ays and
nights. They rode early and late; there were the brief before-bedtime
talks together; Helen saw the bluebird feather and laughed about it;
she claimed it, but was in the end, after a deal of bantering argument,
content to leave it where it was. She allowed Howard to talk what she
branded as foolishness about certain alterations in the old house which
he prophesied would be necessary before long; she grew into the custom
of speaking of the room which she had occupied on her first visit to
the ranch as 'my room.' She was very happy and forgot that her father
was a troublesome childlike parent who fancied that he knew how to
discover gold mines. What did mere gold amount to, anyway?

Then came the drive. The pick of the herd were to be moved slowly down
to San Juan. Howard had communicated with his former buyers, and they
were eager for more of his stock and at the former price. He wanted
Helen and her father to come with them. But Longstreet shook his head
smilingly.

'I'm two-thirds cowboy now,' he chuckled. 'A few more days of this and
I'll be coming to you and asking for a job! It won't do, my boy. It
won't do. Especially at a time like this. You make your drive and
I'll make mine. And I'll bet you a new twenty-dollar hat that when you
get back I'll have found gold again.'

So the Longstreets went back to Bear Valley and the drive began.
Howard started his cattle moving at three o'clock the next morning.
And almost from the beginning, although everything started
auspiciously, he encountered hardship. At ten o'clock that morning he
came upon a dead calf, its throat torn out as though by a ravening
monster wolf; a section of the flesh seemed to have been removed by a
sharp knife. That was nothing; to him it merely spelled Kish Taka, and
Kish Taka was his friend and welcome. But as he rode on, reflecting,
he read more in the omen. If Kish Taka were here, in the hills, then
somewhere near by Jim Courtot had passed. Then shortly after noon he
came upon what he knew must be the work of Jim Courtot. And he
surmised with rising anger that recently Courtot had seen Sanchia and
that again Courtot was Sanchia's right hand. Here was a little hollow;
on two sides were steep banks. Along these banks lay four big steers,
dead, a rifle bullet through each one. Already the buzzards were
gathering.

Dave Terril came upon him and found him bending over one of the big
stiffening bodies. Howard's face w