o
deeply, indeed, that it appeared he rather would have died than have
Mackenzie succeed in his defense.

Reid stopped where Hector Hall's hat had fallen. He turned it with his
foot, looking down at it, and presently picked it up. He made as if
he would put it on, but did not, and passed on carrying it in his
hand.

Mackenzie wondered what his plans might be, and whether he ought to go
after him and try to put their differences out of the way. Reid did
not stop at the wagon. He continued on to the top of the hill, defiant
of the man who rode away with Hall's body, his pistol again on his
thigh. There he stood looking this way and that a little while, as a
man looks who is undecided of his road. Then he passed on. When
Mackenzie reached the spot where Reid had stood, he was no longer in
sight.

Mackenzie thought Reid might be going deliberately to seek the battle
from which he had been obliged so lately to flee unarmed. Mackenzie
waited on the eminence, listening for the sounds of fight, ready to
hasten to Reid's assistance if he should stand in need of it again. So
the last hour of the afternoon passed. Mackenzie turned back to his
flock at length, believing Reid had gone on his way to the freedom he
had weighed against his inheritance only a few hours before.

It was just as well then as another day, Mackenzie reflected, as he
turned the sheep from their grazing. Not that he had meant to drive
Reid out of the country when he told him to go, but it was just as
well. Soon or late it would have to come to a show-down between them,
and one would have been compelled to leave.

But how would Sullivan view this abrupt ending of the half-million-dollar
penance, and the loss of three years' unpaid labor? Not kindly,
certainly. It probably would result in the collapse of all Mackenzie's
own calculations as well, and the blighting of his sheep-wealth dreams.

And that day he had slain a man in defense of Earl Reid's life, as
Reid had killed in defense of his.

From the first hour he set his feet on the trail to the sheep country
this culmination of his adventures had been shaping. Little by little
it had been building, the aggression pressed upon him, his attitude
all along one of defense. Perhaps when trouble is heading for a man,
as this was inevitably directed, the best thing to do is rush to meet
it with a club in the hand.

That was the way it looked to John Mackenzie that evening. Trouble
will put things over on