South of this was the Half-moon Prairie, east the broken land that stretched toward the north fork of the Flathead, and north of them their pertinacious and deadly foe. The Sheep were in doubt now, and as old Krag sought to sneak back by the lower benches of the east slope, he heard a "crack" and a stinging something touched one horn and tore the hair from his shoulder.

The touch of a rifle-ball on the horn of a Ram has a more or less stunning effect, and Krag, dazed for a moment, gave the signal which in our speech is "Everyone for himself now," and so the band was scattered.

Some went this way and some that, running more or less openly. But Scotty's one thought was old Krag. He heeded no other, and when the Ram made straight away eastward down the hill, Scotty again took up his trail and cursed and gasped as he followed.

The Flathead River was only a few miles away. The Ram crossed on the ice and keeping the roughest ground, turning when the wind turned, he travelled all day northeastward, with Scotty steadily behind. On the fifth day they passed near Terry's Lake. Scotty knew the ground. The Ram was going east and would soon run into a lot of lumber camps; then turn he must, for the region was a box-cañon; there was only one way out. Scotty quit the trail and crossing northward to this one defile, down which the Ram must go, he waited. The West, the Chinook wind had been rising for an hour or more, the one damp wind of the Rockies, the Snow Wind of the Hills, and as it rose the flakes began to fly. In half an hour more it was a blinding snowstorm. Things twenty yards away were lost to view. But it did not last, the heaviest of it was over in a few minutes and in two hours the skies were clear again. Scotty waited another hour, but seeing nothing he left his post and searched about for sign; and found it, too, a dimpling row of tracks much hidden by the recent snow, but clear in one place under a ledge. The Ram had passed unseen, had given him the slip, saved by the storm wind and the snow.

Oh, Chinook! Mother West-wind! that brings the showers of spring and the snows of winter; that makes the grass

grow on these great rolling uplands; that sustains the grass and all flesh that the grass sustains; that carved these uplands themselves, as well as made all things that live upon them, are you only a puff of air, or are you, as Greek and Indian both alike have taught, a something better, a living, thinking thing, that first creates then loves and guards its own? Why did you come that day and hold your muffler about the eyes of the wolfish human brute, if it were not that you meant he should not see or harm your splendid dear one as he passed.

And was there not purpose in the meeting of these very two, that you brought about long years ago, the day the Ram was born?

III

So

Now, Scotty thought there must be an object in the Ram's bold dash for the east side of the Flathead, and that object must be to reach the hills around Kintla Lake, on which he was well known and had many times been seen. He might keep west all day to-day, while the Chinook blew, but if the wind changed in the night he would surely turn eastward. Scotty made no further attempt to keep the trail, or to make the west point of the Kintla Range, but cut straight northward over the divide toward the lake. The wind did change in the night. And next day, as Scotty scanned the vast expanse between him and the lake, he saw a moving speck below. He quickly got out of sight, then ran to intercept the traveller. But when he got to the spot he aimed at, and cautiously peered, there, 500 yards away, on the next ridge, he stood the famous Ram. Each in plain view of the other.

Scotty stood for a minute and gazed in silence. Then, "Wal, old Krag, ye kin see the skull and cross-bones on my gun; I'm Death on yer track; ye can't shake me off; at any price, I mean to have them horns. And here's for luck." Then he raised the rifle and fired, but the distance was great. The Ram stood till he saw the puff of smoke, then moved quickly to one side, and the snow was tossed by the ball not far from his former stand.

The Ram turned and made eastward, skirting the rugged southern shore of the

lake, making for the main divide, and Scotty, left far behind for a time, trudged steadily, surely, behind him. For, added to his tireless strength, was the Saxon understreak of brutish grit, of senseless, pigdogged pertinacity. The inflexible determination that still sticks to its purpose long after sense, reason, and honor have abandoned the attempt; that blinds its owner to his own defeat and makes him, even when he is downed, still feebly strike-yes! spend his final mite of strength in madly girding at his conqueror, whose quick response he knows will be to wipe him out. It was on, on, all day. Then camp for the night and up again in the morning. Sometimes the trail was easy to follow, sometimes blotted out by newfallen snow. But day after day they went; sometimes Scotty was in sight of the prize that he pertinaciously was hunting, but never very near. The Ram seemed to have learned that 500 yards was the farthest range of the rifle, and allowed the man to come up to that, the safety limit. After a time it seemed as though he much preferred to have him there, for then he knew where he was. One time Scotty stole a march, and would have had a close shot had not the fateful West Wind borne the taint, and Krag was warned in time, but this was in the first month of that dogged, fearful following. After awhile the Ram was never out of sight.

