nt of his
appearance she heard the unmistakable crack of a gun, saw the rider jerk
backward in the saddle, throw up one hand,--and then the darkness
dropped between them.

Lorraine crouched behind a juniper bush close against the rock and
waited. The next flash, came within a half-minute. It showed a man at
the horse's head, holding it by the bridle. The horse was rearing.
Lorraine tried to scream that the man on the ground would be trampled,
but something went wrong with her voice, so that she could only whisper.

When the light came again the man who had been shot was not altogether
on the ground. The other, working swiftly, had thrust the injured man's
foot through the stirrup. Lorraine saw him stand back and lift his quirt
to slash the horse across the rump. Even through the crash of thunder
Lorraine heard the horse go past her down the hill, galloping furiously.
When she could see again she glimpsed him running, while something
bounced along on the ground beside him.

She saw the other man, with a dry branch in his hand, dragging it across
the road where it ran between the two rocks. Then Lorraine Hunter,
hardened to the sight of crimes committed for picture values only,
realized sickeningly that she had just looked upon a real murder,--the
cold-blooded killing of a man. She felt very sick. Queer little red
sparks squirmed and danced before her eyes. She crumpled down quietly
behind the juniper bush and did not know when the rain came, though it
drenched her in the first two or three minutes of downpour.

CHAPTER FOUR

"SHE'S A GOOD GIRL WHEN SHE AIN'T CRAZY"

When the sun has been up just long enough to take the before-dawn chill
from the air without having swallowed all the diamonds that spangle bush
and twig and grass-blade after a night's soaking rain, it is good to
ride over the hills of Idaho and feel oneself a king,--and never mind
the crown and the scepter. Lone Morgan, riding early to the Sawtooth to
see the foreman about getting a man for a few days to help replace a
bridge carried fifty yards downstream by a local cloudburst, would not
have changed places with a millionaire. The horse he rode was the horse
he loved, the horse he talked to like a pal when they were by
themselves. The ridge gave him a wide outlook to the four corners of the
earth. Far to the north the Sawtooth range showed blue, the nearer
mountains pansy purple where the pine trees stood, the foothills shaded
delicately whe