ther. There's goin' to be hell
a-poppin' if I live to git outa this bed."

Lorraine stooped over him, and her eyes were almost as terrible as were
Brit's. "Let it pop. We aren't quitters, are we, dad? I'm going to stay
with you." Then she saw tears spilling over Brit's eyelids and left the
room hurriedly, fighting back a storm of weeping. She herself could not
mourn for Frank with any sense of great personal loss, but it was
different with her dad. He and Frank had lived together for so many
years that his loyal heart ached with grief for that surly, faithful old
partner of his.

But Lorraine's fighting blood was up, and she could not waste time in
weeping. She drank a cup of coffee, went out and called Jim, and told
him that she was going to take a ride, and that she wanted a decent
horse.

"You can take mine," Jim offered. "He's gentle and easy-gaited. I'll go
saddle up. When do you want to go?"

"Right now, as soon as I'm ready. I'll fix dad's breakfast, and you can
look after him until Lone and Swan come back. One of them will stay with
him then. I may be gone for three or four hours. I'll go crazy if I stay
here any longer."

Jim eyed her while he bit off a chew of tobacco. "It'd be a good thing
if you had some neighbor woman come in and stay with yuh," he said
slowly. "But there ain't any I can think of that'd be much force. You
take Snake and ride around close and forget things for awhile." He
hesitated, his hand moving slowly back to his pocket. "If yuh feel like
you want a gun----"

Lorraine laughed bitterly. "You don't think any accident would happen to
_me_, do you?"

"Well, no--er I wouldn't advise yuh to go ridin'," Jim said
thoughtfully. "This here gun's kinda techy, anyway, unless you're used
to a quick trigger. Yuh might be safer without it than with it."

By the time she was ready, Jim was tying his horse, Snake, to the
corral. Lorraine walked slowly past the bunk-house with her face turned
from it and her thoughts dwelling terrifiedly upon what lay within. Once
she was past she began running, as if she were trying to outrun her
thoughts. Jim watched her gravely, untied Snake and stood at his head
while she mounted, then walked ahead of her to the gate and opened it
for her.

"Yore nerves are sure shot to hell," he blurted sympathetically as she
rode past him. "I guess you need a ride, all right. Snake's plumb safe,
so yuh got no call to worry about him. Take it easy, Raine, on the
worrying