Why did he not fly far away and baffle the hunter by his speed? Because he must feed. The man had his dried venison and chocolate, enough for many days, and when they were gone he could shoot a hare or a grouse, hastily cook it and travel all day on that, but the Ram required hours to seek the scanty grass under the snow. The long pursuit was telling on him. His eye was blazing bright as ever, his shapely corded limbs as certain in their stride, but his belly was pinching up and hunger-weakening hunger-was joining with his other foe.

For five long weeks the chase went on, and the only respite to the Gunder Ram was when some snow-storm from the west would interpose its veil.

Then came two weeks when they were daily in sight of each other. In the morning Scotty, rising wolf-like from his

frosty lair, would call out, "Come, Krag, time we wuz a-movin'," and the Ram on the distant ridge would stamp defiantly, then setting his nose to the wind move on, now fast, now slow, but keeping ever the safe 500 yards or more ahead. When Scotty sat down to rest the Ram would graze. If Scotty hid the Ram would run in alarm to some place where near approach unseen would be impossible. If Scotty remained still for some time the Ram would watch him intently and as still as himself. Thus they went on, day after day, till ten eventless weeks dragged slowly by. A singular feeling had grown up between the two. The Ram became so used to the sleuthhound on his track that he accepted him as an inevitable, almost a necessary evil, and one day, when Scotty rose and scanned the northern distance for the Ram, he heard the long snort far behind, and turning, he saw old Krag impatiently waiting. The wind had changed and Krag had changed his route to suit. One day after their morning's start Scotty had a difficult two hours in crossing a stream over which old Krag had leaped. When he did reach the other side he heard a snort, and looked around to find that the Ram had come back to see what was keeping him.

Oh, Krag! Oh, Gunder Ram! Why do you make terms with such a foe implacable. Why play with Death? Have all the hundred warnings of the Mother Wind been sent in vain? Keep on, keep on; do your best that she may save you yet, but make no terms. Remember that the snow, which ought to save, may yet betray.

IV

THUS in the winter all the Chief Mountain was traversed. The Kootenay Rockies, spur by spur, right up to the Crow's Nest Pass, then westward in the face of the White Wind, the indomitable pair turned. their steps, west and south, to the MacDonald Range. And onward still, till the Galtom Range was reached. Day by day the same old mechanical following, two dark moving specks on the great expanse of snow. Many a time their trail was crossed by that of other Sheep and other game. Once they met a party

of miners who knew of Scotty and his hunt, and chaffed him now, but he stared blankly, heeded them not and went on. Many a time the Ram sought to hide his fateful footprints in the wake of some passing herd. But Scotty was not to be balked, his purpose had become his nature; all puzzles he worked out, and now there were fewer interruptions of the chase, for the snow-storms seemed to cease, the White Wind held aloof, and Nature offered no rebuke.

On and on, still the same scant halfmile apart and on them both the hands of Time and Death seemed laid. Both were growing hollow-eyed and were gaunter every day. The man's hair had bleached since he set out on this insane pursuit, and the head and shoulders of the Ram were grizzling; only his jewel eyes and his splendid sweeping horns were the same, and borne as proudly as when first the chase began.

on.

Each morning the man would rise stiff, half-frozen, and gaunt, but dogged as a very hound infernal, and shout across and Krag would respond, and springing into view from his own couch, the chase went Till in the third month, they crossed again from Galtom to Tobacco Range, then east back to Gunder Peak-the Ram and the sleuth inexorable, upon his trail behind him. Here, on the birthplace of the Ram, they sat one morning, at rest. The Ram on one ridge; Scotty 600 yards away on the next. For twelve long weeks the Ram had led him through the snow, through ten long mountain-ranges-five hundred rugged miles.

