Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait.
Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore. Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin. Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind him; but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead.
Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it fell, and there select his point of waiting.
As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pass. A small diversity it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly came the reaction, the chill. To lie there in his present condition meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path.
Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were shining, the man never felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his heart.
Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not wishing to show himself, he kicked vigorously into space as he lay. At intervals he made inspection of the east, looking out over the glitter of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow was moving,—was coming toward him.
Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was within three hundred yards, until it passed by to the north, did Ben make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of Bad River.
Again two hours of unbroken monotony passed. The sun had almost reached the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east. For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged at his heart.
Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the snow-crust marked his every foot-fall.
And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost brown. Involuntarily the massive chin had moved forward; but that was all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but beneath,—God! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he waited so impassively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated pulse-beats. Like the continuous shifting scenes in a panorama, the incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approach a bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift passage of angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever. Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse—a noble thoroughbred. What varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass. With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger tightened, almost—