ax marks, and the second growth of seedlings had not yet found time to spring up among the stumps.

The silence was like a weight upon the senses. Dexter heard no sound except the faint creak of saddle leather as Susy breathed. He might easily imagine himself alone in all that vast stretch of forest. But as he peered forth from behind his shelter of brush, a vagrant puff of air brought to him an odor of chimney smoke. And as he strained his vision to see in the gathering darkness, he was aware that the hobnail prints ran directly across the open ground to the cabin door.

He left the pony to drowse in the thicket, with the reins dangling from the bit, and strode forward alone into the clearing. Placing his own feet in the marks left by the other boots, he followed his man to the cabin entrance. For ten seconds he held motionless, his foot touching the outer sill. Still he heard no sound. But the line of tracks ended here, and he knew that Constable Graves' murderer was inside the cabin.

Between two men who had not yet seen each other, the door of spruce slabs held shut like the closed book of doom. Once it was opened, the warrant of death for one or the other must be read. If Corporal Dexter crossed the threshold, he would walk forth again to escort a manacled prisoner to the hangman's gibbet at Fort Dauntless; or else he would not walk forth again. It was the custom of the mounted to play for all or nothing, and ask no odds of fortune. The corporal's thin lips harbored a half cynical smile as he accepted the terms. He prayed only that the drawbar was not fastened.The click of his carbine sounded fearfully loud in his ears as he thumbed back the hammer. He did not wait after that, but reached with his left hand to knock open the wooden latch. The door swung ajar, and he kicked it wide on its squeaking hinges.

Even in that moment one corner of Dexter's restless mind was absurdly detached from the rest of himself, engaged in trivial speculation. The cabin builder must have come there after the grizzlies holed-up for the winter, he reasoned in lightning flashes of thought. Otherwise he would have got a silver tip, and so had bear grease on hand to lubricate hinges. Dexter's orderly soul hated annoyances that could be prevented, such as squeaking doors.

He had crossed the snow-buried sill with crunching feet, and halted on the threshold, his glance sweeping the square, murky space before him. Details impressed themselves instantaneously: walls of peeled logs; tiny, four-paned windows; bare puncheon floor; a disorderly 

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