as white, the deadly hue of rage.

'Who done that for you, Al?' muttered Dave wonderingly.

'Jim Courtot!'

'Why don't you go get him, Al?'

'Why don't I?' said Howard dully.

Why did he not lay a fierce hand upon the wind that danced over the
hills? It was no more elusive than Jim Courtot. Why did not Kish
Taka, the eternally vigilant, come up with his prey? Nowhere in the
world is there so baffling a quarry as a hunted man. Jim Courtot
struck and vanished; he played the waiting game; he would give his
right hand for Howard's death, his left hand for the Indian's. But in
his heart, his visions his own, he was afraid.

Before they came to Sunderberg's Meadows, where it had been arranged
that the herd was to pasture that night, they saw the wide-flung grey
films of smoke. Accident or hatred had fired the dry grass; flames
danced and sang their thin songs of burning destruction; the wide
fields were already black. Howard had bought and paid for the pasture
land; the loss was his, not Sunderberg's; Courtot, if Courtot it was,
or perhaps Monte Devine or Ed True, had been before him. Sanchia's
venom--for, be the hand of the agent whose it may, he recalled always
the look in Sanchia's eyes and the threat from Sanchia's lips--seemed
to travel with him and in front of him. His cattle browsed that night
on a rocky, almost grassless ground, making the best of what poor shrub
growths they could lay their dry tongues to. There was no water; the
pools lay in the heart of a smouldering tract too hot to drive across.

When the cattle had rested, without waiting for full day Howard was
forced to start them on and to make a wide swerve out of his intended
direction to come soon to feed and water. Otherwise the drive would
become a tremendous misfortune and loss. His cattle would lose weight
rapidly under privation; they would when delivered in San Juan only
vaguely resemble the choice herd he had promised; scrawny and jaded,
under weight and wretched, their price would drop from the top to the
bottom of the scale. He would make for the San Doran place; Doran,
though no friend, would at least sell him hay; the figure would be
high, since Doran, no man better, knew when the other man was down and
in a ditch. But water and food must be had.

Howard, toward noon, rode ahead to Doran's house. Doran was out in
front of his barn, breaking a team of colts, working one at the time
with a steady old mare, and in a hot and