the river, “maybe you’ll have more time to work it than I will.”

“What’s the program?” exclaimed Roy, interrupting him, for the aeroplane was now on a course down the river on the south bank, the town was already behind them, and the sun was fully above the horizon.

“Ain’t but one thing to do,” answered the passenger. “If you can, get right down over the river canyon. It’s gettin’ light now. Follow the river. You watch the machine, an’ I’ll look out below. If I see anything, I’ll whistle.”

Roy dropped the machine lower and laid a course immediately over the dark strip marking the depths of the San Juan. It was almost impossible to see the rushing water at the bottom of the rocky chasm, but the boy could hear it, and, as he steadied the swiftly flying machine, he recalled how Sink Weston had swept down this same stream years before.

Glancing at the country on each side of the river now and then, the boy saw, when the town of Bluff had disappeared from sight, nothing but sand and rock, distant pink-tipped mountain ranges and a turquoise sky, cloudless and dry. As Weston had described to him, very often the plains or deserts, which seemed to rise upward like the rim of a bowl toward the horizon, were cut with plateaus crowned with crumbled rock. But there were no trees, no animal life and only patches of grass here and there near the canyon brink.

As it grew lighter, the gray stream within the precipitous river walls began to turn into a yellow swirl of grease, foam-crested and spray-crowned, where the rushing current impinged on abutting rocks. They were sailing almost due west. To the north as the rose faded from the low-lying mountain spurs, the intervening stretches turned into the blare of the alkali desert of Utah. South of the river, the more rugged heights of the Arizona Mountains told of the unexplored wilderness of the Navajo Indian land.

“I’d hate,” thought Roy to himself, “to take a chance on either side for five thousand dollars.”

On the cross arm supporting the propellers was fastened the anemometer or speed recording device. As it was a breezeless morning, Roy knew the instrument was recording truly. They were traveling at the rate of thirty-two miles an hour. A little calculation showed that the aeroplane was then about eighteen and one-half miles from Bluff.

Roy had had time to do some thinking. For the first time, it began to strike him as strange that Mr. Cook should form the theory, on which they were working, out of such improbable conjectures.

“It’s like one of these detective stories,” he at last suggested.

“No,” answered Mr. Cook, “just the reverse. Your all-wise detective would tell you just where to go and find your man. We’re just taking one chance in a hundred. The chances are much against us. If he hasn’t come this way, Wooley’s men’ll get him. We’ve gained just that much—but we are on the right track,” exclaimed the manager suddenly—“turn south!”

Roy’s heart thumped. He tried to follow instructions and discover what Mr. Cook had seen at the same time. The result was that, on the sharp turn, the aeroplane almost “turned turtle.” As it righted and darted away over the desert toward the Navajo Mountains, Mr. Cook spoke:

“Close shave that. First time I felt chilly.”

“What’d you see?” asked Roy embarrassed, but not the less curious.

“Three Company pine logs on a point o’ rocks,” answered Mr. Cook.

“How’d you know Hassell used them? Maybe they just floated down the river.”

“We ain’t as careless as that with our timber,” explained the westerner, twisting in his seat. “They wouldn’t be here if some one had cut ’em loose. They’re ours because the ends are red. And Mike has been on ’em because they’re roped together.”

“Then Hassell is up here somewhere?” suggested Roy excitedly.

“On this side,” said Mr. Cook, as if his mind were on something else.

Roy was now beginning to get busy on Mr. Cook’s theory.

“How fast is that stream running?” he asked—he knew that his companion was searching the plains.

“’Bout seven miles an hour.”

“How far is this point from Montezuma Creek?”

“Nearly forty miles.”

“When do you reckon he’d leave the creek on his raft?”

“He’d hide in the rocks till night—long as he didn’t see any one coming after him—and start ’bout dark, say eight o’clock.”

“Then he’d be here in less than six hours. Might have landed down there early as two o’clock this morning. That’s nearly six hours ago. He may be fifteen miles back in the hills now.”

“Likely,” agreed Mr. Cook, slowly, “if he got out right away. But it’s more likely that he waited for daybreak to climb the canyon walls. It was dark down there an hour and a half ago.”

“Perhaps he’s down there yet,” suggested Roy. “Maybe he’s drowned.”

“Didn’t you see his tracks?” asked Mr. Cook, in surprise.

Roy flushed with embarrassment. He had neither seen them nor thought of looking for them, although the aeroplane had turned and passed low along the abrupt river just above the stranded raft.

“You’re going all right,” added Roy’s passenger, “but head up a little and keep your eye on the machine. I’ll tell you when to change your course.”

