“All I’m agreein’ to do is go up there to see if I can find out what happened to ’em. Most likely all we’ll find is a bunch of dead bodies. You said they left Fort Benton five days ago. That ain’t much more’n thirty miles from Great Falls, so that gives ’em four days to wander off to who knows where right there. It’s three and a half days’ ride from Fort Ellis to Great Falls for us, so that makes it well over a week, and that’s not countin’ the time it’ll take for us to get back to Fort Ellis and get a patrol on the road.”

“Well, I suppose that’s right,” Conner allowed. “But the patrol is already scheduled to move out tomorrow at noon, so we’ll save a little time there.” He grinned sheepishly. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

Hawk shook his head as if exasperated. “You know there ain’t a chance in hell we’ll find any of those folks alive, and we’ll sure as hell never recover the money. How in the world did you talk Brisbin into lettin’ you take a patrol up there?”

“The fellow who was leading the mule train was Major Brisbin’s nephew, Donald.”

“Oh,” Hawk replied, and raised an eyebrow. “So, this big mission to save the mule train wasn’t your idea at all.” When Conner merely responded with another sheepish grin and a shrug of his shoulders, Hawk said, “Well, I reckon we can try to find out what happened to the major’s nephew. Brisbin’s always been a fair man with me.” He paused to think about it. “How did you get the job of leadin’ a patrol up there?” As important as it was to the major, he would have thought his ranking lieutenant, Harvey Meade, would had drawn the assignment.

“Because Brisbin knew I could persuade you to go as scout,” Conner said, in answer to Hawk’s question.

The rest of that evening was spent on preparing Hawk’s cabin to be left again. He finished up the butchering of the deer and kept a small portion to cook in the morning. The rest was staked out to be smoke-cured that night. The next morning, Hawk carried some smoked meat and other supplies up the mountain to his cache. Then he closed his cabin up and padlocked it, and as always, hoped no one would find it before he got back.

* * *