the following day.

"You can't do that," Harris said. "Two more days for you. I've given
orders not to let you off the place till after the dance at Brill's.
This is Tuesday and the big frolic will be staged Thursday night. Then
you're free to go."

Deane shook his head and prepared to offer an excuse but Harris
smilingly refused to consider it.

"No use to try," he said. "The boys won't let you go. We've had you
out in the rain and now we'll try to make amends for it. Billie, don't
let him leave the place. I'll detail you as guard."

"You hear the orders," she said. "You're stuck for two more days at
the Three Bar whether you like it or not."

"That settles it," Deane said. "I do want to see that dance."

Horne strolled up to them as they reached the corral.

"Another of the wild bunch down," he said. "Magill this time. Got it
just the same as Barton did last week. Shot from in front; one empty
shell in his gun. The Breaks is getting to be a hard place to reside
in."

Again the girl felt that queer sensation of having expected this to
transpire, as if possibly she had helped plan the deed herself and had
forgotten it. That night as she lay in bed her mind was concerned with
it and at times the solution seemed almost to reach the surface of her
consciousness. Two belated riders came up the lane. As they rode past
her open window she heard the name of Magill.

"That's two for Bangs," said a voice she knew for Moore's.

The evasive sense of familiarity, of being in some way identified with
the killings, was suddenly clear to her,--so clear that she marveled at
not having known at once.

Old Rile Foster was haunting the Breaks near Arnold's, imposing grim
and merciless justice on all those whom he suspected of having had a
hand in the finish of Bangs.

X

Harris had left the ranch an hour before daylight, his ride occasioned
by the reports of several of the men. In the last three days each
couple that worked the range had found one or more of the new
white-face bulls shot down in their territory. The evidence, as Harris
pieced the scraps together, indicated that a lone rider had made a
swift raid, riding for forty miles along the foot of the hills in a
single day, shooting down every Three Bar bull that crossed his trail.
A dozen dead animals marked his course. A few more such raids and the
Three Bar calf crop would be extremely short the following spring. The
near end of the for