looked in on the latest arrival. She was sitting at a
table in Bender's back office, her head bowed in her hands. There was
something appealing in the drooping of her shoulders and in her shabby
attire.

"Now Jo is disposed of, she shall have her chance, anyway," he decided.

Without speaking to the girl, he sought Bender and they held a brief
consultation.

CHAPTER II

"Aren't we going to stop at all, Mr. Sheriff Man?"

A soft, plaintive note in the voice made Kurt Walters turn the brake of an
old, rickety automobile and halt in the dust-white road, as he cast a
sharply scrutinizing glance upon the atom of a girl who sat beside him.
She was a dejected, dusty, little figure, drooping under the jolt of the
jerking car and the bright rays of hills-land sunshine. She was young--in
years; young, too, in looks, as Kurt saw when she raised her eyes which
were soft and almond-shaped; but old, he assumed, in much that she should
not have been.

She had found it a long, hard ride across the plains, and the end of her
endurance had been prefaced by frequent sighs, changes of position and
softly muffled exclamations, all seemingly unnoted by the man beside her,
whose deep-set eyes had remained fixed on the open space ahead, his slim,
brown hands gripping the wheel, his lean, sinewy body bending slightly
forward.

His tenseness relaxed; a startled, remorseful look came into his eyes as
he saw two tears coursing down her cheeks. They were unmistakably real
tears,--though, as he was well aware, they came from physical causes
alone. Still, they penetrated the armor of unconcern with which he had
girded himself.

"What for?" he asked curtly.

"What for!" she echoed, her mouth quivering into pathetic droops. "For
rest, of course. You may be used to this kind of locomotion, but I'm not
very well upholstered, and I'm shaken to bits. Fact is, I'm just all
pegged out, old man. Have a heart, and stop for repairs. What's your rush,
anyway? I can't get loose hereabouts, and I haven't anywhere to go,
anyhow. Didn't mind getting 'took' at all, at all. How many more miles is
it to the end of your trail? This is a trail, isn't it?"

"A great many miles," he replied, "and it was on your account more than
any other that I was hurrying to get to the--"

"Jail," she answered supinely, as he hesitated.

"No," he said grimly. "I was going to take you home--for to-night,
anyway."

"Home! Oh, how you startle me! I didn't know the