into the Force
because--well, because a man with anything to him can go to the top. A
man must play at something, and this looked like a good game."

There was a note of something that I'd never heard in MacRae's voice
before; neither bitterness nor anger nor sorrow nor lonesomeness, and
yet there was a hint of each, but so slight, so elusive I couldn't grasp
it. I remembered that the last sentence MacRae had spoken to me in the
South was a message to Lyn Rowan, a message that I never had the
pleasure of delivering, for my hasty flitting took me out other trails
than the one that led to the home ranch. And so they had parted--gone
different ways--probably in anger. Well, that's only another example of
the average human's cussedness. Lyn could be just as haughty as she was
sweet and gracious, which was natural enough, seeing she'd ruled a
cattle king and all his sunburned riders since she was big enough to
toddle alone; and Gordon MacRae wasn't the sort of man who would come to
heel at any woman's bidding--at least, he wasn't in the old days. Oh, I
could understand how it happened, all right. Each of them was chuck full
of that dubious sort of pride that has busted up more than one
love-_fiesta_.

Neither of us spoke again, and at length the squat log buildings of Pend
d' Oreille loomed ahead of us in the night. Tired and hungry, we stabled
our horses, ate a bite, and rolled into bed.

CHAPTER VI.

STONY CROSSING.

"There's Stony Crossing, Sarge; and over yonder, at the west end of that
blue ridge, is Writing-on-the-Stone."

At the foot of the long slope on which we stood Milk River glinted in
the sunshine, deceptively beautiful--a shining example of the truth of
that old saw about distance lending enchantment, for, looking down on
the placid stream slipping smoothly along between fringes of scrubby
timber, one would never guess that miles and miles of hungry quick-sands
lined the river-edge, an unseen trap for the feet of the unwary.

Stony Crossing I could see, even without Mac's guiding finger. The Whoop
Up trail, a brown streak against the vivid upland green, dipped down the
hillside to our right, down to the sage-grown flat, and into the river
by the great boulders that gave the ford its name. The blue ridge up
the river I gave scant heed to; the Writing-Stone was only a name to me,
for I'd never seen the place. My attention was all for the scene at
hand. The patch of soft green that I knew for the