A radiant sky was smiling down upon the forest-clad hills. Somewhere away to the West the sun was lolling just above the horizon. For the moment its glory was lost behind the ranging hills with their garments of every shade of green. There was no cloud to be seen anywhere from the purpling distance of the snow-capped mountains in the East, to the western splendour of the summer sunset.
Cy Liskard was squatting over a camp fire that was built just outside his log home on the hillside. Nearby his dogs were pursuing some evening pastime that appealed to their savage natures. Maybe it was play, but the snarls that were so frequently accompanied by the fierce snapping of ivory-shod jaws suggested the narrow line dividing it from canine warfare.
His ponies were beyond the fence of a small, roughly constructed corral, and they stood close up to it at a point most nearly approaching the home of the man it was their life’s burden to serve. Their shaggy heads, still rough with the remains of a winter coat, which neglect had left clinging to them, were thrust over the log rail. They were clearly waiting with equine patience the long overdue attention to which they had full right.
The man disregarded their appeal; he was in a mood to disregard any duty that might have been his. Even the claims of his own stomach were forgotten in the consuming depths of impotent rage that were driving him. His expressionless eyes gazed out through the smudge of smoke which lolled heavily upon the still, fresh mountain air. His view was over the range of his gold workings, which lay down below upon the wide bank of the creek. But for all, his gaze was for the thing which held him to his mountain solitude, his thought was left all unconcerned for it.
He had returned from Beacon only that noon. The long trail had claimed him for days, as the condition of his fleshless ponies testified. He had driven hard and mercilessly, for there was that behind him which impelled him in a fashion he had never known before. But the thing which had driven him had no relation to fear, or, if it had, his apprehension was utterly lost in the rage that smouldered behind his pale eyes. He had driven his ponies to their last extremity out of an almost crazy desire for speed and movement that he might reach the security of his home for the sole purpose of nursing his fierce desire for swift vengeance upon Ivor McLagan.