horse or
drove was different; and once in many attempts they met with success.

A favorite method originated by the Stewarts was to find a water hole
frequented by the band of horses or the stallion wanted, and to build
round this hole a corral with an opening for the horses to get in. Then
the hunters would watch the trap at night, and if the horses went in to
drink, a gate was closed across the opening.

Another method of the Stewarts was to trail a coveted horse up on a mesa
or highland, places which seldom had more than one trail of ascent and
descent, and there block the escape, and cut lines of cedars, into which
the quarry was run till captured. Still another method, discovered by
accident, was to shoot a horse lightly in the neck and sting him. This
last, called creasing, was seldom successful, and for that matter in
any method ten times as many horses were killed as captured.

Lin Slone helped the Stewarts in their own way, but he had no especial
liking for their tricks. Perhaps a few remarkable captures of remarkable
horses had spoiled Slone. He was always trying what the brothers claimed
to be impossible. He was a fearless rider, but he had the fault of
saving his mount, and to kill a wild horse was a tragedy for him. He
would much rather have hunted alone, and he had been alone on the trail
of the stallion Wildfire when the Stewarts had joined him.

* * * * *

Lin Slone awoke next morning and rolled out of his blanket at his usual
early hour. But he was not early enough to say good-by to the Stewarts.
They were gone.

The fact surprised him and somehow relieved him. They had left him more
than his share of the outfit, and perhaps that was why they had slipped
off before dawn. They knew him well enough to know that he would not
have accepted it. Besides, perhaps they felt a little humiliation at
abandoning a chase which he chose to keep up. Anyway, they were gone,
apparently without breakfast.

The morning was clear, cool, with the air dark like that before a storm,
and in the east, over the steely wall of stone, shone a redness growing
brighter.

Slone looked away to the west, down the trail taken by his comrades,
but he saw nothing moving against that cedar-dotted waste.

"Good-by," he said, and he spoke as if he was saying good-by to more
than comrades.

"I reckon I won't see Sevier Village soon again--an' maybe never," he
soliloquized.

There was no one to regr