tion, Dan had started home. He had n't shot until sunset, as he had planned. The rear guard of the waterfowl—hardy birds who spent most of the winter in the Lake region and which had come south in the great flight that had been completed some weeks before—had passed in hundreds over his blind, and he had obtained the limit he had set upon himself—ten drake mallards—by four o'clock in the afternoon. If he had stayed to shoot longer, his birds would have been wasted. So he started back along a certain winding trail that led through the thickets and which would, if followed long enough, carry him to the road that led to the valleys.
He rode one of Lennox's cattle ponies, the only piece of horse-flesh that Bill had not taken to the valleys when he had driven down the livestock. She was a pretty bay, a spirited, 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 before sunset he passed the only human habitation between the marsh and Lennox's house,—the cabin that had been recently occupied by Landy Hildreth.
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
