Just as The Eena predicted, Con proved an able fisherman and excellent “trailsman.”  He could stay in the saddle for hours, could go without food or sleep, had the endurance of a horse and the good nature of a big romping kitten.  He was generous and unselfish, but with a spontaneous English temper that blazed forth whenever he saw the weak wronged or the timid terrified.

“I’ll never make a really good hunter, Eena,” he regretted one day, “I can’t bear to gallop on a big cayuse after a little scared jack rabbit, and run him down and kill him when he’s so little and doesn’t try to fight me with his claws or fangs like a lynx will do.  It’s not a fair deal.”

“But when one camps many leagues from the ranch house, one must eat,” observed the Indian.

“Yes, that’s the pity of it,” agreed Con, “but it seems to me a poor sort of game to play at.”

Nevertheless he did his part towards providing food when they all went camping up in the timberline in August, and frequently he, Banty and the Indian would go out by themselves on a three or four days’ expedition away from the main camp, “grubbing” themselves and living the lives of semi-savages.  And it was upon one of these adventures that the three got separated in some way, Banty and the Indian reaching camp a little before sunset, and waiting in vain for Con’s appearance while the hours slipped by, and they called and shouted, and fired innumerable shots thinking to guide him campwards, while they little knew that all the gold in British Columbia could not have brought Con’s feet to enter that little tent for many days to come; that with all his newborn affection for Banty, Con would make him most unwelcome should chance bring them face to face again.

II

It happened so strangely, so quickly, that Con gave himself no time to think.  They had been trailing a caribou, just for sport, for the hunting season was closed, and Con struck into the wrong trail on the return journey.  Thinking to overtake the others, he worked his cayuse hard, galloping on and on until the hills and canyons began to look unfamiliar.  Feeling that he was lost, he fired his gun, once, twice.  Far down in the valley came a response, so he loped down the winding trail until he suddenly came upon a little shack surrounded by fields of alfalfa, and a few cattle grazing along a creek.

As he neared the ranch a shot was fired from the shack window, he jerked his animal up shortly, and was about to wheel and gallop back, when a pitiful groan reached his ears, and a man’s voice begged:  “Water, water, for the love of heaven bring me water!” Then, unfamiliar as Con was to Western life, instinct told him that the revolver shot was meant to call him to some one’s aid.

“Coming,” he shouted, slipping from his saddle, “buck up, I’ll fetch water,” but before he could enter the door, a terrible, repulsive face was lifted to the window, and the man almost shrieked: