"A month. He's overdue near that. He always comes down to winter at
Fort o' Comfort, with his string of half-breeds, an' Injuns, an' the
dogs."

"No chance to get him at the Fort?"

"It ain't so certain. They'd guess what I was doin' there. It's surer
here. He's got to come down the trail, an' when I spot him by the
Juniper clump"--he jerked an arm towards a spot almost a mile farther up
the valley--"I kin scoot up the underbrush a bit and git him--plumb. I
could do it from here, sure, but I don't want no mistake. Once only,
jest one shot, that's all I want, Sinnet."

He bit off a small piece of tobacco from a black plug Sinnet offered him,
and chewed it with nervous fierceness, his eyebrows working, as he looked
at the other eagerly. Deadly as his purpose was, and grim and unvarying
as his vigil had been, the loneliness had told on him, and he had grown
hungry for a human face and human companionship. Why Sinnet had come he
had not thought to inquire. Why Sinnet should be going north instead of
south had not occurred to him. He only realised that Sinnet was not the
man he was waiting for with murder in his heart; and all that mattered to
him in life was the coming of his victim down the trail. He had welcomed
Sinnet with a sullen eagerness, and had told him in short, detached
sentences the dark story of a wrong and a waiting revenge, which brought
a slight flush to Sinnet's pale face and awakened a curious light in his
eyes.

"Is that your shack--that where you shake down?" Sinnet said, pointing
towards a lean-to in the fir trees to the right.