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Show llfli ljCML JM arson ring. Yet It was curious that no word had been heard of him. As far as Dan knew, neither the courts nor the forest service had taken ac tion. lie hurried on. four miles farther. The trail entered the heavy thickets, and he had to ride slowly. It was as wild a section as could be found on the whole Divide. And just as lie came to a iitrle cleared space, throe strange, dark birds thing up on wide-spreading wide-spreading wings. lie knew tia:n at once. All mountaineers moun-taineers come to know them before their days are done. They were the buzzards, the followers of the dead. And what they were doing in the thicket just , beside the trail. Dan did not dare to think. Of course they might be feeding on the body of a deer, mortally wounded by some hunter. He resolved to ride by without investigating. He glanced up. The buzzards were hovering in the sky. evidently waiting for him to pass. Then, mostlv to relieve a curious curi-ous sense of discomfort in his own mind, he stopped his horse and dismounted. dis-mounted. The twilight had started to fall, and already its first grayness had begun lo soften the harder lines of forest and hill. And after his first glance at 'he curious white heap beside the trail, be was extremely glad that it had. But there was no chance to mistake mis-take the thing. The elements and much more terrible agents had each wrought their change, yet there was grisly evidence in plenty to show what had occurred. Dan didn't doubt for an .instant but that it was the skeleton skele-ton of Landy Hildreth. He forced himself to go nearer. The buzzards were almost done, and one white bone from the shoulder gave unmistakable un-mistakable evidence of the passage of a bullet. What had happened thereafter, there-after, he could only guess. He got hack quickly on his horse. He understood, now. why nothing had been heard of the evidence that Landy Hildreth was to turn over to the courts as to the activities of the arson ring. Some one probably Pert Cranston Cran-ston himself had been waiting on the trail. Others had come thereafter. And his lips set in his resolve to let this murder measure in the debt he had to pay Cranston. The Lennox house seemed very silent si-lent when, almost an hour later, he turned his horse- into the corral. He had rather hoped that Snowbird would be at the door to meet him. The darkness dark-ness had just fallen, and all the lamps were lighted. He strode info the living liv-ing room, warming his hands an instant in-stant beside the fireplace. The fire needed fuel. It bad evidently beer, neglected .for nearly an hour. CHAPTER IV. 13 Snowbird felt very glad of her intimate, inti-mate, accurate knowledge of the whole region of the Divide. In her infancy in-fancy the winding trails had been her playground, and long ago she had acquired ac-quired the mountaineer's sixth sense for traversing them at night. She had need of that knowledge now. She slipped into her free, swinging stride; and the last beams from the windows of the house were soon lost in the' pines behind her. It was one of those silent, breathless nights with which no mountaineer is entirely unacquainted, unacquaint-ed, and for a long time the only sound she could hear was her own soft tramp' in the pine needles. The trees themselves were motionless. That peculiar sound, not greatly different from that of running water which the wind often makes in the pine tops, was entirely lacking. Not that she could be deceived by it as stories tell that certain tenderfeet, dying of thirst in the barren hills, have been. But she always liked the sound ; and she missed it especially tonight. . She felt that if she would stop to listen, there would be many faint sounds In the thickets those little hushed noises that the wild things make to remind night-wanderers of their presence. But she did not in the least care to hear these sounds. They do not tend toward peace of mind on a long walk over the ridges. The wilderness began at once. Whatever Influence toward civilization civiliza-tion her father's house had brought to the wilds chopped off as beneath a blade in the first fringe of pines. This Is altogether characteristic of the Oregon Ore-gon forests. They are much too big and too old to be tamed in any large degree by the presence of one house. a heavy foot, and again and again she heard the brush crushing and rustling as something passed through. Sometimes, when the trail was covered cov-ered with soft pine needles, it