the floor. It was something for a schoolteacher,
counted a mild and childlike man.

It had been many a year since Mackenzie had mixed in a fight, and the
best that had gone before was nothing more than a harmless spat
compared to this. The marvel of it was how he had developed this
quality of defense in inactivity. There must have been some
psychological undercurrent carrying strength and skill to him through
all the years of his romantic imaginings; the spirits of old heroes of
that land must have lent him their counsel and might in that desperate
battle with the Norse flockmaster.

Adventure was not dead out of the land, it seemed, although this was a
rather sordid and ignoble brand. It had descended to base levels among
base men who lived with sheep and thought only of sheep-riches.
Violence among such men as Swan Carlson was merely violence, with none
of the picturesque embellishments of the olden days when men slung
pistols with a challenge and a hail, in those swift battles where
skill was all, bestial strength nothing.

Mackenzie hoped to find Tim Sullivan different from the general run of
sheep-rich men. There must be some of the spice of romance in a man
who had the wide reputation of Tim Sullivan, and who was the hero of
so many tales of success.

It was Mackenzie's hope that this encounter with the wild sheepman
might turn out to his profit with Tim Sullivan. He always had believed
that he should win fortune fighting if it ever fell to his portion at
all. This brush with Swan Carlson confirmed his old belief. If there
was any good luck for him in the sheep country, it would come to him
through a fight,

Mackenzie considered these things as he marched on away from Swan
Carlson's homestead, thinking the safe plan would be to put several
miles between himself and that place before lying down to rest. At
dawn Swan would be out after him with a gun, more than likely.
Mackenzie had nothing of the sort in his slender equipment. Imagine a
man going into the sheep country carrying a gun! The gun days of the
West were done; he had seen only one cowboy wearing one in his four
years at Jasper.

Past midnight Mackenzie came to a little valley where somebody had
been cutting hay. The late-risen moon discovered the little mounds of
hay thick around him, the aroma of the curing herbage was blowing to
him an invitation to stop and sleep. Let Swan Carlson come when he
might, that was the place prepared for the travele