r pictures, her thoughts had drifted to what seemed
to her more vital. Had she done wrong to come away out here, away from
her problem? The distance worried her. She had not even found out who
was the mysterious night-prowler, or what he wanted. He had never come
again, after that night when Hepsy had scared him away. From long
thinking about it, she had come to a vague, general belief that his
visits were somehow connected with the murder; but in what manner, she
could not even form a theory. That worried her. She wished now that
she had told Lite about it. She was foolish not to have done
something, instead of sticking her head under the bedclothes and just
shivering till he left. Lite would have found out who the man was, and
what he wanted. Lite would never have let him come and go like that.
But the visits had seemed so absolutely without reason. There was
nothing to steal, and nothing to find. Still, she wished she had told
Lite, and let him find out who it was.

Then her talk with the great lawyer had been disquieting. He had not
wanted to name his fee for defending her dad; but when he had named it,
it did not seem so enormous as she had imagined it to be. He had asked
a great many questions, and most of them puzzled Jean. He had said
that he would take up the matter,--by which she believed he meant an
investigation of her uncle's title to the Lazy A. He said that he
would see her father, and he told her that he had already been retained
to investigate the whole thing, so that she need not worry about having
to pay him a fee. That, he said, had already been arranged, though he
did not feel at liberty to name his client. But he wanted to assure
her that everything was being done that could be done.

She herself had seen her father. She shrank within herself and tried
not to think of that horrible meeting. Her soul writhed under the
tormenting memory of how she had seen him. She had not been able to
talk to him at all, scarcely. The words would not come. She had said
that she and Lite were on their way to Los Angeles, and would be there
all winter. He had patted her shoulder with a tragic apathy in his
manner, and had said that the change would do her good. And that was
all she could remember that they had talked about. And then the guard
came, and--

That is what she was thinking about while the big, purple machine slid
smoothly through the tunnel, negotiated a rough stretch where the
stree