go kerplunk into the crick-bottom. Gosh! what was that?" He
stopped the weary horses with a terrific jerk.

It was only a little night prowler which had scurried under the horses'
feet and rustled into the brush.

"You see how on aidge I am! I'll tell you," he went on garrulously--the
sound of his own voice was always pleasant to Meeteetse: "I take more
stock in signs and feelin's than most people, for I've seen 'em work out.
Down there in Hermosy there was a feller made a stake out'n a silver
prospect, and he takes it into his head to go back to Nebrasky and hunt up
his wife, that he'd run off and left some time prev'ous. As the date gits
clost for him to leave, he got glummer and glummer. He'd skerce crack a
smile. The night before the stage was comin' to git him, he was settin' in
a 'dobe with a dirt roof, rared back on the hind legs of his chair, with
his hands in his pockets.

"'Boys,' he says, 'I'll never git back to Genevieve. I feels it; I knows
it; I'll bet you any amount I'm goin' to cash in between here and
Nebrasky. I've seen myself in my coffin four times hand-runnin', when I
was wide awake.'

"Everybody had their mouths open to let out a holler and laff when jest
then one of the biggest terrantuler that I ever see dropped down out'n the
dirt and straw and lands on his bald head. It hangs on and bites 'fore
anybody kin bresh it off, and, 'fore Gawd, he ups and dies while the
medicine shark is comin' from the next town!"

His companion did not find Meeteetse's reminiscence specially interesting,
possibly because she had heard it before, so at its conclusion she made no
comment, but continued to watch with anxious eyes the clouds and the road
ahead.

"Now if that ud been me," Meeteetse started to say, in nowise disconcerted
by the unresponsiveness of his listener--"if that ud----"

"Throw up your hands!" The curt command came out of the night with the
startling distinctness of a gun-shot. The horses were thrown back on their
haunches by a figure at their head.

Meeteetse not only threw up his hands, but his feet. He threw them up so
high and so hard that he lost his equilibrium, and, as a result, the
ill-balanced seat went over, carrying with it Meeteetse and the Indian
woman.

The latter's mind acted quickly. She knew that her errand to the bank had
become known. Undoubtedly they had been followed from town. As soon as she
could disentangle herself from Meeteetse's convulsive embrace, she threw
th