And busy in mind was he when the stars were out and camp
was pitched. He lay with his head on his saddle, his pipe in his
teeth, his thoughts withdrawn from his business of stock-selling and
centred elsewhere. The second night out the boys noted a change in Al
Howard; the third night they asked one another 'what had come over the
old man.' For whereas formerly his had always been the gayest voice
around the camp fire, his the tongue to spin a yarn or start a cowboy
ballad, now he withdrew after a silent supper and threw himself down on
the ground and stared at the stars, his thoughts his own behind the
locked guard of his shut teeth.

'He's figgering on something--hard,' said Dave Terril. 'Might be about
Jim Courtot.'

'Or them tracks,' suggested Sandy Weaver. 'The barefoot's and the
gigantic wolf.'

'Or,' put in a chuckling voice from the shadows, 'a girl, huh? Having
took a good look at old man Longstreet's girl, I wouldn't blame Al
overmuch.'

By the time the adobe walls of picturesque San Juan swam into view
across the dry lands Alan Howard had at least reshaped and clarified
his theory of the tracks, had made up his mind concerning Jim Courtot
and had dreamed through many an hour of Helen. As to Helen, he meant
to see a very great deal of her when he returned to Desert Valley. As
to Jim Courtot, he meant to end matters one way or another without any
great delay. For to a man of the type of Alan Howard the present
condition was unbearable. He knew that Courtot was 'looking for him';
that Courtot had gone straight to the ranch-house and had sat down with
his gun in front of him, waiting for Howard's step on the porch; that
when the first opportunity arose Jim Courtot would start shooting. It
was not to his liking that Courtot should have things all his way. The
gambler would shoot from the dark, as he had done before, if he had the
chance. That chance might come to-night or a year from now, and
constant expectancy of this sort would, soon or late, get on a man's
nerves. In short, if Courtot wanted to start something, Howard fully
meant to have it an even break; if Courtot were looking for him he
could expedite matters by looking for Courtot.

As to his theory of the tracks; he connected them, too, with Jim
Courtot. He knew that for the past three months Courtot had
disappeared from his familiar haunts; these were La Casa Blanca, Jim
Galloway's gambling-house in San Juan, and similar places in Te