hung on the back wall of the room. A wooden trough was disclosed hanging
under a ledge of rock, and water dripped into it softly, slowly.

"Almost providential, that rock," remarked Sinnet. "You've got your well
at your back door. Food--but you can't go far, and keep your eye on the
Bend too," he nodded towards the door, beyond which lay the frost-touched
valley in the early morning light of autumn.

"Plenty of black squirrels and pigeons come here on account of the
springs like this one, and I get 'em with a bow and arrow. I didn't call
myself Robin Hood and Daniel Boone not for nothin' when I was knee-high
to a grasshopper." He drew from a rough cupboard some cold game, and put
it on the table, with some scones and a pannikin of water. Then he
brought out a small jug of whiskey and placed it beside his visitor.
They began to eat.

"How d'ye cook without fire?" asked Sinnet. "Fire's all right at
nights. He'd never camp 'twixt here an' Juniper Bend at night. The next
camp's six miles north from here. He'd only come down the valley
daytimes. I studied it 'all out, and it's a dead sure thing. From
daylight till dusk I'm on to him. I got the trail in my eye."

He showed his teeth like a wild dog, as his look swept the valley. There
was something almost revolting in his concentrated ferocity.

Sinnet's eyes half closed as he watched the mountaineer, and the long,
scraggy hands and whipcord neck seemed to interest him greatly. He
looked at his own slim brown hands with a half smile, and it was almost
as cruel as the laugh of the other. Yet it had, too, a knowledge and an
understanding which gave it humanity.