e
fired; ran a little nearer, fired again.

The dogs were pushing ahead now in pursuit of whatever it was that
fled. A moment, and Mackenzie heard the quick break of a galloping
horse; fired his remaining shots after it, and called Dad to fetch the
light.

When the horse started, the dogs returned to the flock, too wise to
waste energy in a vain pursuit. At a word from Mackenzie they began
collecting the shuddering sheep. Dad Frazer came bobbing down the hill
with the lantern, breathing loud in his excitement.

"Lord!" said he, when he saw the havoc his light revealed; "a regular
old murderin' stock-killer. And I didn't think there was any grizzly
in forty miles."

Mackenzie took the lantern, sweeping its light over the mangled bodies
of several sheep, torn limb from limb, scattered about as if they had
been the center of an explosion.

"A murderin' old stock-killer!" said Dad, panting, out of breath.

Mackenzie held up the light, looking the old man in the face.

"A grizzly don't hop a horse and lope off, and I never met one yet
that wore boots," said he. He swung the light near the ground again,
pointing to the trampled footprints among the mangled carcasses.

"It was a man!" said Dad, in terrified amazement. "Tore 'em apart like
they was rabbits!" He looked up, his weathered face white, his eyes
staring. "It takes--it takes--Lord! Do you know how much muscle it
takes to tear a sheep up that a-way?"

Mackenzie did not reply. He stood, turning a bloody heap of wool and
torn flesh with his foot, stunned by this unexampled excess of human
ferocity.

Dad recovered from his amazement presently, bent and studied the
trampled ground.

"I ain't so sure," he said. "Them looks like man's tracks, but a
grizzly's got a foot like a nigger, and one of them big fellers makes
a noise like a lopin' horse when he tears off through the bresh. I
tell you, John, no human man that ever lived could take a live sheep
and tear it up that a-way!"

"All right, then; it was a bear," Mackenzie said, not disposed to
argue the matter, for argument would not change what he knew to be a
fact, nor yet convince Dad Frazer against his reason and experience.
But Mackenzie knew that they were the footprints of a man, and that
the noise of the creature running away from camp was the noise of a
galloping horse.

CHAPTER IX

A TWO-GUN MAN

"You know, John, if a man's goin' to be a sheepman, John, he's got to
keep awake day and n