g burro up a rise and along a badly broken
rocky slope.

They came down into a sandy wash that curved out of the mass of jagged
ridges on the north. When midway across the bottom of the arroyo Lennon
heard a sharp ping close above his ear--his sombrero whirled from his
head. Before the hat struck the sand the rocky sides of the wash
reverberated with the report of a rifle shot.

Lennon had never before been under fire, yet his reaction to the shot
was almost instantaneous. One jump brought him alongside the burro. He
crouched below the level of the pack and clutched the butt of his
sheathed rifle. Again the gulley walls reverberated. The burro dropped
dead, with a bullet through his head.

As the beast fell, Lennon hit the sand almost at the same moment, his
rifle gripped in his right hand. Flattened out behind the inert body of
the burro, he peered around the end of the pack. A bullet thwacked in
the sand close at his right. He thought he could see a haze of
semi-smokeless powder vapour above a jagged crag up-slope where the wash
twisted in a sharp bend. He fired four shots in quick succession at
promising notches in the crag.

Immediately after his fourth shot an arm and rifle were thrust up above
the rock in a convulsive gesture, then suddenly disappeared. No more
bullets came pinging down the arroyo.

Lennon gathered himself together and bounded on across the bottom of the
wash to where the trail ran up a small side gully. From the gully he
started to creep with cautious slowness up the left bank of the arroyo,
under cover of the rocks and jutting points.

Now crawling, now springing from rock to rock, he worked his way half up
to the crag, yet failed to catch a single glimpse of the lier-in-wait or
to draw another shot. His conviction that he had killed the lurker
became so firm that he stood erect to cover the remaining distance at a
rush.

From down across the arroyo came a sharp clatter of hoofs. He whirled,
with his rifle at his shoulder. Over the barrel he saw a scraggy pony
loping down into the wash along the trail of the burro. The pony's rider
was armed with a rifle. Lennon took quick aim--only to drop the muzzle
of his weapon. The rider had flung up a gauntleted hand, palm outward. A
musical feminine hail rang aslant the arroyo:

"_Wa-hoo!_ Friend! Don't shoot!"

Lennon had already perceived that the rider was a woman. He jumped clear
of the bank and sprinted down the rocky, sandy bed of the was