e she had been taught to hold it in horror. But now something
human in her was deeper than her detestation of the cowardly and awful
thing this man had just done. She wanted to cry out to him a warning,
and did in a faint, ineffective voice that carried not a tenth of the
distance between them.

She had promised to remain where she was, but her tense interest in what
was doing drew her forward in spite of herself. She rode along the ridge
that bordered the park, at first slowly and then quicker as the impulse
grew in her to be in at the finish.

The climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his
pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang
out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the
saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a
wash and disappeared.

What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation
at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the
hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a
canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right
angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no
fear.

Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be
too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs
striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering
what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding
of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was
riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced
entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to
confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her.

A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into
view round the bend, its rider slewed in the saddle with his whole
attention upon the possible pursuit. Not until he was almost upon her
did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless
figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller.

"You," she cried.

"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily.

His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow.
White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile.

"So you are a--rustler," she told him scornfully.

"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter
irony.

She saw