bout to give up
when right at hand through the flying dust she espied the cabin. Riding
behind it, she dismounted and tied the mustang to a post. Then she ran
around to the door and entered.

What a welcome refuge! She was all right now, and when Glenn came along
she would have added to her already considerable list another feat for
which he would commend her. With aid of her handkerchief, and the
tears that flowed so copiously, Carley presently freed her eyes of
the blinding dust. But when she essayed to remove it from her face she
discovered she would need a towel and soap and hot water.

The cabin appeared to be enveloped in a soft, swishing, hollow sound.
It seeped and rustled. Then the sound lulled, only to rise again.
Carley went to the door, relieved and glad to see that the duststorm was
blowing by. The great sky-high pall of yellow had moved on to the
north. Puffs of dust were whipping along the road, but no longer in
one continuous cloud. In the west, low down the sun was sinking, a dull
magenta in hue, quite weird and remarkable.

"I knew I'd get the jolt all right," soliloquized Carley, wearily, as
she walked to a rude couch of poles and sat down upon it. She had begun
to cool off. And there, feeling dirty and tired, and slowly wearing to
the old depression, she composed herself to wait.

Suddenly she heard the clip-clop of hoofs. "There! that's Glenn," she
cried, gladly, and rising, she ran to the door.

She saw a big bay horse bearing a burly rider. He discovered her at the
same instant, and pulled his horse.

"Ho! Ho! if it ain't Pretty Eyes!" he called out, in gay, coarse voice.

Carley recognized the voice, and then the epithet, before her sight
established the man as Haze Ruff. A singular stultifying shock passed
over her.

"Wal, by all thet's lucky!" he said, dismounting. "I knowed we'd meet
some day. I can't say I just laid fer you, but I kept my eyes open."

Manifestly he knew she was alone, for he did not glance into the cabin.

"I'm waiting for--Glenn," she said, with lips she tried to make stiff.

"Shore I reckoned thet," he replied, genially. "But he won't be along
yet awhile."

He spoke with a cheerful inflection of tone, as if the fact designated
was one that would please her; and his swarthy, seamy face expanded into
a good-humored, meaning smile. Then without any particular rudeness he
pushed her back from the door, into the cabin, and stepped across the
threshold.

"How dare