leaves. When the sun rose red
Jean was again on the trail of Queen. By a frosty-ferned brook, where
water tinkled and ran clear as air and cold as ice, Jean quenched his
thirst, leaning on a stone that showed drops of blood. Queen, too, had
to quench his thirst. What good, what help, Jean wondered, could the
cold, sweet, granite water, so dear to woodsmen and wild creatures, do
this wounded, hunted rustler? Why did he not wait in the open to fight
and face the death he had meted? Where was that splendid and terrible
daring of the gunman? Queen's love of life dragged him on and on, hour
by hour, through the pine groves and spruce woods, through the oak
swales and aspen glades, up and down the rocky gorges, around the
windfalls and over the rotting logs.

The time came when Queen tried no more ambush. He gave up trying to
trap his pursuer by lying in wait. He gave up trying to conceal his
tracks. He grew stronger or, in desperation, increased his energy, so
that he redoubled his progress through the wilderness. That, at best,
would count only a few miles a day. And he began to circle to the
northwest, back toward the deep canyon where Blaisdell and Bill Isbel
had reached the end of their trails. Queen had evidently left his
comrades, had lone-handed it in his last fight, but was now trying to
get back to them. Somewhere in these wild, deep forest brakes the rest
of the Jorth faction had found a hiding place. Jean let Queen lead him
there.

Ellen Jorth would be with them. Jean had seen her. It had been his
shot that killed Colter's horse. And he had withheld further fire
because Colter had dragged the girl behind him, protecting his body
with hers. Sooner or later Jean would come upon their camp. She would
be there. The thought of her dark beauty, wasted in wantonness upon
these rustlers, added a deadly rage to the blood lust and righteous
wrath of his vengeance. Let her again flaunt her degradation in his
face and, by the God she had forsaken, he would kill her, and so end
the race of Jorths!

Another night fell, dark and cold, without starlight. The wind moaned
in the forest. Shepp was restless. He sniffed the air. There was a
step on his trail. Again a mournful, eager, wild, and hungry wolf cry
broke the silence. It was deep and low, like that of a baying hound,
but infinitely wilder. Shepp strained to get away. During the night,
while Jean slept, he managed to chew the cowhide leash ap