enly. He had liked Fred
Thurman, and what Lorraine had told him went much deeper than she knew.
He wanted to bring them into the open where he could fight with some
show of winning.

"I'll git Bill Warfield yet--and git him right," was the gist of his
musings. "He's bound to show his head, give him time enough. Him and
his killers can't always keep under cover. Let 'em come at me about
that fence! It's on my land--the Quirt's got a right to fence every
foot of land that belong to 'em."

All the way over the ridge and across the flat and up the steep, narrow
road along the edge of Spirit Canyon, Brit dwelt upon the probable
moves of the Sawtooth. They would wait, he thought, until the fence
was completed and they had made a trail around through the lava rocks.
They would not risk any move at present; they would wait and tacitly
accept the fence, or pretend to accept it, as a natural inconvenience.
But Brit did not deceive himself that they would remain passive. That
it had been "hands off the Quirt" he did not know, but attributed the
Quirt's immunity to careful habits and the fact that they had never
come to the point where their interests actually clashed with the
Sawtooth.

It never occurred to him therefore that he was slated for an accident
that day if the details could be conveniently arranged.

It was a long trail to Sugar Spring, and from there up Spirit Canyon
the climb was so tedious and steep that Brit took a full hour for the
trip, resting the team often because they were soft from the new grass
diet and sweated easily. They lost none of their spirit, however, and
when the road was steepest nagged at each other with head-shakings and
bared teeth, and ducked against each other in pretended fright at every
unusual rock or bush.

At the top he was forced to drive a full half mile beyond the piled
posts to a flat large enough to turn around. All this took time,
especially since Caroline, the brown mare, would rather travel ten
miles straight ahead than go backward ten feet. Brit was obliged to
"take it out of her" with the rein ends and his full repertoire of
opprobrious epithets before he could cramp the wagon and head them down
the trail again.

At the post pile he unhitched the team for safety's sake and tied them
to trees, where he fed them a little grain in nose bags. He was
absorbed now in his work and thought no more about the Sawtooth. He
fastened the log chain to the rear wheels to br