He lay with his hands folded behind his head, thinking.  They were willing enough to go together to do this difficult thing.  But had they not lifted together at the stump and failed to do the thing which he had done single-handed?  That thought stuck in his memory and would not out.  And suppose he, Bull, were to accomplish this great feat and return to the shack?  Would not Bill Campbell feel doubly repaid for the living he had furnished for his nephew?  More than once the grim old man had cursed the luck that saddled him with a stupid incubus.  But the curses would turn to compliments if Bull left this little man, this catlike and dangerous fighter, this Pete Reeve, dead on the trail.

Not that all this was clear in the mind of Bull, but he felt something like a command pushing him on that difficult south trail, through the storm and the snow that would now be piling above the timberline.  He waited until there was no noise but the snoring of the sleepers and the rush and roar of the wind which continually set something stirring in the room.  These sounds served to cover effectually any noises he made as he felt about and made up his small pack.  His old canvas coat, his most treasured article of apparel, he took down from the hook where it accumulated dust from month to month.  His ancient, secondhand cartridge belt with the antiquated revolver he removed from another hook—­he had never been given enough ammunition to become a shot of any quality—­and he pushed quickly into the night.

The moment he was through the door, the storm caught him in the face a stinging blow, and the rush of snow chilled his skin.  That stinging blow steadied to a blast.  It was a tremendous, heavy fall.  The wind had scoured the drifts from the clearing and was already banking them around the little house.  In the morning, as like as not, the boys would have to dig their way out.

He went straight to the horse shed for his snowshoes that hung on the wall there.  Ordinary snowshoes would not endure his ponderous weight, and Uncle Bill Campbell had fashioned these himself, heavy and uncomfortable articles, but capable of enduring the strain.

Fumbling his way down behind the stalls, Bill’s roan lashed out at him with savage heels; but Maggie, the old draft horse, whinnied softly, greeting that familiar heavy step.  He tied the snowshoes on his back and then stopped for a last word to Maggie.  She raised her head and dropped it clumsily on his shoulder.  She was among the little, agile mountain ponies what he was among men, and their bulk had rendered each of them more or less helpless.  There seemed to be a mute understanding between them, and it was never more apparent than when Maggie whinnied gently in his ear.  He stroked her big, bony head, a lump forming in his throat.  If the bullets of little Pete Reeve dropped him in some far-off trail, the old-broken-down horse would be the only living creature that would mourn for him.