Late the next afternoon, they returned to town, tired, their horses almost crawling in their dragging pace after sixteen hours of travel through the drifts of the hills and gullies.

Harry had not been found, and so Fairchild reported when, with drooping shoulders, he returned to the boarding house and to the waiting Mother Howard.

And both knew that this time Harry's disappearance was no joke, as it had been before.

They realized that back of it all was some sinister reason, some mystery which they could not solve,--for the present at least.

That night, Fairchild faced the future and made his resolve.
There was only a week now until Harry's case should come to trial.
Only a week until the failure of the defendant to appear should throw the deeds of the Blue Poppy mine into the hands of the court, to be sold for the amount of the bail.