t about all in), but mind you keep to the windward all the
time. I don't want you spotted."

Cavanagh understood the necessity for these precautions, but first of all
came his own need of food and rest. Turning his tired horse to grass, he
stretched himself along a grassy, sunny cranny between the rocks, and
there ate and afterward slept, while all about him the lambs called and
the conies whined.

He was awakened by a pebble tossed upon him, and when he arose, stiff and
sore, but feeling stronger and in better temper, the sun was wearing low.
Setting to work at his task, he threw the loose rock out of a hollow in
the ledge near by, and to this rude sepulchre Wetherford dragged the dead
man, refusing all aid, and there piled a cairn of rocks above his grave.

The ranger was deeply moved by the pitiless contrast of the scene and the
drama. The sun was still shining warmly aslant the heavens; the wind,
crisp and sweet, wandered by on laggard wings, the conies cried from the
ledges; the lambs were calling--and in the midst of it one tattered
fragment of humanity was heaping the iron earth upon another, stricken,
perhaps, by the same dread disease.

Wetherford himself paused to moralize. "I suppose that chap has a mother
somewhere who is wondering where her boy is. This isn't exactly Christian
burial, but it's all he'll get, I reckon; for whether it was smallpox or
plain fever, nobody's going to uselessly resurrect him. Even the coyotes
will fight shy of his meat."

Nevertheless, the ranger took a hand at the end and rolled some huge
bowlders upon the grave, to insure the wolves' defeat.

"Now burn the bedding," he commanded--"the whole camp has got to go--and
your clothing, too, after we get down the hill."

"What will we do with the sheep?"

"Drive them over the divide and leave them."

All these things Wetherford did, and leaving the camp in ashes behind him,
Cavanagh drove the sheep before him on his homeward way. As night fell,
the dog, at his command, rounded them up and put them to bed, and the men
went on down the valley, leaving the brave brute on guard, pathetic figure
of faithful guardianship.

"It hurts me to desert you, old fellow," called the ranger, looking back,
"but there's no help for it. I'll come up in the morning and bring you
some biscuit."

The collie seemed to understand. He waggled his tail and whined, as though
struggling to express his wonder and pain, and Ross, moved to pity,
called: