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Show yi voncEi Am Lit , oftiie Ml Ml TCDJSxCTlc Ifli H I, f Gsrjgj&jrMSOJW , iii ! of the murder liad been removed. Only one ' explanation presented Itself. Cranston had come before him and searched the body himself. Dan looked about for tracks, and he was considerably surprised to find the blurred, indistinct imprint of., a shoe other than his own. lie hadn't tlm least hope that the tracks themselves would offer a clue to a detective. They were (oo dim for that. The surprising sur-prising fact was that since the murder mur-der had been committed immediately before the fall rnins, the waler had not completely washed them out. The only possibility remaining was that Cranston had returned to the body after the week's rainfall. The track had been dimmed by the lighter rains that had fallen since. But yet it was entirely to be expected ex-pected that the examination of the body would be an afterthought on Cranston's part. . Possibly at first his only thought was to- kill and, following follow-ing the prompting that has sent so many murderers to the gallows, he had afterward returned to the scene of the crime to destroy any clues he might have left and to search the body for any evidence against the arson ring. Dan's next thought was to follow along the trail and find Cranston's ambush. Of course it would be In the direction of the settlement from the body, as the bullet had entered from the front. lie found it hard to believe that Hildreth had fallen in the exact spot where the body lay. Men journeying jour-neying at night keep to the trail, and the white heap itself was fully forty he turned up the trail toward nil- I dreth's cabin. It might be possible, he thought, that Hildreth had left j some of his testimony perhaps such rudely scrawled letters as Cranston had written him in some forgotten drawer in his hut. It was but a short walk for Dan's hardened legs, and he made It before mldafternoon. The search Itself was wholly without with-out result. Rut because he had time to think as he climbed the ridge, because be-cause as lie strode along beneath that wintry sky he had a chance to consider con-sider every detail of the case, he was able to start out on a new tack when, ,1ust before sunset, he returned to the body. This new train of thought had as its basis that Cranston's shot had not been deadly at once; that, wounded, wound-ed, Hildreth had himself crawled into the thickets where Whisperfoot had found him. And that meant that he had to enlarge his search for such documents as Hildreth had carried to include all the territory between the trail and the location of the body. It was possibly a distance of forty feet, and getting down on his hands and knees, Dan looked for any break In the shrubbery that would Indicate the path that the wounded Hildreth had taken. And It was ten minutes well rewarded, as far as clearing up certain details of the crime. His senses had been trained and sharpened sharp-ened by his months in the wilderness, and he was able to back-track the wounded man from the skeleton clear to the clearing on the trail where he had first fallen. But as no cluss presented pre-sented themselves, he started to turn home. He walked twelve feet, then turned back. Out of the corner of his eye It seemed to him that he had caught a flash of white, near the end of a great, dead log beside the path that the wounaed Hildreth had taken. For a moment he searched In vain. Evidently Evident-ly a yellow. leaf had deceived him. Once more he retraced his steps, trying try-ing to find the position from which his eye had caught the glimpse of white. Then he dived straight for the rotten end of the log. (TO BE CONTINUED.) CHAPTER IV. Continued. 15 But the terrible fangs were never to know her white flesh. Some one had come between. There was no chance to shoot: Whisperfoot and the girl were too near together for that. Hut one course remained ; and there was not even time to count the cost. In this most terrible moment of Dun Failing's life, there was not even an instant's hesitation. He did net know that Whisperfoot was wounded. He saw the beast creeping forward in the weird dancing light of the fallen lantern, lan-tern, and he only knew that his iiesh. not hers, must resist its rendingtal-ons. rendingtal-ons. Nothlngselse mattered. No other oth-er consideration could come between. It was the test; and Dan's instincts prompted coolly and well. He leaped with all his strength. The cougar, hounded Into his arms, not upon the prone body of the girl. And she opened open-ed her eyes trf hear a curious thrashing thrash-ing in th pir.e needles, a strange grim battle that, as the lantern flashed out, was hidden in the darkness. And that battle, in the far reaches of the Divide, passed into a legend. It was the tale of how Dan Failing, his gun knocked from his hands as he met the cougar's leap, with his own unaided arms kept the life-giving breath from the animal's lungs' and killed him in the pine needles. Claw and fang and the frenzy of death could not matter at all. Thus Failing established Jefore all men his right to the name he bore. And thus be paid one of his debts-life debts-life for a life, as the code of the forest has always decreed arid in the fire of danger and pain his metal was tried- and proven. BOOK THREE The Payment. . CHAPTER I. Bill rode away to the valleys the last of the live stock the horse that Dan had ridden to Snowbird's defense. Nothing had been' heard of Landy Hildreth, who used to live on the trail to the marsh, and both Lennox and his daughter wondered why. There were also- certain officials who had begun to be curious. As yet, Dan had told no one of the grim find he diad made on his return from hunting. And he 'would have found It an extremely ex-tremely difficult fact to explain.,. It all went back to those inner springs of motive that' few men can see clearly enough within themselves to recognize. Even the first day, when he lay burning from his wounds, he worked out his own explanation in regard re-gard to the murder mystery. He hadn't the slightest doubt but that Cranston had killed Hildreth to prevent pre-vent his testimony from reaching the courts below. Of course, any other member of the arson ring of hillmen might have been the murderer; yet Dan was inclined to believe that Cranston, Cran-ston, the lender of the gang, usually preferred to do such dangerous vork as this himself. If it were true, somewhere some-where on that tree-clad ridge clues would be left. Moreover, it was wholly possible that the written testimony Hildreth must have gathered had never nev-er been found or destroyed. Dan didn't , want the aid of the courts to find these clues. He wanted to work out the case himself. It resolved itself it-self into a simple matter of vengeance; Dan had his debt to pay, and he wanted want-ed to bring Cranston to ruin by his own hand alone. While It was true that he took rather ra-ther more than the casual Interest that most citizens feel in the destruction destruc-tion of the forest by wanton fire, and had an actual sense of duty to do all that he could to stop the activities of the arson ring, his motives, stripped and bare, were really not utilitarian. He had no particular Interest In Hil-dreth's Hil-dreth's case. He remembered him slm- A Strange, Grim Battle. feet back from the trail in the thickets. thick-ets. Perhaps Cranston had dragged it there to hide it from the sight of anyone any-one who might pass along the lonely trail again ; and it was a remote possibility pos-sibility that Whisperfoot, coming In the night, had tugged it into the thickets thick-ets for dreadful purposes of his own. Likely the shot was fired when Hildreth Hil-dreth was In an open place on the trail ; and Dan searched for the ambush am-bush with this conclusion in mind. He walked back, looking for a thicket from which such a spot would be visible. vis-ible. Something over fifty yards down he found it; and he knew it by the' empty brass rifle cartridge that lay half buried in the wet leaves. The shell was of the same caliber as Cranston's rifle. Dan's hand shook as h put it in his pocket. Encouraged by this amazing find, The Lennox home, In the wilderness of the Umpqua Divide, looked rather like an emergency hospital for the first few days after Dan's fight with Whisperfoot. Whis-perfoot. Its old sounds of laughter and talk w-ere almost entirely lacking. Two injured men and a girl recovering from a nervous collapse do not tend toward cheer. But the natural sturdiness of all three quickly came to their aid. Of course Lennox had been severely injured in-jured by the falling log and many weeks would pass before he would be able to walk again. He could sit up for short periods, however; had the partial use of one arm ; and could propel pro-pel himself after the first few weeks at a snail's pace through the rooms In a rude wheel chair that Bill's ingenuity inge-nuity had contrived. The great livid scratches that Dan bore on his body quickly began to heal ; and before a week was done he began to venture forth on the hills again. Snowbird had remained in bed for three days; then she, had hopped out one bright afternoon, swearing never to go back into it again. Evidently the crisp, fall air of the mountains had been a nerve tonic for them all. Of course thera had been medical attention. A doctjr and a nurse had motored up the day after the accident; the physician had set the bones and departed, and the nurse remained for a week, to see the grizzled mountaineer mountain-eer well on the way of convalescence. But It was an anxious wait, and Lennox's Len-nox's car was kept constantly in readiness readi-ness to speed her away in case ths snows should start. At last she had left him in Snowbird's hands, and Bill had driven her back to the lettlements In his father's car. The die was now cast as to whether or not Dan and the remainder of the family should winter In the mountain. The snow clouds deepened every day, the frost was ever heavier' in the dawns, and the road would surely remain open only a few days more. Once more tho three seemingly had the Divide all to themselves. Bert Cranston had evidently deserted his cabin and was working a trap-line on the Umpqua side. The rangers left the little station, all danger of fire past,, and went down to their offices In the federal building of one of the little cities below. Because he was worse than useless in the deep snows that were sure to come, one uf the ranch hands thK had driven up with ply as .one of Cranston's disreputable gang, a poacner and a fire bug' himself. him-self. When all is said and done, it remained really a personal Issue between be-tween Dan and Cranston. And personal per-sonal issues are frowned upon by law and society. Civilization has toiled up from the darkness In a great measure meas-ure to get away from them.' But human hu-man nature remains distressingly the same, and Dan's desire o pay his debt was a distinctly human emotion. Sometime Some-time a breed will live upon the earth that can get clear away from personal vengeance from . that age-old code of the hills that demands a blow for a blow and a life for a life but the time is not yet. And after all, by all the standards of men as men, not as read in idealistic philosophies, Dan's debt was entirely real. By the light held high by his ancestors, he could not turn his other cheek. Just as soon as he was able he went back to the scene of the murder. He didn't know when the snow would come to cover what evidence there was. It threatened every hour. Every Ev-ery wind promised It. The air was sharp and cold, and no drop of rain could fall through it without crystallizing crystal-lizing into snow. The deer had all gone and the burrowing people had sought their holes. The bees worked no more in the winter flowers. Of all the greater forest creatures only the wolves and the bear remained the former because their fear of men 'would not permit them to go down to the lower hills, and the latter because be-cause of his knowledge that when food became scarce he could always burrow in the snow. No bear goes into hibernation from choice. Wise old bachelor, he much prefers to keep just as late hours as he can as long as the eating places in the berry thickets thick-ets remain open. The cougars had all gone down with the deer, the migratory mi-gratory birds had departed, and even the squirrels were In hiding. The scene didn't offer much In the way of clues. Of the body itself only a white heap of bones remained, for many and terrible had been the agents at work upon them. The clothes, however, how-ever, particularly the coat, were practically prac-tically intact. Gripping himself, Dan thrust his fingers into its pockets, then into the pockets of the shirt and trousers.. trous-ers.. All paper fiat would in any way serve to Identify the murdered man, or tell what Ws purpose had been In journeying down the trail the night . |