hat I would like to
ride around a while alone. I don't mean that I don't like your company,
for I do. But the notion has just struck me."

Norton laughed indulgently. "I reckon I won't consider that you're
trying to slight me," he returned. "I know exactly how you feel; that
sort of thing comes over everybody who comes to this country--sooner or
later. Generally it's later, when a man has got used to the silence an'
the bigness an' so on. But in your case it's sooner. You'll have to have
it out with yourself."

His voice grew serious. "But don't go ridin' too far. An' keep away from
the river trail."

In spite of his ready acquiescence he sat for some time on his pony,
watching Hollis as the latter urged his pony along the ridge. Just
before Hollis disappeared down the slope of the ridge he turned and
waved a hand to Norton, and the latter, with a grim, admiring smile,
wheeled his pony and loped it over the back trail.

Once down the slope of the ridge Hollis urged his pony out into the
level of the basin, through some deep saccatone grass, keeping well away
from the river trail as advised by the range boss.

In spite of his serious thoughts Hollis had not been dismayed over the
prospect of remaining at the Circle Bar to fight Dunlavey and his crew.
He rather loved a fight; the thought of clashing with an opposing force
had always filled him with a sensation of indefinable exultation. He
reveled in the primitive passions. He had been endowed by nature with
those mental and physical qualities that combine to produce the perfect
fighter. He was six feet of brawn and muscle; not an ounce of
superfluous flesh encumbered him--he had been hammered and hardened into
a state of physical perfection by several years of athletic training,
sensible living, and good, hard, healthy labor. Circumstances had not
permitted him to live a life of ease. The trouble between his
parents--which had always been much of a mystery to him--had forced him
at a tender age to go out into the world and fight for existence. It had
toughened him; it had trained his mind through experience; it had given
him poise, persistence, tenacity--those rare mental qualities without
which man seldom rises above mediocrity.

Before leaving Dry Bottom to come to the Circle Bar he had telegraphed
his mother that he would be forced to remain indefinitely in the West,
and the sending of this telegram had committed him irrevocably to his
sacrifice. He knew that w