stood
self-revealed, repelling, hateful; a man who gloated over the struggle
of something alive and at his mercy; to whom sport meant power indulged
with impunity. Good Indian did not try to put the thing in words, but he
felt it nevertheless.

"Brute!" he muttered aloud, his face eloquent of cold disgust.

At that moment Baumberger drew the tired fish gently into the shallows,
swung him deftly upon the rocks, and laid hold of him greedily.

"Ain't he a beaut?" he cried, in his wheezy chuckle. "Wait a minute
while I weigh him. He'll go over a pound, I'll bet money on it."
Gloatingly he held it in his hands, removed the hook, and inserted under
the gills the larger one of the little scales he carried inside his
basket.

"Pound and four ounces," he announced, and slid the fish into his
basket. He was the ordinary, good-natured, gross Baumberger now. He
reached for his pipe, placed it in his mouth, and held out a hand to
Good Indian for a match.

"Say, young fella, have you got any stand-in with your noble red
brothers?" he asked, after he had sucked life into the charred tobacco.

"Cousins twice or three times removed, you mean," said Good Indian
coldly, too proud and too lately repelled to meet the man on friendly
ground. "Why do you ask?"

Baumberger eyed him speculatively while he smoked, and chuckled to
himself.

"One of 'em--never mind placing him on his own p'ticular limb of the
family tree--has been doggin' me all morning," he said at last, and
waved a fishy hand toward the bluff which towered high above them. "Saw
him when I was comin' up, about sunrise, pokin' along behind me in the
sagebrush. Didn't think anything of that--thought maybe he was hunting
or going fishing--but he's been sneakin' around behind me ever since. I
don't reckon he's after my scalp--not enough hair to pay--but I'd like
to know what the dickens he does mean."

"Nothing probably," Good Indian told him shortly, his eyes nevertheless
searching the rocks for a sight of the watcher.

"Well, I don't much like the idea," complained Baumberger, casting an
eye aloft in fear of snagging his line when he made another cast. "He
was right up there a few minutes ago." He pointed his rod toward a
sun-ridden ridge above them. "I got a flicker of his green blanket when
he raised up and scowled down at me. He ducked when he saw me turn my
head--looked to me like the surly buck that blew in to the ranch the
night I came; Jim something-or-other. B