observe this solitary traveler, he would
have said that the man gave no heed to the beauty of the day. Since he
had broken camp his impassive gaze had been fixed for the most part on
the ground in front of him. Occasionally he swung his long leg across
the rump of the horse and dismounted to stoop down for a closer
examination of the hoofprints he was following. They were not recent
tracks. He happened to know that they were about three days old.
Plain as a printed book was the story they told him.

The horses that had made these tracks had been ridden by men in a
desperate hurry. They had walked little and galloped much. Not once
had they fallen into the easy Spanish jog-trot used so much in the
casual travel of the South-west. The spur of some compelling motive
had driven this party at top speed.

Since Dingwell knew the reason for such haste he rode warily. His
alert caution suggested the panther. The eye of the man pounced surely
upon every bit of cactus or greasewood behind which a possible foe
might be hidden. His lean, sun-tanned face was an open letter of
recommendation as to his ability to take care of himself in a world
that had often glared at him wolfishly. A man in a temper to pick a
quarrel would have looked twice at Dave Dingwell before choosing him as
the object of it--and then would have passed on to a less competent
citizen.

The trail grew stiffer. It circled into a draw down which tumbled a
jocund little stream. Trout, it might be safely guessed, lurked here
in the riffles and behind the big stones. An ideal camping-ground
this, but the rider rejected it apparently without consideration. He
passed into the canon beyond, and so by a long uphill climb came to the
higher reaches of the hills.

He rode patiently, without any hurry, without any hesitation. Here
again a reader of character might have found something significant in
the steadiness of the man. Once on the trail, it would not be easy to
shake him off.

By the count of years Dingwell might be in the early forties. Many
little wrinkles radiated fanlike from the corners of his eyes. But
whatever his age time had not tamed him. In the cock of those same
steel-blue eyes was something jaunty, something almost debonair, that
carried one back to a youth of care-free rioting in a land of sunshine.
Not that Mr. Dingwell was given to futile dissipations. He had the
reputation of a responsible ranchman. But it is not to be deni