the ground with a
peculiar instinct. Bill pointed to the ground on the side furthest from
his companion.

"Look!"

Jacky gazed at the spot indicated.

"The tracks of the horse," she said sharply.

She was on the ground in an instant and inspecting the hoof-prints
eagerly, with that careful study acquired by experience.

"Well?" said the other, as she turned back to her horse.

"Recent." Then in an impressive tone which her companion failed to
understand, "That horse has been shod. The shoes are off--all except a
tiny bit on his off fore. We must track it."

They now separated and rode keeping the hoof-prints between them. The
marks were quite fresh and so plain in the soft ground that they were
able to ride at a good pace. The clear-cut indentations led away from
the mire up the gently-sloping ground. Suddenly they struck upon a path
that was little more than a cattle-track, and instantly became mingled
with other hoof-marks, older and going both ways. Hitherto the girl had
ridden with her eyes closely watching the tracks, but now she suddenly
raised her sweet, weather-tanned face to her companion, and, with a
light of the wildest excitement in her eyes, she pointed along the path
and set her horse at a gallop.

"Come on! I know," she cried, "right on into the hills."

Bill followed willingly enough, but he failed to understand his
companion's excitement. After all they were merely bent upon "roping" a
stray horse. The girl galloped on at breakneck speed; the heavy black
ringlets of hair were swept like an outspread fan from under the broad
brim of her Stetson hat, her buckskin bodice ballooning in the wind as
rider and horse charged along, utterly indifferent to the nature of the
country they were traveling--indifferent to everything except the mad
pursuit of an unseen quarry. Now they were on the summit of some
eminence whence they could see for miles the confusion of hills, like
innumerable bee-hives set close together upon an endless plain; now
down, tearing through a deep hollow, and racing towards another abrupt
ascent. With every hill passed the country became less green and more
and more rugged. "Lord" Bill struggled hard to keep the girl in view as
she raced on--on through the labyrinth of seemingly endless hillocks.
But at last he drew up on the summit of a high cone-like rise and
realized that he had lost her.

For a moment he gazed around with that peculiar, all-observing keenness
which is give