the thirty miles to the Police post at Medicine Lodge
without a rest. A fever of uncertainty was consuming him. The
Inspector's faith in the halfbreed made the whole uncanny affair a
deeper mystery than ever. For eight months Blue Pete had been "on the
run," and then had come the great sacrifice they had all believed--at
least all but the Inspector--to be his death. During those eight
months the Sergeant himself had traced northward the horses the
halfbreed had stolen. He had actually caught Mira Stanton, Blue Pete's
partner, in the act of rustling.

Yet, insisted the Inspector, the halfbreed was not rustling. Mahon
gave it up.

Ahead of him loomed the dark line of the beloved Hills, swelling as he
cantered along. Over the yellow glare of the dead prairie grass his
eyes rested on the deep green with the affection of a long-absent
friend. There swept over him an irrepressible longing to dash into the
cool shadows and feast his eyes on the maze of hill and dell, rocky
height and grass-grown bottom, mirrored lake and whispering stream; to
hear the leap of fish and the rustle of creeping things unseen, the cry
of distant birds and the howl of prowling wolf. There he would be in
touch with the spirit of his old friend, wherever he might be now.

Some day--he felt certain of it--he would grasp the hand of Blue Pete
somewhere within the Hills.

Constable Priest was not at the post when he pushed open the barracks
door. He was glad of that. Leaving a short note, he galloped off
south-east toward the Hills. His horse, with memories of many a free
run there, made straight for Windy Coulee, the familiar western
entrance to the mysteries of the Cypress Hills.

Mahon did not direct. When the sloping trail leading up into the trees
rose before him, he smiled. With Windy Coulee the halfbreed's memory
was bound by a hundred incidents. There they had entered their first
great adventure together; there they had dived into the shadows on the
trail of many a rustler. And there he had erected the rough stone that
marked his grief when he thought Blue Pete had given his life for him.

Wrapped in the past, Mahon gave the horse his head.

At the top of the hollowed trail, just where the trees began, the horse
came to a halt so suddenly that Mahon jerked against the pommel and
lifted his eyes in surprise.

Not thirty yards ahead stood the granite column with its simple
tribute, "Greater Love." But Mahon did not notice