On the Pipe-Line Trail James Rutlidge spent the day following his experience with Sibyl Andres, in camp.

His companions very quickly felt his sullen, ugly mood, and left him to his own thoughts.
The manner in which Sibyl received his advances had in no way changed the man's mind as to the nature of her relation to Aaron King.

To one of James Rutlidge's type,--schooled in the intellectual moral and esthetic tenets of his class,--it was impossible to think of the companionship of the artist and the girl in any other light.

If he had even considered the possibility of a clean, pure comradeship existing between them--under all the circumstances of their friendship as he had seen them in the studio, on the trail at dusk, and in the artist's camp--he would have answered himself that Aaron King was not such a fool as to fail to take advantage of his opportunities.

The humiliation of his pride, and his rage at being so ignominiously checked by the girl whom he had so long endeavored to win, served only to increase his desire for her.