Standing upon a rocky ledge a hundred feet below the summit of the ridge she watched another scene, not the quiet picture of Nature's benevolent hand, but a discord in keeping, yet out of all harmony with it, in which she blended as naturally and completely as she had in the first. It was a race between a little fleet-footed coyote and half a dozen mongrel staghounds; they came toward her, a twisting, turning streak, led by a desperate gray animal, making, to all appearance, for the very rocks upon which she stood. Not ten yards behind the coyote a lank, slate-colored hound, more gray than stag, was closing in inch by inch. The coyote was doing nobly, so was the mongrel hound, thought Hope, who watched the race with breathless interest. The yellow dogs were falling behind, losing ground at every step, but the blue mongrel was spurting. On they came--on--on, and the girl in a tremor of excitement lay flat down upon the rocks and watched them. Her heart went out to the dog. She had seen it kicked around the yard at Harris', noticed it as it slunk about for its scanty food, and now how nobly it was doing! She wondered if any of her thoroughbreds at home could do as well, and thought not. The others were straggling far behind, but now the blue hound was but two lengths from the coyote, and its chances seemed small, but on a sudden it turned and made direct for the rocks from which the girl watched. That instant the dog saw failure, and the light of determination, of victory, died from its eyes. That same instant the coyote saw salvation from a quick end in the narrow crevices of rock so near, and the next it lay stone dead with a bullet through its brain. The gaunt hound bounded over its body, then stopped short, bewildered, and eyed its fallen foe. Then with a savage snarl he seized it by the throat as if to utterly demolish it, but the girl called him off, and somehow, in his dog's heart, he understood that the game was not his. CHAPTER XIII In the deepening shadows of the evening Hope and the breed boy rode rapidly toward the camp, hungry for the long-delayed supper. "Dan staked me to his share of the coyotes, so you may have them," said the girl. "Seven pups an' the old one!" exclaimed Dave; "that's better'n huntin' chickens." "And supper just now is better than anything," sighed Hope to herself. The boy heard, but did not reply, his mind being busy with a mathematical problem. "How much is eight times four dollars, an' seventy-five cents for the hide?" he asked. "That's a little example I'll let you work out for yourself," replied his teacher. "You're awfully stupid in arithmetic, Dave, and it's too bad, for in cases of coyotes' bounty and so forth it would be a pretty good thing for you to know. You hurry up and figure that out, for to-morrow you're going to get a hard one. It's this: If a Gatling gun fires two thousand shots a minute how many can it fire in half an hour?"