"Perhaps it would be better that I should find another hiding-place for
you, until I can dispose of that carcass so that it will not draw dogs
after the wolves, and men after THEM. Besides, your friend the sheriff
will probably remember the bear when he remembers anything, and try to
get on its track again."

"He's a conceited fool," broke in Teresa in a high voice, with a slight
return of her old fury, "or he'd have guessed where that shot came from;
and," she added in a lower tone, looking down at her limp and nerveless
fingers, "he wouldn't have let a poor, weak, nervous wretch like me get
away."

"But his deputy may put two and two together, and connect your escape
with it."

Teresa's eyes flashed. "It would be like the dog, just to save his
pride, to swear it was an ambush of my friends, and that he was
overpowered by numbers. Oh yes! I see it all!" she almost screamed,
lashing herself into a rage at the bare contemplation of this diminution
of her glory. "That's the dirty lie he tells everywhere, and is telling
now."

She stamped her feet and glanced savagely around, as if at any risk to
proclaim the falsehood. Low turned his impassive, truthful face towards
her.

"Sheriff Dunn," he began gravely, "is a politician, and a fool when he
takes to the trail as a hunter of man or beast. But he is not a coward
nor a liar. Your chances would be better if he were--if he laid your
escape to an ambush of your friends, than if his pride held you alone