on sight.

Venters and Lassiter were turning toward the house when Jane appeared in
the lane leading a horse. In riding-skirt and blouse she seemed to have
lost some of her statuesque proportions, and looked more like a girl
rider than the mistress of Withersteen. She was brightly smiling, and
her greeting was warmly cordial.

"Good news," she announced. "I've been to the village. All is quiet.
I expected--I don't know what. But there's no excitement. And Tull has
ridden out on his way to Glaze."

"Tull gone?" inquired Venters, with surprise. He was wondering what
could have taken Tull away. Was it to avoid another meeting with
Lassiter that he went? Could it have any connection with the probable
nearness of Oldring and his gang?

"Gone, yes, thank goodness," replied Jane. "Now I'll have peace for a
while. Lassiter, I want you to see my horses. You are a rider, and
you must be a judge of horseflesh. Some of mine have Arabian blood.
My father got his best strain in Nevada from Indians who claimed their
horses were bred down from the original stock left by the Spaniards."

"Well, ma'am, the one you've been ridin' takes my eye," said Lassiter,
as he walked round the racy, clean-limbed, and fine-pointed roan.

"Where are the boys?" she asked, looking about. "Jerd, Paul, where are
you? Here, bring out the horses."

The sound of dropping bars inside the barn was the signal for the horses
to jerk their heads in the windows, to snort and stamp. Then they came
pounding out of the door, a file of thoroughbreds, to plunge about
the barnyard, heads and tails up, manes flying. They halted afar off,
squared away to look, came slowly forward with whinnies for their
mistress, and doubtful snorts for the strangers and their horses.

"Come--come--come," called Jane, holding out her hands. "Why,
Bells--Wrangle, where are your manners? Come, Black Star--come, Night.
Ah, you beauties! My racers of the sage!"

Only two came up to her; those she called Night and Black Star. Venters
never looked at them without delight. The first was soft dead black, the
other glittering black, and they were perfectly matched in size, both
being high and long-bodied, wide through the shoulders, with lithe,
powerful legs. That they were a woman's pets showed in the gloss of
skin, the fineness of mane. It showed, too, in the light of big eyes and
the gentle reach of eagerness.

"I never seen their like," was Lassiter's encomium, "an' in my day I've
s