Page 182 (1/1)

Solitude and lonesoned there It was a golden-green region, enchanting to the gaze of man An Indian would have walked there with his spirits

And even as Jean felt all this elevating beauty and inscrutable spirit his keen eye once ain left on the gray moss and rock His wound had reopened Jean felt the thrill of the scenting panther

The sun set, twilight gathered, night fell Jean crawled under a dense, low-spreading spruce, ate so, and lay down to rest and sleep His thoughts burdened hiht A wolf ry cry for a mate Shepp quivered under Jean's hand That was the call which had lured him from the ranch The wolf blood in him yearned for the wild Jean tied the cowhide leash to his wrist When this dark business was at an end Shepp could be free to join the lonelyout there in the forest Then Jean slept

Dawn broke cold, clear, frosty, with silvered grass sparkling, with a soft, faint rustling of falling aspen leaves When the sun rose red Jean was again on the trail of Queen By a frosty-ferned brook, where water tinkled and ran clear as air and cold as ice, Jean quenched his thirst, leaning on a stone that showed drops of blood Queen, too, had to quench his thirst What good, what help, Jean wondered, could the cold, sweet, granite water, so dear to woodsmen and wild creatures, do this wounded, hunted rustler? Why did he not wait in the open to fight and face the death he had uned hiroves and spruce woods, through the oak swales and aspen glades, up and down the rocky gorges, around the windfalls and over the rotting logs

The ti to trap his pursuer by lying in wait He gave up trying to conceal his tracks He grew stronger or, in desperation, increased his energy, so that he redoubled his progress through the wilderness That, at best, would count only a few an to circle to the northwest, back toward the deep canyon where Blaisdell and Bill Isbel had reached the end of their trails Queen had evidently left his coht, but was now trying to get back to them Somewhere in these wild, deep forest brakes the rest of the Jorth faction had found a hiding place Jean let Queen lead him there