Simon Turner had given Dave very definite instructions concerning his embassy to Hudson. They were given in the great house that Simon occupied, in the same room, lighted by the fire's glow, from which instructions had gone out to the clan so many times before. "The first thing this Bruce will do," Simon had said, "is to hunt up Hudson--the one living man that witnessed that agreement between Ross and old Folger. One reason is that he'll want to verify Linda's story. The next is to persuade the old man to go down to the courts with him as his witness. And what you have to do is line him up on our side first." Dave had felt Simon's eyes upon him, so he didn't look straight up. "And that's what the hundred is for?" he asked. "Of course. Get the old man's word that he'll tell Bruce he never witnessed any such agreement. Maybe fifty dollars will do it; the old trapper is pretty hard up, I reckon. He'd make us a lot of trouble if Bruce got him as a witness." "You think--" Dave's eyes wandered about the room, "you think that's the best way?" "I wouldn't be tellin' you to do it if I didn't think so." Simon laughed,--a sudden, grim syllable. "Dave, you're a blood-thirsty devil. I see what you're thinking of--of a safer way to keep him from telling. But you know the word I sent out. 'Go easy!' That's the wisest course to follow at present. The valley people pay more attention to such things than they used to; the fewer the killings, the wiser we will be. If he'll keep quiet for the hundred let him have it in peace." Dave hadn't forgotten. But his features were sharper and more ratlike than ever when he came in sight of Hudson's camp, just after the fall of darkness of the second day out. The trapper was cooking his simple meal,--a blue grouse frying in his skillet, coffee boiling, and flapjack batter ready for the moment the grouse was done. He was kneeling close to the coals; the firelight cast a red glow over him, and the picture started a train of rather pleasing conjectures in Dave's mind. He halted in the shadows and stood a moment watching. After all he wasn't greatly different from the wolf that watched by the deer trail or the Killer in his ambush, less than a mile distant in the glen. The same strange, dark passion that was over them both was over him also. One could see it in the almost imperceptible drawing back of his dark lips over his teeth. There was just a hint of it in the lurid eyes. Dave's thought returned to the hundred dollars in his pocket,--a good sum in the hills. A brass rifle cartridge, such as he could fire in the thirty-thirty that he carried in the hollow of his arm, cost only about six cents. The net gain would be--the figures flew quickly through his mind--ninety-nine dollars and ninety-four cents; quite a good piece of business for Dave. But the trouble was that Simon might find out.