Macdonald was carrying a rifle in addition to his side arms, and he was a dusty grim figure to come upon suddenly afoot in the high road. Chadron pulled in his horse and brought it to a stiff-legged stop when he saw Macdonald, who had stepped to the roadside to let them pass. The old cattleman's high-crowned sombrero was pinched to a peak; the wind of his galloping gait had pressed its broad brim back from his tough old weathered face. His white mustache and little dab of pointed beard seemed whiter against the darkness of passion which mounted to his scowling eyes. "What in the hell're you up to now?" he demanded, without regard for his companion, who was accustomed, well enough, to his explosions and expletives. Macdonald gravely lifted his hand to his hat, his eyes meeting Nola's for an instant, Chadron's challenge unanswered. Nola's face flared at this respectful salutation as if she had been insulted. She jerked her horse back a little, as if she feared that violence would follow the invasion of her caste by this fallen and branded man, her pliant waist weaving in graceful balance with every movement of her beast. Macdonald lowered his eyes from her blazingly indignant face. Her horse was slewed across the narrow road, and he considered between waiting for them to ride on and striking into the shoulder-high sage which grew thick at the roadside there. He thought that she was very pretty in her fairness of hair and skin, and the lake-clear blueness of her eyes. She was riding astride, as all the women in that country rode, dressed in wide pantaloonish corduroys, with twinkling little silver spurs on her heels. "What're you prowlin' down here around my place for?" Chadron asked, spurring his horse as he spoke, checking its forward leap with rigid arm, which made a commotion of hoofs and a cloud of dust. "This is a public highway, and I deny your right to question my motives in it," Macdonald returned, calmly. "Sneakin' around to see if you can lay hands on a horse, I suppose," Chadron said, leaning a little in towering menace toward the man in the road. Macdonald felt a hot surge of resentment rise to his eyes, so suddenly and so strongly that it dimmed his sight. He shut his mouth hard on the words which sprang into it, and held himself in silence until he had command of his anger. "I'm hunting," said he, meeting Chadron's eye with meaning look. "On foot, and waitin' for dark!" the cattleman sneered. "I'm going on foot because the game I'm after sticks close to the ground. There's no need of naming that game to you--you know what it is." Macdonald spoke with cutting severity. Chadron's dark face reddened under his steady eyes, and again the big rowels of his spurs slashed his horse's sides, making it bound and trample in threatening charge. "I don't know anything about your damn low business, but I'll tell you this much; if I ever run onto you ag'in down this way I'll do a little huntin' on my own accord."