oise to be in
any danger. It is the solitary individual the wolves like to get after.
They are such mean cowardly wretches."

Frank Kent smiled grimly. The ranch girls were a puzzle to him, they
talked about wolves and bears and wild cattle as calmly as most girls
spoke of dogs and cats and canary birds, and Frank could see that they
were not putting on airs. They would not have gone deliberately into
danger any more than a sensible fellow would have done; but Jean and
Jack had grown up in a country where men had lived by the killing of
wild game. Their house was filled with the skins of wild animals, shot
by their father and the cowboys from their place. While they were still
little children they had been taught the use of a gun. Jack often had
been on hunting trips with her father in the northern parts of the State
and was perfectly able to bring down a lynx or a cougar with a
well-trained shot between its eyes. She had never been able to shoot a
deer, for in spite of being brought up like a boy, her heart failed her
at the thought of destroying anything that did not live by preying on
other animals.

Jack gave a cry of pleasure. "See!" she called back. "I haven't brought
you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I have led you to
a pool of silver." She had brought Hotspur to a standstill in front of a
little silver lake, where the ravine extended in a circle into the
woods.

For a moment the four riders were breathless with admiration, then a big
brown form lumbered out of a clump of low bushes. Hotspur reared and
the indistinct mass rolled by Jacqueline and made for a thicket.

"It's a bear!" Jack shouted triumphantly. "Who would have thought we
could have had such luck? Let's go after old Bruin and see what becomes
of him; he won't eat us up."

Jack was only joking. She had no real idea of following the bear; she
wasn't even sure what beast had trundled by them, but was only in a wild
humor and wondered how far the others would follow her. She gave Hotspur
a little cut with her whip.

"Come back, Miss Ralston," Frank called sharply. He had ridden near
enough to her to reach out for her bridle.

Jack grew more reckless. She sprang aside but did not notice that the
ground opened in front of her in a narrow, broken crevice, until
Hotspur's fore feet went down the incline and Jack pitched headlong over
him, falling with a crash in the brushwood beyond.

In the medley of cries and confusion that fo