r gun gripped
tight in her hand, she looked out. But he had moved into a deep shadow
of the bluff, and she could see nothing of him save the deeper shadow
of his swift-moving body as he went down to the corral. Jean gave a
long sigh of nervous relaxation, and crept shivering under the Navajo
blanket. The gun she slid under the pillow, and her fingers rested
still upon the cool comfort of the butt.

Soon she heard a horse galloping, and she went to the window again and
looked out. The moon hung low over the bluff, so that the trail lay
mostly in the shadow. But down by the gate it swung out in a wide curve
to the rocky knoll, and there it lay moon-lighted and empty. She fixed
her eyes upon that curve and waited. In a moment the horseman galloped
out upon the curve, rounded it, and disappeared in the shadows beyond.
At that distance and in that deceptive light, she could not tell who it
was; but it was a horseman, a man riding at night in haste, and with
some purpose in mind.

Jean had thought that the prowler might be some tramp who had wandered
far off the beaten path of migratory humans, and who, stumbling upon
the coulee and its empty dwellings, was searching at random for
whatever might be worth carrying off. A horseman did not fit that
theory anywhere. That particular horseman had come there deliberately,
had given the house a deliberate search, and had left in haste when he
had finished. Whether he had failed or succeeded in finding what he
wanted, he had left. He had not searched the stables, unless he had
done that before coming into the house. He had not forced his way into
her room, probably because he did not want to leave behind him the
evidence of his visit which the door would have given, or because he
feared to disturb the contents of Jean's room.

Jean stared up in the dark and puzzled long over the identity of that
man, and his errand. And the longer she thought about it, the more
completely she was at sea. All the men that she knew were aware that
she kept this room habitable, and visited the ranch often. That was no
secret; it never had been a secret. No one save Lite Avery had ever
been in it, so far as she knew,--unless she counted those chance
trespassers who had prowled boldly through her most sacred belongings.
So that almost any one in the country, had he any object in searching
the house, would know that this room was hers, and would act in that
knowledge.

As to his errand. T