For several minutes neither spoke. Despite Mr. Cook’s admonition, Roy took occasional looks at the land over which they were flying. For about three miles back from the river, the sandy plain extended almost free of rocks. Then a ridge of sand buttes began, interspersed with fragments dislodged from a secondary and higher ridge or plateau of rock. These in turn broke into canyons or higher elevations, all at last losing themselves in the mountains about twenty miles from the river. When they had reached the first ridge and were well over it, Mr. Cook exclaimed:

“East. Nothing here.”

The aeroplane whirled and sped away over the rocky table land. Three or four miles of this were covered. Then Mr. Cook ordered Roy to head north again as far as the edge of the ridge and follow this back to the west. Mr. Cook explained what he was doing. When the aeroplane was elevated he at once lost the trail. But, seeing that the supposed fugitive was heading for the plateau, he had hurried forward hoping to get sight of the flying Hassell.

There was no sign of the man where he would naturally have entered the rocks. Nor was there indication of him to the east within the distance he could probably cover, on foot. Mr. Cook was now about to make a similar search to the west. Three or four miles the whirring airship cleaved the breezeless, tonic air to the west. It was after eight o’clock and the strain was beginning to tell on Roy. The car was working perfectly, but an aviator’s nerves never relax. Four or five hours in an aeroplane frequently leave the controller utterly exhausted.

At this point, the fringe of plateaus or buttes ended abruptly in a wide, basin-like valley of sand and alkali. As the aeroplane shot out over this, there was a sharp whistle from Mr. Cook and the instant command: “South again!” Roy altered the swing of his ship, and then made the discovery that had startled his companion. South of the plateaus the strip of desert opened out like a fan, with the wide portion leading to the distant mountain cliffs.

Perhaps a mile ahead, only a black spot on the half white sands of the vacant desert, a moving object could be seen.

“Right over him,” said Mr. Cook quickly.

Roy’s brain was whirling with excitement. Within two minutes, the black object had become a man hastening across the sands toward the high ground. He had heard the engines and propellers and had come to a halt. Although the aeroplane was, perhaps, six hundred feet in the air, it was plain that Mr. Cook’s theory was right. It was Mike Hassell who stood, motionless and as calm, apparently, as if behind Joe’s bar.

“Come down,” was Mr. Cook’s sharp order.

The boy’s heart throbbed. What was about to happen? Neither man had spoken. Would the thief surrender? Or, would it be a tragedy? As the aeroplane touched the sand with a jolt and bumped ahead on its light wheels, Roy felt Mr. Cook drop from the car. When the trembling car at last came to a stop, 300 yards beyond Hassell, the young operator also sprang to the ground. As he turned and caught sight of the two men, he felt cold all over. Something in their attitude told him that the voiceless men facing each other would not speak in words.

Hassell made no attempt to retreat. The white heavy desert stretched about him like a floor. A black hat was pulled low over his eyes. His arms hung limply at his sides. There was not even a revolver in sight. Approaching the murderer-thief was Roy’s employer. His hat was pushed back from his forehead, and, as he strode forward with a slow pace, his arms also hung loosely by his sides.

Roy nervously thought of his new untried revolver and laid his hand upon it. These men were both armed. The boy could see the holster of each hanging at his side. The men were now about a hundred yards from each other. Roy could no longer restrain himself. As Mr. Cook advanced toward the motionless Hassell the boy also began to move forward. Finally, Mr. Cook stopped suddenly. Roy continued to advance until he heard the imperative words: “Go back!” They were from Mr. Cook. But, while he spoke, the man neither moved nor took his eyes from the equally statue-like Hassell. He had heard the boy following.

As Roy came to a halt, the cold perspiration broke out on him. Directly in front of Mr. Cook, a thick rattlesnake was crawling slowly across his path. “Why don’t he shoot it?” was Roy’s only thought. But the Company manager seemed not to notice the reptile. As the boy stepped back, he could see Mr. Cook standing with his eyes, not on the snake, but on Mike Hassell.

Then, as the venomous thing slid away in the sand, the man who had come to find Hassell began to advance once more.

Fifty yards, then thirty. Then, as one, two pistol shots sounded in the hollow of the desert. Roy, trembling and aghast, clenched his hands. What had happened? Who had shot? The boy had seen neither man draw a revolver; not a word had been said. But, in the two balls of white smoke, Roy saw Mike Hassell crumble to his knees; saw his revolver sink to the sand, and the black hatted fugitive was flat on his face.

Just before him, Roy also saw Mr. Cook slowly returning his revolver to its holster. His aim had been true. Hassell had missed.