e she caught Colter's
gray gleam of gaze on her, and she did not like it.

"I'll ride up an' say good-by to Sprague," she called to Colter.

"Shore y'u won't do nothin' of the kind," he called back.

There was authority in his tone that angered Ellen, and something else
which inhibited her anger. What was there about Colter with which she
must reckon? The other two Texans laughed aloud, to be suddenly
silenced by Colter's harsh and lowered curses. Ellen walked out of
hearing and sat upon a log, where she remained until Colter hailed her.

"Get up an' ride," he called.

Ellen complied with this order and, riding up behind the three mounted
men, she soon found herself leaving what for years had been her home.
Not once did she look back. She hoped she would never see the squalid,
bare pretension of a ranch again.

Colter and the other riders drove the pack horses across the meadow,
off of the trails, and up the slope into the forest. Not very long did
it take Ellen to see that Colter's object was to hide their tracks. He
zigzagged through the forest, avoiding the bare spots of dust, the dry,
sun-baked flats of clay where water lay in spring, and he chose the
grassy, open glades, the long, pine-needle matted aisles. Ellen rode
at their heels and it pleased her to watch for their tracks. Colter
manifestly had been long practiced in this game of hiding his trail,
and he showed the skill of a rustler. But Ellen was not convinced that
he could ever elude a real woodsman. Not improbably, however, Colter
was only aiming to leave a trail difficult to follow and which would
allow him and his confederates ample time to forge ahead of pursuers.
Ellen could not accept a certainty of pursuit. Yet Colter must have
expected it, and Springer and Wells also, for they had a dark,
sinister, furtive demeanor that strangely contrasted with the cool,
easy manner habitual to them.

They were not seeking the level routes of the forest land, that was
sure. They rode straight across the thick-timbered ridge down into
another canyon, up out of that, and across rough, rocky bluffs, and
down again. These riders headed a little to the northwest and every
mile brought them into wilder, more rugged country, until Ellen, losing
count of canyons and ridges, had no idea where she was. No stop was
made at noon to rest the laboring, sweating pack animals.

Under circumstances where pleasure might have been possible Ellen would
have reveled