rumoured that he had sold his claim; men began to doubt it. He wasn't
scattering money as men had always done when they had made a fortune at
a turn of the wheel; he wasn't getting drunk which was the customary
thing; he wasn't even looking for a game of cards or dice. There was
no sign of any new purpose in the man.

And yet the purpose was there, taken swiftly, to be acted upon with a
cold leisure. Drennen was not hurrying now. There was no other horse
like Major, his recently purchased four-year-old, and Drennen knew it.
He had ridden Major hard yesterday; to-day the brute must rest and be
ready for more hard riding.

One thing only did Drennen do which excited mild interest, though the
reason for the act was naturally misunderstood. He went to Joe and
bought from him two heavy revolvers. Drennen had never been a gun man,
had ever relied upon his own hands in time of trouble. But now, Joe
figured the matter out, he had money and he meant to guard against a
hold-up.

Entire lack of haste was the only thing remarkable about David Drennen
to-day and through the days which followed. There was no hesitation,
no doubt, no being torn two ways. He had made up his mind what he was
going to do. It was settled and not to be reconsidered. But he would
not hurry. The very coolness with which his purpose was taken steadied
him to a strange deliberateness. He knew that it was folly to expect
to come up with Ygerne and the men with her immediately. It would take
time; they had fled hastily and they were in a country where pursuit
was necessarily slow. Was that not the reason why such people came
here? And he told himself grimly that it was an equal folly to desire
to come upon them too soon. The punishment he would mete out would be
the harder if their flight had seemed crowned with security.

Upon the second day he rode in widening circles about MacLeod's
Settlement. He hardly hoped to pick up a trail here where questing
hundreds in search of his gold had cut the soft spring ground into a
jumble of indecipherable tracks. But, beginning his own quest with a
painstaking thoroughness which omitted no chance however remote, he
spent the day in seeking.

At night he came again into camp. He saw to the Major's wants before
his own. He ate his meal at Joe's and having passed no word with any
man came back to his dugout.

The supreme blow which his destiny could give him had been smitten
relentlessly. He had re