He did not choose to live in the ranch because of Hervey and because it was too far removed from the scene of action.  Instead, he selected a shack stumbling with age on the west slope of the Eagle Mountains.  From his door many a time, with his glass, he picked out the shining form of Alcatraz and the mares in the distance; he had even been able to follow the maneuvers of the outlaw on several occasions when Hervey and his men pursued with relays of horses, and on the whole he felt that the site was such a position as a good general must prefer, being behind the lines but with a view which enabled him to survey the whole action.  His quarters consisted of a single room while a shed leaned against the back wall with one space for a horse, the other portion of the shed being used as a mow for hay and grain.

It was the beginning of the long, still time of the mountain twilight when Red Perris climbed to the clearing in which the cabin stood.  Ordinarily he would have set about preparing supper before the coming of the dark, but now he watered and saddled his cowpony, a durable little buckskin, and with a touch of the spurs sent him at a pitching gallop down the slope.

It was not a kindly thing to do but Red Perris was not a kindly man with horses and though he knew that it is hard on the shoulders of even a mustang to be ridden downhill rapidly, he kept on with unabated speed until he broke onto the well-established trail which led to the Jordan house.  Then a second touch of the spurs brought the pony close to a full gallop.  In fact, Perris was riding against time, for he guessed that Lew Hervey, after quitting the trail of Alcatraz, would veer straight towards the home place and there lay before Marianne an account of how the chosen hunter had allowed the stallion to slip through his hands.  This, together with the fact that his week was up was enough to bring about his discharge, for he had seen sufficient of the girl to guess her fiery temper and he knew that she must have been harshly tried during the last weeks by his lack of success and by the continual sneers and mockery which the foreman and his followers had directed at the imported horse-catcher.  Before sunset of that day he would have welcomed his discharge; now it loomed before him as the greatest of all possible catastrophes.

Soon he was swinging down an easy road with the tilled lands on one side, the pastures and broad ranges on the other, and even in the dim light he guessed the wealth which the estate was capable of producing.  Even the deliberate mismanagement of Hervey was barely able to create a deficit and Perris grew hot when he thought of the foreman.  His own dislikes found swift expression and were as swiftly forgotten; that a grown ranchman could nourish resentment towards a girl, and that because she was attempting to take charge of her own property, was well beyond his comprehension.  For he had that quality which is common to all born leaders:  he understood in what good and faithful service should consist; with this addition, that he was far more fitted to command than to be commanded.