would be healed or healing. They iwould pass inspection; be shipped and sold, and nothing would be left to him. Nothing, that is to say, but Little Dog.
He even resented the posses, the machinery of the law. Let them keep out; this was between him and the Indian. Each would kill the other on sight, and knew it. He was convinced that Little Dog was hiding in the mountains.
After a time he had stopped thinking, to all practical purposes. He had become a killing machine, moving rapidly but automatically; riding to the top of some steep slope, surveying the country, going on. When he climbed through a cañon his revolver was in his hand. At night he lay where he happened to be; sometimes he got himself a meal of sorts, but he had no hours for food, no hours for anything. The day was divided into two parts; darkness and light. He resented the darkness fiercely, because it stopped the search.
One day, finding that his foot was again too swollen for his boot, he took off the boot and threw it away. Then he went back and got it again, for fear it would put Little Dog on guard. Another time he came across an old mining camp back in the range. He circled it carefully, watching, and was astonished to see Gus, crutches and all, come out of a cabin and go to the creek for water. The thing puzzled him. He rode down and confronted Gus at the door of his shack. He was vaguely suspicious, but Gus met him with a cheerful smile.
"What are you doing here, Gus?"
"Me? I yust come to shoot deer. That's all I'm good for now. Shootin'."
"You're sure it's deer?"
And Gus chuckled.
"Don't you worry about me, Tom. I'll send you a haunch, when I get it."
The Swede wanted him to spend the night, but Tom remembered the night in the cabin and grimly refused. Not that he gave a damn for his life now, but he had work to do first. He mounted his horse again, and Gus stood by, still grinning.