And now they were back to their starting-point. Each with his lifetime wasted by one-half in that brief span. Scotty sat down and lit his pipe. The Ram made haste to graze. As long as the man stayed there in view the Ram would keep that ridge. Scotty knew this well; a hundred times he had proved it. Then as he sat and smoked, some evil spirit entered in and sketched a cunning plot. He emptied his pipe deliberately, put it away, then cut some rods of the low creeping birch behind him; he gathered some stones, and the great Ram watched afar. The man moved to the edge of the ridge and with sticks, some stones, and what clothing he could spare, he made a dummy of himself.

Then keeping exactly behind it, he crawled backward over the ledge and disappeared. After an hour of crawling and stalking he came up on a ridge behind the Ram.

There he stood, majestic as a bull, graceful as a deer, with horns that rolled around his brow like thunder-clouds about a peak. He was gazing intently on the dummy, wondering why his follower was so long still. Scotty was nearly 300 yards away. Behind the Ram were some low rocks, but between was open snow. Scotty lay down and threw snow on his own back till he was all whitened, then set out to crawl 200 yards, watching the great Ram's head and coming on as fast as he dared. Still old Krag stared at the dummy; sometimes impatiently stamping. Once he looked about sharply, and once he would have seen that deadly crawler in the snow, but that his horn itself, his great right horn, must interpose its breadth between his eye and his foe, and so his last small chance of escape was gone. Nearer, nearer to the sheltering rocks there crawled the Evil One. Then, safely reaching them at last, he rested, a scant halfhundred yards away. For the first time in his life he saw the famous horns quite close. He saw the great, broad shoulders, the curving neck, still massive, though the mark of famine was on all. He saw this splendid fellow-creature blow the hot breath of life from his nostrils, vibrant in the sun; and he even got a glimpse of the life-light in those glowing amber eyes, but he slowly raised the gun.

Oh, Mother White Wind, only blow! Let not this be. Is all your power offset? Are not a million idle tons of snow on every peak awaiting? And one, just one, will do; a single flying wreath of snow will save him yet. The noblest living thing on all these hills, must he be stricken down to glut the basest lust of man?

But never day was calmer. Sometimes the mountain Magpies warn their friends; but not a bird was anywhere in view and still the Gunder Ram was spellbound watching that enemy, immovable across the dip.

Up went the gun that never faileddirected by the eye that never erred. But the hand that had never trembled taking twenty human lives, now shook as though in fear.

Two natures? Yes.

But the hand grew steady. The hunter's face was calm and hard. The rifle rang, and Scotty-hid his head. For the familiar "crack!" had sounded as it never did before. He heard a rattling on the distant stones, then a long-drawn "snoof!" But he neither looked nor moved. Two minutes later all was still, and he timidly raised his head. Was he gone? or what? There on the snow lay a great graybrown form, and at one end, like a twinnecked hydra coiling, were the horns, the wonderful horns, the sculptured record of the splendid life of a splendid creature, his fifteen years of life made visible at once. There were the points, much worn now, that once had won his Lamb-days' fight. There were the years of robust growth, each long in measure of that growth; here was that year of sickness; there the splinter on the fifth year's ring, which notched his first love-fight. The points had now come round, and on them, could we but have seen, were the lives of many Gray Wolves that had sought his life. And so the rings read on, the living record

VOL. XXX.-6

of a life whose very preciousness had brought it to a sudden end.

The golden chain acr the web of white was broken for its gold.

Scotty walked slowly over, and gazed in sullen silence, not at the dear-bought horns, but at the calm yellow eyes, unclosed and yet undimmed by death. Stone cold was he. He did not understand himself. He did not know that this was the sudden drop after the long, long slope up which he had been forcing himself for months. He sat down twenty yards away, with his back to the horns. He put a quid of tobacco in his mouth. But his mouth was dry. He spat it out again. He did not know what he himself felt. Words played but little part in his life, and his lips uttered only a torrent of horrid bl phemies, his only emotional outburst.

A long silence, then, "I'd give it back to him if I could."

He stared at the distance. His eyes fell on the coat he had left, and, realizing that he was cold, he walked across and gathered up his things. Then he returned

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