William MacLeod Raine

“ His imagination pictured the drama—the hunted man's wild flight up the gulch; his dreadful discovery that it was closed; his desperate attempt to climb by moonlight the impossible cliff, and the tragedy that overtook him.
The girl spoke again softly, almost as if she were in the presence of that far-off Nemesis. "I suppose he deserved it. It's an awful thing to be a traitor; to sell the people who have befriended you. We can't put ourselves in his place and know why he did it. All we can say is that we're glad—glad that we have never known men who do such things. ”

“ She thought she understood. Men do not like to be coddled. She began to talk cheerfully of the first thing that came into her head. He made the necessary monosyllabic responses when her speech put it up to him, but she saw that his mind was brooding over something else. Once she saw his gaze go up to the point on the cliff reached by the fugitive.
But it was not until they were again in the saddle that he spoke. ”

“ A hunted man came to Lost Cañon, a murderer wanted by the law for more crimes than one. He was well treated by the settlers. They gave him shelter and work. He was safe, and he knew it. But he tried to make his peace with the law outside by breaking the law of the valley. He knew that two men were lying hid in a pocket gulch, opening from the valley—men who were wanted for train robbery. He wrote to the company offering to betray these men if they would pay him the reward and see that he was not punished for his crimes. ”