He limped along, skirting the lower spurs of the Shoshones, and soon
came on that horrid smell that he had known for years, but never
followed up or understood. It was right in his road, and he traced it
to a small, barren ravine that was strewn over with skeletons and dark
objects, and Wahb, as he passed, smelled a smell of many different
animals, and knew by its quality that they were lying dead in this
treeless, grassless hollow. For there was a cleft in the rocks at the
upper end, whence poured a deadly gas; invisible but heavy, it filled
the little gulch like a brimming poison bowl, and at the lower end there
was a steady overflow. But Wahb knew only that the air that poured from
it as he passed made him dizzy and sleepy, and repelled him, so that
he got quickly away from it and was glad once more to breathe the piny
wind. Once Wahb decided to retreat, it was all too easy to do so next
time; and the result worked double disaster. For, since the big stranger
was allowed possession of the sulphur-spring, Wahb felt that he would
rather not go there. Sometimes when he came across the traces of his
foe, a spurt of his old courage would come back. He would rumble that
thunder-growl as of old, and go painfully lumbering along the trail
to settle the thing right then and there. But he never overtook the
mysterious giant, and his rheumatism, growing worse now that he was
barred from the cure, soon made him daily less capable of either running
or fighting.

Sometimes Wahb would sense his foe's approach when he was in a bad place
for fighting, and, without really running, he would yield to a wish to
be on a better footing, where he would have a fair chance. This better
footing never led him nearer the enemy, for it is well known that the
one awaiting has the advantage.

Some days Wahb felt so ill that it would have been madness to have