Alfred, thoughtfully. The state of the weather
decided him. It had been blowing all night strongly from the northwest.
Left without guidance a pony tends to edge more or less away from the
wind, in order to turn tail to the weather. Alfred had diligently
counteracted this tendency all night, but he doubted whether, in the
hurry of flight, the fugitive had thought of it. Instead of keeping
directly east toward Pierre, he had probably fallen away more or less
toward the south. "Down," Alfred decided.

He dismounted from his horse and began to lead the animal parallel to
the stream, but about two hundred yards from it, first taking care to
ascertain that a little water flowed in the channel. On discovering that
there did, he nodded his head in a satisfied manner.

"He doesn't leave no trail till she begins to snow," he argued, "an' he
nat'rally doesn't expect no mud-turkles like me a followin' of him
eastward. _Consequently_ he feeds when he strikes water. This yere is
water."

All of which seemed satisfactory to Alfred. He walked on foot in order
to discover the trail in the snow. He withdrew two hundred yards from
the bank of the stream that his pony might not scent the other man's
horse, and so give notice of approach by whinnying. After a time he came
across the trail. So he left the pony and followed it to the
creek-bottom on foot. At the top of the bluff he peered over cautiously.

"Well, you got nerve!" he remarked to himself. "If I was runnin' this
yere game, I'd sure scout with my blinders off."

The fugitive evidently believed himself safe from pursuit, for he had
made camp. His two ponies cropped browse and pawed for grass in the
bottom land. He himself had prepared a warm niche and was sleeping in it
with only one blanket over him, though by now the thermometer was well
down toward zero. The affair had been simple. He had built a long, hot
fire in the L of an upright ledge and the ground. When ready to sleep he
had raked the fire three feet out from the angle, and had lain down on
the heated ground between the fire and the ledge. His rifle and revolver
lay where he could seize them at a moment's notice.

Alfred could stalk a deer, but he knew better than to attempt to stalk a
man trained in the West. Instead, he worked himself into a protected
position and carefully planted a Winchester bullet some six inches from
the man's ear. The man woke up suddenly and made an instinctive grab
toward his weapons.