As soon as the wolfer had passed out of hearing Oscar mounted his pony and rode down into the path. He made his way around the brow of the hill; and, when he had put a safe distance between himself and the mouth of the ravine, he checked his pony and proceeded to load his gun. “Tom has got the matter in his own hands,” said he, as he rested the butt of the weapon on the toe of his boot and poured a charge of powder into each barrel. “If he had nothing to do with that ‘affair’ that happened last summer—I wish to goodness I knew what it was—and has any desire to turn over a new leaf and to go to work in earnest, he will come up to the fort as soon as he has read that note. If he does not come I shall have to look upon his absence either as a confession of guilt, or as a declaration that he prefers the companionship of such men as that wolfer to the society of honest folks. In either case I have done all I can, and the business ends right here so far as I am concerned.” Oscar would have been very much surprised if anyone had told him that he had not seen the end of the business after all; that, in fact, he had seen only the beginning of it. The note he had written, as well as the clothing he had purchased to keep Tom from freezing, were destined at no distant day to be produced as evidence against him. Was it a dread of impending evil that prompted him to say, as he placed the caps on his gun and started his pony forward again: “Mr. Chamberlain was always right, and he shot close to the mark when he told me that I would not find plain sailing before me, simply because I was about to engage in a congenial occupation. I have been at the fort but a few hours, and yet I have wished myself back in Eaton more than a dozen times. Why didn’t I keep away from that ravine? Thoughts of Tom will force themselves upon me continually, and all my pleasure will be knocked in the head. How can I enjoy myself when I know that he is in such a situation? Hold on there! I am ready for you now!” Although he was deeply engrossed in his meditations, Oscar could still keep an eye out for game; and when that flock of sage-hens arose from the bushes almost at his pony’s feet, they did not catch him napping. Being accustomed to the noise made by the grouse of his native hills when it suddenly bursts from its cover, the sound of their wings did not startle him as it startles the tyro. He was so excited that he did not think to stop his pony, but still he was cool enough to make his selections before he fired; and when he saw, through the thick cloud of smoke that poured from each barrel, two little patches of feathers floating in the air, and marking the spot where a brace of the finest members of the flock had been neatly stopped in their rapid flight, he knew that his ammunition had not been expended in vain.