ervous tension and
go back to her heroine and the Indians and the mysterious footsteps
that marched on moonlight nights up and down a long porch just outside
windows that frequently framed white, scared faces with wide,
horror-stricken eyes which saw nothing of the marcher, though the steps
still went up and down.

It was very creepy, in spots. It was so creepy that one evening when
Lite had come to smoke a cigarette or two in her company and to listen
to her account of the day's happenings, Lite noticed that when she read
the creepy passages in her story, she glanced frequently over her
shoulder.

"You want to cut out this story writing," he said abruptly, when she
paused to find the next page. "It's bad enough to work like you do in
the pictures. This is going a little too strong; you're as jumpy
to-night as a guilty conscience. Cut it out."

"I'm all right. I'm just doing that for dramatic effect. This is very
weird, Lite. I ought to have a green shade on the lamp, to get the
proper effect. I--don't you think--er--those footsteps are terribly
mysterious?"

Lite looked at her sharply for a minute. "I sure do," he said drily.
"Where did you get the idea, Jean?"

"Out of my head," she told him airily, and went on reading while Lite
studied her curiously.

That night Jean awoke and heard stealthy footsteps, like a man walking
in his socks and no boots, going all through the house but never coming
to her room. She did not get up to see who it was, but lay perfectly
still and heard her heart thump. When she saw a dim, yellow ray of
light under the door which opened into the kitchen, she drew the
blanket over her head, and got no comfort whatever from the feel of her
six-shooter close against her hand.

The next morning she told herself that she had given in to a fine case
of nerves, and that the mysterious footsteps of her story had become
mixed up with the midnight wanderings of a pack-rat that had somehow
gotten into the house. Then she remembered the bar of light under the
door, and the pack-rat theory was spoiled.

She had taken the board off the doorway into the kitchen, so that she
could use the cookstove. The man could have come in if he had wanted
to, and that knowledge she found extremely disquieting. She went all
through the house that morning, looking and wondering. The living-room
was now the dressing-room of Muriel and her mother, and the make-up
scattered over the centertable was undi