hoped that the Sawtooth
would at last show its hand openly. He had liked Fred Thurman, and what
Lorraine had told him went much deeper than she knew. He wanted to bring
them into the open where he could fight with some show of winning.

"I'll git Bill Warfield yet--and git him right," was the gist of his
musings. "He's bound to show his head, give him time enough. Him and his
killers can't always keep under cover. Let 'em come at me about that
fence! It's on my land--the Quirt's got a right to fence every foot of
land that belongs to 'em."

All the way over the ridge and across the flat and up the steep, narrow
road along the edge of Spirit Canyon, Brit dwelt upon the probable moves
of the Sawtooth. They would wait, he thought, until the fence was
completed and they had made a trail around through the lava rocks. They
would not risk any move at present; they would wait and tacitly accept
the fence, or pretend to accept it, as a natural inconvenience. But Brit
did not deceive himself that they would remain passive. That it had been
"hands off the Quirt" he did not know, but attributed the Quirt's
immunity to careful habits and the fact that they had never come to the
point where their interests actually clashed with the Sawtooth.

It never occurred to him therefore that he was slated for an accident
that day if the details could be conveniently arranged.

It was a long trail to Sugar Spring, and from there up Spirit Canyon the
climb was so tedious and steep that Brit took a full hour for the trip,
resting the team often because they were soft from the new grass diet
and sweated easily. They lost none of their spirit, however, and when
the road was steepest nagged at each other with head-shakings and bared
teeth, and ducked against each other in pretended fright at every
unusual rock or bush.

At the top he was forced to drive a full half mile beyond the piled
posts to a flat large enough to turn around. All this took time,
especially since Caroline, the brown mare, would rather travel ten miles
straight ahead than go backward ten feet. Brit was obliged to "take it
out of her" with the rein ends and his full repertoire of opprobrious
epithets before he could cramp the wagon and head them down the trail
again.

At the post pile he unhitched the team for safety's sake and tied them
to trees, where he fed them a little grain in nose bags. He was absorbed
now in his work and thought no more about the Sawtooth. He fasten