cular contraction. To save the blanket from the blood which
was soiling it, he tore it from the limp, unresisting shoulders, and
rubbed it in the dirt to obliterate the stain. He cursed when he saw that
a bullet had torn in it two jagged, tell-tale holes.

He glanced at the Indian's moccasins, then, stooping, ripped one off. He
examined it with interest. It was a Cree moccasin. The Indian was far from
home. He examined the centre seam: yes, it was sewed with deer-sinew.

"The Crees can tan to beat the world," he muttered, "but I hates the shape
of the Cree moccasin. The Piegans make better." He tossed it from him
contemptuously and picked up the shotgun.

"No good." He threw it down and straightened the Indian's head with the
toe of his boot. "I despises to lie cramped up, myself."

Returning to his horse, he removed his saddle, and folded the Indian's
blanket inside of his own. Then he recinched his saddle, and turned his
horse's head to the southeast, where "the full-blood--the woman, the fat
woman--lived in a log cabin by running water."

He glanced over his shoulder as he spurred his horse to a gallop.

"I'm a killer, me--Smith," he said, and grinned.

II

ON THE ALKALI HILL

There was at least an hour and a half of daylight left when Smith struck a
wagon-road. He looked each way doubtfully. The woman's house was quite as
likely to be to the right as to the left; there was no way of telling.
While he hesitated, his horse lifted its ears. Smith also thought he heard
voices. Swinging his horse to the right, he rode to the edge of the bench
where the road made a steep and sudden drop.

At the bottom of the hill he saw a driver on the spring-seat of a round-up
wagon urging two lean-necked and narrow-chested horses up the hill. They
were smooth-shod, and, the weight of the wagon being out of all proportion
to their strength, they fell often in their futile struggles. At the side
of the road near the top of the hill the water oozed from an alkali
spring, which kept the road perpetually muddy. The horses were straining
every nerve and muscle, their eyes bulging and nostrils distended, and
still the driver, loudmouthed and vacuously profane, lashed them
mercilessly with the stinging thongs of his leather whip. Smith, from the
top of the hill, watched him with a sneer on his face.

"He drives like a Missourian," he muttered.

He could have helped the troubled driver, knowing perfectly well what to
do, bu