s
after leaving camp. Probably that point was the height of a divide.
There were banks of snow in some of the hollows on the north side.
Evidently the snow had very recently melted, and it was evident also
that the depth of snow through here had been fully ten feet, judging
from the mutilation of the juniper trees where the deer, standing on the
hard, frozen crust, had browsed upon the branches.

The quiet of the forest thrilled Slone. And the only movement was the
occasional gray flash of a deer or coyote across a glade. No birds of
any species crossed Slone's sight. He came, presently, upon a lion track
in the trail, made probably a day before. Slone grew curious about it,
seeing how it held, as he was holding, to Wildfire's tracks. After a
mile or so he made sure the lion had been trailing the stallion, and for
a second he felt a cold contraction of his heart. Already he loved
Wildfire, and by virtue of all this toil of travel considered the wild
horse his property.

"No lion could ever get close to Wildfire," he soliloquized, with a
short laugh. Of that he was absolutely certain.

The sun rose, melting the frost, and a breath of warm air, laden with
the scent of pine, moved heavily under the huge, yellow trees. Slone
passed a point where the remains of an old camp fire and a pile of deer
antlers were further proof that Indians visited this plateau to hunt.
From this camp broader, more deeply defined trails led away to the south
and east. Slone kept to the east trail, in which Wildfire's tracks and
those of the lion showed clearly. It was about the middle of the
forenoon when the tracks of the stallion and lion left the trail to lead
up a little draw where grass grew thick. Slone followed, reading the
signs of Wildfire's progress, and the action of his pursuer, as well as
if he had seen them. Here the stallion had plowed into a snow bank,
eating a hole two feet deep; then he had grazed around a little; then on
and on; there his splendid tracks were deep in the soft earth. Slone
knew what to expect when the track of the lion veered from those of the
horse, and he followed the lion tracks. The ground was soft from the
late melting of snow, and Nagger sunk deep. The lion left a plain track.
Here he stole steadily along; there he left many tracks at a point where
he might have halted to make sure of his scent. He was circling on the
trail of the stallion, with cunning intent of ambush. The end of this
slow, careful st