And the Killer would hunt no more in Trail's End. At the end of that leap he fell, his great body quivering strangely in the snow. The lead had gone straight home where it had been aimed, and the charge itself had been mostly muscular reflex. He lay still at last, a gray, mammoth figure that was majestic even in death. No more would the deer shudder with terror at the sound of his heavy step in the thicket. No more would the herds fly into stampede at the sight of his great shadow on the moonlit grass. The last of the Oregon grizzlies had gone the way of all his breed. * * * * * To Bruce and Linda, standing breathless and awed in the snow-flurries, his death imaged the passing of an old order--the last stand that the forces of the wild had made against conquering man. But there was pathos in it too. There was the symbol of mighty breeds humbled and destroyed. But the pines were left. Those eternal symbols of the wilderness--and of powers beyond the wilderness--still stood straight and grand and impassive above them. While these two lived, at least, they would still keep their watch over the wilderness, they would still stand erect and brave to the buffeting of the storm and snow, and in their shade dwelt strength and peace. The cavern that was revealed to them had a rock floor and had been hollowed out by running water in ages past. Bruce built a fire at its mouth of some of the long tree roots that extended down into it, and the life-giving warmth was a benediction. Already the drifting snow had begun to cover the aperture. "We can wait here until the blizzard is done," Bruce told Linda, as she sat beside him in the soft glow of the fire. "We have a little food, and we can cut more from the body of the grizzly when we need it. There's dead wood under the snow. And when the storm is over, we can get our bearings and walk out." She sat a long time without answering. "And after that?" she asked. He smiled. "No one knows. It's ten days before the thirtieth--the blizzards up here never last over three or four days. We've got plenty of time to get the document down to the courts. The law will deal with the rest of the Turners. We've won, Linda." His hands groped for hers, and he laid it against his lips. With her other hand she stroked his snow-wet hair. Her eyes were lustrous in the firelight. "And after that--after all that is settled? You will come back to the mountains?" "Could I ever leave them!" he exclaimed. "Of course, Linda. But I don't know what I can do up here--except maybe to establish my claim to my father's old farm. There's a hundred or so acres. I believe I'd like to feel the handles of a plow in my palms."