blue-black sky. Both spurred their jaded horses and a moment or two later
pulled up with a jerk at the gate. Before his mount had come to a
standstill, Bud was out of his saddle fumbling with the catch. When he
swung it open, Stratton dashed through, swiftly crossed the shallow creek,
and galloped up the long, easy slope beyond.

A chill struck him as the ranch-house loomed up, ominously black and
desolate as any long-deserted dwelling. He had forgotten for an instant
the heavy, wooden shutters, and when, with teeth clenched and heart
thudding in his throat, he reached the veranda corner, the sight of that
yellow glow streaming from the open door gave him a momentary shock of
supreme relief.

An instant later he saw the shattered door, and the color left his face.
In two strides he crossed the porch and, with fingers tightening about the
butt of his Colt, he stared searchingly around the big, brightly-lighted,
strangely empty-looking room.

It held but a single occupant. Huddled in a chair on the further side of
the long table was Mrs. Archer. Both hands rested on the polished oak, and
clutched in her small, wrinkled hands was a heavy, cumbrous revolver,
pointed directly at the door. Her white, strained face, stamped with an
expression of hopeless tragedy, looked ten years older than when Buck had
last seen it. As she recognized him she dropped the gun and tottered to
her feet.

"Oh!" she cried, in a sharp, wailing voice. "You! You!"

In a moment Buck had her in his arms, holding her tight as one holds a
hurt or frightened child. Mechanically he soothed her as she clung to him,
that amazing self-control, which had upheld her for so long, snapping like
a taut rope when the strain becomes too great. But all the while his
eyes--wide, smoldering eyes, filled with a mingling of pity, of dread
questioning and furious passion--swept the room searchingly.

Over the little lady's bowed gray head his glance took in swiftly a score
of details--the dead fire, the dangling receiver of the useless
telephone, a little pearl-handled revolver lying in a far corner as if it
had been flung there, an upset chair. Suddenly his gaze halted at the edge
of the shattered door and a faint tremor shook his big body. A comb lay on
the floor there--a single comb of tortoise-shell made for a woman's hair.
But it was a comb he knew well. And as his eyes met Bud's, staring from
the doorway at the strange scene, they were the eyes of a man tortur