was practically indistinguishable. The animal was approximately one hundred feet behind. It wasn't a wolf, she thought. The wolves ran in packs this season, and except in winter wtre more afraid of human beings than any other living creature. It wasn't a lynx one of those curiosity-devoured little lit-tle felines that will mew all day on a trail and never dare come near. It was much too large for a lynx. The feet fell too solidly. There were no dogs in the mountains to follow at heel ; and she had no desire whatever to meet Shag, the faithful hybrid that used to be her guardian in the hills. For Shag had gone to his well-deserved rest several seasons before. Two other possibilities remained. One was that this follower was a human being, the other that it was a cougar. Ordinarily a human being is much more potentially dangerous to a woman wom-an in the hills at night than a cougar. A cougar is an abject coward and some men are not. But Snowbird felt herself entirely capable of handling any human foes. They would have no advantage over her; they would have no purpose in killing from ambush; and she trusted to her own marksmanship marks-manship implicitly. While it is an extremely ex-tremely difficult thing to shoot at a cougar leaping from the thicket, a tall man standing on a trail -presents an easy target. Besides, she had a vague sense of discomfort that if this animal were a cougar, he wasn't acting true to form.' He was altogether too bold. The animal on the trail behind her was taking no care at all to go silently. silent-ly. He was simply pit-patting along. Then he called Snowbird. His voice echoed In the silent room, unanswered. He called again, then went to look for her. At the door of the dining room he found the note that sl:e had left for him. ' It told, very slmplv and plainly, that her father, lay Injured in his bed. and he was to remain and do what he could for him. She had gone for help to the ranger station. lie leaped through the rooms to Lennox's Len-nox's door, then went in on tiptoe. And the first thing he saw when he opened the door was the grizzled man's gray face on the pillow. "You're home early, Pan," he said. "How many did you get?" It was entirely characteristic. Shaggy old Woof is too proud to howl over the wounds that lay him low, and (h's eray old bear on the bed bad partaken par-taken of his spirit. "flood Lord." Dan answered. "How badly are you hurt?" "Not so bad but that I'm sorry that Snowbird has gone drifting twelve miles over the hills for help. It's dark as pitch." And it was. Dan could scarcely make out the outline of the somber ridges against the sky. They talked on, and their subject was whether Dan should remain to take care of Lennox, or whether he should attempt to overtake Snowbird with the horse. Of course the girl had ordered him to stay. Lennox, on the other band. said, that Dan could not help him in the least, and desired him to follow the girl. "I'm not often anxious about her." he said slowly. "But It Is a long walk through the wildest part of the Divide. Di-vide. Some way T can't bar accidents tonight. I don't like to think of her on those monnlains alone." And remembering what bad lain beside be-side the trail, Dan felt the same. He bud heard, lone a:ro. that nny animal that ntirc tasted human flesh loses Its fear n' men and 's never lo be trusted nuain. Some wild animal that still hnn'ed the. ridges had. In the last month, done just that thine. He left the room and walked softly to the di-or. No one knew this fact better than Lennox himself who, in a hard winter win-ter of four years before, had looked out of his window to find the wolf pack ranged in a hungry circle about his house. Within two hundred yards after she had passed through her father's fa-ther's door, she was perfectly, aware that the wild was stirring and throbbing throb-bing with life about her. At first she tried very hard t,o think of other things. But the attempt wasn't entirely en-tirely a success. And before she had covered the first of the twelve miles, the sounds that from the first had been knocking at the door of her consciousness con-sciousness began to make an entrance. If a person lies still long enough, he can usually hear his heart beating and the flow of his blood in his arteries. Any sound, no matter' how faint, will make itself heard at last. It was this way with a very peculiar noise that crept up through the silence from the trail behind her. She wouldn't give it any heed at first. But In a very little while indued, it grew so insistent