He rode on, however, and held her down to a walk.
His eventless course had continued some minutes before a thought came to him of the direction he was following, with the possibility that he was wrong.
"I wonder if we are on the right track, Queenie ?" he said, addressing his animal, as was his custom when they were alone.

"It would be strange if we didn't drift away from our bearings.

Hello! that can't be Dick Hawkridge's ranch; we haven't gone far enough for that; but what the mischief can it be, unless a fire that some one has started in the open ?" The starlike twinkle of a point of light suddenly shone out directly in advance.

It puzzled him by appearing only for a moment, when it vanished as quickly as it entered his field of vision.
This fact suggested that it was within some dwelling and had been extinguished, or was shut from sight by being moved past a window or open door to another point in the interior.
"We are so near, Queenie, we may as well go farther," he added, not unmindful of his danger from those who were making such a hot search for him.

He kept his horse on a walk, maintaining a keen watch between the dainty ears that were already pricked up as if she knew something was likely to happen quite soon.
Advancing in this deliberate fashion, the outline of one of those long, low wooden structures so common in the West was gradually defied in the moonlight, and he knew he was approaching the home of some ranchman.
But whose?
was the question that perplexed him.