n's labyrinth; he did not need to seek the
fallacies of logic to tell him why he hated Ygerne Bellaire and Marc
Lemarc and Sefton and the Mexican. He hated them. There the fact
began and ended. One by one he would kill them until he came to
Ygerne. And if in her eyes he saw that the terror of death was greater
than the terror of the suffering he could inflict upon her living, then
he would kill her.

At first he thought only of these four. But after a while in his
thoughts there was room for another. . . . John Harper Drennen,
masquerading as Marshall Sothern. Drennen sneered at his old hero.
The old man was a fool like so many other fools. He had committed what
the world calls a crime and the weight of it had shown upon him.
Drennen's sneer was not for the wrong done but for the weakness of
allowing suffering to come afterward. The old man had seemed glad,
touched almost to tears, when his son had paid off the old score. . . .
And now Drennen's sneer was for himself. Why had he not kept that
forty thousand dollars? Money meant power and power was all that he
wanted. Power to crush men who would have crushed him had they been
able; power to seek his prey where he would and to pull it down.

Ygerne's note he never read the second time. He had had no need to.
He burned the paper and washed his hands free of the ashes which he had
crumpled in his palm.

The third day he rose early, saddled Major and left the Settlement,
riding slowly toward Lebarge. He had an idea that they might have gone
there to take the train. When half way to the railroad he met a man
who was pushing on strongly toward the north. The man stopped and
accosted him. It was the mounted police officer, Lieutenant Max.

"Mr. Drennen," said the lieutenant bruskly coming straight to the
business in hand after his way; "you come from MacLeod's?"

"Yes."

"You know two men named Sefton and Lemarc? And a girl named Bellaire?"

"Yes."

"Were they in MacLeod's when you left?"

"Why do you ask?" countered Drennen sharply.

"The law wants them," replied the lieutenant.

Drennen laughed.

"So do I!" he cried as he spurred his horse out of the trail, turning
eastward now, heading at random for Fanning instead of Lebarge.

As he forded the Little MacLeod he was cursing Max.

"Damn him," he muttered. "Are there not enough cheap law breakers?
Why must he seek to do my work for me?"

So began Drennen's quest for three men and one girl