that she could no longer disregard it. Some living creature was trotting along on the trail behind, keeping approximately ap-proximately the same distance between be-tween them. Foregoing any attempt to ignore it, she set her cool young mind to thinking think-ing what manner of beast it might be. Its step was not greatly different from that of a large dog except possibly a dog would have made slightly more noise. Yet she couldn't even be sure of this basic premise, because this animal, whatever it might be, had at first seemingly moved with utmost caution, but now took less care with its stepi than is customary with the wild denizens of the woods. A wolf, for instance, can simply drift when it wishes, and the silence of a cougar is a name. Yet unless her pursuer were n dog, which seemed entirely unlikely. It was certainly one of these two. She would have liked very much to believe the step was that of Old Wolf the hear, suddenly curious as to what this dim light of hers might he; but she couldn't bring herself to accept the lie. Woof, except when wounded or i She Heard the Steps Again. wholly at his ease. He acted as if the fear that men have instilled in his breed was somehow missing. And that Is why she instinctively tried to hurry on the trail. The step kept pace. For a long mile, up a barren ridge, she beard every step it made. Then, as the brush closed deeper around her, she couldn't hear it at all. She hurried on, straining to the silence. No. the sound was stopped. Could it he that the animal, fearful at last, had turned from her trail? And then for the first time a gasp that was not irreatlv different from a despairing de-spairing sob caught at her throat. She heard the steps again, and they were in the thickets just beside her. cornered. Is the most amiable creature crea-ture in the Oregon woods, and it would give her almost a sense of security se-curity to have him waddling along behind her. The wolves and cougar, remembering the arms of Woof, would not be nearly so carious. Rut .mfor-tunntely, .mfor-tunntely, the black bear hud never done such a thins.' in the memory of man, and if be bad. he would have made six times as much noise. He can go fairly softly when he is stalking, stalk-ing, but when he Is obliged to trot as be would be obliged to do to keep up with a swift-walking human figure he cracks twigs like a rolling log. She had the Impression that the animal ani-mal behind bad been passing like smoke at first, but wasn't taking the trouble to do It now. The sound was a soft pat-pat on the trail sometimes entirely olift'eratod hut nl'vjivs recurring when she began t,, !e:;rvo ti-iit she had only fancied ;"'esem-e. Fo.'.ioiimes a twig, rain-':!k''d rain-':!k''d :! Mtglt it whs. cracked beneath The nl'ht lay silent and mvs'p-ious over the f'vido. H stood liieniiiLT. The cirl had stjf'ed oily an hour before, be-fore, ard it wi's :;n-":c!y that she ere'd ivo trverd more thnn two miles of 'he o 'mil in that time. .Vi'tioiiLTh tli" horse ordinarily did not 'limb n bill mre swifMy than a hn-niin hn-niin he:iur. h" didn't doubt but that he eon'd ovet'ahP her before she went three miles f'i:!hfr. Hot where lay his duty with the injured man in "he bouse or wftli the daughter on her errand of merry in the darkness? Tl en flip inatter was derided for him. So fnint that it only whispered at the d'Tn. ou:-t frnn:ers of henring. a sound came pricking through the d;:rkne-. Only his months of listen- j ing to the faint sounds of ;he forest, and the inrrfdiMe silenre of the night ! enabled him to hear It at all. Rut he knew what it was. the report of a pistol. Snowbird had mot an enemy i in the 'darkness. I (TO BE CONTINUED.) j Two hours before Snowbird had left the house, on her long tramp to the ranger station. Pan had started home. He hadn't shot until sunset, as he had planned. He rode one of Lennox's carlo ponies, ti e only pie-'p of horse tie. ii that r.ill had not taken to the ailevs when lie had driven down the live stock. She was a pretty bay. a spirited, spir-ited, high-bred mare that could whip about on her hind legs at the touch of the rein on her neck. She made good time along the trail. And an hour he-fore he-fore sunset he passed the only human habitation between the marsh and Lennox's house the cabin thnt had been recently occupied by Landy 11 -dreih. He glanced at the place as he passed and saw that It was deserted. No smell of wood smoke remained in the air. Evidently Landy had cone down to the settlements with h;s precious testimony in regard to the |