for?

That was the stumbling-block. If he had only been frank and open, she felt
that she would have believed him, even in the face of Lynch's conviction
of his guilt, though she was frank enough to admit that the foreman's
attitude would probably have influenced her much more strongly a week ago
than it did at present. It was this thought which brought her mind around
to another of her worries.

Not only did she intensely dislike Lynch's present manner toward herself,
but there had lately grown up in her mind a vague distrust of the man
generally. She could not put her finger on anything really definite. There
were moments, indeed, when she wondered if she was not a silly little fool
making bogies out of shadows. But the feeling persisted, growing on
unconsidered trifles, that Tex was playing at some subtle, secret game, of
the character of which she had not even the most remote conception.

"But if that's so--if he can't be trusted any longer," she said aloud,
stung by a sudden, sharp realization of the gravity of such a situation,
"what am I to do?"

Of his own accord Freckles had turned aside into the little curved
depression in the cliffs and was plodding slowly up the trail. Staring
blindly at the rough, ragged cliffs and peaks ahead of her, the girl was
suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness. If Lynch failed her,
what could she do? Whom could she turn to for help or even for counsel?
There was Alf Manning, but Alf knew nothing whatever of range conditions,
and besides neither he nor Stella expected to stay on indefinitely. Her
mind ranged swiftly over other more or less remote possibilities, but save
for a few distant cousins with whom they had never been on intimate
terms, she could think of no one. She even considered for a moment Jim
Tenny of the Rocking-R, whom she had met and liked, or Dr. Blanchard, but
a sudden reviving burst of spirit caused her quickly to dismiss the
thought.

"They'd think I was a silly, hysterical idiot," she murmured. "Why, I
couldn't even tell them what I was afraid of. I wonder if it can possibly
be just nerves? It doesn't seem as if--"

She broke off abruptly and tightened on her reins. Freckles had carried
her over the summit of the trail and had almost reached the hollow on the
other side, formed by the bottom of a gully that crossed the path. Mary
had once explored it and knew that to the left it deepened into a gloomy
gulch that hugged the cliff for some distan