elephantine, some boldly leonine, unquestionably Red Perris must be
likened to the cat tribe. To some the comparison would have seemed
most opportune, having seen him in restless action; but the same idea
might have come to one who saw him lying prone on a certain hilltop in
the western foothills of the Eagle mountains, unmoving hour by hour,
his rifle shoved out before him among the dead grasses, his chin
resting on the back of his folded hands, and always his attentive eyes
roved from point to point over the landscape below him. A cat lies
passive in this manner half a day, watching the gopher hole.

It was not the first or the second time he had spent the afternoon in
this place. For nearly a week he had given the better part of every
day to the vigil on this hilltop. All this for very good reasons.
During ten days after his first coming to the ranch he tried the
ordinary methods of hunting down wild horses, and with a carefully
posted string of half a dozen horses, he twice attempted to run down
the outlaw, but he had never come within more than the most distant
and hazardous rifle range. To be sure he had fired some dozen shots
during the pursuits but they had been random efforts at times when the
red chestnut was flashing off in the distance, fairly walking away
from the best mounts the hunter could procure. Having logically
determined that it was not in the power of horse flesh burdened
with the weight of a rider to come within striking distance of the
stallion, Red Jim Perris passed from action to quiescence. If he could
not outrun Alcatraz he would outwait him.

First he studied the habits of the new king of the Eagle Mountains,
day by day following the trail. It was not hard to distinguish after
he had once measured the mighty stride of Alcatraz in full gallop and
he came to know to a hair's breath the distances which the chestnut