d
ungraceful, reminding her of an actor whom she knew and did not like. It
was that resemblance perhaps which held her quiet instead of following
her first impulse to speak to them and ask them to carry her grip to the
house.

The horses stopped with their forefeet in the water and drooped heads to
drink thirstily. The riders continued their conversation.

"--and as I says time and again, they ain't big enough to fight the
outfit, and the quicker they git out the less lead they'll carry under
their hides when they do go. What they want to try an' hang on for,
beats me. Why, it's like setting into a poker game with a five-cent
piece! They ain't got my sympathy. I ain't got any use for a damn fool,
no way yuh look at it."

"Well, there's the TJ--they been here a long while, and they ain't
packin' any lead, and they ain't getting out."

"Well, say, lemme tell yuh something. The TJ'll git theirs and git it
right. Drink all night, would yuh?" He swore long and fluently at his
horse, spurred him through the shallows, and the two rode on up the
hill, their voices still mingled in desultory argument, with now and
then an oath rising clearly above the jumble of words.

They may have been law-abiding citizens riding home to families that
were waiting supper for them, but Lorraine crept out from behind her
sagebush, sneezing and thanking her imitation of the jack rabbits.
Whoever they were, she was not sorry she had let them ride on. They
might be her father's men, and they might have been very polite and
chivalrous to her. But their voices and their manner of speaking had
been rough; and it is one thing, Lorraine reflected, to mingle with
made-up villains--even to be waylaid and kidnapped and tied to trees and
threatened with death--but it is quite different to accost
rough-speaking men in the dark when you know that they are not being
rough to suit the director of the scene.

She was so absorbed in trying to construct a range war or something
equally thrilling from the scrap of conversation she had heard that she
reached the hilltop in what seemed a very few minutes of climbing. The
sky was becoming overcast. Already the stars to the west were blotted
out, and the absolute stillness of the atmosphere frightened her more
than the big, dark wilderness itself. It seemed to her exactly as though
the earth was holding its breath and waiting for something terrible to
happen. The vague bulk of buildings was still some distance a