hout bringing her wrath down on himself, or
attempt to persuade her without rousing her suspicion that he was
leagued with her destructive neighbors. On the other hand, the
fence-cutting girl would believe that he had wittingly joined in an
unequal and unmanly pursuit. A man's dilemma between the devil and the
deep water would be simple compared to his.

All this he considered as he galloped along, leaving the matter of
keeping the trail mainly to his horse. He emerged from the hemming
brushwood, entering a stretch of hard tableland where the parched grass
was red, the earth so hard that a horse made no hoofprint in passing.
Across this he hurried in a ferment of fear that he would come too late,
and down a long slope where sage grew again, the earth dry and yielding
about its unlovely clumps.

Here he discovered that he had left too much to his horse. The creature
had laid a course to suit himself, carrying him off the trail of those
whom he sought in such breathless state. He stopped, looking round him
to fix his direction, discovering to his deep vexation that Whetstone
had veered from the course that he had laid for him into the south, and
was heading toward the river.

On again in the right direction, swerving sharply in the hope that he
would cut the trail. So for a mile or more, in dusty, headlong race,
coming then to the rim of a bowl-like valley and the sound of running
shots.

Lambert's heart contracted in a paroxysm of fear for the lives of both
those flaming combatants as he rode precipitately into the little
valley. The shooting had ceased when he came into the clear and pulled
up to look for Vesta.

The next second the two girls swept into sight. Vesta had not only
overtaken her enemy, but had ridden round her and cut off her retreat.
She was driving her back toward the spot where Lambert stood, shooting
at her as she fled, with what seemed to him a cruel and deliberate
hand.

CHAPTER XIII

"NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD"

Vesta was too far behind the other girl for anything like accurate
shooting with a pistol, but Lambert feared that a chance shot might hit,
with the most melancholy consequences for both parties concerned. No
other plan presenting, he rode down with the intention of placing
himself between them.

Now the Kerr girl had her gun out, and had turned, offering battle. She
was still a considerable distance beyond him, with what appeared from
his situation to be some three or four