d, hoarsely, and, stooping, slid
away quickly into the undergrowth.

Sinnet followed, keeping near him, neither speaking. For a half mile they
hastened on, and now and then Buckmaster drew aside the bushes, and looked
up the valley, to keep Greevy and his _bois brulees_ in his eye. Just so
had he and his son and Sinnet stalked the wapiti and the red deer along
these mountains; but this was a man that Buckmaster was stalking now, with
none of the joy of the sport which had been his since a lad; only the
malice of the avenger. The lust of a mountain feud was on him; he was
pursuing the price of blood.

At last Buckmaster stopped at a ledge of rock just above the trail. Greevy
would pass below, within three hundred yards of his rifle. He turned to
Sinnet with cold and savage eyes. "You go back," he said. "It's my
business. I don't want you to see. You don't want to see, then you won't
know, and you won't need to lie. You said that the man that killed Clint
ought to die. He's going to die, but it's none o' your business. I want to
be alone. In a minute he'll be where I kin git him--plumb. You go,
Sinnet--right off. It's my business."

There was a strange, desperate look in Sinnet's face; it was as hard as
stone, but his eyes had a light of battle in them.

"It's my business right enough, Buck," he said, "and you're not going to
kill Greevy. That girl of his has lost her lover, your boy. It's broke her
heart almost, and there's no use making her an orphan too. She can't stand
it. She's had enough. You leave her father alone--you hear me, let up!" He
stepped between Buckmaster and the ledge of rock from which the
mountaineer was to take aim.

There was a terrible look in Buckmaster's face. He raised his
single-barrelled rifle, as though he would shoot Sinnet; but, at the
moment, he remembered that a shot would warn Greevy, and that he might not
have time to reload. He laid his rifle against a tree swiftly.

"Git away from here," he said, with a strange rattle in his throat. "Git
away quick; he'll be down past here in a minute."

Sinnet pulled himself together as he saw Buckmaster snatch at a great
clasp-knife in his belt. He jumped and caught Buckmaster's wrist in a grip
like a vise.

"Greevy didn't kill him, Buck," he said. But the mountaineer was gone mad,
and did not grasp the meaning of the words. He twined his left arm round
the neck of Sinnet, and the struggle began, he fighting to free Sinnet's
hand from his w