be afraid of you, because he
will think that you are as deep in the mire as he is; but if he thought I
suspected him, or the Indians, it would make him cautious."

"You don't think he's charmed, or got such a stout medicine that nobody
can catch him?"

Ralston could not refrain from smiling at the Indian superstition which
cropped out at times in Susie.

"Not for a moment," he answered positively. "He appears to have been
fortunate--lucky--but in a case like this, I don't believe there's any
luck can win, in the long run, against vigilance, patience, and
determination; and the greatest of these is patience." Ralston, waxing
philosophical went on: "It's a great thing to be able to wait,
Susie--coolly, smilingly, to wait--providing, as the phrase goes, you
hustle while you wait. One victory for your enemy doesn't mean defeat for
yourself. It's usually the last trick that counts, and sometimes games are
long in the playing. Wait for your enemy's head, and when it comes up,
_whack it_! Neither you nor I, Susie, have been reared to believe that
when we are swatted on one cheek we should turn the other."

"No;" Susie shook her head gravely. "That ain't sense."

The person who took Smith's absence most deeply to heart was the Indian
woman. She missed him, and, besides, she was tormented with jealous
suspicions. She knew nothing of his life beyond what she had seen at the
ranch. There might be another woman. She suffered from the ever-present
fear that he might not come back; that he would go as scores of
grub-liners had gone, without a word at parting.

In the house she was restless, and her moccasined feet padded often from
her bench in the corner to the window overlooking the road down which he
might come. She sat for hours at a time upon an elevation which commanded
a view of the surrounding country. Heavy-featured, moody-eyed, she was the
personification of dog-like fidelity and patience. Naturally, it was she
who first saw Smith jogging leisurely down the road on his jaded horse.

The long roof of the MacDonald ranch, which was visible through the cool
willows, looked good to Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and
inviting; yet Smith knew that the whole Indian police force might be there
to greet him. He had been gone many days, and much might have happened in
the interim. It was characteristic of Smith that he did not slacken his
horse's pace--he could squirm out somehow.

It gave him no concern that he had n