He wondered how he had missed him in his own journey over the
trail from the ridge mountains, for he had made twice the progress
of the stranger, and must surely have passed him somewhere within
the last mile or so. The fact that the man had come from the
direction of Fort o' God, that he was exhausted, and that he had
evidently concealed himself a little way back to avoid discovery,
led Philip to cut out diagonally across the plain so that he could
follow him and keep him in sight without being observed. Twice in
the next mile the nocturnal traveler stopped to rest, but no
sooner had he reached the first scattered shacks of the camp than
he quickened his steps, darting quickly among the shadows, and
then stopped at last before the door of a small log cabin within a
pistol-shot of Philip's own headquarters. The cabin was newly
built, and Philip gave a low whistle of surprise as he noted its
location. He had, to a certain degree, isolated his own camp home,
building it a couple of hundred yards back from the shore of the
lake, where most of the other cabins were erected. This new cabin
was still a hundred yards farther back, half hidden in a growth of
spruce. He heard the click of a key in a lock and the opening and
closing of a door.
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