back there in the wreck. But you're safe now. The train was
wrecked by outlaws. We came out after them, and I--I found you--back
there on the prairie. You're safe now."

His arms tightened about her again.

"You're all right now," he repeated gently. He was not conscious of
the sobbing break in his voice, or of the great, throbbing love that
it breathed to her. He tried to speak calmly. "There's nothing
wrong--nothing. The heat made you sick. But you're all right now--"

From beyond the hill there came a sound that made him break off with a
sudden, quick breath. It was the sharp, stinging report of Billinger's
carbine! Once, twice, three times--and then there followed more distant
shots!

"He's come up with them!" he cried. The fury of fight, of desire for
vengeance, blazed anew in his face. There was pain in the grip of his
arm about the girl.

"Do you feel strong--strong enough to ride fast?" he asked. "There's
only one man with me, and there are five of them. It's murder to let him
fight it alone!"

"Yes--yes--" whispered the girl, her arms tightening round him. "Ride
fast--or put me off. I can follow--"

It was the first time that he had heard her voice since that last
evening up at Lac Bain, many months before, and the sound of it thrilled
him.

"Hold tight!" he breathed.

Like the wind they swept across the prairie and up the slope of the
hill. At the top Philip reined in. Three or four hundred yards distant
lay a thick clump of poplar trees and a thousand yards beyond that
the first black escarpments of the Bad Lands. In the space between a
horseman was galloping fiercely to the west. It was not Billinger. With
a quick movement Philip slipped the girl to the ground, and when she
sprang a step back, looking up at him in white terror, he had whipped
out one of his big service revolvers.

"There's a little lake over there among those trees," he said. "Wait
there--until I come back!"

He raced down the slope--not to cut off the flying horseman--but toward
the clump of poplars. It was Billinger he was thinking of now. The agent
had fired three shots. There had followed other shots, not Billinger's,
and after that his carbine had remained silent. Billinger was among the
poplars. He was hurt or dead.

A well-worn trail, beaten down by transient rangerss big revolver
showing over his horse's ears. A hundred paces and the timber gave place
to a sandy dip, in the center of which was the water hole. The dip