Niltci pointed silently into the bush ahead of him. Here was another deep footprint, and, sighting along it, a dim line of them led up the ravine flank. They followed slowly on the horses, who were shivering and plunging violently, for even up to their nostrils had come that faint grizzly odor that a horse fears above all other things. Up on the ridge the track crossed bare rock, and on a little sandy spot a huge track lay, a beautiful print, like an enormous, flat, stubby hand with long, sharp, in-pointing nails for fingers. Beyond the ridge lay a hideous gulch, a bad-land, all bowlders and scraggly pinyons, twisting and writhing among the rocks in weird contortions. It would invite a broken foreleg to attempt to work the horses in there. “No use following him any further,” said Colonel Colvin as they reined up to look it over. “We’d only leave our own scent around,--though I doubt if _he’d_ care any! We’ll go get the bucks.” They retraced their way and went up on the hill. The Colonel’s buck lay some fifty feet from where he had been hit, his double-Y antlers and black crown proclaiming him a mule deer. Sid’s lay further up in the bush and was a mere spikehorn. “He’ll do fine for camp meat, though. Get him up, Sid; we’ll paunch him somewhere away from here. The old yellow grizzly may clear out, if there’s too much human sign around, but still, mighty few people ever hunt this country and he _may_ have that bad temper of the old-timers.” He halted his horse and looked over the scene, planning where to locate his ambush and the probable course of the charge and battle that would surely ensue if the first shot from the .35 did not prove mortal. Sid and Niltci got up the buck and tied its legs to the saddle thongs. Then they all rode back to camp, silent, subdued, thinking over that twilight vigil of the Colonel’s by the bait, to come. After rustling a meal, all three went out to the rim rock to await the return of Scotty and Big John. It was nearly sunset before they heard voices below, and then Big John’s sombrero--what was left of it--appeared over the rim. His face was caked with dirt, bloody, and streaked with sweat lines. “Shore I ain’t got enough clothes left on me to flag a tote-train!” he grinned, spitting the dust out of a grimy mouth as he turned to haul on a bundle below him. “Hyar’s yore cat skin--I needs another skin myself, b’gosh! Anyone which same wants a kitty out’n that canyon kin go an’ get him, an’ keep right on goin’!--_Thar!_”--he gave the rope a final haul and sat down on the brim with a mighty “_Whoosh!_” of relief.