The peace and quiet of his little retreat from the scouting business did not last long. Late in the afternoon of his third day at his cabin, he was in the process of butchering a deer when he heard the sound of gunfire. It was coming from somewhere down the mountain, and anytime he heard shooting on his mountain it was cause for concern. Of further concern, the shots sounded to be from a pistol, and they came in bursts of two or three shots at a time. It was definitely not a hunter, so he decided it was in his best interest to investigate. Whatever the shooting, it was too close to his camp. He washed his hands in the stream to clean the deer blood off them, picked up his rifle, and started down the stream on foot. The shooting stopped for a short while but started again when he was a little farther down. He realized then that whoever it was, they had evidently found his stream. More cautious now, he moved carefully, his rifle ready to fire. He stopped when he detected movement through the branches of the trees, then moved forward again, his rifle cocked, until he discovered the cause of the trouble.

“Conner, what the hell are you doin’ here?”

Just before aiming his pistol up in the air to fire off a couple more shots, Lieutenant Conner jumped, startled. “Hawk?” he asked.

“Who else would you expect it to be?” Hawk answered. “What are you doin’ up here doin’ all that shootin’? What are you shootin’ at?”

“Hawk,” Conner repeated, this time with a tone of satisfaction. “I knew you’d find me. I know this is the way you told me to come to your place—pie-shaped rock on the river, follow the stream up the mountain. I did that, but I climbed up this stream so far that I was beginning to wonder if I was on the right stream.”

“You ain’t but about halfway there. What are you lookin’ for me for?”

Without answering his question, Conner complained, “The other night in town, you didn’t wait for me to come back to the fort.”

“And you came all the way up here to complain because I wasn’t there?” Hawk asked.

“No, I came here on official business. I need you for a search patrol,” Conner answered. “I woulda told you that night at Sadie’s, but I didn’t think it polite to talk about it in front of Miss Carpenter. She’s a very delicate young lady, and it might have upset her to hear talk about Indians, and outlaws, and such.”

“Ain’t you heard? I don’t work for the army anymore,” Hawk responded. “Does Lieutenant Meade know you’ve come all the way up here to see me?”