Clallam explained, and was evidently not so much as half believed. “If there are Indians killed,” said the sheriff, “there's still another matter for the law to settle with him. We're sent to search for whiskey. The county's about tired of him.” “You'll find him pretty sick,” said John. “People I find always are pretty sick,” said the sheriff, and pushed his way in, stopping at sight of Mrs. Clallam and the figure on the bed. “I'm arresting that man, madam,” he said, with a shade of apology. “The county court wants him.” Jake sat up and knew the sheriff. “You're a little late, Proctor,” said he. “The Supreme Court's a-goin' to call my case.” Then he fell back, for his case had been called. Hank's Woman I Many fish were still in the pool; and though luck seemed to have left me, still I stood at the end of the point, casting and casting my vain line, while the Virginian lay and watched. Noonday's extreme brightness had left the river and the plain in cooling shadow, but spread and glowed over the yet undimmed mountains. Westward, the Tetons lifted their peaks pale and keen as steel through the high, radiant air. Deep down between the blue gashes of their canons the sun sank long shafts of light, and the glazed laps of their snow-fields shone separate and white upon their lofty vastness, like handkerchiefs laid out to dry. Opposite, above the valley, rose that other range, the Continental Divide, not sharp, but long and ample. It was bare in some high places, and below these it stretched everywhere, high and low, in brown and yellow parks, or in purple miles of pine a world of serene undulations, a great sweet country of silence. A passing band of antelope stood herded suddenly together at sight of us; then a little breeze blew for a moment from us to them, and they drifted like phantoms away, and were lost in the levels of the sage-brush. “If humans could do like that,” said the Virginian, watching them go. “Run, you mean?” said I. “Tell a foe by the smell of him,” explained the cow-puncher; “at fifty yards--or a mile.” “Yes,” I said; “men would be hard to catch.” “A woman needs it most,” he murmured. He lay down again in his lounging sprawl, with his grave eyes intently fixed upon my fly-casting. The gradual day mounted up the hills farther from the floor of earth. Warm airs eddied in its wake slowly, stirring the scents of the plain together. I looked at the Southerner; and there was no guessing what his thoughts might be at work upon behind that drowsy glance. Then for a moment a trout rose, but only to look and whip down again into the pool that wedged its calm into the riffle from below. “Second thoughts,” mused the Virginian; and as the trout came no more, “Second thoughts,” he repeated; “and even a fish will have them sooner than folks has them in this mighty hasty country.” And he rolled over into a new position of ease.