and for the first time Angus heard of
Braden's dying declaration that Gavin French was responsible for the
killing of Adam Mackay. But beyond the bare statement there were no
details. Braden's end had come before he had been able to amplify it.

"Do you suppose it's so?" Turkey queried. "Or was he just trying to hang
something on Gavin?"

Angus did not know. There were times, in the years, when he had been
puzzled by Gavin's peculiar regard for him. There had always been
something in the big man's eyes which he could not read, something
veiled, inscrutable. He alone of the brothers had been reluctant to take
up their father's quarrel with Angus. This might be the reason.

"If he killed father," said Turkey grimly, "he's got it coming to him.
You take Blake, and I'll take him."

"There is nothing to go on but what Braden said," Angus pointed out. But
he thought of his father's dying words. His father had not wished to lay
a feud upon him. It fitted.

At dawn, acting on Bush's theory, they headed north for the pass. When
they struck it there were fresh footprints, many of them, heading into
the hills.

"That's them," said Bush. "Hey, Dave?"

"Sure," said Rennie. "It ain't Injuns. These horses is shod."

A mountain pass is not a road. It merely represents the only practicable
way of winning through the jumbled world of hills. Railway construction
in the mountains follows the pass, but persons who admire scenery from
vestibuled coaches know nothing of the old pass of the pack-trail, the
binding brush, the fallen timber, the slides, the swift creeks, the
gulches, the precipices to which the trail must cling.

The trail itself--the original trail--is invariably the line of least
resistance. It proceeds on the theory that it is easier to go around
than through or over. If traveling on the other side of a creek is
easier it crosses. When conditions are reversed, it comes back. It
wanders with apparent aimlessness, but eventually gets there, at the
cost of time, but without much work. To natural obstacles the wild
animals and the equally wild men who first trod the passes opposed
patience and time, of which they had great store. Later the pioneer
brought the ax. He slashed out the brush, so that he and his might get
by without trouble; but he followed the windings of the trail.

The pass upon which the pursuit entered was a good trail. It led
gradually and almost imperceptibly upward, following the general course
of