"I guess I could hear myself a mile away," the trooper said. "Still, that horse of yours is making row enough for a squadron." Gallwey did not contradict him, for, as it happened, the horse just then blundered into a little watercourse and plunged down the slope of it with a great smashing of undergrowth. Gallwey contrived to avoid a fall. With some noise they scrambled up the other side, though this time Trooper Standish made an effort to control his indignation. "I guess you would report me if I told you what I think of you," he said. Still, they made the coulee without mishap, and the trooper checked his horse as they rode into it. It opened up before them, a black and shadowy hollow, with little streamlets trickling through. Dim trees rolled up its sides, blurred masses against the sky above. Save the soft splash of the stream, no sound broke the stillness. "Nobody here, anyway," he said. "We'll push on for the herder's hut. It was built when the Scotchman who had Lister's ranch put sheep on the mountain, but the timber wolves got most of them, and he let up. It's 'bout the only place in this country where there are any wolves, and the agent didn't think it worth while to mention it when he gave his lease out. I guess you don't have timber wolves in Scotland." Gallwey said they didn't. He made no further observations, for his horse fell into the stream with a loud splash. After this they pushed on up the coulee as silently as they could, until Trooper Standish pulled his horse up. "We're here," he said. "That looks like the hut. We'll get down and hitch up the horses at the back of it." Gallwey made out a shadowy mass among the birches, and swung himself out of the saddle as his comrade did. It was not what Sergeant Grier would have done, but Gallwey knew nothing of vedette duty, and Standish was very young. He had hitched his bridle round a branch when the latter turned to him. "We may as well go in and make ourselves comfortable," he said. "If the whisky boys come down this way, it's a sure thing that we'll hear them." They turned back towards the door of the hut, Gallwey a few paces behind the trooper, who thrust the door open. Gallwey could barely see him, for they were in the deep shadow of the trees. Just after Standish strolled in, there came the sound of a scuffle out of the darkness. Then there was a crash, a cry, and the thud of a heavy fall. Gallwey stood fumbling with his pistol-holster, which, as it happened, was buttoned down. The button fitted tightly, and he was clumsy in his haste. As he tore at it, he heard a sound behind him, and was swinging round when a pair of sinewy arms were wound round him. He struggled furiously, reaching back with one foot for his assailant's leg, and succeeded in so far that he and the unseen man came down heavily together. The other man, however, was uppermost, and when somebody else came running up, Gallwey lay still.