He had been hunting,
and was on his way home when Henry Carleton and the Ranger had seen him.
He had come, now, to help in the search.
Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian Oakley sent them to spend
the night riding the higher trails and fire-breaks, watching for
camp-fire lights. The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up
the search at daylight, should the night riders come in without results.
Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, sank into a stupor that
could scarcely be called sleep.
At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on the higher trails and
fire-breaks, searching the darkness for the possible gleam of a
camp-fire's light, came in.
All that day--Wednesday--the mountain horsemen rode, widening the area of
their search under the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until long
after dark, they came straggling wearily back; their horses nearly
exhausted, the riders beginning to fear that Sibyl would never be found
alive. There was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands.
Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, a rider from the other
side of the Galenas arrived with the word that the girl's horse had been
found.
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