Williams news., 1921-06-03
CHAPTER i-Continued.

Hes got a cabin over toward the marshes and 1t has come to me that he's going to start tomorrow, or maybe has already started today, down into the valley to give his evidence Of course, that is deeply confidential be tween you and me. If the gang knew about 1t, he'd never get through the thfckets alive"
 But Dan was hardly listening. His attention was caught by the hushed, intermittent sounds that are always to be heard, if one listens keenly enough, in the wilderness at night 'I wish the pack would sound again." he said. 'I suppose it was hunting"
 'Of course. And there is no living thing in these woods that can stand against wolf pack in it's full strength
 Except man, of course"
 "A strong man, with an accurate rife. of course. and except possibly fa the starving times in winter he'd never have to fight them. All the beasts of prey are out tonight. You see, Dan, when the moon shines, the deer feed at night instead of in the twflights and the dawn. And of course the wolves and the cougars hunt the deer. It may be that they are running cattle, or even sheep"
 But Dams imagination was afire. He wasn't content yet. '"They couldn't be-hunting man?" he asked.
 'tNc. If it was midwinter and the pack was starving, we'd have to lis- ten better. It always looked to me as If the wild creatures had a law against killing men. just as humans have. They've learned 1t doesn't pay something the wolves and bears of Europe and Asia haven't found out. The naturalists say that the reason is rather simple-that the European peasant, his soul scared out of him by the government he lived under. has always fled from wild beasts. They were tillers of the soil, and they car ried hoes instead of guns.. They never put the fear of God into the animals and as result there are quite num- Der of true stories about tigers and wolves that aren't pleasant to listen to. But our own frontiersmen were not men to stand any nonsense from wolves or cougars. They had guns. and they knew how to use them. And they were preceded by as brave and as warliSe a race as ever lived on the earth-armed with bows and arrows. Any animal that hunted men was i'm mediately killed. and the rest found out 1t didn't pay.
 "Just as human beings have found out the same thing-that 1t doesn't pay to hunt their fellow men. The laws of life as well as the laws of na- tfons are against it.'
 But the words sounded weak and dim under the weight of the throbbfng darkness; and Dan couldn't get away from the idea that the codes of life By which most. men lived were forgotten quickly in the shadows of the pines. Even as he spoke, man was hunting man on the distant ridge where Whis- perfoot the cougar had howled.
 
 Bert Cranston. head of the arson ring that operated on the UmpQua di- vide. was not only beyond the pale in he could have learned valuable lessons from the beasts in regard to keeping the laws of the hills. The moon looked down to find him waiting on a certain trail that wound down to the settle ments. his rifle loaded and ready for another kind of game than deer or wolf. He was waiting for Landy Hil- dreth; and the greeting he had for him was to destroy all chances of the prosecuting attorney in the valley be- low learning certain names that he particularly wanted to know
 There was no breath of wind. The great pines, tall and dark past belief. stood absolutely mOtionless, like